feelings; but Taylor evermore said to them, "I have preached to you God's word and truth, and am come this day to seal it with my blood."

As he passed the alms-houses he gave among their inmates what was left of the money with which charitable persons had supplied him during his long imprisonment. He carried it in a glove, and, inquiring at the last of those houses whether the blind man and woman who dwelt there, were living, threw the glove in at their window, and rode on to Aldham Common, where he was to suffer. When they told him that was the place, he exclaimed, "God be thanked, I am even at home!" and, alighting from his horse, he tore with both his hands the hood from his head. The people burst into loud weeping when they saw "his reverend and ancient face with a long white beard," and his grey hairs, which had been roughly clipped and disfigured at his degradation: and they cried out, "God save thee, good Dr. Taylor! Christ strengthen thee, and help thee!" He attempted to speak to them, but one of the guards thrust a staff into his mouth; and when he asked leave of the Sheriff to speak, the Sheriff refused it, and bade him remember his promise to the Council: upon which he replied, "Well, promise must be kept." The common belief was, that after the martyrs were condemned, the Council told them their tongues should be cut out, unless they would promise that at their deaths they would not speak to the people. None of the martyrs received more open sympathy from the spectators, nor was there any one to whom so much brutality was shown by those who officially attended. When he had undressed himself to his shirt, he said, with a loud voice, "Good people, I have taught you nothing but God's holy word, and those lessons that I have taken out of God's blessed book, the Holy Bible: and I am come hither this day to seal it with my blood." One of the guard, a fellow who had used him inhumanly all the way, struck him on the head with a staff, saying, "Is that keeping thy promise, thou heretic?" Taylor then knelt and prayed; and a poor woman, in spite of the guards, who threatened to tread her down under their horses' feet, prayed beside him. Taylor then kissed the stake, got into the pitch-barrel in which he was to stand, and stood upright, his hands folded, and his

eyes raised toward heaven in prayer. A butcher who was ordered to assist in setting up the faggots refused, and persisted in the refusal, though the Sheriff threatened to send him to prison. Wretches, however, were easily found for this work, and one of them threw a faggot at the martyr as he stood chained to the stake, which cut his face so that the blood ran down. "O friend," said Taylor, "I have harm enough! what needed that?" Sir John Shelton hearing him repeat the Psalm Miserere in English, struck him on the lips, saying, "Ye knave, speak Latin; I will make thee!" And when the fire had been kindled, and he stood patient and unmoved, with his hands folded in prayer, a fellow, whose character made the action appear an impulse of brutality, rather than compassion, cleft his skull with a halberd, and the body then fell forward. "Thus rendered the man1 of God his blessed soul into the hands of his merciful Father, and to his most dear and certain Saviour Jesus Christ, whom he most entirely loved, faithfully and earnestly preached, obediently followed in living, and constantly glorified in death."

The effect of such executions was what the sufferers trusted it would be, not what the persecutors intended and expected. It seemed as if the martyrs bequeathed to their friends and followers, like Elijah the Prophet, a double portion of their spirit, from the flames amid which they ascended to their everlasting reward. "I thought," said Bradford, in a letter to Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, who were then fellow-prisoners at Oxford, ... "I thought your staves had stood next the door; but now it is otherwise perceived. Our dear brother Rogers hath broken the ice valiantly; and this day, I think, or to-morrow at the uttermost, hearty Hooper, sincere Saunders, and trusty Taylor, end their and receive their crown. The next am I, which hourly look for the porter to open me the gates after them, to, enter into the desired rest. God forgive me mine unthankfulness for this exceeding great mercy, that amongst so many thousands, it pleaseth his mercy to choose me to be one, in whom he will suffer!

course,

1 Father Persons, in his Three Conversions, calls this excellent martyr "a very gross and sensual fellow, as well in mind as in body. In very deed," says this thorough-paced Romanist, "the miserable man's business was principally to have his woman, and with this faith he went to the fire, where we must leave him eternally, as I fear!"

. . . Oh, what am I, Lord, that thou shouldest thus magnify me, so vile a man and miser as always I have been! Is this thy wont to send for such a wretch and hypocrite as I have been, in a fiery chariot, as thou didst for Elias?... Dear Fathers, be thankful for me, that I still might be found worthy.... And for your parts, make you ready, for we are but your gentlemenushers. The marriage of the Lamb is prepared; come unto the marriage!" To this Ridley replied, "Happy are you that ever you were born, thus to be found awake at the Lord's calling. Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been trusty in small matters, He shall set thee over great things, and thou shalt enter into the joy of thy Lord! . . . If it be not the place that sanctifieth the man, but the holy man doth by Christ sanctify the place, brother Bradford, then happy and holy shall be that place wherein thou shalt suffer, and that shall be with thy ashes in Christ's cause sprinkled over withal! . . . So long as I shall understand thou art on thy journey, I shall call upon our heavenly Father to set thee safely home; and then, good brother, speak you, and pray for the remnant which are to suffer for Christ's sake, according to that thou then shalt know more clearly. ...We do look now every day when we shall be called on. I ween I am the weakest, many ways, of our company,... and yet, I thank our Lord, that since I heard of our dear brother Rogers' departing, and stout confession of Christ and his truth even unto the death, my heart (blessed be God!) rejoiced of it; that since that time (I say) I never felt any lumpish heaviness in my heart, as I grant I have felt sometimes before. O good brother, blessed be God in thee, and blessed be the time that ever I knew thee! Farewell! Farewell!"

