ass, and was urged at length to recant.
His opinions on the real presence were peculiar. Christ, he said, was
not the sacrament, but was really and truly in the sacrament, as the
Holy Ghost was with the water at baptism and yet was not the water.
The subtlety of the position was perplexing, but the knot was cut by
the crucial question, whether, after the consecration of the elements,
the substance of bread and wine remained. He was allowed the night to
consider his answer, but he left no doubt what that answer would be.
"The bishops told him that they were not come to condemn him, their
province was to condemn no one, but only to cut off the heretic from
the church, for the temporal judge to deal with as he should think
fit." The cowardly sophism had been heard too often. Ridley thanked
the court "for their gentleness," "being the same which Christ had of
the high priest:" "the high priest said it was not lawful for him to
put any man to death, but committed Christ to Pilate; neither would
suffer him to absolve Christ, though he sought all the means therefore
that he might."

Ridley withdrew, and Latimer was then introduced--eighty years old
now--dressed in an old threadbare gown of Bristol frieze, a
handkerchief on his head with a night-cap over it, and over that again
another cap, with two broad flaps buttoned under the chin. A leather
belt was round his waist, to which a Testament was attached; his
spectacles, without a case, hung from his neck. So stood the greatest
man perhaps then living in the world, a prisoner on his trial, waiting
to be condemned to death by men professing to be the ministers of God.
As it was in the days of the prophets, so it was in the Son of man's
days; as it was in the days of the Son of man, so was it in the
Reformers' days; as it was in the days of the Reformers, so will it be
to the {p.231} end, so long and so far as a class of men are
permitted to hold power, who call themselves the commissioned and
authoritative teachers of truth. Latimer's trial was the counterpart
of Ridley's: the charge was the same, and the result was the same,
except that the stronger intellect vexed itself less with nice
distinctions. Bread was bread, said Latimer, and wine was wine; there
was a change in the sacrament, it was true, but the change was not in
the nature, but the dignity. He too was reprieved for the day. The
following morning, the court sat in St. Mary's Church, with the
authorities of town and