The humorous Saxon scorn and invective with which he lashes the vices of the times are, perhaps, their most noted characteristics; but they are also remarkable for their clear and homely statements of Christian doctrine, and the faithfulness with

which they exhibit the simple ideal of the Christian life, in contrast to all hypocrisies and pretensions of religion. In all things,-in his sermons, in his reforms, in his character,-Latimer was eminently practical."-REV. JOHN TULLOCH, D.D., Principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrews. Imperial Dict. of Univ. Biog., v. 115.

THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM.

I pray you to whom was the nativity of Christ first opened? To the bishops or great lords which were at that time at Bethlehem? Or to those jolly damsels with their fardingales, with their round-abouts, or with their bracelets? No, no: they had too many lets to trim and dress themselves, so that they could have no time to hear of the nativity of Christ; their minds were so occupied otherwise that they were not allowed to hear of him. But his nativity was revealed first to the shepherds, and it was revealed unto them in the night-time, when every body was at rest; then they heard this joyful tidings of the Saviour of the world for these shepherds were keeping their sheep in the night season from the wolf and other beasts, and from the fox; for the sheep in that country do lamb two times in the year, and therefore it was needful for the sheep to have a shepherd to keep them. And here note the diligence of these shepherds; for whether their sheep were their own, or whether they were servants, I cannot tell, for it is not expressed in the book; but it is most like they were servants, and their masters had put them in trust to keep their sheep.

Now, if these shepherds had been deceitful fellows, that when their masters had put them in trust to keep their sheep they had been drinking in the alehouse all night, as some of our servants do nowadays, surely the angel had not appeared unto them to have told them this great joy and good tidings. And here all servants may learn by these shepherds to serve truly and diligently unto their masters; in what business soever they are set to do, let them be painful and diligent, like as Jacob was unto his master Laban. Oh what a painful, faithful, and trusty man was he! He was day and night at his work, keeping his sheep truly, as he was put in trust to do; and when any chance happened that any thing was lost he made it good and restored it again of his own. So likewise was Eleazarus a painful man, a faithful and trusty servant. Such a servant was Joseph, in Egypt, to his master Potiphar. So likewise was Daniel unto his master

the king. But I pray you where are those servants nowadays? Indeed I fear me there be but very few of such faithful servants. Now these shepherds, I say, they watch the whole night, they attend upon their vocation, they do according to their calling, they keep their sheep, they run not hither and thither, spending the time in vain, and neglecting their office and calling. No, they did not so. Here, by these shepherds, men may learn to attend upon their offices and callings. I would wish that clergymen, the curates, parsons, and vicars, the bishops, and all other spiritual persons. would learn this lesson by these poor shep herds, which is this,-to abide by their flocks and by their sheep, to tarry amongst them, to be careful over them; not to run hither and thither after their own pleasure, but to tarry by their benefices and feed thei sheep with the food of God's word, and to keep hospitality, and so to feed them, both soul and body. For I tell you, these poor, unlearned shepherds shall condemn many a stout and great-learned clerk: for these shepherds had but the care and charge over brute beasts, and yet were diligent to keep them, and to feed them, and the other have the care over God's lambs, which he bought with the death of his son; and yet they are so careless, so negligent, so slothful over them; yea, and the most part intendeth not to feed the sheep, but they long to be fed of the sheep; they seek only their own pastimes, they care for no more. But what said Christ to Peter? What said he? Petre, amas me? (Peter, lovest thou me?) Peter made answer, Yes. Then feed my sheep.

And so the third time he commanded Peter to feed his sheep. But our clergymen do declare plainly that they love not Christ, because they feed not his flock. If they had earnest love to Christ, no doubt they would show their love, they would feed his sheep.

