Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/475

1536.] and the safe exhortations of refugees, inciting domestic rebellions, the dangers of which they have no intention of sharing, are a form of treason which may usually be despised. But it is otherwise when the refugee becomes a foreign agent of his faction, and not only threatens to invite invasion, but converts his menace into act. When the pages which follow were printed, they seemed of such grave moment that they were extracted and circulated as a pamphlet in the German States. The translation, therefore, will now adhere closely to the text.

'I call to witness,' he went on, 'that love of my country which is engrafted in me by nature—that love of the Church which is given to me by the Son of God—did I hear that the Emperor was on the seas, on his way against Constantinople, I would know no rest till I was at his feet—I would call to him were he in the very narrows of the Bosphorus—I would force myself into his presence—I would address him thus: 'Cæsar,' I would say, 'what is this which you are doing? Whither are you leading this mighty army? Would you subdue the enemies of Christendom? Oh! then, turn, turn your sails. Go where a worse peril is threatening—where the wound is fresh, and where a foe presses more fearful far than the Turk. You count it a noble thing to break the chains of Christian captives; and noble, indeed, it is. But more glorious is it to rescue from eternal damnation the many thousand souls who are torn from the Church's bosom, and to bring them back to the faith of Christ. What will you have gained when