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he so brake his leg and bruised his old bones that he never came in pulpit more."

More prosperous days, however, were about to dawn on Latimer. Old Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, died this year; and in the following year (1533) Cranmer was elevated to the primacy. This distinguished prelate, destined to take so active a lead in the progress of the Reformation, to carry it on with. his own advance of opinion to a higher and more Scriptural expression, and finally to crown the labours of his life by martyrdom along with Latimer and Ridley, had been a Cambridge student of about the same standing as our reformer.* Whether or not early friends, they were clearly known to each other. Cranmer understood well Latimer's worth; and when raised to his exalted position, he extended towards him his protection as Primate, and entered into the most confidential relations with him. It was now no longer, therefore, a time of persecution with the unresting rector of West Kington; the frown of episcopal authority lay on him no more, and friars and priests, Hubberdin and Dr Powel of Salisbury, and all his other enemies, were forced to retreat, or yield to the powers now intrusted to him. At the instance and request of Latimer, we are told that "Cranmer was in the habit of licensing divers to preach within his province;" and in his own district the reformer was empowered to deal with preachers, and

* Cranmer was born at Aslacton, in Nottinghamshire, in 1489, and entered Jesus College, Cambridge, at the age of fourteen, only a year in advance of Latimer in each case. He took his degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1523, just in the heat of Latimer's first reforming zeal as a university preacher.

even to withdraw their licenses if he saw fit to do so. Latimer, moreover, was recalled to the discharge of his previous duties at the Court, and admitted to preach before the King on all the Wednesdays of Lent 1534.

This renewed intercourse with his sovereign probably served to strengthen Henry's liking for him, and to bring about the important result which followed in the subsequent year. Cromwell is mentioned by Foxe as particularly concerned in Latimer's promotion to a bishopric, and we may well believe so. The astute secretary and vicar-general, the enemy of monks and the intrepid friend of the new movement in all its directions, must have recognised a congenial spirit and fellow-labourer in the great preacher. They were worthy allies, and trode with equal courage, although swayed by somewhat different impulses, the same perilous path terminating in death; as noble work commonly did in that unhappy time.

Latimer was consecrated Bishop of Worcester in the autumn of 1535, and in the June of the following year we behold him in a position, perhaps, save the last of all, the grandest and most trying in his whole life. The Convocation assembled on the 9th of June 1536, the nation heaving with the excitement of coming change; the clergy sullen with feelings of affront and injury; the great question of reform in all its branches staring them in the face. The fabric of ecclesiastical abuse had been already rudely shaken, but it was obvious that things could not remain as they were, and that further and more extensive invasions of clerical privilege must come. It was at the request

* Cranmer's Remains, edit. Jenkyns, vol. i. p. 121.

of Cranmer that Latimer, in these circumstances, undertook the office of opening the Convocation with two sermons, which have been preserved; and which, viewed in the light of the situation in which they were uttered, are among the boldest sermons ever preached. They ring fresh and powerful in our hearts as we read them now, and think of the scowling faces that must have looked upon the preacher from priest's hood and abbot's mitre. Mr Froude has pictured the scene with such rare spirit and grouping of impressive effects, that we cannot venture to touch it save in his words.

"There were assembled in St Paul's on this occasion, besides the bishops," he says, "mitred abbots, meditating the treason for which, before many months were past, their quartered limbs would be rotting by the highways; earnest sacramentarians making ready for the stake; the spirits of the two ages, the past and the future, in fierce collision; and above them all, in his vicar-general's chair, sat Cromwell, the angry waters lashing round him, but, proud and powerful, lording over the storm. The present hour was his. The enemies' turn in due time would come also. The mass had been sung; the roll of the organ had died away. It was the time for the sermon, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, rose into the pulpit. Nine-tenths of all those eyes which were then fixed on him, would have glistened with delight could they have looked instead upon his burning. The whole crowd of passionate men were compelled by a changed world to listen quietly while he shot his bitter arrows at them. His object on the present occasion was to tell the clergy what especially he thought of themselves; and

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Latimer was a plain speaker. They had no good opinion of him. His opinion of them was very bad. His text was from the 16th chapter of St Luke's Gospel : The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.'" He then presents his readers with a summary of the sermons, which however, we shall not attempt to do. Latimer's words, when they are telling, do not bear to be summarised, however they may be extracted. One must read them in their natural quaintness and colour in order to feel their right force-the vivid and rapid impress which they make upon the mind-like a rain of rattling hail upon the ground.

The conclusion of the second and longer sermon, rising into a strain of sweeping ironical urgency that must at once have awed and galled the hearts of many who heard him, will afford a good specimen of their boldness and power. "If there be nothing to be amended and redressed, my lords, be of good cheer-be merry-and at the least, because we have nothing else to do. Let us reason the matter how we may be richer; let us fall to some pleasant communication. After, let us go home even as good as we came hither-that is, right-begotten children of the world, and utterly worldlings. And while we live here, let us all make bone cheer (bonne chère); for after this life there is small pleasure, little mirth for us to hope for, if now there be nothing to be changed in our fashions. Let us not say, as St Peter did, 'Our end approacheth nigh:' this is an heavy hearing; but let us say as the evil servant said, 'It will be long ere my master come.' This is pleasant. Let us beat our fellows; let us eat and

drink with drunkards. Surely as oft as we do not take away the abuse of things, so oft we beat our fellows. As oft as we give not the people their true food, so oft we beat our fellows. As oft as we let them die in superstition, so oft we beat them. To be short, as oft as we blind lead them blind, so oft we beat, and grievously beat, our fellows. When we welter in pleasures and idleness, then we eat and drink with drunkards. But God will come, God will come; He will not tarry long away. He will come upon such a day as we nothing look for Him, and at such hour as we know not. He will come and cut us in pieces; He will reward us as He doth the hypocrites. He will set us where wailing shall be, my brethren; where gnashing of teeth shall be, my brethren. And let here be the end of our tragedy, if ye will. . . . . But if ye will not thus be vexed, be ye not the children of the world. If we will not die eternally, live not worldly. Come, go to, leave the love of your profit, study for the glory and profit of Christ: seek in your consultations such things as pertain to Christ, and bring forth at the last somewhat that may please Christ. Feed ye tenderly, with all diligence, the flock of Christ. Preach truly the word of God. Love the light, walk in the light, and so be ye the children of the light while ye are in the world, that ye may shine in the world that is to come, bright as the Son with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, to whom be all honour, praise, and glory.-Amen."

The work of the Convocation thus opened was in many respects memorable. In this year of 1536, the same year in which Calvin entered Geneva, the

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