spirit and grace is the very Body and Blood of Christ; because that every man, by receiving bodily that bread and wine, spiritually receiveth the Body and Blood of Christ, and is made partaker thereby of the merits of Christ's passion. But I deny the Body and Blood of Christ is in such sort in the Sacrament as you would have it.

"Christ made one perfect sacrifice for all the whole world; neither can any man offer Him again; neither can the priest offer up Christ again for the sins of men, which He took away by offering Himself once for all, as St. Paul saith, upon the Cross; neither is there any propitiation for our sins, saving His Cross only."

Holy Scripture.-"Faith is of hearing, and not of all manner of hearing, but of hearing of the Word of God: which faith also is the firstfruit of the Spirit of God; which Spirit if we have not, so testify ye against us, that we be no Christian men; and against yourselves, that ye be no ministers and stewards of Christ, but ministers of Antichrist and shepherds of your own bellies. Which Which Spirit if we have, so beareth us witness St. Paul that we be Christ's

men, and St. Peter, that we may understand

the Scripture. Which only is that the laypeople desire; utterly contemning all men's draughts and all men's writings, how well learned soever they be; only contented with their old and new schoolmaster, the Holy Spirit of God, and the minister thereto of Him elect and of Him sent."

Such was Latimer-brave, hearty, courageous, unflinching before kings and rulers, full of humour and pathos, intensely human, typically English in his greatness and his characteristics, a man of the people, loving them and God with the whole of his large heart. "He had the moral earnestness of a Jewish prophet, and his denunciations of wrong had a prophetic directness and fire. 'Have pity on your soul,' he cried to Henry, and think that the day is even at hand when you shall give an account of your office and of the blood that hath been shed by your sword.' His irony was yet more telling 'I would ask you a strange

than his invective.

question,' he said once at Paul's Cross to a

ring of bishops.

'Who is the most diligent

prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing of his office? I will tell you. It is the devil! Of all the pack of them that have cure, the devil shall go for my money, for he

ordereth his business. Therefore you unpreaching prelates learn of the devil to be diligent in your office. If you will not learn of God, for shame learn of the devil.' But Latimer was far from limiting himself to invective. His homely humour breaks in with story and apologue; his earnestness is always tempered with good sense; his plain and simple style quickens with a shrewd mother-wit. He talks to his hearers as a man talks to his friends, telling stories such as we have given of his own life at home, or chatting about the changes and chances of the day with a a transparent simplicity and truth that raises even his chat into grandeur. His theme is always the actual world about him, and in his simple lessons of loyalty, of industry, of pity for the poor, he touches upon almost every subject from the plough to the throne." Would that every age

had its own Latimer!

1 Green's History of the English People.

III

LAUD

AND THE MEDIEVAL REACTION

EW names in all history are more pathetic

FE

than that of William Laud, whose sturdy little figure fills so large a portion of the melancholy reign of Charles I., and whose influence is still felt in that Church which he spent his life in endeavouring to modify. His share in the tragedy of the Great Rebellion was so vital, and we know so much about him, that his presentment is familiar. We see him learned and the patron of learning, devout and sincere, unselfish and self-sacrificing, hard and matter-of-fact in his conceptions, pedantic and inflexible in heart and mind, saturated with the principles of arbitrary and personal authority in Church and State, devoted heart and soul to the cause of King and Religion as he understood it, indefatigable in business, intervening in affairs with a zest that produced an

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irritating sense of almost omnipresent meddlesomeness, a a systematic observer of dreams and omens, self-willed and self-reliant, determined to the degree of obstinacy in his opinions, cold and inexorable in his dealings, calm and courageous in the midst of triumphant hostility and humiliating reverses, and dying at last with a simple and touching dignity. Alas! his idea of duty was so narrow, his perception of circumstances so blind, his insistence so imperturbable, and his personal power, through the enthusiasm of Charles I. ("a mild and gracious prince," Laud called him, "who knew not how to be or to be made great "), for a time so unbounded, that no surprise can be felt at the part he unconsciously and with the best possible motives played in in wrecking the Monarchy and the Church, and producing that state of popular feeling amongst honest, free, God-fearing Englishmen which would only be satisfied with the blood of King, Primate, and Minister. How dismal the whole story is! How grimly the irony of history shows itself! If the Parliament men had desired to rehabilitate Charles, Laud, and Strafford, and to surround their names in the eyes of a large section of the successive generations of posterity