Latimer's Sermons.

such mercy unto any of my friends; and God
bless all my posterity from such pardons.'
The scaffold had been awkwardly erected, and
shook as he placed his foot upon the ladder.
'See me safe up,' he said to Kingston; for my
coming down I can shift for myself.' He began
to speak to the people, but the sheriff begged him
not to proceed, and he contented himself with ask-
ing for their prayers, and desiring them to bear
witness for him that he died in the faith of the
holy Catholic Church, and a faithful servant of
God and the king. He then repeated the Miserere
psalm on his knees; and when he had ended, and
had risen, the executioner, with an emotion which
promised ill for the manner in which his part in
the matter would be accomplished, begged his
forgiveness. More kissed him. Thou art to do
me the greatest benefit that I can receive,' he said.
Pluck up thy spirit, man, and be not afraid to do
thine office. My neck is very short. Take heed
therefore that thou strike not awry for saving of
thine honesty.' The executioner offered to tie his
eyes. I will cover them myself,' he said; and
binding them in a cloth, which he had brought
with him, he knelt and laid his head upon the
block. The fatal stroke was about to fall, when
he signed for a moment's delay, while he moved
aside his beard. Pity that should be cut,' he
murmured, that has not committed treason.'
With which strange words, the strangest perhaps
ever uttered at such a time, the lips most famous
through Europe for eloquence and wisdom closed
forever."-FROUDE: History of Europe, ii., chap.

ix.

THE UTOPIAN IDEA OF PLEASURE; FROM

mind, in which nature teaches us to delight, a pleasure. And thus they cautiously limit pleasure only to those appetites to which nature leads us; for they reckon that nature leads us only to those delights to which reason as well as sense carries us, and by which we neither injure any other person nor let go greater pleasures for it, and which do not draw troubles on us after them: but they look upon those delights which men, by a foolish though common mistake, call pleasure, as if they could change the nature of things, as well as the use of words, as things that not only do not advance our happiness, but do rather obstruct it very much, because they do so entirely possess the minds of those that once go into them with a false notion of pleasure, that there is no room left for truer and purer pleasures.

There are many things that in themselves have nothing that is truly delighting: on the contrary, they have a good dea! of bitterness in them; and yet by our perverse appetites after forbidden objects, are not only ranked among the pleasures, but are made even the greatest designs of life. Among those who pursue these sophisticated pleasures they reckon those whom I mentioned before, who think themselves really the better for having fine clothes, in which they think they are doubly mistaken, both in the opinion that

BISHOP BURNET'S TRANSLATION OF MORE'S they have of their clothes, and in the opinUTOPIA, Lond., 1684, 8vo.

They think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantages as far as the laws allow it. They account it piety to prefer the public good to one's private concerns. But they think it unjust for a man to seek for his own pleasure by snatching another man's pleasures from him. And, on the contrary, they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul for a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of others; and that by so doing a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another: for, as he may expect the like from others when he may come to need it, so, if that should fail him, yet the sense of a good action, and the reflections that one makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he has obliged, gives the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself. They are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small pleasures with a vast and endless joy, of which religion does easily convince a good soul. Thus, upon an inquiry into the whole matter, they reckon that all our actions, and even all our virtues, terminate in pleasure, as in our chief end and greatest happiness; and they call every motion or state, either of body or

ion that they have of themselves; for if you consider the use of clothes, why should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one? And yet that sort of men, as if they had some real advantages beyond others, and did not owe it wholly to their mistakes, look big, and seem to fancy themselves to be the more valuable on that account, and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of a rich garment, to which they would not have pretended if they had been more meanly clothed; and they resent it as an affront if that respect is not paid them... Another sort of bodily pleasure is that which consists in a quiet and good constitution of body, by which there is an entire healthiness spread over all the parts of the body not allayed with any disease. This, when it is free from all mixture of pain, gives an inward pleasure of itself, even though it should not be excited by any external and delighting object; and although this pleasure does not so vigorously affect the sense, nor act so strongly upon it, yet as it is the greatest of all pleasures, so almost all the Utopians reckon it the foundation and basis of all the other joys of life; since this alone makes one's state of life to be easy and desirable; and when this is wanting, a man is really capable of no other pleasure. They look upon indolence and freedom from pain,

