Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/232

212 moving, the dark sentinel of orthodoxy was stationed with its flaming sword; and in a little time all cowards, all who had adopted the new opinions with motives less pure than that deep zeal and love which alone entitle human beings to constitute themselves champions of God, flinched into their proper nothingness, and left the battle to the brave and the good.

The feelings with which the bill was received by the world may be gathered most readily from two letters—one written by an English nobleman, who may be taken to have represented the sentiments of the upper classes in this country; the other written by Philip Melancthon, speaking in the name of Germany and of English Protestantism struggling to be born.

The signature and the address of the first are lost; but the contents indicate the writer's rank.

'For news here, I assure you, never prince showed himself so wise a man, so well learned, and so catholic, as the King hath done in this Parliament. With my pen I cannot express his marvellous goodness, which is come to such effect that we shall have an Act of Parliament so spiritual that I think none shall dare to say that in the blessed sacrament of the altar doth remain either bread or wine after the consecration; nor that a priest may have a wife; nor that it is necessary to receive our Maker sub utrâque specie; nor that private masses should not be used as they have been; nor that it is not necessary to have auricular