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the world our blessed Lord and his apostles, found it in their minds to give sentence against him, a sentence which they well knew consigned him to a dreadful death; and they persuaded themselves, by a delusion at which devils might have smiled, that they were doing the will of Him who refused to condemn any man, and whose vast love made Him lay down His own life, not take that of another, that all mankind might follow the example of His great humility.

Before Sautré was given over to the secular arm, it behoved that he should be degraded from his rank in the Church. This eminently painful operation, accomplished by means of a ceremonial of which every part told with bitterness upon the poor prisoner, was submitted to with a patience worthy of the sufferer. Into the church, wherein were gathered a large company of the bishops and clergy, Sautré was brought, attired in he robes and furniture appertaining to him as a priest. Set in the midst, the observed of all observers, he was gradually denuded of the various emblems of his pastoral authority, prior to being handed over to the tender mercies of the sheriff and his officers.

First, they gave into his hands a chalice and paten,* which were then taken from him, together with the scarlet robe or chasuble which priests only might wear, and in this way his authority as priest was visibly taken away from him. A copy of the Holy Scriptures in Latin, and the deacon's stole or tippet were then taken from him, and he ceased to be a deacon; the alb or surplice, and the maniple were removed, and with them the dignity of sub-deacon; the giving and taking away of a candlestick, a taper, and a small pitcher, showed that the degree of acolyte had been abandoned; and then followed other forms, which signified the completeness of the poor man's degradation. With his book of exorcisms he gave up his power as an exorcist; with his book of daily lessons his task of reader; with a sexton's gown and a church door key his authority as sexton; and then, his priest's cap being removed, the tonsure, or hair lock, was obliterated, and a common hangman's cap was put on his head.

What follows? A scene too awful, too horrible to be minutely described. Let a veil be drawn over the details; let us "provide a charitable covering for the sins of our forefathers." Suffice it to say that, on a gloomy February evening in the year 1401-2, the man we have been describing, the man whose sole crime was that he believed differently from his ecclesiastical masters, and taught men so, was bound with an iron chain to a stake at Smithfield, and burned to death on a spot nearly in front of the present gate of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

He was the first of a long list of men-ay, and women too were included-who were tried by bigotry in the fiery trial of their faith, and showed themselves superior to their fate. Not all the blame must fall on Catholic shoulders. Unhappily, alas! it is the duty of the historian to record that those who might be supposed to have learned tolerance and kindness, if not from the purer faith which they professed, yet in the hard school of persecution through which they had passed, proved themselves almost equally cruel with their adversaries. If the Catholics burned Sautré and Savonarola, Calvin himself burned Servetus; if Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, and many more perished for conscience' sake under "bloody Mary," Joan Bocher and Van Paris were burned to death by order of the founder of Christ's Hospital, and "Good Queen Bess" had as long a list as her sister of victims to the cause of freedom of conscience.

The principle which actuated the destroyers of William Sautré in 1401 actuates the intolerant of all kinds in 1868. Law, custom, and modern habits of thought preclude the rekindling of Smithfield fires; but the old hatreds are not dead, the old evil is still alive; and we are prone, in the absence of chain and fagot, to make these hatreds felt with weapons which cut deeper than swords, whose scathe is worse than the are, and whose bite is as that of the deadly serpent. But what said the apostle of Him in whose name bigotry slew its victims, the apostle of Him who condemned no man? "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.”†

The cup for the wine, and the plate for the bread in the office of Holy Communion.

For Synopsis of Events in the Life and Reign of Richard II., and list of contemporary Sovereigns, see page 159.

LESSONS IN GERMAN.—XI. SECTION XX.-POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS.

THE possessive pronouns mein, sein, etc., as already seen (Sect. XIV.), are rendered absolute possessives by means of the characteristic endings er and es (§ 58. 4).

