but you must know, good mother, that God by this tries and proves his children and people, whether they will unfeignedly and simply hang on Him and His word. . . . I am at a point, even when my Lord will, to come to Him death nor life, prison nor pleasure, I trust in God, shall be able to separate me from my Lord God and His Gospel. . . . If it should be known that I have pen and ink in the prison, then will it be worse with me; therefore keep this letter to yourselves, commending me to God and His mercy in Christ Jesus. Make me worthy, for His name's sake, to give my life for His Gospel and Church. -Out of the Tower of London, the 6th day of October, 1533." men. The public materials for the general history of Evangelical doctrine during the reign of Queen Mary are all to be found in the confessions of persecuted and dying The proscribed truths were, however, held in secret by many a scholar, and many a peasant, whom the shades of obscurity or the partiality of powerful friendship concealed from the persecutors. This state of things introduces a new feature into the religious history of our country: it led to the organization of private assemblies; gatherings of such as found themselves to be under the ban of a common proscription for the sake of their Lord, and who invited each other to share the precarious but precious ordinances of united worship, with the administration of the Lord's Supper, thus forming voluntary churches. Foxe calls them congregations, and says that they first met at the house of one. and then another, in order to elude the vigilance L of the authorities. resorted to Sir Thomas Carden's house in Blackfriars ; then about Aldgate; then near the great conduit in the City through a narrow alley into a clothworker's loft; then into a shop at Billingsgate; next, into a ship called Jesus ship, moored between Ratcliffe and Rotherhithe, where they had prayer, sermon, and communion; next to a "cooper's house in Pudding-lane; then to a house in Thames-street. They were ultimately driven into Islington fields, when several were captured for the last dreadful holocaust at Smithfield. Prompted by the stern necessities of their position on the one hand, and encouraged by the discovery of the suitableness and scriptural propriety of their course on the other, they formally recognized each other in the bonds of the Gospel, and were strengthened. Their contemporaries allege that "they did appoint mere laymen to minister; yea, and lay women sometimes, it is said."* Strype says of them, in his Life of Cranmer, "Sometimes, for want of preachers of the clergy, laymen exercised. Among them I find one old Henry Daunce, a bricklayer of Whitechapel, who used to preach the Gospel in his garden every holiday, where would be present sometimes a thousand people." The London congregation first On New Year's Eve, 1555, the assembly was in a house in Bow churchyard, "where they were, with their minister, Maister Thomas Rose, devoutly and zealously occupied in prayer and hearing of Goddes word. But whyle they where in the middest of their godly exercise, *Watson's two notable Sermons, 1554. they were sodenly betraied (as it is thought, by some false dissembling hipocrite), and about xxx. of them apprehended and sent to the counters: but Maister Rose was had before the Lord Chauncelor, and from thence to the Fleet.' Joy lies very close to the sorrow which such narratives excite. The rambler through the woodlands in springtime forsakes the beaten path, and, after pushing through tangled underwood, finds an open peaceful glade overhung by the blue canopy, and decorated by the countless beauties of harebell and anemone, which flourish as if the plague of sin were unknown. So, in searching into the past, do we occasionally fall upon the vision of a small community living together in the faith and love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and, like the flowers, giving a character of beauty to the lowly homes where they dwell. But we now look on them only after the ruthless blast of persecution, more bitter than the wind which howls through the woodlands, has crushed them and made the moral greensward a desert. Yet we are thankful that they once lived. "As evening's pale and solitary star But brightens while the darkness gathers round, It is not probable that any true spiritual force ever manifested on earth has been really lost. It may apparently have failed, and vanished from the place of its first occurrence; but the heat which it evolved only * Foxe, vol. vi., Appendix, p. 775. entered into some new combination, adding to the amount of moral energy abroad in the world. Many of the narratives given by Foxe depict the homely strong religious life now growing up in England. The following is an outline of one only amongst many, which may with profit be referred to, in the crowded pages of the old martyrologist. In the early part of the sixteenth century, there dwelt in the parish of Dean, in the county of Lancaster, a young yeoman of simple manners, ingenuous disposition, and kind heart, named George Marsh. He was married, and thought himself, as he says, well settled with his loving and faithful wife and children in a quiet farm. The loss of his wife rendered the pleasant homestead unbearable. He went to Cambridge, and much increased in learning and godly virtue, and became curate to that rare man of God, Laurence Saunders. Here his desires and activities found full scope, and he was once again happy under his most gentle master. He continued for some time labouring, by public readings and preachings throughout Lancaster, to awaken sinners and help God's people. He was reported to hold heretical opinions on transubstantiation. Judicial inquiry was made for him: he was staying with his mother, who advised him to flee, which he had then resolved to do on account of the great sorrow, heaviness, losses, costs and charges, shame and rebuke, it would occasion his friends. His own conscience, whilst allowing the power of this reasoning, yet, on the other hand, suggested the hindrance to the truth that might be occasioned by his supposed defection. He left his mother's house greatly agitated, promising to return in the evening. He went out, met a dear friend on Dean Moor, and at sunset the two knelt down and prayed. He returned home, and found that messengers had been in pursuit of him. He would not harass his mother by staying uuder her roof, but went away to a friend's house beyond Dean church, where, after broken rest, he was aroused by a message from one of his faithful friends, advising him in nowise to fly, but to abide and confess his faith in Christ. He resolved on this; whereupon he says that his mind, "afore being much unquieted and troubled, was now merry and in quiet estate." He arose, said the Litany and other prayers, kneeling by his friend's bedside; went to the houses of various members of his family to ask their prayers, and requesting them to comfort his mother, and to be good to his little children; and presented himself to the Earl of Derby's messenger, who had been charged to bring him. He was ordered to attend the next day at ten o'clock. He thereupon went to his mother's, took his leave of the household there and at his brother Richard's. "They and I both weeping, went part of the way, slept on the road, arose, prayed, and was at the earl's residence betimes." Then followed his first examination, in which all went well until the point of transubstantiation was touched, when his replies were too much founded on Scripture and common sense to please his judges, and he was remitted to a cold windy prison. On Palm Sunday he was sent for again, and allowed to have a bed, a fire, and liberty to go amongst the servants. He now cried earnestly to God to be strengthened against |