for his cause, and because his martyrdom was sure.  In an evil hour he listened to the voice of the seducer.  Both life and dignities were promised if he would recant.  “Confounded, heart-broken, old,” the love of life and the fear of death were stronger for a time than the power of conscience or dignity of character.  Six several times was he induced to recant the doctrines he had preached, and profess an allegiance which could only be a solemn mockery.

True, Cranmer came to himself; he perceived that he was mocked, and felt both grief and shame in view of his apostasy.  His last hours were glorious.  Never did a good man more splendidly redeem his memory from shame.  Being permitted to address the people before his execution,—­with the hope on the part of his tormentors that he would publicly confirm his recantation,—­he first supplicated the mercy and forgiveness of Almighty God, and concluded his speech with these memorable words:  “And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than anything I ever did or said, even the setting forth of writings contrary to the truth, which I now renounce and refuse,—­those things written with my own hand contrary to the truth I thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death and to save my life.  And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished; for if I come to the fire, it shall first be burned.  As for the Pope, I denounce him as Christ’s enemy and Antichrist, with all his false doctrines.”  Then he was carried away, and a great multitude ran after him, exhorting him, while time was, to remember himself.  “Coming to the stake,” says the Catholic eye-witness, “with a cheerful countenance and willing mind, he took off his garments in haste and stood upright in his shirt.  Fire being applied, he stretched forth his right hand and thrust it into the flame, before the fire came to any other part of his body; when his hand was to be seen sensibly burning, he cried with a loud voice, ‘This hand hath offended."’

Thus died Cranmer, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, after presiding over the Church of England above twenty years, and having bequeathed a legacy to his countrymen of which they continue to be proud.  He had not the intrepidity of Latimer; he was supple to Henry VIII.; he was weak in his recantation; he was not an original genius,—­but he was a man of great breadth of views, conciliating wise, temperate in reform, and discharged his great trust with conscientious adherence to the truth as he understood it; the friend of Calvin, and revered by the Protestant world.

Queen Mary reigned, fortunately, but five years, and the persecutions she encouraged and indorsed proved the seed of a higher morality and a loftier religious life.