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THE MARTYR'S FIELD.

"The noble army of martyrs praise Thee!"

Ir was on a calm evening in May, that I took my first walk about the old city of Canterbury. We had climbed the singular and steep mound called the Dane John, and were looking with interest on a scene very new to us. The wide hop-grounds, the lath and plaster farm-houses, the beautifully cultivated and fertile-but to our minds, used to our own rugged hills and banks, not picturesque country, reminded us on every side that we were far from home. But there was no absence of the picturesque in our more close neighbourhood. Here were the old city walls, and its beautiful towers; and here, at every step, was some name that awoke ancient associations-some place connected in our minds with the most interesting passages of the histories of our country.

We were travellers, and in the few last hours. had seen the memorable places, of which we had heard all our lives, and of which our children's children will have tales to tell. For the first time, on the evening before, I had seen the sun light up the purple towers of Windsor, made dear to many an English heart, as the favourite abode of her good king George the Third, hallowed as the place of his long seclusion and of his last rest; and strange though it may be, I will own that as I saw the flag stream out against the setting sun, to indicate to the surrounding country that the king was himself there; I felt the tears swell into my eyes, as my own church's prayer rose to my lips, "O Lord, save the king!" "Send peace in our time, O Lord; for there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God!" Early in that morning I had had one glance at the old tower, "by many a dark and midnight murder fed;" and stood on the very spot where the seven noble bishops had landed on their way to their prison, whilst the crowding spectators and the very soldiers who guarded them kneeled to ask their blessing. In the course of that busy day too, I had seen the beautiful hospital, that monument of a fallen woman's

humanity, Greenwich Hospital, built by Charles the Second, at the solicitation of his favourite Eleanor Gwyn; at which one looks with a feeling of interest, because Bishop Burnet tells us that she died, according to his belief, a humble penitent. I had passed Tilbury Fort also, and had again fancied that I saw the ready troops of soldiers, and listened with them, and shouted with them, in answer to the noble declaration of

their protestant queen, "I am come amongst you all, not as for my recreation and sport; but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live and die amongst you. I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and a king of England too, .........and can lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust."

All these places of deep interest in so few hours I had seen, yet the remembrance of all vanished as one narrow boundary at the southwest side of the city was pointed out to me. "Do you see that singularly shaped field, here below us, with low hawthorn hedges. There are a few sheep lying round the shallow pool in the bottom of it. That is the Martyr's Field.

Tradition calls it so; and there is every reason to believe that the martyrs who sealed their profession of faith with their blood in Canterbury, were really burned on that very spot. This steep mound would afford convenient room for the spectators of the awful tragedy; and that strange hollow-it is dry in the summer-was certainly a work of art, and made, or if not made, used for the very executions." And so I was come to the end of my pilgrimage, and to a place of much note; for during the Marian persecution, there were more suffered in Kent, I believe, than in any other county of England, and of those a large proportion at Canterbury; and the very last martyr fires that scared England,—and that within six days of its deliverance-blazed on this very memorable spot. Memorable! and yet how little is it remembered. It is called the Martyr's Field; yet the shepherd thinks nothing, probably, of the meaning of the words, as he passes in and out with his few sheep. The children play here, and in the dry summer run races up and down this hollow; and the grown boys try strengths in leaping across it, and care not that once it streamed with blood, instead of water, the blood of those of whom the world

was not worthy; and so the little ones can reach the fair may-thorn boughs from the hedge, and find daisies and dandelions enough for their chain, few care to teach them how every flower and herb there was withered with the unwonted fires that flashed and sparkled here, as they bore the living sacrifice up to God. And ought these things to be so forgotten? Are we so degenerate, so unworthy of our forefathers, that a senator has dared to speak of these things as "old almanac stories?". It was well answered, "They are old almanac stories, but they are red letter stories, and they are written in blood." Come, then, let me do my part,-let me express my feelings of gratitude to God for the grace bestowed on these blessed servants of his; and let me own the veneration with which I trod this ground. It may be that even I may awake some like feeling; it may be that some one who has as yet thought but little of the mighty debt due to our blessed martyrs, may, in these latter days, thank God and take courage to follow their good example, at least in sincerity of intention. It may be that some young persons-for there were those who had the fair prospect of long and prosperous

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