AND

WE shall not regret if the new-born zeal for home rather than for Continental travel, which is now displayed in our country, should last through the ensuing months of summer and autumn, and lead many wanderers to explore the beautiful localities which may be found in our beloved, sea-girt land, instead of expending time, and money, and admiration on foreign scenes; which, however attractive and instructive, are in many respects surpassed by objects nearer home. There may be found, within a few miles of London, land and river scenery of exquisite beauty, utterly unknown to many of her citizens, and which would more than repay any amount of time and attention employed in searching them out; and the United Kingdom as a whole, including the Emerald Isle, possesses objects of superlative attraction, in sylvan glades and undulating surface, in beauteous lakes and noble mountains, which possess a freshness and a charm not to be approached by many of the hackneyed, visited, and revisited scenes of Continental travel. Such home wanderings, while improving and gratifying the taste of travellers generally, would intensify the patriotic feeling of many who write themselves citizens of the world; and visits to many spots which became memorable in by-gone ages of oppression, would serve to increase our Protestant zeal, and to awaken proper veneration for

VOL. XXXVI.

the noble army of English martyrs, many of whom "lived unknown, till persecution dragged them into fame, and chased them up to heaven."

It was a common custom in ancient times for men to go forth on pilgrimage to places hallowed by religious associations; and in modern times we have had published some interesting records of visits to the haunts and homes of poets and patriots, of philosophers and philanthropists. If this spirit of visitation should come largely over our people they may do well to repair to some of the spots where English mar tyrs lived and suffered for God's truth; and which, without any leanings to superstition, may well be supposed to have an attraction for the friends of evangelical piety and the advocates of religious liberty. Many of our towns were during the times of the Marian persecution the scenes of cruel martyrdom. The imprisonments, torturings, and burnings of those who dissented from the Queen's belief have given these localities a painful, and yet instructive notoriety. Their names are associated with those of men of whom the world was not worthy. Lutterworth, and Wycliffe; Norwich, and Bilney; Gloucester, and Hooper; Oxford, and Ridley, are designations which connect the places with the men in the memories of all students of English Church history. A visit to the localities where these meek and sainted

The husband of a godly wife, the father of a happy and numerous family, and the pastor of an attached flock, he lived in comfort and usefulness for many years in Hadleigh. The town itself had long been highly favoured. The county of Suffolk was the first in England in which the principles of the Protestant Reformation took deep root. On the active persecution of the followers of Wickliffe, many of them visited it, and preached the Gospel. Here Sir George Sautre, an early martyr for these doctrines, preached them fully and faithfully. Here, too, Bilney laboured, and Hadleigh was one of the first towns to receive the truth as it is in Jesus from his lips. The profiting of the people was evident to all. They were eminently moral and devout. Many of them obtained a large knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, and could readily give "a godly learned sentence in any matter of controversy." Their children and servants were well instructed in a knowledge of the Bible, and "the whole town seemed rather a university of the learned than a town of cloth-making and labouring people." After the martyrdom of Bilney, a godly minister, of the name of Thomas Rose, kept up the preaching of the Gospel at Hadleigh, till he was arrested on a charge of heresy and committed to the Bishop of Lincoln's prison in Holborn. He afterward returned to a village about six miles from Hadleigh, and many of his former friends resorted to him for the benefit of his teaching in public and private. To such a prepared people Taylor was privileged to minister the word of life.

Soon after the accession of Queen Mary to the throne, as she had determined to restore the nation to Rome, or die in the attempt, the work of an exterminating persecution began. No part of the country was exempt from the effects of her bigotry and aversion to divine truth, and the storm fell with severity on the pastor and flock at Hadleigh. An attempt was made by some Romanists at heart, who had concealed