1. The possessive pronouns are likewise converted into absolute possessives by prefixing to them the definite article, and suffixing the terminations e or ige, as:-Mein Hut ist weiß, und der tein-e ist schwarz; my hat is white, and thine is black. Ihr Band ist roth, und das sein-ige ist blau; her ribbon is red, and his is blue. The termination ige is the more common." Observe, that the absolute possessives mein-er, etc., are inflected like an adjective of

Masculine.

N. Mein-er,
G. Mein-es,
D. Mein-em,
A. Mein-en,

*

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2. When the absolute possessive pronouns do not relate to some noun previously mentioned, they refer, in the plural, to one's relatives or family, and in the neuter singular, to one's property, as :-Das Meine or tas Meinige, my property; tas Deine or das Deinige, thy property; tas Seine or das Seinige, his property; tas Ihre or tas Ihrige, her property, your property, or their property. Die Meinen or tie Meinigen, my family, etc.; tie Deinen or tie Deinigen, thy family, etc.; die Seinen or die Seinigen, his family, etc.

Allmächtig, adj. almighty. Eigenheit, f. peculiarity.

Fehler, m. mistake,

error.

General', m. general.
Gett, m. God.
Hant, f. hand.

VOCABULARY.

Hemt, n. shirt. Kutscher, m. coach

man.

Schlüssel, m. key. Sowohl als, as well

as.

Stempel, m. stamp. Waschfrau, f. washer

woman.

Nehmen, to take.
Obla'te, f. wafer.
Schicksal, n. fate, des-
tiny.
Schlosser,
smith.
RÉSUMÉ OF EXAMPLES.
Whose watch has your mother?
She has hers (or her own).

Weltmeer, n. ocean. m. lock- Wiefe, f. meadow. 3wischen, between.

Wessen Uhr hat Ihre Mutter?
Sie hat die ih'rige.
Haben Sie meine Brille eter die Have you my spectacles or
Ihrige?
3ch habe tie mei'nige.
Jetermann schägt das Sein'ige.

Licht auch Je’termann die Sei'nigen?

yours?

I have mine (or my own). Every man prizes his own (property).

Does every man likewise love his family?

EXERCISE 29.

1. Hat ter Capitän sein over des Generals Schwert? 2. Er hat tas feinige. 3. Haben Sie meine Scheere? 4. Nein, ich habe die meinige. 5.

In the same way are treated Deiner, Deine, Deines, thine; and Seiner, Seine, Seines, his.

They may likewise refer (when the connection makes the application evident) to dependents, as servants, soldiers, subjects, etc.

himself overmuch in such matters, unless the reformers in religion proved themselves to be reformers in the State also; but to Richard, his grandson, these exhortations of the Pope appeared in the light of a duty. Richard agreed to a law which was passed through a Parliament of which the Upper Chamber was at that time far more powerful than the Lower, and was composed of more spiritual than lay peers, by which it was ordered that preachers of heresy should be apprehended and imprisoned" till they will justify them according to the law and reason of Holy Church." No other punishment of a penal nature was permitted during this reign (1377-1399); but when Henry IV. in 1399 usurped the throne, and wanted the support of the clergy to back his bad title, he consented, as the price of their assistance, to a law called the Statute of Heresy, which was intended to crush out effectually the troublesome Wycliffites, who had increased in numbers and audacity during the late king's reign, and were leading many out of the fold of the Catholic Church. The Wycliffites no more wanted to go out of the Catholic Church than John Wesley wanted to go out of the Church of England; but the Catholic Church said to them as the Church of England in effect said to him, "Holding opinions such as these, you are not of us, and wo will have nothing to do with you while you continue to hold them."