if it does not rise from a perfect health, to be a state of stupidity rather than of pleasure. There has been a controversy in this matter very narrowly canvassed among them: Whether a firm and entire health could be called a pleasure or not? Some have thought that there was no pleasure but that which was excited by some sensible motion in the body. But this opinion has been long run down among them, so that now they do almost all agree in this, that health is the greatest of all bodily pleasures; and that, as there is a pain in sickness, which is as opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health, so they hold that health carries a pleasure along with it. And if any should say that sickness is not really a pain, but that it only carries a pain along with it, they look upon that as a fetch of subtility that does not much alter the matter. So they think it is all one whether it be said that health is in itself a pleasure, or that it begets a pleasure, as fire gives heat, so it be granted that all those whose health is entire have a true pleasure in it; and they reason thus: What is the pleasure of eating, but that a man's health which had been weakened, does, with the assistance of food, drive away hunger, and so recruiting itself, recovers its former vigour? And being thus refreshed, it finds a pleasure in that conflict. And if the conflict is pleasure, the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure, except we will fancy that it becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued, and so does neither know nor rejoice

in its own welfare.

If it is said that health cannot be felt, they absolutely deny that: for what man is in health that does not perceive it when he is awake? Is there any man that is so dull and stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight in health? And what is delight but another name for pleasure?

piness in this pleasure, he must then confess
that he would be the happiest of all men if
he were to lead his life in a perpetual hunger,
thirst, and itching, and by consequence in
perpetual eating, drinking, and scratching
himself; which any one may easily see would
be not only a base, but a miserable state of
life. These are, indeed, the lowest of pleas-
ures, and the least pure; for we can never
relish them but where they are mixed with
the contrary pains. The pain of hunger
must give us the pleasure of eating; and
here the pain outbalances the pleasure; and
as the pain is more vehement, so it lasts
much longer: for, as it is upon us before the
pleasure comes, so it does not cease but with
the pleasure that extinguishes it, and that
goes off with it: so that they think none of
those pleasures are to be valued but as they
are necessary. Yet they rejoice in them,
and with due gratitude acknowledge the ten-
derness of the great author of nature, who
has planted in us appetites, by which these
things that are necessary for our preserva-
tion are likewise made pleasant to us.
how miserable a thing would life be, if these
daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to
be carried off by such bitter drugs as we
must use for those diseases that return sel-
domer upon us!

GEORGE CAVENDISH,

For

gentleman-usher to Cardinal Wolsey, and subsequently to Henry VIII., died 1557, left

in MS. a life of his first-named master, entitled, "The Negotiations of Woolsey, the Great Cardinal of England," Lond., 1641, 4to.

"There is a sincere and impartial adherence to truth, a reality, in Cavendish's narrative, which bespeaks the confidence of his reader, and very But of all pleasures, they esteem those to much increases his pleasure. It is a work without be the most valuable that lie in the mind; pretension, but full of natural eloquence, devoid of and the chief of these are those that arise spoiled by the affectation of that classical manner the formality of a set rhetorical composition, unout of true virtue, and the witness of a good in which all biography and history of old time was conscience. They account health the chief prescribed to be written, and which often divests pleasure that belongs to the body; for they such records of the attraction to be found in the think that the pleasure of eating and drink- conversational style of Cavendish. . . . Our great ing, and all the other delights of the body, poet has literally followed him in several passages are only so far desirable as they give or of his King Henry VIII., merely putting his maintain health. But they are not pleasant importance of the work, as the only sure and auAdd to this the historical language into verse. in themselves, otherwise than as they resist thentic source of information upon many of the those impressions that our natural infirmity most interesting events of that reign; and from is still making upon us; and as a wise man which all historians have largely drawn (through desires rather to avoid diseases than take the secondary medium of Holinshed and Stowe, physic, and to be freed from pain rather than who adopted Cavendish's narrative), and its intrinsic value need not be more fully expressed."to find ease by remedies, so it were a more desirable state not to need this sort of pleasS. W. SINGER: The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, and Metrical Versions from the Original Autograph ure than to be obliged to indulge it. And Manuscript, with Notes and other Illustrations. if any man imagines that there is a real hap-Chiswick, 1825, 2 vols. 8vo, l. p. 50 copies.

FROM RIDLEY'S PITEOUS LAMENTATION OF
THE MISERABLE ESTATE OF THE CHURCH
IN ENGLAND, IN THE TIME OF THE LATE
REVOLT FROM THE GOSPEL, 1566.

