red to the people in a language which they could understand, and a
few preachers arose who appealed to conscience and reason,--like Latimer
and Ridley, and Hooper and Taylor; but most of them were formal and
cold. There must have been great religious apathy, or else these reforms
would have excited more opposition on the part of the clergy, who
generally acquiesced in the changes. But the Reformation thus far was
official; it was not popular. It repressed vice and superstition, but
kindled no great enthusiasm. It was necessary for the English reformers
and sincere Protestants to go through a great trial; to be persecuted,
to submit to martyrdom for the sake of their opinions. The school of
heroes and saints has ever been among blazing fires and scaffolds. It
was martyrdom which first gave form and power to early Christianity. The
first chapter in the history of the early Church is the torments of the
martyrs. The English Reformation had no great dignity or life until the
funeral pyres were lighted. Men had placidly accepted new opinions, and
had Bibles to instruct them; but it was to be seen how far they would
make sacrifices to maintain them.

This test was afforded by the accession of Mary, daughter of Catharine
the Spaniard,--an affectionate and kind-hearted woman enough in ordinary
times, but a fiend of bigotry, like Catherine de' Medicis, when called
upon to suppress the Reformation, although on her accession she
declared that she would force no man's conscience. But the first thing
she does is to restore the popish bishops,--for so they were called then
by historians; and the next thing she does is to restore the Mass, and
the third to shut up Cranmer and Latimer in the Tower, attaint and
execute them, with sundry others like Ridley and Hooper, as well as
those great nobles who favored the claims of the Lady Jane Grey and the
religious reforms of Edward VI. She reconciles herself with Rome, and
accepts its legate at her court; she receives Spanish spies and Jesuit
confessors; she marries the son of Charles V., afterwards Philip II.;
she executes the Lady Jane Grey; she keeps the strictest watch on the
Princess Elizabeth, who learns in her retirement the art of
dissimulation and lying; she forms an alliance with Spain; she makes
Cardinal Pole Archbishop of Canterbury; she gives almost unlimited power
to Gardiner and Bonner, who begin a series of diabolical persecutions,
burning such people as John Rogers, Sanders, D