Had the Catholic Church stopped there, no one could have complained. Perfect liberty of conscience requires that men shall be free to choose what tenets they will embrace and what reject, but it forbids them to go further and say to those who differ from them: "Think and believe as we do, for if you will not we will burn and hang you." The Church of the day would not act upon the advice given by Gamaliel to the Jews, who wished to persecute the apostles: it could not bear the idea that any one should presume to differ from what almost all Christendom accepted as true. Believing firmly that acceptance of all that the Church taught, and in the system of government which the Church had established, was the only way to salvation, she was grieved beyond measure at the sight of her children going astray, and deemed any means, however violent, to be more than justified by the laudable end of bringing back the wanderers. She hoped to make such an example as would deter fresh truants, and she hoped even for the offenders that God would accept the sufferings she inflicted upon them as an atonement for the sins they had committed against Him, supposing Him to be represented by the Pope and the Roman Church.

How easily does fanaticism of any kind cheat itself into the belief that its cause is God's cause, and that to persecute its own opponents is to do God service. The Church accordingly procured from the king in the year 1400 his assent to a law passed by a Parliament constituted as above described, by which persons who refused to renounce their so-called errors, or relapsing after they had so renounced them, were to be given over by the spiritual authorities to the sheriff, who "the same persons after such sentence promulgate shall receive, and them before the people in an high place see to be burned, that such punishment might strike fear into the minds of others, whereby no such wicked doctrine, and heretical and erroneous opinions, nor their authors, nor fautors (an old English word meaning favourers) in this realm and dominions against the Catholic faith, Christ's law, and determination of Holy Church be sustained or in any wise suffered."

This infamous and dreadful law was the price paid by Henry for the support of the clergy, and the clergy, as has been suggested, believed they were only doing a meritorious thing when they procured the king's signature to the act. For awhile the new power remained like a sword in its sheath; the clergy were almost afraid to handle the new weapon, till taking it out and looking at it with curious and admiring eyes, they perceived that they themselves were not called upon to do any of the dirty work. They were merely to find guilty or not guilty; upon the sheriff devolved the invidious task of execution. grew bolder, and the year following that in which the act was passed, the Convocation of the province of Canterbury-an assembly of which all the bishops and abbots were members, and in which the inferior clergy appeared by their representatives-determined to draw the sword against those who dissented from their religious opinions.

So they

Some persons who were brought before them were so terrified

at the danger of standing firm that they recanted and renounced their belief rather than go to the stake. Let no man mock them for their weakness, but rather pity them, as men who might excusably fear lest they should be doing wrong in departing from the faith as delivered to them and as taught by the existing Church, which was presumed to have the Holy Ghost for its guide, and as men-many of them fathers and husbands who feared to wrench asunder the ties which bound them to this world, who looked in their children's faces, and who listened to the entreaty of their wives, and then failed to pronounce the words which would make the children fatherless and the wives widows. Others there were, cast in another mould, who by their nature could not accept life as the price of their creed, who looked upon the offer with scorn, and asked if that were all they were to have in exchange for their souls. Equally enthusiastic with their persecutors, though in another direction, they made this matter "very stuff o' the conscience," and resolutely refused to abjure. Not among the physically strong only were these men found; indeed, the delicate and sensitive, and the men with highly strung nerves, were the boldest and most courageous professors of their faith. Such esteemed the claims of wife and child, of kindred and friends, as merely so many temptations, strong temptations no doubt, which must be overcome, and they pointed for their justification to the words of the Saviour, where He declared that the man who loved wife and children and friends more than Him, was not worthy of Him. and they clung exultingly to the assurance, "There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."

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Of this class was William Sautré, priest of St. Osith's. It is not told us if he was a married man (the rule by which celibacy was the appointed lot of the clergy was not yet of universal application)-indeed, the chroniclers of the time speak very little about him and his case, one of them, Thomas Walsingham. monk of St. Alban's, merely mentioning that a certain false priest was burnt in Smithfield in the sight of many people." But married or not, he seems to have been a very good and honest man, bold to speak and preach the truth, according to his vision of it, in his parish church of St. Osith, Wood Street, in the City of London. His character, as far as we know it, or can judge of it from his behaviour before his judges and at h execution, would seem to have been not unlike that of the "poor parson of a town," of whom Chaucer wrote in 1380. "To draw folk to heaven by fairnesse,

By good ensample was his business.

