Pave had Bainham’s image continually before his eyes, and his last prayer rang day and night in his heart. In the garret of his house, far removed from noise, he had fitted up a kind of oratory, where he had placed a crucifix, before which he used to pray and shed bitter tears.[218] He abhorred himself: half mad, he suffered indescribable sorrow, and struggled under great anguish. The dying Bainham had said to him: ‘May God show thee more mercy than thou hast shown to me!’ But Pave could not believe in mercy: he saw no other remedy for his despair than death. About a year after Bainham’s martyrdom, he sent his domestics and clerks on different errands, keeping only one servant-maid in the house. As soon as his wife had gone to church, he went out himself, bought a rope, and hiding it carefully under his gown, went up into the garret. He stopped before the crucifix, and began to groan and weep. The servant ran upstairs. ‘Take this rusty sword,’ he said, ‘clean it well, and do not disturb me.’ She had scarcely left the room when he fastened the rope to a beam and hanged himself. The maid, hearing no sound, again grew alarmed, went up to the garret, and seeing her master hanging, was struck with terror. She ran crying to the church to fetch her mistress home;[219] but it was too late: the wretched man could not be recalled to life. [Sidenote: The True Church Of God.] If the deaths of the martyrs plunged the wicked into the depths of despair, it often gave life to earnest souls. The crowd which had surrounded the scaffold of these men of God dispersed in profound emotion. Some returned to their fields, others to their shops or workrooms; but the pale faces of the martyrs followed them, their words sounded in their souls, their virtues softened many hearts most averse to the Gospel. ‘Oh! that I were with Bainham!’ exclaimed one.[220] These people continued for some time to frequent the Romish churches but ere long their consciences cried aloud to them: ‘It is Christ alone who saves us;’ and they forsook the rites in which they could find no consolation. They courted solitude; they procured the writings of Wickliffe and of Tyndale, and especially the New Testament, which they read in secret, and if any one came near, hid them hastily under a bed, at the bottom of a chest, in the hollow of a tree, or even under stones, until the enemy had retired and they could take the books up again. Then they whispered about them to their neighbors, and often had the joy of meeting with men who thought as they did. A surprising change was taking place. While the priests were loudly chanting in the cathedrals the praises of the saints, of the Virgin, and of the _Corpus Domini_, the people were whispering together about the Saviour _meek and lowly in heart_. All over England was heard a still, small voice such as Elijah heard, and on hearing it wrapped his face in his mantle and stood silent and motionless, because the Lord was there. Great changes were about to