seen to drop off before he expired. His last words were, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." An immense crowd of people were witnesses of the horrid scene. He was the great father of the puritans.

The same day, Dr. Rowland Taylor was burnt at Hadly; and in the month of March, a number of others were burnt at Smithfield. The effect of these dreadful scenes, was very different from what the papists expected. Gardiner supposed that two or three burnings, would extirpate Protestantism from England. But the blood of the martyrs was again the seed of the church. The reformers stood firm to their cause, and gloried in their sufferings for Christ. The nation became exasperated. Philip openly disavowed them; and they were stopped for a time.

The prisons were crowded with the ablest and best men of England, and were in fact, the best christian schools and churches. There religious instruction was constantly imparted, and prayer and praise were offered.

In the month of June, the business of burning recommenced. The dead body of a robber who had on the scaffold, uttered something true, was condemned and burnt. John Bradford, a preacher in London, was a distinguished victim. When in prison a recantation was sent to him; and when he had heard it, he asked for his condemnation, pricked his hand and sprinkled upon the bill his blood, bidding them carry it to the bishop, and tell him he had already sealed it with his blood. "He endured the flame as a fresh gale of wind in a hot summer's day," and exclaimed in the fire, 66 straight is the way, and narrow is the gate that leadeth to salvation, and few there be that find it." Through the months of July, August and September, numbers were burnt at several places. Six were burnt in one fire at Canterbury. On the 16th of October, two distinguished victims were sacrificed at Oxford-Ridley and Latimer. The former was one of the most able and learned of the English reformers; the latter, was a man of great simplicity of character, of wit and boldness, who by his preaching, had done more than almost any man to expose the follies of popery, and sustain the truth. When he was burnt, he was nearly seventy years of age. He had suffered much from the cold damps of his prison, and hard treatment, and had a very decrepid appearance. He came before the council, "hat in hand, with a kerchief bound round his head, and over it a night cap or two, with a great cap, such as townsmen used in those days, with two broad flaps to button under the chin. His dress was a gown of Bristol frieze, old

and threadbare, fastened round the body with a penny leathern girdle; his Testament was suspended from his girdle by a leathern string, and his spectacles without a case, were hanging from his neck upon his breast." Ridley wrote several valuable epistles to his friends and countrymen during his imprisonment, which still remain. After his condemnation he was publicly degraded from his office. They were led out together to the place of death, which was near Baliol College. They em braced each other, and knelt and prayed. A short sermon was preached to mock them. And when the fire was brought, the venerable old man said, Be of good courage, master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out." Bags of gunpowder were tied about their bodies to hasten their death. Latimer soon yielded to the flames, but Ridley suffered a tedious martyrdom.

No sooner was the vengeance of the odious Gardiner glutted with the death of these excellent men, than he was called to give up his account. His last words were, "I have sinned with Peter, but I have not wept with Peter." Bonner had already been active in the bloody work, and was ready to continue it. Three were burnt at one stake in Canterbury, in November, and on the 18th of December, Philpot, archdeacon of Westminster, suffered at Smithfield. I will pay my vows" said this excellent man, in thee, O Smithfield." Sixty-seven had this year been burnt for their attachment to the Protestant

cause.

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But the great object of the queen's vengeance still remained. This was Cranmer. No sooner had this great and good man discerned the course which was to be taken, than he settled all his private affairs, that he might be prepared for the worst. His confinement was long, and no means were spared to convert him to the Roman faith. On September 12th, 1555, commissioners were sent by the queen, to Oxford to try him. Cranmer defended himself with meekness and learning. He was commanded to appear before the pope at Rome in 80 days. This he said, he would do if the queen would send him. But it was done in mockery; and before the term expired he was degraded from his office. Clothed with vestments of rags and canvass, with a mock mire and pall, he was publicly exhibited. The utmost efforts were again made to induce him to recant; and alas! Peter like, he finally yielded, and set his hand to a paper, renouncing the principles of the reformation, and acknowledging the authority of the papal church. The Catho

lics triumphed in his fall. But they had no idea of sparing his life. The queen could not forgive the man who advised to Henry's divorce from her mother. A writ was issued for burning, and he was brought into St. Marie's church, and placed on a platform. Cole, provost of Eaton, preached a sermon in which he announced that Cranmer was to die, and magnified his conversion as the work of God, and assured him of the salvation of his soul. Cranmer discovered great confusion, and frequently shed floods of tears. When Cole had finished, he bade him disclose his faith. Cranmer prayed and addressed the people; repeated the apostles creed, and declared his faith in the holy scriptures. He then turned to that which troubled his conscience more than any thing else, his recantation-declared it was drawn from him by the fear of death; had filled his soul with the deepest sorrow, and was most bitterly repented of; and that the hand which had done it, should burn first in the fire. The Papists were thrown into confusion, gnashed on him with their teeth, and drew him to the stake, where Ridley and Latimer had been burned. When the fire was kindling, he stretched forth his right band to the flame, never moving it until it was burnt away. As the flames gathered around his body, he exclaimed often, "That unworthy hand,-Lord Jesus receive my spirit." Thus died one of the greatest promoters of the reformation, March 21st, 1556, in the 67th year of his age. But it was a martyrdom most injurious to the Romish cause. It was a direct breach of promise. The sympathy of thousands was awakened by his repentance, and his calm and patient endurance of torment.

