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were learned, worthy, zealous, and religious men, as appears by their lives written, and the fame of their many eminent and learned followers, perfect and powerful in the Scriptures, holy and unblamable in their actions; and it cannot be imagined that God would desert such painful and zealous laborers in his church, and ofttimes great sufferers for their conscience, to damnable errors and reprobate sense, who had often implored the assistance of his Spirit; but rather, having made no man infallible, that he has pardoned their errors, and accepts their pious endeavors, sincerely searching all things according to the rule of Scripture, with such guidance and direction as they can obtain of God by prayer.

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What Protestant then, who himself maintains the same principles and disavows all implicit faith, would persecute and not tolerate such men as these, unless he means to abjure the principles of our religion? If it be asked. how far they should be tolerated, I answer, Doubtless equally, as being all Protestants; that is, on all occasions to be permitted to give an account of their faith, either by arguing,

preaching in their several assemblies, by public writing, and the freedom of printing."

After urging, as an additional means of preventing the growth of Popery, the reformation of their conduct by professed Protestants—a warning not inappropriate in the loose morals and unbridled license of the Restoration-Milton concludes in these words:

"Let us therefore, using this last mean, last here spoken of, but first to be done, amend our lives at all speed; lest, through impenitency, we run into that stupidly which we now seek by all means warily to avoid, THE WORST

OF SUPERSTITIONS AND THE HEAVIEST OF ALL

GOD'S JUDGMENTS, POPERY."

The danger which had awakened Milton's fears, and which he put forth this pamphlet to avert, erelong became so palpably near and deadly as to stir up a new rebellion, depose the Catholic bigot who had succeeded Charles II. upon the throne, and in 1688 to hand over 'the emancipated kingdom to triumphant Protestantism in the persons of William of Orange and Mary Stuart.

Besides his pamphlet against Popery, Mil

ton also published in 1673 a second edition of his earlier poems, incorporating several pieces which had not appeared in the edition of 1645. In the following year, 1674, his familiar Latin letters, now widely celebrated, and some of his university exercises, were published; and in some part of this same year his laborious and splendid literary career was closed by his translation of the Latin declaration of the Poles in favor of the election of John Sobieski to the throne of Poland.

Milton, as we have seen, had long been an invalid; the gout especially had of late years racked his enfeebled frame. Fully and calmly aware of his approaching death, and desirous of setting his house in order, he sent for his brother Christopher, then an eminent lawyer, and a bencher of the Inner Temple, to whom he dictated that nuncupative will to which we have once before had occasion to refer.

This duty completed, at length at peace with man, as he had always been with God, on the 8th of November, 1674, in the sixtyseventh year of his age, "without pain, and so quietly that those who waited in his chamber

were unconscious of the moment of his departure," the bright and beneficent spirit of John Milton deserted its fleshly tabernacle and winged its glad way to that "paradise regained” whose beatitudes he had so sublimely chanted, where, seated among seraphim and cherubim, he might still more transcendently

"Sing,

And build the lofty rhyme."

Upon his death, Toland says that "all his learned and great friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the vulgar, accompanied his body to the church of St. Giles, near Cripplegate, where he lies buried in the chancel."

To that record Toland adds this fine eulogium: "Thus lived and died John Milton, a person of the best accomplishments, the happiest genius, and the rarest learning which this nation, so renowned for producing excellent writers, could ever yet show; esteemed indeed at home, but much more honored abroad, where almost in his childhood he made a considerable figure, and continues to be reputed one of the brightest luminaries of the sciences."

CHAPTER XX.

AND now it becomes of interest to learn something of Milton's personal habits, to glance somewhat at his character, and to trace briefly his manifold influence upon his own age and upon posterity.

Milton habitually dedicated the commencement of each day to religion.

Immediately

upon rising, which was "with the birds," a chapter of the Scriptures, usually in the Greek or Hebrew text, was read to him. The subsequent interval till seven o'clock he passed in private meditation. At seven he breakfasted. From seven till twelve he devoted to reading and writing; after he lost his sight, he dictated when "some friendly hand supplied him with a pen." From twelve to one he occupied in exercise. He had ordered a peculiar kind of swing to be constructed in his study, and upon this he was accustomed to practise gymnastic feats. At the conclusion of this hour of exercise he took his frugal dinner; after which,

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