cumstances, there is something in
it of devotion. I could never hear the Ave Mary bell without an
elevation; or think it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one
circumstance, for me to err in all--that is, in silence and dumb
contempt. Whilst, therefore, they directed their devotions to her, I
offered mine to God, and rectified the errors of their prayers by
rightly ordering my own. At a solemn procession I have wept abundantly,
while my consorts, blind with opposition and prejudice, have fallen into
an excess of laughter and scorn.'

Very characteristic, from this point of view, are the heresies into
which he confesses that he has sometimes fallen. Setting aside one
purely fantastical theory, they all imply a desire for toleration even
in the next world. He doubted whether the damned would not ultimately be
released from torture. He felt great difficulty in giving up prayers for
the dead, and thought that to be the object of such prayers, was 'a good
way to be remembered by posterity, and far more noble than a history.'
These heresies, he says, as he never tried to propagate them, or to
dispute over them, 'without additions of new fuel, went out insensibly
of themselves.' Yet he still retained, in spite of its supposed
heterodoxy, some hope for the fate of virtuous heathens. 'Amongst so
many subdivisions of hell,' he says, 'there might have been one limbo
left for these.' With a most characteristic turn, he softens the horror
of the reflection by giving it an almost humorous aspect. 'What a
strange vision will it be,' he exclaims, 'to see their poetical fictions
converted into verities, and their imagined and fancied furies into real
devils! How strange to them will sound the history of Adam, when they
shall suffer for him they never heard of!'

The words may remind us of an often-quoted passage from Tertullian; but
the Father seems to gloat over the appalling doctrines from which the
philosophical humorist shrinks, even though their very horror has a
certain strange fascination for his fancy. Heresies such as these will
not be harshly condemned at the present day. From others of a different
kind, Sir Thomas is shielded by his natural love of the marvellous. He
loves to abandon his thoughts to mysterious contemplations; he even
considers it a subject for complaint that there are 'not impossibilities
enough in religion for an active faith.' 'I love,' he says, 'to lose
myself in a mystery; to pursue my reason to