Paul that he should be safely conducted out of all danger, and brought to Felix, the Emperor's deputy, whenas both the high priests, the pharisees, and rulers of the Jews had conspired to require judgment of death against him, he being fast in prison, and also more than forty men had sworn each one to other that they would never eat nor drink until they had slain Paul! A thing wonderful, that no reason could have invented, or man could have looked for: God provided Paul his own sister's son, a young inan, that disappointed that conspiracy and all their former conjuration. The manner how the thing came to pass, thou mayest read in the twenty-third of the Acts: I will not be tedious unto thee here with the re

Now, to descend from the Apostles to the martyrs that followed next in Christ's church, and in them likewise to declare how gracious our good God ever hath been to work wonderfully with them which in his cause have been in extreme perils, it were a matter enough to write a long book. I will here name but one man and one woman, that is, Athanasias, the great clerk and godly man, stoutly standing in Christ's cause against the Arians; and that holy woman, Blandina, so constantly in all extreme pains, in the simple confession of Christ. If thou wilt have examples of more, look and thou shalt have both these and a hundred more in Ecclesiastica Historia of Eusebius, and in Tripartita Historia. But for all these examples, both of holy Scripture and of other histories, I fear me the weak man of God, encumbered with the frailty and infirmity of the flesh, will have now and then such thoughts and qualms (as they call them) to run over his heart, and to think thus: All these things which are rehearsed out of the Scripture, I believe to be true, and of the rest truly I do think well, and can believe them also to be true; but all these we must needs grant were special miracles of God, which now in our hands are ceased, we see, and to require them of God's hands, were it not to tempt God?

Of God's gracious aid in extreme perils toward them that put their trust in him, all Scripture is full both old and new. What dangers were the patriarchs often brought into, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but of all other Joseph; and how mercifully were they delivered again! In what perils was Moses when he was fain to fly for the safeguard of his life! And when was he sent again to deliver the Israelites from the servile bondage? Not before they were brought into extreine misery. And when did the Lord mightily deliver his people from Pha-hearsal thereof. raoh's sword? Not before they were brought into such straits that they were so compassed on every side (the main sea on the one side, and the main host on the other), that they could look for none other, (yea, what did they else look for then ?) but either to have been drowned in the sea, or else to have fallen on the edge of Pharaoh his sword. Those judges which wrought most wonderful things in the delivery of the people were ever given when the people were brought to most misery before, as Othoniel, Aioth [Ehud], Sangar, Gedeon, Jepthah, Samson. And so was Saul endued with strength and boldness from above, against the Ammonites, Philistines, and Amalechites, for the defence of the people of God. David likewise felt God's help, most sensibly ever in his extreme persecutions. What shall I speak of the Prophets of God, whom God suffered so oft to be brought into extreme perils, and so mightily delivered them again; as Helias, Heremy, Daniel, Micheas, and Tonas, and many others, whom it were but 100 long to rehearse and set out at large? And did the Lord use his servants otherwise in the new law after Christ's incarnation? Read the Acts of the Apostles and you shall see, no. Were not the Apostles cast into prison, and brought out by the mighty hand of God? Did not the angel deliver Peter out of the strong prison, and bring him out by the iron gates of the city, and set him free? And when, I pray you? Even the same night before Herod appointed to have brought him in judgment for to have slain him, as he had a little before killed James, the brother of John. Paul and Silas, when after they had been sore scourged, and were put into the inner prison, and there were held fast in the stocks; I pray you what appearance was there that the magistrates should be glad to come the next day themselves to them, to desire them to be content, and to depart in peace? Who provided for

Well-beloved brother, I grant such were great wonderful works of God, and we have not seen many such miracles in our time, either for that our sight is not clear (for truly God worketh with us his part in all times) or else because we have not the like faith of them for whose cause God wrought such things, or because after that he had set forth the truth of his doctrine by such miracles then sufficiently, the time of so many miracles to be done was expired withal. Which of these is the most special cause of all other, or whether there be any other, God knoweth: I leave that to God. Bu