Sir Thomas Browne was not made of the hot metal
and the stern stuff of John Milton. All through those terrible years
Browne lived securely in his laboratory, and in his library, and in his
closet. Richard Baxter's _Autobiography_ is as full of gunpowder as if
it had been written in an army-chaplain's tent, as indeed it was. But
both Bunyan's _Grace Abounding_ and Browne's _Religio Medici_ might have
been written in the Bedford or Norwich of our own peaceful day. All men
are not made to be soldiers and statesmen: and it is no man's duty to
attempt to be what he was not made to be. Every man has his own talent,
and his corresponding and consequent duty and obligation. And both
Bunyan and Browne had their own talent, and their own consequent duty and
obligation, just as Cromwell and Milton and Baxter had theirs. Enough,
and more than enough, if it shall be said to them all on that day, Well
done.

'My life,' says Sir Thomas, in opening one of the noblest chapters of his
noblest book, 'is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate were not a
history, but a piece of poetry; and it would sound to common ears like a
fable.' Now, as all Sir Thomas's readers must know, the most
extraordinary criticisms and comments have been made on those devout and
thankful words of his concerning himself. Dr. Samuel Johnson's were not
common ears, but even he comments on these beautiful words with a wooden-
headedness almost past belief. For, surely the thirty years of
schoolboy, and student, and opening professional life that resulted in
the production of such a masterpiece as the _Religio Medici_ was a
miracle both of God's providence and God's grace, enough to justify him
who had experienced all that in acknowledging it to God's glory and to
the unburdening of his own heart, so richly loaded with God's benefits.
And, how a man of Samuel Johnson's insight, good sense, and pious feeling
could have so missed the mark in this case, I cannot understand. All the
more that both the chapter so complained about, and the whole book to
which that chapter belongs, are full of the same thankful, devout, and
adoring sentiment. 'The world that I regard,' Sir Thomas proceeds, 'is
myself. Men that look upon my outside, and who peruse only my conditions
and my fortunes, do err in my altitude. There is surely a piece of
divinity in us all; something that was before the elements, and which
owes no homage unto the sun.' And again, 'We carry with