shewed no mercy." (Jas. ii. 13.) Dear children, never suffer yourselves to forget that our Lord said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

The next on the list of martyrs was Cranmer. You know, I told you elsewhere, that, with all his real piety, he had a timidity of character which sometimes betrayed him into weaknesses, and caused him much regret. So it was in this case. It appears that he had a great dread of death, and that his enemies worked upon this fear; promising him life on condition that he would recant, or declare that he did not believe in the truth of the reformed religion, which he had for so many years been labouring to establish; and I am sorry to say his fears made him comply. It is very sad to read of the errors of good men ; but they give us a lesson of humility, showing how weak and utterly unable of themselves to stand are even the very best. But "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand." (Ps. xxxvii. 23, 24.) Scarcely had Cranmer thus yielded to his terrors when repentance arose in his heart. With prayers for pardon, and many tears, he mourned over his fault, and publicly asserted his faith in the Protestant

EXECUTION OF CRANMER.

229

doctrines. He was led to the stake at Oxford, and when the faggots caught fire, he held in the flame his right hand, with which he had signed the recantation, till it was quite consumed, saying, "This hand hath offended." Then, with a serene countenance, he awaited the moment when the fire had completed its work, and his soul, cleansed from sin and from every human infirmity in the blood of his Redeemer, rejoined the glorified friends and fellow-labourers who had gone before him.

It has been said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church ;" and surely many who were wavering or fearful must have taken courage as they witnessed such scenes as these; beholding the cheerful countenances and unshaken faith of those who bore the most agonizing torments, counting it honour to suffer for the truth. The seed sown at Smithfield, and at Oxford, fell on good ground, and has sprung up and borne fruit a thousandfold. O may the noble tree which has risen from it go on putting forth its branches and leaves, until, like the vine of Israel, "the hills are covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof are like the goodly cedar-trees, and she send out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river." (Ps. lxxx.)

Before leaving this painful subject, I wish to say a few words on the character of queen Mary, as connected with these frightful persecutions. Revolting as it is to our feelings to think of putting people to death for worshipping God according to their conscience, it had been the universal law, wherever Christianity was professed, for upwards of a century, to burn heretics. Mary, therefore, having always been brought up to consider this right, should not be so severely blamed for these executions as if she had lived in more enlightened times. Making every allowance for her, enough still remains to show the persecuting spirit of Rome, "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus," whose faith she professed, and a morose temper, aggravated perhaps by the unhappiness she had felt from her very childhood. Her father was always harsh towards her, from the time of his separation from her mother. From that mother she was forcibly taken, and never again allowed to see her; and from Philip, her husband, she never received the slightest mark of affection. One of the early reformers, named John Bradford, once remarked, when he saw a criminal going to be hanged at Tyburn, "There goes John Bradford, but for the grace of God." Let us

bear this little story in mind, and not be hasty to judge others severely, without taking into account how great their temptations may have been, or how slight their means of better knowledge.

Little else of consequence happened in Mary's reign, but the taking of Calais from the English, after we had held possession of it for two hundred years. This so much grieved the queen that she used to say, when she died, the word Calais would be found engraven on her heart. May the "Lord of all power and might, the Author and Giver of all good things, graft in our hearts the love of His name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of His great mercy keep us in the same, through Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Saviour!"

After an illness of several months, Mary died, November 17, 1558, in the forty-third year of her age, having reigned about five years and a half.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ELIZABETH-FROM 1558 TO 1603.

ELIZABETH'S accession to the crown gave universal satisfaction. She was known to be an encourager of the reformed faith, and it was a great comfort to the Protestants to feel that they might now breathe freely, after the terror they had endured in the preceding reign. Elizabeth, who had been trained from her childhood to the most perfect self-command, graciously received all who approached her, not even excepting the Romanist bishops. To Bonner alone she refused her countenance, for the horrible barbarity he had shown in torturing the Protestants; and after a time he was committed to prison for denying the queen's supremacy, and remained there the rest of his life.

The first step of Elizabeth was to establish firmly the reformed religion. All the laws against it were repealed, and others made, which placed it upon the basis on which it now stands. I am very glad to tell