expressions of John of Salisbury, testifying the devoted intrepidity of that generous friend of the holy martyr, in the same sacred cause. To the bishop of Exeter he writes in these terms: " If it be a question of making my peace with the king in your presence, I beseech you to take care that the form agreed upon be such as not to involve me in the least stain of perfidy or baseness, for otherwise I would rather remain for ever in banishment. If it be required from me to deny my archbishop, which no one as yet has done, far be it from me to be either the first or last to acquiesce in such turpitude. I have been faithful to my lord archbishop, but only conscientiously so, and with a saving of the king's honour, against whom, if any one should say that I was guilty, if I cannot produce a good excuse to his honour, I am prepared to amend as far as is consistent with justice. For the Searcher of hearts, and the Judge of words and works knows that oftener and more severely than any one else, I admonished the archbishop not to provoke him unadvisedly; since many things were to be dispensed with in consideration of place and times and persons."* Again, to Raimund of Poitiers he says, "If my peace is to be made with the king, it must be in such a form as not to offend God or tarnish my name; and if it can be so made, I will thank God, and you, and every one who contributes to it; but if oaths be required, my lord bishop knows with what subtle reverence, I am bound in such matters. I can never swear in that prescription of words, or rather proscription of salvation, which, as I hear, is required and admitted by others, in which there is no mention made of saving God, or the law, or our order; and who but an alien from faith and a despiser of all oaths, would take an oath to observe reprobate customs and laws, unknown or repugnant to the law of God?" Again, to Roger, bishop of Worcester, he says: "I do not fear that I have been speaking to the wind, or that it is dan gerous for me to have spoken truth to the ears of such sanctity; yet I do not dread the snares of those who oppose truth; but I wish that I had devoted my whole life to truth, and that I may spend the rest of my life in asserting it." Finally, to another correspondent, he writes thus: "Charity at least cannot be prohibited; for where the Spirit of God

is, there is liberty. Is it not lawful to hold and defend the ecclesiastical liberty? Certainly it is lawful to proclaim the commands of the divine law: it is lawful, for the Word of God, which assumed flesh and suffered death for us, to expose not ' only our possessions and the perishable goods of this world, but also our lives. May the Inspirer of all good spirits vouchsafe us perseverance in this affection, since He has given us the will of this affection. My lord of Canterbury will consent to no conditions unless the Church of the English shall enjoy its due liberty; and when I say its due liberty, I do not say that this is to be determined by reference to the times of any Henry, but to the legitimate sanctions of the Word of God; because, by profession, he ought not to be a Henrician, but a Christian: quia ex professione Henricianus esse non debet, sed Christianus."*

We have seen the courage of these great and holy men; let us observe how faithfully they adhered also to the meekness and humility which became their state, meriting that praise which has been inscribed upon the medal in commemoration of De Quelen, the late archbishop of Paris: "Et de forti egressa est dulcedo."

A modern writer says, that in one sense or other there is something of the savage in every great man. He can have only studied pagan and modern times. The preceding books will have amply disproved his assertion, as far as the Ages of Faith are concerned here our observations are to be confined to those who evinced heroism in defending the Church; and it will not require much delay to demonstrate, not that there was nothing of the savage in their character, for it is not so much this charge which is brought against them, but that nothing entered into it which was opposed to the humility, and gentleness, and pacific desires of the ascetically Chris tian mind.

"Sacerdotes," said St. Ambrose, “tur barum moderatores sunt, studiosi pacis, nisi cum et ipsi moventur injuria Dei aut ecclesiæ contumelia." Such is the character that the clergy merited during the middle ages; a testimony which cannot be denied to them without flagrant injus tice nor does the epoch of St. Thomas of Canterbury form an exception, as some writers pretend; for, without extending our researches beyond it, we can easily adduce

evidence in proof of the fact. The truth is, that so accustomed were the clergy to revere the authorities of the state, and to breathe only peace towards all men, that when ever occasions required them to resist the king, and to denounce the injustice of his government, they were alarmed at the heroic virtue of their own members in fulfilling their strict obligations. Hence all those letters of advice, addressed to St. Thomas by persons who beheld his intrepi dity with admiration, but at the same time, with fear. Thus one of his correspondents writes, Whatever the perversity of the malignant may design against your innocence, I advise and beseech you to acquire and preserve the king's favour, as far as you can, consistently with fidelity to God; for this is expedient to the Church. Nor do I see how you can govern with utility, so long as the king is adverse to you in all things; as the Roman Church will only give you words, and all losses will be imputed to you."*

