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His wife yet came to the prison-gate | Dear wife, be merry in the mercies of with her young child in her arms, to our Christ, and ye also, my dear friends: visit her husband. The keeper, though pray for us, every body. We be shortly for his charge he durst not suffer her to to be dispatched hence to our good come into the prison, yet did he take Christ. Amen. Amen. Wife, I would the little babe out of her arms, and you sent me my shirt,' which you know brought him unto his father; Laurence whereunto it is consecrated. Let it be Saunders seeing him, rejoiced greatly, sewed down on both the sides, and not saying that he rejoiced more to have open. O, my heavenly Father, look such a boy, than he should if two thou- upon me in the face of thy Christ, or sand pounds were given him. And else I shall not be able to abide thy unto the standers by, which praised the countenance, such is my filthiness. He goodliness of the child, he said, What will do so, and therefore I will not be man, fearing God, would not lose his afraid what sin, death, hell, and damnalife present, rather than, by prolonging tion can do against me. Oh wife, always it here, he should adjudge this boy to remember the Lord. God bless you! be a bastard, his wife a whore, and Yea, he will bless thee, good wife, and himself a whoremonger? Yea, if there thy poor boy also; only cleave thou unto were no other cause for which a man him, and he will give thee all things. of my estate should lose his life, yet Pray, pray, pray." (Fox's Martyrs, iii. who would not give it to avouch this 118; Letters of the Martyrs, 206.) Tynchild to be legitimate, and his marriage dale, writing to Frith, then in the Tower, to be lawful and holy? says, (Works, 453; Fox, ii. 307,) "Fear not threatening, therefore, neither be overcome with sweet words; with which twain the hypocrites shall assail you; neither let the persuasions of worldly wisdom bear rule in your heart; no, though they be your friends that counsel you. Let Bilney be a warning to you. Let not their visure beguile your eyes. Let not your body faint. He that endureth to the end shall be saved. If the pain be above your strength, remember, Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will give it you. And pray to your Father in that name, and he will ease your pain or shorten it. The Lord of This good man was afterwards con- peace, of hope, and of faith, be with you. demned to death, and sent to Coventry Amen." And again: "Two have sufto be burnt. From the length of time fered at Antwerp, &c. See, you are not during which he was in prison, he had alone: be cheerful, and remember that, the opportunity of addressing many among the hardhearted in England, there letters to his friends, particularly to his is a number reserved for grace; for whose wife, which are printed in the Acts and sake, if need be, you must be ready to Mon., and in the letters of the Martyrs. suffer." He then gives some account Among a vast number of others, the of the printing of Joye's Bible, and ends, following occurs addressed to his wife," Sir, your wife is well content with the wherein allusion is made to a shirt, will of God, and would not for her sake which seems to have been prepared for have the glory of God hindered. William his execution. There is no date to it. Tyndale." It is addressed "To his wife and other of his friends."

"I do, good reader, recite this saying, not only to let thee see what he thought of priests' marriage, but chiefly to let all married couples and parents learn to bear in their bosoms true affections: natural, yet seasoned with the true salt of the Spirit, unfeignedly and thoroughly mortified to do the natural works and offices of married couples and parents, so long as with their doing they may keep Christ with a free confessing faith in a conscience unfoil: otherwise both they and their own lives are so to be forsaken, as Christ required them to be denied, and given in his cause."

99

1 Rawlins White, fisherman, desired his wife to send him his wedding garment or shirt, in which "Grace and comfort in Christ. Amen. he was afterwards burnt. Fox, iii. 181.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.

B. C.

55. Julius Cæsar invades Britain.

A. D.

44. Claudius invades Britain.

50. Caractacus captive at Rome.

61. Anglesey taken by Suetonius.

67. St. Peter and St. Paul put to death at Rome.

80. Conquests of Agricola in Britain. 120. Adrian's wall built.

167-76. King Lucius embraces Christianity. 208. Severus in Britain. The wall between the Forth and Clyde built in the next year. 286. Carausius usurps the government in Britain.

301. Martyrdom of St. Alban.

307. Constantine emperor of Rome. 314. The Council of Arles.

325. The Council of Nice.

347. The Council of Sardica.

359. The Council of Ariminum.

383. Maximus takes the flower of the British forces from England.

416. The Pelagian heresy condemned in Africa.

427. The Romans finally leave Britain. 449. Hengist and Horsa land in England. 457. The kingdom of Kent, the first of the Heptarchy, established.

476. Rome taken by the Heruli. 493. St. Patrick, who converted Ireland, dies. 515. The supposed date of King Arthur. 560. Gildas, the first English historian, flou rished.

A. D.

582. The kingdom of Mercia, the last of the Heptarchy, established.

586. The British church had retired into Wales.

596. Augustin comes to Thanet.

601. The meeting of the Saxon and British churches in Worcestershire.

622. Era of the Hegyra, or flight of Mohammed.

664. The Council of Whitby.

678. Sussex, the last of the Heptarchy, converted to Christianity.

730. The edict of Leo Isaurus against image worship.

Origin of the civil dominion of the popes. 735. The Venerable Bede dies.

754. The pope re-established in his temporal power by Pepin.

787. The Danes invade England. Lichfield made an archbishopric. The second Council of Nice.

872. Alfred begins his reign.

880. Schism between the Latin and Greek churches.

934. The battle of Burnanberg placed all England under Athelstan. 940. Howel Dha, king of Wales. 996. The publication of Elfric's Homily against Transubstantiation. 1013. Sweno, king of England and Denmark. 1041. Edward the Confessor.

1059. The Waldenses separated from Rome. 1066. Harold II. conquered at Battle.

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