* Meaning, as he afterwards said, More and Fisher and the Carthusians. ____

Let it be remembered that this is no sentimental fiction begotten out of the brain of some ingenious novelist, but the record of the true words and sufferings of a genuine child of Adam, labouring in a trial too hard for him.

He prayed to die, and in good time death was to come to him; but not, after all, in the sick bed, with his expiation but half completed.  A year before, he had thrown down the cross, when it was offered him.  He was to take it again; the very cross which he had refused.  He recovered.  He was brought before the council; with what result, there are no means of knowing.  To admit the papal supremacy when officially questioned was high treason.  Whether he was constant, and received some conditional pardon, or whether his heart again for the moment failed him—­whichever he did—­the records are silent.  This only we ascertain of him:  that he was not put to death under the statute of supremacy.  But two years later, when the official list was presented to the parliament of those who had suffered for their share in “the Pilgrimage of Grace,” among the rest we find the name of Robert Hobbes, late Abbot of Woburn.  To this solitary fact we can add nothing.  The rebellion was put down, and in the punishment of the offenders there was unusual leniency; not more than thirty persons were executed, although forty thousand had been in arms.  Those only were selected who had been most signally implicated.  But they were all leaders in the movement; the men of highest rank, and therefore greatest guilt.  They died for what they believed their duty; and the king and council did their duty in enforcing the laws against armed insurgents.  He for whose cause each supposed themselves to be contending, has long since judged between them; and both parties perhaps now see all things with clearer eyes than was permitted to them on earth.

We too can see more distinctly in a slight degree.  At least we will not refuse the Abbot Hobbes some memorial, brief though it be.  And although twelve generations of Russells—­all loyal to the Protestant ascendancy—­have swept Woburn clear of Catholic associations, they, too, in these later days, will not regret to see revived the authentic story of its last abbot. ____

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY

“We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful, for the Useful encourages itself.”—­Goethe.

A Moss rose-bud hiding her face among the leaves one hot summer morning, for fear the sun should injure her complexion, happened to let fall a glance towards her roots, and to see the bed in which she was growing.  What a filthy place! she cried.  What a home they have chosen for me!  I, the most beautiful of flowers, fastened down into so detestable a neighbourhood!  She threw her face into the air; thrust herself into the hands of the first passer-by who stopped to look at her, and escaped in triumph, as she thought, into the centre of a nosegay.  But her triumph was short-lived:  in a few hours she withered and died.