and help orphan children in their affliction.
I have not for three years been employed about any other deeds,
but have offered these offerings to the living Lord.
Now I desire verily to offer to Him myself,
because for some time I have had nothing to spend in His service.'
Then was Paschasius wroth, and they spake much,
until he promised her a beating if she would not be silent.
Lucy said to him, 'the words of the living God,
cannot be suppressed, nor put to silence.'
Then he asked her slanderously, 'What, art thou God?'
Lucy answered him, ' I am the Almighty's handmaid,
and therefore I speak God's words, since He says in His gospel,
'It is not ye who speak there, but the Holy Ghost speaks in you.'
After that Paschasius arrogantly enquired,
'Dwelleth the Holy Ghost in thee, in good earnest?'
Lucy answered the impious one, and said,
'The apostle promised those who preserve chastity,
that they are God's temple, and the Holy Ghost's habitation.'
Then the impious one said, 'I shall straightway bid men lead thee
to the house of harlots, that thou mayst lose thy maidenhood,
that the Holy Ghost may flee from thee, when thou art foully dishonoured.'
Lucy thus answered, ' no one's body is dangerously
polluted, if it pleases not the (possessor's) mind.
Though thou shouldst lift up my hand to thine idol,
and so, by my means, offer against my will,
I shall still be guiltless in the sight of the true God,
who judges according to the will, and knoweth all things.
If now, against my will, thou causest me to be polluted,
a twofold purity shall be gloriously imputed to me.
Thou canst not bend my will to thy purpose;
whatever thou may est do to my body, that cannot happen to me.'
Then the cruel one desired to fulfil his word,
that she might be led to loathsome pollution,
