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limbs, and almost dead for feebleness.

Think you

that to run through this man with a spear is not a goodly victory?"*

The end of all was, that he and Ridley were condemned to suffer; and on the 16th of October 1555, they were led forth to martyrdom "without Bocardo gate," to a spot opposite Baliol College, where the splendid martyr's monument now stands. They embraced each other, knelt in prayer, and at last, when they were about to kindle the pile, he first thanked God audibly for His faithfulness to him, and then, turning to his companion, said, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man: we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

Thus perished the great preacher reformer of England, closing his honest, laborious, and intrepid life by an heroic death, shedding its radiance back upon all his previous work, and transfiguring it into a higher glory.

The character of Latimer presents a combination of noble and disinterested qualities, scarcely rising to greatness, but highly significant and interesting. The natural healthiness of his earlier years at the Leicestershire farm, of "three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost," reappears in all his future career as a student, a preacher, a bishop, a martyr. The same simple spirit, and honest temper, and cheery humour, and unresting faithfulness are visible in all he said and did. The man is never lost sight of, in whatever

* FOXE, vol. vii. p. 532.

special attitude he shows himself; nay, the rustic boy, who was the "father of the man," is scarcely ever forgotten. A fresh and rough fragrance of nature hangs about him everywhere, impregnating and purifying with a rare and happy heartiness all his work.

A simplicity verging on originality is perhaps his most prominent characteristic—a simplicity as far as possible from that which we noted in Calvin: the one, the naked energy of intellect; the other, a guileless evenness of heart. The single way in which Latimer looks at life, with his eyes unblinded by conventional drapery of any kind, and his heart responsive to all its broadest and most common interests,of which he speaks in language never nice and circumlocutory, but straight, plain, and forcible,—gives to his sermons their singular air of reality, and to his character that sort of piquancy which we at once recognise as a direct birth of nature. He is a kind of Goldsmith in theology; exhibiting the same artless feeling and sunny temper in the midst of all difficulties-the same disregard of his own comforts, and warm and kindly play of benevolent humour meeting you at every turn, like a roving and gleeful presence, and flashing laughter in your face. It would be absurd, of course, to push this comparison further. There is beneath all the oddities of Latimer's character a deep and solemn consistency of purpose, and a spirit of righteous indignation against wrong which, apart from all dissimilarities of work, destroys any more essential analogy between the great humourist of the Reformation in England and the later humourist of

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its literature.

Yet the same childlike transparency of character is beheld in both, and the same fresh stamp of nature, which, in its simple originality, is found to outlast far more brilliant and imposing, but artificially cultured qualities.

In mere intellectual strength, Latimer can take no place beside either Luther or Calvin. His mind has neither the rich compass of the one, nor the symmetrical vigour of the other. He is no master in any department of intellectual interest, or even of theological inquiry. We read his sermons, not for any light or reach of truth which they unfold, nor because they exhibit any peculiar depth of spiritual apprehension, but simply because they are interesting-and interesting mainly from the very absence of all dogmatic or intellectual pretensions. Yet, without any mental greatness, there is a pleasant and wholesome harmony of mental powers displayed in his writings,* which gives to them a wonderful vitality. There is a proportion and vigour, not of logic, but of sense and feeling in them eminently English, and showing everywhere a high and well-toned capacity. He is coarse and low at times; his familiarity occasionally descends to meanness; but the living hold which he takes of reality at every point, often carries him also to the height of an indignant and burning eloquence.

Of his private social life we learn comparatively little. His nature was one keenly susceptible of friendship, and must have everywhere drawn to itself

Besides his sermons, his letters-not merely his comparatively short business letters to Cromwell, but those to Sir Ed. Baynton, Archbishop Warham, and King Henry-should be read by the student.

objects of affection. We can mark in the dim traces of his life the surrounding footsteps of his friends— Bilney, and Cranmer, and Cromwell, and Dr Butts, and, at the last, Ridley. There is no glimmering, however, of any dearer and more intimate affection,-no light of love, flushing with its soft warm presence the hard and darkening course of his energetic and unwearied labours. The singleness of his aim as a reformer -his untiring spirit of self-sacrifice, " minding not his own things, but the things of others"-his self-sustaining vigour in his work, and equable delight in it-may sufficiently account for this absence. It takes an interest from his life, but at the same time simplifies our view of it. The impression remains deepened of a simple and earnest, rather than of a broad and powerful character.

In turning to estimate Latimer's work as a reformer, we are at first struck very much with the same peculiarity; that is to say, with its comparative simplicity and narrowness of meaning. It possesses neither the national grandeur of the work of Luther, nor the theological and spiritual influence of that of Calvin. It is practical rather than doctrinal; and deep and powerful and abiding as have been its traces, it never attains to that comprehensive sweep and issue which at once impress us in the work of each of our other reformers. And yet Latimer was a true leader in the great movement of the sixteenth century. He did not, indeed, and could not, take up and express the various and complex impulses that were then bearing the national life of England onwards in the direction of reform.

There was no single teacher capable of doing this. There were far too great diversity and richness in the impulses then moving England to permit of their finding united expression in any one man. But while Latimer did not, like Luther or Calvin, sum up in himself the great principles of the movement of which he was a leader, he expressed, beyond doubt, the most characteristic features of that movement. He represented those qualities of earnestness, and yet of moderation, of Scriptural faithfulness, and yet traditionary respect, -at once reforming and conservative,-which peculiarly distinguish the English character, and have stamped their impress more than any other upon the spirit of the Church of England.

The spirit of this Church is not, and never has been, definite and consistent. From the beginning it repudiated the distinct guidance of any theoretical principles, however exalted and apparently Scriptural. It held fast to its historical position, as a great Institute still living and powerful under all the corruptions which had overlaid it; and while submitting to the irresistible influence of reform which swept over it, as over other churches in the sixteenth century, it refused to be refashioned according to any new model. It broke away from the medieval bondage, under which it had always been restless, and destroyed the gross abuses which had sprung from this bondage; it rose in an attitude of proud and successful resistance to Rome; but in doing all this, it did not go to Scripture, as if it had once more, and entirely anew, to find there the principles either of doctrinal truth or of practical government and discipline. Scripture was eminently

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