th him were burned to-day in
Smithfield."

"And how went it with him?"

"When he was come to the stake," answered Austin, "he embraced it, and
looking up unto Heaven, he saith:--`Lord, I most humbly thank Thy
Majesty that Thou hast called me from the state of death unto the light
of Thy heavenly Word, and now unto the fellowship of Thy saints, that I
may sing and say, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts. And, Lord, into
Thy hands I commit my spirit. Lord, bless these Thy people, and save
them from idolatry.' And so, looking up unto Heaven, and praising
God,--God stooped and took him."

"Alas, poor Bessy!" said Isoult, after a while.

"I must write unto her," said Austin. "I trust she is yet safe in
Lancashire."

Isoult did not forget her before God that night. It was easy for the
mass of the Gospellers to think of Mr Holland as he now was, at Home, in
the safe rest of the Father's house, and to praise God for him. But his
Bessy was not likely to do so as yet. When the night is very dark, we
cannot always lift our heads to see how fair the light shines on the
further side of the Jordan; and to us who are in the thickness of the
darkness, it is at times no lighter for that knowledge. And the night
was very dark now.

And yet some tell us--ay, some of us, Englishmen whose fathers passed
through these dreadful scenes, leaving to their sons such awful
memories,--they tell us it were better to leave those memories sleeping.
"Why rake up such disagreeable reminiscences? They belong to past
ages. Rome is different now, just as society is different. Is this
charity, peace, forbearance?"

I reply, it _is_ charity, and of the highest type. When a man sees his
friend in the grasp of a tiger, he does not drop his levelled gun on the
plea of charity _to the tiger_. And Rome is not different. She only
looks so, because the wisdom of our fathers circumscribed her
opportunities, just as the tiger looks harmless in a cage in the
Zoological Gardens. Shall we therefore open the cage door?

And we, who are bent on pulling down as fast as we can those bars which
our fathers forged in tears and blood,--let us be a little more
consistent. Let us take away the locks from our doors, because for ten
years there has been no attempt at burglary in that street. Let us pull
down the hurdles which surround our sheep-pens, because for some time no
lamb has been lost from that particular flock. We are not such fools as
to do