nd said these words:--'Brethren, this is a
perilous time, such a scourge was never heard since
Christ's passion. Ye hear how good men suffer the
death. Brethren, this is undoubted for our offences.
Ye read, so long as the children of Israel kept the
commandments of God, so long their enemies had no
power over them, but God took vengeance of their
enemies. But when they broke God's commandments,
then they were subdued by their enemies, and so be we.
Therefore let us be sorry for our offences. Undoubted
He will take vengeance of our enemies; I mean those
heretics that causeth so many good men to suffer thus.
Alas, it is a piteous case that so much Christian blood
should be shed. Therefore, good brethren, for the
reverence of God, every one of you devoutly pray, and
say this Psalm, "O God, the heathen are come into
thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled,
and made Jerusalem a heap of stones. The dead bodies
of thy servants have they given to be meat to the fowls
of the air, and the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of
the field. Their blood have they shed like water on
every side of Jerusalem, and there was no man to bury
them. We are become an open scorn unto our enemies,
a very scorn and derision unto them that are round
about us. Oh, remember not our old sins, but have
mercy upon us, and that 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-p