Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/185



I came next unto my father after, me thoughte it both conuenient and necessary, to shew him your letter. Conuenient, that he might thereby see your loving labour taken for him. Necessarye, that sith he might perceive therby, that if he stande still in this scruple of hys conscience, (as it is at the least wyse called by many that are his frendes and wyfe) all his frendes that seme most able to dooe him good, either shall finally forsake him, or peradventure not be hable in dede to do him anye good at all. And for these causes, at my next being with him after your letter received, when I had a while talked with him, fyrst of his diseases bothe in his breste of olde, and his reynes nowe, by reason of gravell and stone, and of the crampe also that dyvers nights grypeth hym in hys legges, and that I found by his wordes that they wer not much encreased, but continued after theyr manner that they did before, sometime very sore and sometime little grief, and that at that time I found him out of payn, and as one in his case mighte, metelye well minded, after our vii psalmes and the litany, saide, to sit and talke and be merye, begynning first with other thinges, of the good coumfort of my mother, and the good order of my brother, and all my sisters, disposing themself every day more and more to set little by the world, and drawe more and more to God, and that his housholde, hys neighbors, and other good frendes abrode, diligently remembered him in their prayers, I added unto this; I pray God, good father, that their prayers, and ours, and your owne therewith, may purchase of God the grace