John Bradford, whom Ridley thus affectionately addressed, was a native of Manchester, who had been in the service of Sir John Harrington, and by him employed in places of trust and profit. While in that service he was prevailed upon once to pass a false account. He was struck with compunction for this, upon hearing one of Latimer's searching sermons, and forthwith made full' restitution, parting with his little patrimony for that purpose. He had given up fair prospects of worldly fortune, that he might become a preacher of the Gospel; and having graduated at CamStrype's Annals, vol. iii. Appendix, p. 19.

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bridge, was ordained by Ridley, licensed to preach, and promoted to a Prebend in St. Paul's. There was a baseness in the circumstances of his arrest, worthy of the men to whom the business of eradicating the Reformation had been committed. When at the commencement of Queen Mary's reign a dagger was thrown at the preacher in St. Paul's, Bradford was standing behind him in the pulpit; and the preacher, seeing his life threatened and actually in danger, entreated him, as a man whose opinions were acceptable to the people, to come forward and protect him. Bradford accordingly addressed the turbulent congregation, quieted them for a time, and not without some exertion, and the aid of the Mayor and Sheriffs, lodged the preacher safely in the nearest house. He preached himself in the evening at Bow Church, and severely reproved the people for their seditious misdemeanor; though such was the temper of those citizens who held the Protestant faith, and apprehended what would be the. measures of the new Government, that he was told if he dared reprove them, he should not come out of the pulpit alive. Within three days he was committed to prison, charged with sedition because of the influence which he had exercised over the populace.

After a year and half's imprisonment, he was brought up before the Council: Bourne, the man whose life he had saved, and who had meantime been made Bishop of Bath, being one. Bonner, who had been present at the riot, affirmed, that he took upon him to rule and lead the people malapertly, thereby declaring, that he was the author of the sedition; and his protestations, and appeals to Bourne himself, that what he had done had been at Bourne's request, and at the peril of his own life, were disregarded. He was told, however, that the time of mercy was come; and that, if he would do as they had done, he should receive the Queen's pardon. Bradford replied, he had done nothing that required pardon, nothing that was contrary to the laws. "I desire mercy," said he, "with God's mercy; but mercy, with God's wrath, God keep me from!" "Well, (said Gardiner,) if thou make this babbling, being altogether ignorant and vain-glorious, and wilt not receive mercy offered thee, know, for truth, that the Queen is minded to make a purgation of all such as thou art." Bourne himself was vile enough

to aggravate the charges against him, saying, he had done more harm by letters, during his imprisonment, than ever he did by preaching, when he was at large.

Bradford might have escaped from prison, if he had thought fit. The keepers had such perfect confidence in him, that they let him go into the city to visit a sick friend, and would even have allowed him to ride into the country. But he was one of those persons who believed that the cause of religion was at this time best to be served by bearing testimony to it in death. This he held to be the only resistance which was lawful. The advice which he gave to the Protestants was, "Howsoever you do, be obedient to the higher powers; that is, in no point, either in hand or tongue, rebel; but rather, if they command that which with good conscience you cannot obey, lay your head on the block, and suffer whatsoever they shall do. By patience, possess your souls." To his mother he said, " Perchance you are weakened in that which I have preached, because God doth not defend it as you think, but suffereth the Popish doctrines to come again, and prevail. Good mother, God by this doth prove and try his people: . . . when the blast cometh, then flieth away the chaff, but the wheat remaineth." And he encouraged her to suffer for the truth, rather than forsake it: "Sure may we be," he said, "that, of all deaths, it is most to be desired to die for God's sake. You shall see that I speak as I think; for, by God's grace, I will drink, before you, of this cup, if I be put to it. I doubt not but God will give me his grace, and strengthen me thereunto: pray that he would, and that I refuse it not! In peace, when no persecution was, then were you content, and glad to hear me; then did you believe me and will ye not do so now, seeing I speak that which I trust, by God's grace, to verify with my life?"

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Great efforts were made to induce him to submit himself, and be reconciled to the Romish Church. They told him, that Cranmer, and his companions at Oxford, were unable to answer the Catholic divines, and had, therefore, desired to confer with some of them, for the purpose of a reconciliation; and they urged him, in like manner to ask for time and learned advisers. But he replied, that he would make no such request, which would be giving occasion for the people to think he doubted of his doctrine, wherein he was most assured. But when they insisted upon