“How strange that a little child shoulde be permitted to suffer soe much payn, when of such is the kingdom of heaven! But ’tis onlie transient, whereas a mother makes it permanent, by thinking it over and over agayn. One lesson it taughte us betimes, that a natural death is not, necessarilie the most easie. We must alle die. . . . . . As poor Patteson was used to say, ‘The greatest king that ever was made, must bed at last with shovel and spade.’ . . . . . and I’d sooner have my Billy’s baby deathbed than King Harry’s, or Nan Boleyn’s either, however manie years they may yet carry matters with a high hand. Oh, you ministers of evill, whoever you be, visible or invisible, you shall not build a wall between my God and me . . . . . . I’ve something within me, grows stronger and stronger, as times grow more and more evill; some woulde call it resolution, but methinketh ’tis faith.” And then comes the terrible catastrophe, the glorious devotion, the patient martyrdom, the heroic womanhood. Throughout the whole of this exquisite little volume, the interest, the tone, the vigor, the pathos, the poetry, the sublimity, is ever on the ascendant; and in this splendid passage it reaches its climax. Almost as we read, we see what passeth; altogether we feel it to our own heart’s core; scarcely can we refrain to accept it as fact not fiction. What writer of any day has effected much more than this? “And then came ye frightfulle sentence. “Yes, yes, my soul, I know; there were saints of old sawn asunder. Men of whom the world was not worthy. “. . . . . . Then he spake unto ’em his mind, how that after lifelong studdy, he could never find that a layman mighte be head of the church. And bade his judges and accusers farewell; hoping that like as St. Paul was present and consenting unto St. Stephen’s death and yet both were now holy saints in heaven, soe he and they might speedilie meet there, joint heirs of e’erlasting salvation.