that knowledge from me.  Whatever I may have to suffer, I shall ever have that treasure in mine heart.  And since I am no heretic in doctrine, and believe all that the canons of the church teach, how can they treat me as one who hates and would confound her?  I am no follower of Martin Luther, though I hold that he is waging war in a righteous cause.  But I would see the church arise and cast forth from herself those things which defile; and more and more do her holy and pious sons agree in this, that she doth need some measure of purification, ere she can be fit to be presented to the Father as the bride of the Lamb.”

Dalaber was just now under the influences of Clarke rather than of Garret.  It was not only fear of what was coming upon him, though that might have some share in the matter, but he had found of late more comfort in the spiritual utterances of Clarke than in the bellicose teachings of Garret.  Moreover, he had not been blind to the fact that Garret’s courage had ebbed very visibly under the stress of personal peril, whilst Clarke’s spirit had remained calm and unshaken.  Dalaber had keen sympathy with Garret, in whose temperament he recognized an affinity with his own, and whose tremors and fits of weakness and yielding he felt he might well share under like trial and temptation.  Indeed, he did not deny to himself that, were he not thus fast bound, he might have attempted the escape which yesterday he had scorned.  But he thought upon the words of his beloved master, and spent the long, weary hours in meditation and prayer; so that when the commissary visited him later in the day and questioned him again, although he still refused to implicate others in any charge, he spoke of his own convictions with modesty and propriety, so that the commissary began to question whether he were, after all, so black a heretic as had been painted, and promised that he should have food sent him, together with pens and paper, on which he was desired to set forth a confession of his faith.  He was not, however, released from the stocks until the college was safely shut up for the night, and all gates closed.

Dalaber wrote his confession of faith with great care and skill; and he trusted that he had not committed himself to any doctrine which would arouse the ire of those who would read it.  Those very early reformers (to use the modern term) were in a very difficult position, in that they had very slight cause of quarrel with the church of which they called themselves true sons.  Modern Protestants find it hard to believe what men like Wycliffe and Latimer taught on many cardinal points.  To them it would sound like “rank papacy” now.  The split between the two camps in the church has gradually widened and widened, till there seems no bridging the gap between Christian and Christian, between churchman and churchman—­all being members of one Catholic Church.

But it was not so in the days of Anthony Dalaber.  The thought of split and schism was pain and grief to most.  Luther had foreseen it, was working for it, and the leaven of his teaching was permeating this and other lands; but it had taken no great hold as yet.  The church was revered and venerated of her children, and here in England the abuses rampant in so many lands were far less flagrant.