his Pavier was a Catholic fanatic, and as the flames
were about to be kindled he burst out into violent and abusive language.
The fire blazed up, and the dying sufferer, as the red flickering
tongues licked the flesh from off his bones, turned to him and said,
"May God forgive thee, and shew more mercy than thou, angry reviler,
shewest to me." The scene was soon over; the town clerk went home. A
week after, one morning when his wife had gone to mass, he sent all his
servants out of his house on one pretext or another, a single girl only
being left, and he withdrew to a garret at the top of the house, which
he used as an oratory. A large crucifix was on the wall, and the girl
having some question to ask, went to the room, and found him standing
before it "bitterly weeping." He told her to take his sword, which was
rusty, and clean it. She went away and left him; when she returned, a
little time after, he was hanging from a beam, dead. He was a singular
person. Edward Hall, the historian, knew him, and had heard him say,
that "if the king put forth the New Testament in English, he would not
live to bear it."[106] And yet he could not bear to see a heretic die.
What was it? Had the meaning of that awful figure hanging on the
torturing cross suddenly revealed itself? Had some inner voice asked him
whether, in the prayer for his persecutors with which Christ had parted
out of life, there might be some affinity with words which had lately
sounded in his own ears? God, into whose hands he threw himself,
self-condemned in his wretchedness, only knows the agony of that hour.
Let the secret rest where it lies, and let us be thankful for ourselves
that we live in a changed world.

[Sidenote: The two orders of martyrs.]

Thus, however, the struggle went forward; a forlorn hope of saints led
the way up the breach, and paved with their bodies a broad road into the
new era; and the nation the meanwhile was unconsciously waiting till the
works of the enemy were won, and they could walk safely in and take
possession. While men like Bilney and Bainham were teaching with words
and writings, there were stout English hearts labouring also on the
practical side of the same conflict, instilling the same lessons, and
meeting for themselves the same consequences. Speculative superstition
was to be met with speculative denial. Practical idolatry required a
rougher method of disenchantment.

[Sidenote: The worship of relics, in its origin and i