We cannot indeed behold, with dry eyes," says John, bishop of Poitiers, "the vineyard of the Lord demolished; though we do not persevere in opposition as we ought, though we dissemble many things in consideration of the dangers of the time." I think no one wise," says John of Salisbury, "who dissuades us from peace, if it can be had in the Lord, and without derogation of honesty. Let there be only peace in our days, I say devoutly, if it can be with a safe conscience and unspotted fame, and not merely pretended and momentary. But this depends on God, and its attainment is beyond our power." "We exhort your fraternity in the Lord," says another correspondent, "with all earnestness, to persevere as you have begun. May you be strong and patient, sitis fortis et patiens; for the more patience you evince towards him, the more heavy will be the hand of the Church against him if he should not correct himself." Nor was the conduct of the archbishop contrary to patience and the love of peace. Indeed, his compliance at first with the king's demand, and the tears he shed when reproached for it by his crossbearer, prove how willing he was to avoid a struggle. He who wept at the voice of such an humble monitor as his crossbearer, could hardly have been proud.

S. Thom. Epist. v.
Joan. Sar. Epist. xxxii.
Epist. S. Thom. ccxx.

Necessarily indeed, his elevation of mind appeared pride to those who knew not God, "the loftiness of the humble and the fortitude of the right, Celsitudo humilium, et fortitudo rectorum," as the Church says on Holy Saturday. Describing his own conduct, St. Thomas says, We heard all things patiently, hoping that the king's indignation would be mitigated if he were to pour forth, without being contradicted, all the acerbity which he had conceived in his mind."* Let no one belie the truth, saying that I was adverse to concord, provided it was in the Lord, and without injury to the Church. For I am not so insane as to sacrifice, with such readiness, the things which are most grateful to other men, and to despise what is greatest in temporal matters, if I could preserve them without making shipwreck of things eternal. Let no one defend his own error in the appetite for vain rest or for worldly goods, by accusing me of being contemptuous; for God, who cannot be mocked, before whose tribunal we shall all stand, will soon reveal with what mind each man has lived; I have, for the inspector of my conscience, and my witness, Him whom I look for as my judge." When the king made his second demand for three hundred pounds, which St. Thomas had received while he was warden of Berkhamstead, the archbishop replied, that more than that sum had been expended in their repairs; "but," he added, he would pay it; for mere money should be no ground of quarrel between him and his sovereign: but when the king requires such new and undue customs, let no one persuade you that I form an impediment to peace; for it is he opposes it, who subverts the law of God and disturbs the whole Church. Whatever I can do, saving my order, and without giving a pernicious example, I will willingly do to restore peace and recover his favour; but far be it from me to do any thing knowingly against God for the tranquillity of a moment, and for goods not so much perishable as the cause of men perishing." To the king himself he says, "The Searcher of hearts, the Judge of souls, and the Avenger of faults, knows with what purity of mind, and sincerity of love, we made peace with you, believing that you acted towards us with good faith. But, whether we live or die, we are, and ever will be, yours in the Lord; and what

+ Epist. viii.

• Epist. clxxx.

+ Epist. ccxiii. S. Thom. E Dist. ccxv.