*

A better priest I trow there nowhere none is.
He waited after no pomp ne reverence,
Ne maked him a spiced conscience,

But Christ's lore and His apostles twelve

He taught, and first he followed it himself.”

His opinions, however, openly expressed, were in direct opposition to what the Church authorities permitted, and were in strict accordance with the teaching of Wycliffe. He was cited to appear before his bishop, the Bishop of London, and was ordered to renounce his error; but this proceeding proving ineffectual, and his preaching continuing to attract many, he was summoned before the Convocation of the province of Canterbury, and put upon his trial for heresy, as in a court of justice.

Earnestly the charge was pressed, and boldly was it met, till argument for the defence was answered with invective by the prosecution, and the prisoner stood loaded with obloquy. This however, was not hard for a man like Sautré to bear; the most difficult and trying part for him, the real temptation, lay in the entreaties of his friends-and they were many-and the friendly prayers even of his judges, that he would be converted and live. But even against such mighty levers the man's mind was proof. "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye," was the answer he gave back. and nothing could persuade him but that he spoke by the inspi ration of God.

Faithful as his friends called him, obstinate heretic as his enemies called him, William Sautré was ready to die, if need were, for his religion. Horrible to relate, that sacrifice was required of him. The men who were supposed to represent to

the world our blessed Lord and his apostles, found it in their minds to give sentence against him, a sentence which they well knew consigned him to a dreadful death; and they persuaded themselves, by a delusion at which devils might have smiled, that they were doing the will of Him who refused to condemn any man, and whose vast love made Him lay down His own life, not take that of another, that all mankind might follow the example of His great humility.

Before Sautré was given over to the secular arm, it behoved that he should be degraded from his rank in the Church. This eminently painful operation, accomplished by means of a ceremonial of which every part told with bitterness upon the poor prisoner, was submitted to with a patience worthy of the sufferer. Into the church, wherein were gathered a large company of the bishops and clergy, Sautré was brought, attired in he robes and furniture appertaining to him as a priest. Set in the midst, the observed of all observers, he was gradually denuded of the various emblems of his pastoral authority, prior to being handed over to the tender mercies of the sheriff and his officers.

First, they gave into his hands a chalice and paten,* which were then taken from him, together with the scarlet robe or chasable which priests only might wear, and in this way his authority as priest was visibly taken away from him. A copy of the Holy Scriptures in Latin, and the deacon's stole or cippet were then taken from him, and he ceased to be a deacon; the alb or surplice, and the maniple were removed, and with them the dignity of sub-deacon; the giving and taking away of a candlestick, a taper, and a small pitcher, showed that the degree of acolyte had been abandoned; and then followed other forms, which signified the completeness of the poor man's degradation. With his book of exorcisms he gave up his power as an exorcist; with his book of daily lessons his task of reader; with a sexton's gown and a church door key his authority as sexton; and then, his priest's cap being removed, the tonsure, or hair lock, was obliterated, and a common hangman's cap was put on his head.

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pro

What follows ? A scene too awful, too horrible to be minutely described. Let a veil be drawn over the details; let us vide a charitable covering for the sins of our forefathers." Suffice it to say that, on a gloomy February evening in the year 1401-2, the man we have been describing, the man whose sole crime was that he believed differently from his ecclesiastical masters, and taught men so, was bound with an iron chain to a stake at Smithfield, and burned to death on a spot nearly in front of the present gate of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

He was the first of a long list of men-ay, and women too were included-who were tried by bigotry in the fiery trial of their faith, and showed themselves superior to their fate. Not all the blame must fall on Catholic shoulders. Unhappily, alas! it is the duty of the historian to record that those who might be supposed to have learned tolerance and kindness, if not from the purer faith which they professed, yet in the hard school of persecution through which they had passed, proved themselves almost equally cruel with their adversaries. If the Catholics burned Sautré and Savonarola, Calvin himself burned Servetus; if Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, and many more perished for conscience' sake under "bloody Mary," Joan Bocher and Van Paris were burned to death by order of the founder of Christ's Hospital, and "Good Queen Bess" had as long a list as her sister of victims to the cause of freedom of conscience.