their principles, and dissembled during the reign of Edward the Sixth, to set up the Mass in the parish church. Dr. Taylor earnestly opposed it, but in vain; for he was driven forcibly by armed men out of the sacred edifice, and had the mortification and grief of knowing that the place in which he had preached Christ crucified was defiled by popish idolatry. He was immediately accused of traitorous conduct against the Queen's authority, and was forthwith summoned to appear before Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, to answer a complaint of contumacy. His friends, aware that the meditated result of these proceedings was his death, entreated him to escape by flight. He, however, while thanking them for their anxiety on his behalf, and admitting that imprisonment and a cruel death were before him, resolved that as truth was on his side he would, by God's grace, go and meet his accusers, and resist their false doing. Leaving his parish in the care of a faithful old divine, Richard Yeoman, who had been his curate, and who was afterwards martyred, when more than seventy years of age, he set forth on his journey to London, attended by a faithful servant, John Hull. This domestic, like others, entreated him to fly for his life while he could, proffering his services wherever his beloved master would go; but the resolve of the good man to follow Christ even to prison and death could not be shaken. To his servant he said, "Good John, pray for me; and, if thou seest me weak at any time, comfort me; and discourage me not in this my godly enterprise and purpose."

At the end of his lengthened and painful journey, Dr. Taylor was ushered into the presence of Gardiner, who reviled him as a knave, traitor, and heretic, and redoubled his reproaches when the doctor observed that he had come by his commandment, and quietly asked the cause why his lordship had sent for him. The confessor unabashed, looked his judge coolly in the face; told him in reply to the question, Knowest

who he was; reminded him that he had violated the oath he took to two kings to uphold the Protestant faith, and called upon him to retrace his steps and do his first works. In reply to this, the bishop called him an arrogant knave, and a very fool; taxed him with being married; argued with him on the mass; and then ordered him to the Queen's Bench prison, where he lay captive for two years. In that gaol he made the acquaintance of John Bradford, an illustrious martyr, and their mutual conversations, exhortations, and prayers, helped them both to endure the heavy loads which awaited them in their path to the heavenly world.

After a time Dr. Taylor was cited by the Ecclesiastical Court to answer for his marriage, with a view to pronounce on him a sentence of divorce. The noble vindication which he offered of his conduct, and the strong reasons he adduced to prove the lawfulness of marriage for a minister of Christ, led his judges to postpone sentence, but they deprived him of his benefice for this alleged crime. This was in harmony with the policy of Rome. Traits of the pernicious heresy of the celibacy of the clergy may be found in the early fathers, and the practice it countenanced soon became general. In the fourth century a law was passed enforcing it, and this was made absolute in the eleventh century. Though the apostle Paul had denounced the doctrine of forbidding to marry, though he had said that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, and though the apostle Peter was a married man, yet the Church of Rome forbids her clergy, monks, and nuns to marry. For this ecclesiastical offence, and for refusing generally to recant, Rowland Taylor was eventually condemned to death. He and his fellowcaptives, Saunders and Bradford, on the last day of January, 1555, heard the final sentence read against them, and on hearing it gave God thanks.

After a week's imprisonment in the Compter, Dr. Taylor was degraded by

mony performed, his wife and some of his children were allowed to spend the evening with him in the prison, which they did after a godly manner; he exhorting them to be faithful in their adherence to Protestant truth, and they mutually commending each other to the grace of God. He sent messages to his dear friends in Hadleigh, and to all others who had heard him preach, and expressed his unwavering hope of salvation "through Jesus Christ, our only Mediator, Advocate, Righteousness, Life, Sanctification, and Hope." It had been recently arranged to remove him in the night after this farewell; so at two o'clock in the morning of the 6th of February, the sheriff and his officers lead him forth in total darkness to the Woolsack Inn, without Aldgate. As he passes the porch of St. Botolph church, his wife and two little girls, are waiting shivering in the cold. They spring out to meet him. The four kneel down and pray together for the last time. He gives them parting counsel and blessing; kisses his children and his wife; and she, brave woman, says, "God be with thee, dear Rowland; I will, with God's grace, meet thee at Hadleigh." At this spectacle the sheriff weeps; and the officers, strong men as they are, are bowed down. And now committed to the custody of the Sheriff of Essex, and guarded by yeomen and officers, the prisoner is placed on horseback. As they emerge from the inn yard, there is John Hull watching with his master's child to say farewell. The boy is lifted up to receive his father's blessing; and now the cavalcade moves on to Brentford, and to Chelmsford, and then to Lavenham. People come out to see the martyr, and therefore to disguise him his head is covered with a large hood, having holes to look and breathe through. Still he is cheerful, and at times even witty. Two days are spent at Lavenham, the last halting place. Many gentlemen assemble there, and try to turn him to popery. Pardon, promotion, and even a bishopric are