but still more desirous of ecclesiastical liberty. He desired the salvation and the glory of the king, and the indemnity of his children."t Methinks we have already seen sufficient proof that he did not stand in need of the counsels of men of these latter days, to learn by what means, and with what spirit he should pursue this great contest. Yet hear him farther: "We return thanks to your worthiness," he says to the pope, "that you have been so solicitous respecting our peace. The king of France himself proclaimed our innocence, and removed the suspicions excited against us; for we are not so dull and slow of heart to believing the law, and the prophets, and the Gospels, as, in such a necessity, to leave spiritual weapons, and the muniments of apostolic discipline, to trust in carnal arms; for we know that there is no trusting princes, and that he is cursed who makes flesh his arm." With respect to the spirit of his opposition, assuredly those who recognised him as their champion, were not men who would have done so, if he had evinced the disposition of which the moderns accuse him. "I see," says Peter of Blois, writing to John of Salisbury," that you are placed between the anvil and the hammer; but if truth doth not lie, the end of your persecution will be interminable beatitude. It is a great gift to suffer for Christ. To you it is given, not alone that you should believe in Him, but also that you should suffer for Him. I congratulate you, therefore, if you do this from the motion of reason and justice, not with the thought of revenge, or the desire of injuring another; you must do nothing from rancour or hatred, but every thing in charity; for you will not gain this sheaf of salvation from your persecutions, unless your whole intention proceed from the most inward charity. The mind of him who prepares himself to endure persecution must first be softened with the oil of charity, that in sufferings he may never fall from it, nor turn against his brethren with an unholy flame.' Thus did these priests admonish each other; so that when John of Salisbury, who received these admonitions, which to our ears might

Epist. ceeix.

+ Joan. Sar. Epist. lxxxi. Epist. cxiv.

Epist. Pet. Bles. xxii.

sound like an intimation of his requiring them, proceeds to administer them in his turn to St. Thomas, we must not suppose that they were more applicable to the latter than to himself. It is true, on one occasion he reproves the severity of the archbishop's language. "Having read your letters to William of Pavia, though I do not dare to judge the mind of the writer, I cannot approve of the style, for they do not seem to me to sound humility, or to proceed from the mind of a man who hears the Apostle saying to the disciples of Christ, Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus; for you seem to write through bitterness, rather than through charity." But this criticism | only proves the tender solicitude of a friend, and the extreme caution of holy men, in the ages of faith, to avoid the least appearance of evil. If St. Thomas be guilty of pride and a desire of usurpation, can St. Ambrose be excused, who assuredly, under his cir cumstances, would have acted with even more promptitude, and would not have shrunk from uttering a single word that ever escaped the lips or pen of his glorious fellow-combatant? No; let us continue to hear the counsels of his contemporaries without betraying such folly as to imagine, for an instant, that we shall be able, by means of them, to bring down this colossal hero to the level of our own stature, and inflict a wound on his blessed memory.

"Perhaps," says John of Salisbury to him, "God, for your greater perfection, wishes you to live in the midst of those who seek your life to destroy it. Ought you not, then, to acquiesce in such a condition? But some one will say that it is presumptuous to expose yourself to hostile swords, and that it will be more cautious to wait until you have done penance for your sins, for that your conscience is not yet fit for martyrdom. To whom I answer: No one is not fit, excepting the man who does not wish to suffer for faith, and for the works of faith; it matters not whether he be a boy or an adult, a Jew or a Gentile, a Christian or an infidel; for, whoever suffers for justice is a martyr; that is, a witness for justice, an assertor of the cause of Christ. But why do I say this? Because I know, what my mind presages, that the king is not yet recovered, so that you can be secure; and, because the archbishop Rouen thinks fit to say, that whatever you do is through arrogance and anger, you must meet his opinion by showing modera

Joan. Sar. Epist. lix.

of

tion in deeds as well as in words, in gesture as well as in habit, which indeed is of little avail with God, unless it proceed from the secrets of the conscience."* Again, writing to his brother Richard, he says, "In this conflict of power and of law, the archbishop ought to proceed with such moderation, following law, being led by grace, and assisted by reason, as neither to seem to be guilty of temerity against the power which God has ordained, nor to consent to iniquity through fear of power, or through love of evanescent goods, to the depression of the Church, so as to be counted a deserter of his office to the ruin of present and future generations, a prevaricator of his profession, and an impugner of justice." In fine, when desiring the archbishop to send some one of his clerks to the bishop of Chalons, he gives an injunction to conduct himself with great modesty, adding, because the men of this nation are modest." Moreover, the archbishop repeatedly declared that advice of this kind was only conformable to his own intentions. "Your legates," he says to Pope Alexander, "require us to evince humility and moderation as the only qualities by which we can appease such a prince; and we reply to them, that most willingly and devoutly we shall show to him, as to our lord and king, all humility, and service, and devotion, saving the honour of God and of the Apostolic See, and the liberty of the Church,

