For
wine-bibbing did not lay siege to her spirit, nor did love of wine
provoke her to hatred of the truth, as it doth too many (both men
and women), who revolt at a lesson of sobriety, as men well-drunk at a
draught mingled with water. But she, when she had brought her basket
with the accustomed festival-food, to be but tasted by herself, and
then given away, never joined therewith more than one small cup of
wine, diluted according to her own abstemious habits, which for
courtesy she would taste. And if there were many churches of the
departed saints that were to be honoured in that manner, she still
carried round that same one cup, to be used every where; and this,
though not only made very watery, but unpleasantly heated with
carrying about, she would distribute to those about her by small sips;
for she sought there devotion, not pleasure. So soon, then, as she
found this custom to be forbidden by that famous preacher and most
pious prelate, even to those that would use it soberly, lest so an
occasion of excess might be given to the drunken; and for these, as it
were, anniversary funeral solemnities did much resemble the
superstition of the Gentiles, she most willingly forbare it: and for a
basket filled with fruits of the earth, she had learned to bring to
the Churches of the martyrs a breast filled with more purified
petitions, and to give what she could to the poor; that so the
communication of the Lord's Body might be there rightly celebrated,
where, after the example of His Passion, the martyrs had been
sacrificed and crowned.
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