The principle which actuated the destroyers of William Sautré in 1401 actuates the intolerant of all kinds in 1868. Law, custom, and modern habits of thought preclude the rekindling of Smithfield fires; but the old hatreds are not dead, the old evil is still alive; and we are prone, in the absence of chain and fagot, to make these hatreds felt with weapons which cnt deeper than swords, whose scathe is worse than the fre, and whose bite is as that of the deadly serpent. But what said the apostle of Him in whose name bigotry slew its victims, the apostle of Him who condemned no man? "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.”†

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LESSONS IN GERMAN.—XI. SECTION XX.-POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS.

THE possessive pronouns mein, sein, etc., as already seen (Sect. XIV.), are rendered absolute possessives by means of the characteristic endings er and es (§ 58. 4).

1. The possessive pronouns are likewise converted into absolute possessives by prefixing to them the definite article, and suffixing the terminations e or ige, as:-Mein Hut ist weiß, und der tein-e ist schwarz; my hat is white, and thine is black. Ihr Band ist roth, und das sein-ige ist blau; her ribbon is red, and his is blue. The termination ige is the more common.* Observe, that the absolute possessives mein-er, etc., are inflected like an adjective of

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2. When the absolute possessive pronouns do not relate to some noun previously mentioned, they refer, in the plural, to one's relatives or family,† and in the neuter singular, to one's property, as :-Das Meine or tas Meinige, my property; das Deine or tas Deinige, thy property; tas Seine or das Seinige, his property; das Ihre or tas brige, her property, your property, or their property. Die Meinen or tie Meinigen, my family, etc.; tie Deinen or tie Deinigen, thy family, etc.; tie Seinen or tie Seinigen, his family, etc.

Allmächtig, adj. almighty. Eigenheit, f. peculia

rity. Fehler, m. mistake,

error.

General', m. general.
Gott, m. God.
Hant, f. hand.

VOCABULARY. Hemt, n. shirt. Kutscher, m. coach

man.

Nehmen, to take. Obla'te, f. wafer. Schicksal, n. fate, destiny.

Schlüssel, m. key. Sowohl als, as well

as.

Stempel, m. stamp. Waschfrau, f. washer

woman.

Weltmeer, n. ocean. Schlosser, m. lock- Wicie, f. meadow. 3wischen, between.

smith.

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In the same way are treated Deiner, Deine, Deincs, thine; and Seiner, Seine, Seines, his.

They may likewise refer (when the connection makes the application evident) to dependents, as servants, soldiers, subjects, etc.

himself overmuch in such matters, unless the reformers in religion proved themselves to be reformers in the State also; but to Richard, his grandson, these exhortations of the Pope appeared in the light of a duty. Richard agreed to a law which was passed through a Parliament of which the Upper Chamber was at that time far more powerful than the Lower, and was composed of more spiritual than lay peers, by which it was ordered that preachers of heresy should be apprehended and imprisoned "till they will justify them according to the law and reason of Holy Church." No other punishment of a penal nature was permitted during this reign (1377-1399); but when Henry IV. in 1399 usurped the throne, and wanted the support of the clergy to back his bad title, he consented, as the price of their assistance, to a law called the Statute of Heresy, which was intended to crush out effectually the troublesome Wycliffites, who had increased in numbers and audacity during the late king's reign, and were leading many out of the fold of the Catholic Church. The Wycliffites no more wanted to go out of the Catholic Church than John Wesley wanted to go out of the Church of England; but the Catholic Church said to them as the Church of England in effect said to him, "Holding opinions such as these, you are not of us, and we will have nothing to do with you while you continue to hold them."

