III.

What is love? Oh, can you ask!

What urged the God-man to His task?
Why did he grasp the cup, nor shrink
The dregs of Heaven's wrath to drink?
'Twas for your sake-that you might prove
Immortal joys. This, this is love!

IV.

'Saviour, Christ! let all adore Thee! Saviour, Christ! we bend before Thee!

Mid Thy darkest agony

We behold Thy deity!

Ransomed souls with one accord,

Hail Thee universal Lord!

CRANMER.

When he began to speak more of the Sacrament and the Papacy, some of them began to cry out, yelp, and bawl; and specially Cole cried out upon him, "Stop the heretic's mouth, and take him away." Then was an iron chain tied about Cranmer. And when the wood was kindled, and the fire began to burn near him, stretching out his arm he put his right hand into the flame, which he held so steadfast and immovable (saving that once with the same hand he wiped his face) that all men might see his hand burned before his body was touched. He seemed to move no more than the stake to which he was bound. His eyes were lifted up unto heaven, and oftentimes he repeated, his " unworthy right hand," so long as his voice would suffer him. And using the words of Stephen, "Lord Jesus receive my spirit," in the greatness of the flame he gave up the ghost. Fox's Acts and Monuments.

I.

Within a dark and dreary cell,

Paved and o'er-arched with stone;

There sits upon a couch of straw

An aged man alone;

And ever and anon he breaks

The silence with a groan.

II.

A groan of sharpest misery,

Of measureless despair;

And wildly gleams his grief-bleared eye,

As if in that sad stare

He tracked some grizly fiend's course,

Athwart his prison lair.

III.

No peace hath he by day or night,
One sick'ning now of sorrow
Is his; he longeth not to hail
The gairish smile of morrow,
Nor hopes he from the dewy eve,
Refreshing rest to borrow.

To

IV.

pray he often bends the knee,

In that mirk solitude;

'Tis vain! his trembling right hand seems

To scare away all good,

That hand he gazes on with dread,

As if 'twas bathed in blood.

Change we the scene.

V.

That old man stands

Thoughtful, yet calm his eye,

Within an ancient church, where swells

The Misereri high.

Its strain he never more may hear,

Ere sun-down he must die.

VI.

But first before the multitude
His sins he must confess,

And for his treason 'gainst the Pope,
Due penitence express.

So that the priest before he goes

To death, his soul may bless.

VII.

A bitter homily was preached
To warn the people well,
That heresy they should eschew
As they would hope to dwell

At God's right hand, and never prove
The grewsomeness of hell.

VIII.

"And here stands one"-the Friar said—

"Who fain would warn you all

Ere he

goes forth to fiery death

To profit by his fall."

And then a breathless silence reigned

In that old Gothic hall.

IX.

Few words the great Archbishop said,
But they were words of might,
His eyes no longer dully glared,
But sparkled clear and bright,
As nervously he charged them all
'Gainst tyrant Rome to fight.

X.

And aye to guard their native Church

From foreign prelate's yoke,

Built as she was on Jesus Christ

Her firm foundation rock.

Like storm-bent reeds, the scowling crew

Trembled as thus he spoke.