you be found like the five foolish women, or like him that had not on the wedding garment, and then ye be cast out from the marriage. Rejoice in Christ, as I do. Follow the steps of your master, Christ, and take up your cross; lay your sins on Him, and always embrace Him. And, as concerning my death, rejoice as I do, (good sister,) that I shall be delivered of this corruption, and put on incorruption. For I am assured that I shall, when I lose a mortal life, win an immortal life; which I pray God to grant you, and send you of His grace, to live in His fear, and to die in the true Christian faith, from which (in God's name) I exhort you that you never swerve, neither for the hope of life nor the fear of death; for if you will deny His faith, thinking thereby to lengthen your life, God will deny you and shorten your days. And, if you will cleave unto Him, He will prolong your days to your comfort and His glory, to which glory may God bring me now, and you hereafter when it pleaseth Him to call you. Fare you well, sweet sister, and put your only trust in God, who alone can help you."

CHAPTER X.

The Reign of Queen Mary.

THE materials for our history become more abundant as persecution arose under the change of government. Circumstances develop character in society, just as in the mineral kingdom the intrusion of the molten rock aggregates the shining metal into conspicuous veins. The general views and experience of the Marian martyrs, may be well ascertained from an able manifesto, drawn up with great care by Bradford, Saunders, and their companions in prison, expressly to declare the grounds of their quarrel with the dominant power. They write as men appointed to die for an undying cause. Truth above circumstances is their motto; they appeal heroically to and for the "infallible verity" of God's Word. They write concerning justification a passage which will serve as a specimen of their convictions:- "Fourthly, we believe and confess concerning justification, that, as it cometh only from God's mercy through Christ, so it is perceived and had of none which be of years of discretion otherwise than by faith only, which faith is not an opinion, but a certain persua

sion wrought by the Holy Ghost in the mind and heart of man, through whom as the mind is illuminated, so the heart is suppled, to submit itself to the will of God unfeignedly."*

One of the brightest of the shining characters adorning this age is that of John Bradford. He was a native of Manchester,' of active habits, and in good business as surveyor of crown lands. In the prime of life, he became a convert to true religion, went to Cambridge, was ordained as a preacher, and was made a prebend of St. Paul's. "In this preaching office," says Foxe, "for the space of three years, how faithfully Bradford walked, how diligently he laboured, many parts of England can testify. Sharply he opened and reproved sin, sweetly he preached Christ crucified, pithily he impugned heresies and errors, earnestly he persuaded to a godly life."

He lay in prison Nowhere have we

for two years before his martyrdom. on record such a narrative of intense religious action as his experience of these two years supplied. "From the Tower he came to the King's Bench in Southwark; and after his condemnation he was sent to the Compter in the Poultry, in London; in which two places, for the time he did remain a prisoner, he preached twice a day continually, unless sickness hindered him; when also the sacrament was often ministered, and through his means (the keepers so well did bear with him) such resort of good folks was daily to his lecture, and to the ministration of the sacrament, that commonly his chamber was well-nigh filled therewith. Preaching, reading, and

* Foxe, vol. vi., p. 552.

praying was his whole life. He did not eat above one meal a day; which was but very little when he took it; and his continual study was upon his knees. In the midst of his dinner he used often to muse with himself, having his hat over his eyes, from whence came commonly plenty of tears dropping on his trencher. Very gentle he was to man and child; and in so good credit with his keeper, that at his desire in an evening (being prisoner in the King's Bench in Southwark), he had licence, upon his promise to return again that night, to go into London without any keeper to visit one that was sick, lying by the Still-yard. Neither did he fail his promise, but returned to his prison again, rather preventing his hour than breaking his fidelity, so constant was he in word and deed. Of personage he was somewhat tall and slender, spare of body, of a faint sanguine colour, with an auburn beard. He slept not commonly above four hours in the night; and in his bed, till sleep came, his book went not out of his hand. His chief recreation was in no

gaming or other pastime, but only in honest company and comely talk, wherein he would spend a little time after dinner at the board, and so to prayer and his book again. He counted that hour not well spent wherein he did not some good, either with his pen, study, or exhorting of others, &c. He was no niggard of his purse, but would liberally participate what he had to his fellowprisoners. And, commonly, once a week he visited the thieves, pick-purses, and such others that were with him in prison, where he lay on the other side, unto whom he would give godly exhortation, to learn the amendment of

their lives by their troubles, and, after so done, distribute among them some portion of money to their comfort. One of his old friends and acquaintances came unto him while he was prisoner, and asked him, if he sued to get him out, what then he would do, or where he would go? Unto whom he made answer as not caring whether he went out or no; but, if he did, he said he would marry, and abide still in England secretly, teaching the people as the time would suffer him, and himself that way. occupy He was had in so great reverence and admiration of all good men, that a multitude which never knew him but by fame greatly lamented his death-yea, and a number also of the Papists themselves wished heartily his life. There were few days in which he was thought not to spend some tears before he went to bed; neither was there ever any prisoner with him, but by his company he greatly profited, as all they will yet witness, and have confessed of him no less, to the glory of God, whose society he frequented."* He was eminently one to whom to live is Christ. All his letters breathe the air of vital personal religion. In the depths of his own inner life he was enjoying the sunshine of God's presence, though outwardly surrounded by the wintry storms of persecution. Open the volume of his letters written whilst waiting for martyrdom, and you are amidst utterances at once manly and heavenly. He writes to his mother, "Perchance you are weakened as to that I have preached, because God does not defend it, as you think, but suffers the Popish doctrine to come again and prevail;

* Foxe, vol. vii., p. 145, 146.