Had the Catholic Church stopped there, no one could have complained. Perfect liberty of conscience requires that men shall be free to choose what tenets they will embrace and what reject, but it forbids them to go further and say to those who differ from them: "Think and believe as we do, for if you will not we will burn and hang you." The Church of the day would not act upon the advice given by Gamaliel to the Jews, who wished to persecute the apostles: it could not bear the idea that any one should presume to differ from what almost all Christendom accepted as true. Believing firmly that acceptance of all that the Church taught, and in the system of government which the Church had established, was the only way to salvation, she was grieved beyond measure at the sight of her children going astray, and deemed any means, however violent, to be more than justified by the laudable end of bringing back the wanderers. She hoped to make such an example as would deter fresh truants, and she hoped even for the offenders that God would accept the sufferings she inflicted upon them as an atonement for the sins they had committed against Him, supposing Him to be represented by the Pope and the Roman Church.

How easily does fanaticism of any kind cheat itself into the belief that its cause is God's cause, and that to persecute its own opponents is to do God service. The Church accordingly procured from the king in the year 1400 his assent to a law passed by a Parliament constituted as above described, by which persons who refused to renounce their so-called errors, or relapsing after they had so renounced them, were to be given over by the spiritual authorities to the sheriff, who "the same persons after such sentence promulgate shall receive, and them before the people in an high place see to be burned, that such punishment might strike fear into the minds of others, whereby no such wicked doctrine, and heretical and erroneous opinions, nor their authors, nor fautors (an old English word meaning favourers) in this realm and dominions against the Catholic faith, Christ's law, and determination of Holy Church be sustained or in any wise suffered."

This infamous and dreadful law was the price paid by Henry for the support of the clergy, and the clergy, as has been suggested, believed they were only doing a meritorious thing when they procured the king's signature to the act. For awhile the new power remained like a sword in its sheath; the clergy were almost afraid to handle the new weapon, till taking it out and looking at it with curious and admiring eyes, they perceived that they themselves were not called upon to do any of the dirty work. They were merely to find guilty or not guilty; upon the sheriff devolved the invidious task of execution. So they grew bolder, and the year following that in which the act was passed, the Convocation of the province of Canterbury-an assembly of which all the bishops and abbots were members, and in which the inferior clergy appeared by their representatives-determined to draw the sword against those who dissented from their religious opinions.

Some persons who were brought before them were so terrified

at the danger of standing firm that they recanted and renounced their belief rather than go to the stake. Let no man mock them for their weakness, but rather pity them, as men who might excusably fear lest they should be doing wrong in departing from the faith as delivered to them and as taught by the existing Church, which was presumed to have the Holy Ghost for its guide, and as men-many of them fathers and husbands who feared to wrench asunder the ties which bound them to this world, who looked in their children's faces, and who listened to the entreaty of their wives, and then failed to pronounce the words which would make the children fatherless and the wives widows. Others there were, cast in another mould, who by their nature could not accept life as the price of their creed, who looked upon the offer with scorn, and asked if that were all they were to have in exchange for their souls. Equally enthusiastic with their persecutors, though in another direction, they made this matter "very stuff o' the conscience," and resolutely refused to abjure. Not among the physically strong only were these men found; indeed, the delicate and sensitive, and the men with highly strung nerves, were the boldest and most courageous professors of their faith. Such esteemed the claims of wife and child, of kindred and friends, as merely so many temptations, strong temptations no doubt, which must be overcome, and they pointed for their justification to the words of the Saviour, where He declared that the man who loved wife and children and friends more than Him, was not worthy of Him, and they clung exultingly to the assurance, "There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting."

