t soon, for we are come to great
misery. Help us, oh God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name. Oh,
be merciful unto our sins for thy name's sake. Wherefore do the heathen
say, Where is now their God?' Ye shall say this Psalm," repeated the
abbot, "every Friday, after the litany, prostrate, when ye lie upon the
high altar, and undoubtedly God will cease this extreme scourge." And
so,' continues Salford, significantly, 'the convent did say this
aforesaid Psalm until there were certain that did murmur at the saying
of it, and so it was left.'

The abbot, it seems, either stood alone, or found but languid support;
even his own familiar friends whom he trusted, those with whom he had
walked in the house of God, had turned against him; the harsh air of the
dawn of a new world choked him: what was there for him but to die? But
his conscience still haunted him: while he lived he must fight on, and
so, if possible, find pardon for his perjury. The blows in those years
fell upon the Church thick and fast. In February 1536, the Bill passed
for the dissolution of the smaller monasteries; and now we find the
sub-prior with the whole fraternity united in hostility, and the abbot
without one friend remaining.

'He did again call us together,' says the next deposition, 'and
lamentably mourning for the dissolving the said houses, he enjoined us
to sing "Salvator mundi, salva nos omnes," every day after lauds; and we
murmured at it, and were not content to sing it for such cause; and so
we did omit it divers days, for which the abbot came unto the chapter,
and did in manner rebuke us, and said we were bound to obey his
commandment by our profession, and so did command us to sing it again
with the versicle "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered. Let
them also that hate him flee before him." Also he enjoined us at every
mass that every priest did sing, to say the collect, "Oh God, who
despisest not the sighing of a contrite heart." And he said if we did
this with good and true devotion, God would so handle the matter, that
it should be to the comfort of all England, and so show us mercy as he
showed unto the children of Israel. And surely, brethren, there will
come to us a good man that will rectify these monasteries again that be
now supprest, because "God can of these stones raise up children to
Abraham."'

'Of the stones,' perhaps, but less easily of the stony-hearted monks,
who, with pitiless smiles, watched the abb