Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/126

 I TO REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 63. The cross appears, Christ doth approach, A comfort to us all, For whom to suffer or to die, Is grace celestial. Be therefore of good courage now, In your sharp probation, Which shall you bring to glory great, And mighty consolation. ' If you persevere to the end Of this sharp storm indeed, You shall coufound both foe and friend, And Heaven have for meed.' l ( We must think, ' wrote another, ' more modestly, yet not less hopefully, that we have deserved a great deal more punishment for our faults. Nevertheless, when God suffers us to receive punishment and wrong for his sake, it is a manifest token that he intends to forget our faults ; and no doubt one day's sufferance here of so small grief in this behalf doth discharge a whole year of intolerable punishment in the world to come. We have lost the chief pearl of Christendom, yet we are to hope that by the shedding of his innocent blood God will the sooner appease his wrath against us ; and all men are of that opinion, that the offence and negligence of our forefathers were so great, and our own sins so many, as they must needs be redeemed by the blood of martyrs.' 2 When Latimer was about to die, he said that a fire would that day be kindled in England which would never be put out. That fire is burning now, not in 1 MS. endorsed, ' Letters from a Jesuit to a friend on Campian's con- demnation, 1581 : ' HfSS. Domestic. 1 Eyermann to his brethren, February 6, 1582 : MSS. Ibid.