Of this class was William Sautré, priest of St. Osith's. It is not told us if he was a married man (the rule by which celibacy was the appointed lot of the clergy was not yet of universal application)-indeed, the chroniclers of the time speak very little about him and his case, one of them, Thomas Walsingham, monk of St. Alban's, merely mentioning that "a certain false priest was burnt in Smithfield in the sight of many people." But married or not, he seems to have been a very good and honest man, bold to speak and preach the truth, according to his vision of it, in his parish church of St. Osith, Wood Street, in the City of London. His character, as far as we know it, or can judge of it from his behaviour before his judges and at his execution, would seem to have been not unlike that of the "poor parson of a town," of whom Chaucer wrote in 1380. "To draw folk to heaven by fairnesse, By good ensample was his business.

A better priest I trow there nowhere none is.
He waited after no pomp ne reverence,
Ne maked him a spiced conscience,
But Christ's lore and His apostles twelve

He taught, and first he followed it himself."

His opinions, however, openly expressed, were in direct opposition to what the Church authorities permitted, and were in strict accordance with the teaching of Wycliffe. He was cited to appear before his bishop, the Bishop of London, and was ordered to renounce his error; but this proceeding proving ineffectual, and his preaching continuing to attract many, he was summoned before the Convocation of the province of Canterbury, and put upon his trial for heresy, as in a court of justice.

Earnestly the charge was pressed, and boldly was it met, till argument for the defence was answered with invective by the prosecution, and the prisoner stood loaded with obloquy. This, however, was not hard for a man like Sautré to bear; the most difficult and trying part for him, the real temptation, lay in the entreaties of his friends-and they were many-and the friendly prayers even of his judges, that he would be converted and live. But even against such mighty levers the man's mind was proof. "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye," was the answer he gave back, and nothing could persuade him but that he spoke by the insplration of God.

Faithful as his friends called him, obstinate heretic as his enemies called him, William Sautré was ready to die, if need were, for his religion. Horrible to relate, that sacrifice Wa required of him. The men who were supposed to represent to

the world our blessed Lord and his apostles, found it in their minds to give sentence against him, a sentence which they well knew consigned him to a dreadful death; and they persuaded themselves, by a delusion at which devils might have smiled, that they were doing the will of Him who refused to condemn any man, and whose vast love made Him lay down His own life, not take that of another, that all mankind might follow the example of His great humility.

Before Sautré was given over to the secular arm, it behoved that he should be degraded from his rank in the Church. This eminently painful operation, accomplished by means of a ceremonial of which every part told with bitterness upon the poor prisoner, was submitted to with a patience worthy of the sufferer. Into the church, wherein were gathered a large company of the bishops and clergy, Sautré was brought, attired in he robes and furniture appertaining to him as a priest. Set in the midst, the observed of all observers, he was gradually denuded of the various emblems of his pastoral authority, prior to being handed over to the tender mercies of the sheriff and his officers.

First, they gave into his hands a chalice and paten, which were then taken from him, together with the scarlet robe or chasuble which priests only might wear, and in this way his authority as priest was visibly taken away from him. A copy of the Holy Scriptures in Latin, and the deacon's stole or tippet were then taken from him, and he ceased to be a deacon; the alb or surplice, and the maniple were removed, and with them the dignity of sub-deacon; the giving and taking away of a candlestick, a taper, and a small pitcher, showed that the degree of acolyte had been abandoned; and then followed other forms, which signified the completeness of the poor man's degradation. With his book of exorcisms he gave up his power as an exorcist; with his book of daily lessons his task of reader; with a sexton's gown and a church door key his authority as sexton; and then, his priest's cap being removed, the tonsure, or hair lock, was obliterated, and a common hangman's cap was put on his head.