For two years more the persecution continued with unabated fury. Bonner scorned to burn men singly, and drove them in companies to the stake. The bodies of Bucer and Fagius were dug up, and with their books, were publicly burnt. But the reformers increased. They assembled together secretly for consultation and prayer. They afforded relief to those in prison, and buried the bodies of such as died there and were cast out in disgrace.

At length, to extirpate the hated religion entirely, the king and queen resolved upon the introduction of the Inquisition, with all its horrors. But England was happily preserved from this by the death of Mary, on the 17th of Nov. 1558.

The Irish Protestants escaped her vengeance through a singular providence. Their number had become great, through the energetic proceedings of George Brown, whom Henry VIII. had created archbishop of Dublin, and Mary had resolved to ex

tirpate them by flame. But while her messenger was on his way with the bloody commission, the wife of an innkeeper, hearing him say that he had a commission which would lash the Protestants of Ireland and being friendly to them contrived to steal away his commission, and put in its place a pack of cards. When the commissioner arrived at Dublin, he opened his commission in presence of the public authorities and, to his confusion, found nothing but the cards; and before he could get a renewal of the commission the queen was dead, and God's people escaped. Queen Elizabeth was so pleased with the tale, that she conferred upon the woman forty pounds a year for life.

No one can contemplate this dark period of England's history without feelings of horror at its bloody scenes, and gratitude for the blessings we enjoy. Two hundred and eighty-eight persons, including twenty clergymen of whom five were bishops, were burnt alive; many were deprived of means of subsistence, imprisoned, tortured, scourged, placed in the most painful postures, until they expired ́under their accumulated sufferings. An immense amount of wealth was sacrificed, and the spirit and character of the nation was sunk very low. But it was a fiery trial, through which it seemed necessary for the nation to pass. She had given her strength to the beast. Though reformed under Henry and Edward, she had not been weaned. This day of persecution made her heartily sick of popery. No one mourned the death of Mary. Every one hailed the accession of Elizabeth and the restoration of the Protestant religion.

Elizabeth had been singularly preserved from the merciless fangs of Gardiner and Bonner. She began to reign at the age of twenty-four, and governed England forty-five years, with an energy, sagacity, and prudence of which few monarchs can boast. During her reign, Protestantism was firmly established in her dominions, and favoured and supported by her in other parts of Europe.

On her way to London she was greeted by thousands; and as the bishops and clergy came around her to congratulate her, she smiled upon all, except Bonner, from whom she turned in indignation, as a man of blood. At her coronation, as she pass

ed under a triumphal arch, an English Bible was let down into her hands, by a child representing truth, which she received with reverence, accounting it the most valuable gift that could be bestowed.

No sooner was her accession known, than all who had fled into foreign countries returned. The Papists had flattered themselves that they had at least extinguished the light of the refor

Such as retired Of these, the number

mation; but, to their astonishment, a great body of learned and pious men came forth, who, in exile or concealment, had made themselves well acquainted with the word of God. Elizabeth filled the vacant sees with Parker, Grindall Cox, Sands, Jewel, Parkhurst Pilkington, and others, who proved great ornaments to the British nation. She re-established King Edward's service in all the churches, and forbade the priests to elevate the host at mass, but she would use no violence. Such papists as chose, she permitted to retire bevond the seas. from the priest's office, she pensioned. was small; the papists thinking it better for their own cause to acknowledge the queen's supremacy, than refuse and quit the kingdom. Out of nine thousand and four hundred beneficed men, only fourteen bishops and one hundred and seventy-five others resigned their livings. The others remained in the church, "a miserable set of weather-cocks." The monks returned to secular life and the nuns went to France and Spain. Bonner maintained his sullen temper, refused to submit to the queen, was committed to prison where he died. Elizabeth was in favour of images in the churches, but so did the clergy oppose them, that she gave orders to have them all taken down. The Bible was translated anew, and published in 1571. The articles

of religion received by king Edward, were revised and adopted, leaving the doctrine of the real presence untouched, and the English establishment was settled nearly upon its present form.