veloped by the imperious and insulting words which we have recited, and by "the Ecclesiastical authority" which followed. Mr. Settle went to the Gatehouse a non-conforming Puritan only. He came out utterly alienated from the Established Church.1 Archbishop Whitgift certainly made one Brownist; and we have a grave suspicion that he made thousands.

We turn aside a moment to notice two statements which concern the Puritans about this time. It is said, that Lord Burleigh made a sagacious experiment, having the aspect of a conciliatory overture, to demonstrate the impossibility of accommodating the differences in the Church. It is stated that he requested the Presbyterians to frame such a liturgy as they desired to have in lieu of the one authorized by law; that some of them did so; that others of them dissented from this draft, and framed another; that still a third party dissented from these two; that a fourth party dissented from all the others, and that his lordship hereupon "smoothly" "put them off until they should present him a pattern with perfect consent." A "somewhat amusing manœuvre," says one, "in which his lordship's sagacity and charity are equally conspicuous." Unfortunately for the story-which is cited to prove a want of unanimity among the Presbyterians of which we have no intimation elsewhere-it is supported by no authority whatever. "It be fathered rather on public report, than fixed on any particular author in those days avowing the same." "

1 Brook, II. 47.

* Fuller, Book IX. p. 178. Col

It is also stated that Mr. Secretary Walsingham made a generous offer to meet the scruples of the Puritans. "He offered," it is said, " in the queen's name, that the three ceremonies at which they seemed most to boggle-kneeling at the communion, wearing the surplice, and making the sign of the cross in baptism should be expunged from the Book of Common Prayer, if that would content them. They replied, that "they would not leave so much as a hoof behind," "meaning that they would have the Church liturgy wholly laid aside, and not be obliged to use any office in it."2 All this wears the appearance of improbability. "It is by no means agreeable to the queen's general conduct"; it is unaccountable that such overtures should have been scornfully rejected; and the pedigree of the story is too sorry and suspicious to sustain its legitimacy.*

The facts presented in this chapter might have been suppressed, and would have been, had we heeded only the suggestions of Christian charity. We certainly find no gratification in recording them. But as they show clearly the temper of the two principal members of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and thus indicate the temper of the whole Court,

lier, VII. 16, and note. Collier recites this tradition with much zest as a fact; not noticing the important clause which I here quote from Fuller. Collier gives it under date of 1583; Fuller, under date of

1585.

8

Hallam, 135, note.

* Dr. Heylin says, that Dr. Burgess told him that Mr. Knewstubbs told him that Secretary Walsingham told him. (Collier, VII. 16.) This is a sort of testimony certainly unreliable in any case; and much

1 Heylin's Presbyterians, Book more suspicious when conflicting

VII. Sec. 42.

2 Collier, VII. 16.

with probabilities.

scandalous as some of them are, we could not have covered them with a mantle without failing in justice to those who suffered, and who have been branded in history as contumacious.

When the Prelates were moved by a spirit so unlike that of Christ in their government of the Church, when they made such a spirit the great motive power of a tremendous ecclesiastical machinery, not only outraging law and right and humanity, but even decency itself, can we wonder that men resented the outrage, and that Christians revolted from the discipline?

We do not believe that Parker and Whitgift and Sandys and Aylmer were sinners above all the dwellers in the Church of England; but we do believe that the vicious unition of Church and State, sustained by the selfinterest of ecclesiastical magistrates and energized by irresponsible power, would have made a Parker, a Whitgift, a Sandys, or an Aylmer of almost any man placed in their position. It is rarely that more than one Grindal is to be found in a generation.

CHAPTER II.

TRAVERS AND HOOKER.

RICHARD HOOKER'S ARRIVAL AT LONDON. HE IS INVEIGLED TO MARRIAGE. - HIS SAD CONDITION. WALTER TRAVERS RECOMMENDED TO THE MASTERSHIP OF THE TEMPLE. ARCHBISHOP WHITGIFT PROTESTS AGAINST IT. TRAVERS REFUSES EPISCOPAL ORDINATION. HOOKER APPOINTED TO THE MASTERSHIP. - HE REFUSES TO AWAIT THE SUFFRAGES OF THE TEMPLARS. -THE PULPIT CONTROVERSY OF TRAVERS AND HOOKER. — Their differENT STYLES OF PREACHING.-TRAVERS PUBLICLY ORDERED BY THE ARCHBISHOP TO CEASE PREACHING. - THE ARCHBISHOP'S REASONS. TRAVERS APPEALS TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. HIS ARGUMENT FOR THE VALIDITY OF HIS PRESBYTERIAN ORDINATION. HIS FRIENDS IN THE COUNCIL BAFfled. -THE OBJECTION TO HIS ORDINATION A PRETENCE. HOOKER WEARIES OF HIS UNPOPULARITY AND RESIGNS THE MASTERSHIP.

1581-1586.

WHEN Elisha the prophet was in Israel, he often passed through the city of Shunem. Perceiving this, a certain Shunammite and his wife prepared and furnished an apartment under their own roof, for his sole use and behoof, because he was "an holy man of God."1 Queen Elizabeth had made a like provision for those of her clergy whom she might appoint, from time to time, to preach at St. Paul's Cross. The house thus provided - and which had its resident host and hostess was appropriately called "The Shunammite's House." In addition to his stipend for his public service, each preacher was entitled to full hospitalities here "for two days before, and one after, his sermon.”

1 2 Kings iv. 8-10.

Some time in the year 1581, a clergyman from the University of Oxford appeared before the door on horseback. Though but about twenty-seven years of age, he dismounted with every sign of extreme infirmity. A journey of two days or more upon the back of a rough-going horse, and the latter part of the way through a drizzling rain, had been so hard an experience for a man of quiet and sedentary life, that it cost him both effort and pain to leave his saddle and creep into his house of refuge. He stood before honest John Churchman and his wifethe host and hostess so stiff and sore, so cold and wet and weary and weather-beaten, as to excite their compassion and their apprehensions. He was a man of "a sweet serene quietness of nature"; yet it so far gave way that he spoke with "passion against a friend that dissuaded him from footing it to London, and for finding him no easier a horse." He was utterly disheartened, too, assuring Churchman and his wife that the two days allotted to him for repose, and all other means whatever, could not enable him to perform his task at Paul's Cross on the next Sunday. But Mistress Churchman bade him be of good cheer, and trust himself to her skill in leech-craft. The poor man, "possest with faintness and fear," submitted meekly; and by means of a warm bed, warm drinks, good posset, and careful nursing, he was enabled to perform the office of the Sunday. He was very grateful, and expressed himself so, with all the simplicity of a child. Guileless himself, he suspected no guile in others. Transparent himself, he trusted to every one's outward show. His life having been passed in the cloister,