and the honour of our own person, and the possessions of the Church. And if it should seem to them that any thing is to be added to these or to be taken from them, or changed, we will answer as they may advise us."* In his letter to the cardinals Albert and Theotimus, he says, "To speak, as before God, whom we expect as our Judge, and invoke that He may judge our cause, although we have greatly loved our king and waited on his nod, with all our strength, before the priesthood was imposed on us, yet without consciousness of crime, being unwilling to consent to him in things injurious to God and to the Church, we have opposed him for God; choosing rather by offending to recal him. to pardon, than by flattering to precipitate him into hell. The cause is not against us, but between him and God; for we have sought nothing else from him but what God has left to his Church by an eternal testament." In such language it would be hard to detect arrogance or disloyalty; and indeed his contemporaries bear express witness to the "great humility, meekness of spirit, and serenity of countenance," with which the archbishop replied to those who spoke for the king at Gisors, when their express object was to provoke him to indignation, and induce him to answer less wisely, and with less humility.

St. Thom. Epist. cxiv. † Epist. clxxi. Joan. Sar. Epist. lxvii.

ULTE tribulationes justorum, et de his omnibus liberavit eos Dominus." Such are the words with which the Church introduces the memory of some of her blessed martyrs, which we shall see verified still more abundantly as we proceed to speak of the sufferings endured for the sake of justice by those who had commission to turn and to watch these wheels, on the movement of which depended the free action of religion and the liberty of the Church.

In many respects, the difference in the lot of men on earth was no mystery to the observers of the middle ages, who, not alone as monks and philosophers, but as mere thoughtful pilgrims, were accustomed often silently to account for it to themselves, as they contrasted the magnificence and repose of the rich and powerful man in his princely abode, which arrested their attention, as they walked or rode along, with the humiliations and distress of some wise and virtuous victim of oppression, who they remembered was in the meanwhile bearing his heavy cross, far removed perhaps and concealed from every human eye but that of the agent of the persecutor. Not unfrequently, while the seigneur was enjoying the pleasures and the pride of life within his ancestral towers, the bishop or abbot, perhaps as noble and nobler than himself, since the crozier was often swayed by men of royal blood, was pining in some obscure dungeon, or exposed to the harassing annoyances of a thousand ignoble persecutors in distant cities, who were incensed against him on account of his daring to stand up in defence of the liberty of the Church, which, we must remember, comprised the material and spiritual interests of the people, as in detail it entered into innumerable questions of a most humble seeming, which agitated each parish, as well as the most solemn councils of the state.

Let us suppose travellers in the middle ages, like Sir Espaing de Lyon and Froissart, riding on their way, and discoursing concerning the different objects which struck their attention as they passed from the lands of one count to those of another, traversing rivers, woods, and mountains: mundane perhaps in their mind too often. still at times pensive, even devout, as when the sight of a cross, like that on the spot where the two squires fell, moved those riders to say for the souls of the dead a Pater-noster, an Ave-maria, and De profundis, with a Fidelium. How many cas tles, how many monasteries, how many noble churches, met their view! Lo, near them, one pile more prominent than the rest, rising in stern majesty over the woods: there dwells at ease some puissant seigneur. Could you mount those battlements, your eyes would survey a glorious prospect; you would discern over the forest a noble river that bounds on one side his ancestral domains; beyond which rises the blue chain of mountains, which form the hori zon toward the west. Could you view the halls and galleries within, you might think that here was luxury itself enthroned. What can be wanting to the transport of his days? what difficulties has he but those which he seeks for himself? what cause concerns him but some interest of temporal and material vanity? Now let them bend their eyes in another direction, and they will see some lofty spire, or some vast irregular pile of high steep roofs, announcing the sanctuary where the bishop or abbot is or ought to be residing. But if they ask concerning him, mournful looks or piteous ejaculations will lead them soon to collect that he is in exile or in prison. Yet piety had prepared for him too an august and admirable habitation. He also might have had delights and honours, continuing to enjoy "the friendship of his king" and of his powerful neighbours; but a proud choleric prince, or some petty tyrant on the mountain near, was to be opposed; for some poor man had been wronged: brute force was used to suppress