XLIX. CAN GOOD COME FROM IGNORANCE?

KING James was no less dexterous at, than desirous of, the discovery of such who belied the father of lies, and falsely pretended themselves possesssed with a devil.

Now a maid dissembled such a possession, and for the better colour thereof, when the first verses of the Gospel of St. John were read in her hearing, she would fall into strange fits of fuming and foaming, to the amazement of the beholders.

But when the king caused one of his chaplains 289to read the same in the original, the same maid (possessed it seems with an English devil, who understood not a word of Greek) was tame and quiet, without any impression upon her.

I know a factious parish, wherein, if the minister in his pulpit had but named the word kingdom, the people would have been ready to have petitioned against him for a malignant. But as for realm, the same in French, he might safely use it in his sermons as oft as he pleased. Ignorance, which generally inflameth, sometimes, by good hap, abateth men’s malice.

The best is, that now one may, without danger, use either word, seeing England was a kingdom a thousand years ago, and may be one (if the world last so long) a thousand years hereafter.