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What follows? A scene too awful, too horrible to be minutely described. Let a veil be drawn over the details; let us vide a charitable covering for the sins of our forefathers." Suffice it to say that, on a gloomy February evening in the year 1401-2, the man we have been describing, the man whose sole crime was that he believed differently from his ecclesiastical masters, and taught men so, was bound with an iron chain to a stake at Smithfield, and burned to death on a spot nearly in front of the present gate of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

He was the first of a long list of men-ay, and women too were included-who were tried by bigotry in the fiery trial of their faith, and showed themselves superior to their fate. Not all the blame must fall on Catholic shoulders. Unhappily, alas! it is the duty of the historian to record that those who might be supposed to have learned tolerance and kindness, if not from the purer faith which they professed, yet in the hard school of persecution through which they had passed, proved themselves almost equally cruel with their adversaries. If the Catholics burned Sautré and Savonarola, Calvin himself burned Servetus; if Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, and many more perished for conscience' sake under "bloody Mary," Joan Bocher and Van Paris were burned to death by order of the founder of Christ's Hospital, and "Good Queen Bess" had as long a list as her sister of victims to the cause of freedom of conscience.

The principle which actuated the destroyers of William Santré in 1401 actuates the intolerant of all kinds in 1868. Law, custom, and modern habits of thought preclude the rekindling of Smithfield fires; but the old hatreds are not dead, the old evil is still alive; and we are prone, in the absence of chain and fagot, to make these hatreds felt with weapons which cut deeper than swords, whose scathe is worse than the fire, and whose bite is as that of the deadly serpent. But what said the apostle of Him in whose name bigotry slew its victims, the apostle of Him who condemned no man?" Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you."t

LESSONS IN GERMAN.-XI. SECTION XX.-POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS.

THE possessive pronouns mein, sein, etc., as already seen (Sect. XIV.), are rendered absolute possessives by means of the characteristic endings er and es (§ 58. 4).

1. The possessive pronouns are likewise converted into absolute possessives by prefixing to them the definite article, and suffixing the terminations e or ige, as:-Mein Hut ist weiß, und der tein-e ist schwarz; my hat is white, and thine is black. Ihr Band ist roth, und das sein-ige ist blau; her ribbon is red, and his is blue. The termination ige is the more common.* Observe, that the absolute possessives mein-cr, etc., are inflected like an adjective of

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2. When the absolute possessive pronouns do not relate to some noun previously mentioned, they refer, in the plural, to one's relatives or family,t and in the neuter singular, to one's property, as :-Das Meine or das Meinige, my property; tas Deine or das Deinige, thy property; das Seine or das Seinige, his property; bas Ihre or bas 3hrige, her property, your property, or their property. Die Meinen or tie Meinigen, my family, etc.; tie Deinen or tie Deinigen, thy family, etc.; tic Seinen or die Seinigen, his family, etc.

Allmächtig, adj. almighty. Eigenheit, f. peculiarity.

Fehler, m. mistake,

error.

General', m. general.
Gott, m. God.
Hant, f. hand.

VOCABULARY. Hemt, n. shirt. Kutscher, m. coach

man.

Nehmen, to take.
bla'te, f. wafer.
Schicksal, n. fate, des-

tiny.
Schlosser, m. lock-
smith.

RÉSUMÉ OF EXAMPLES.

Wessen Uhr hat Ihre Mutter? Sie hat die ih'rige.

Haben Sie meine Brille oder Ihrige?

3ch habe tie mei'nige. Jetermann schäßt das Sein'ige.

Schlüssel, m. key. Sowohl als, as well

as.

Stempel, m. stamp. Waschfrau, f. washer

woman.

Weltmeer, n. ocean. Wiefe, f. meadow. 3wischen, between.

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Whose watch has your mother? She has hers (or her own). tie Have you my spectacles or yours?

Liebt auch Je'termann die Sei'nigen?

I have mine (or my own). Every man prizes his own (property).

Does every man likewise love his family?

EXERCISE 29.

1. Hat der Capitän sein oder des Generals Schwert? 2. Er hat bas feinige. 3. Haben Sie meine Scheere? 4. Nein, ich habe die meinige. 5.

In the same way are treated Deiner, Deine, Deines, thine; and Seiner, Seine, Seines, his.

y likewise refer (when the connection makes the applicalependents, as servants, soldiers, subjects, etc.

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