Brother Raphael (or Ralph) Ashley, was possibly akin to the Ashleys, of Goule Hall, in the Township of Cliffe, in the Parish of Hemingbrough, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, or to the Ashleys, of Todwick, near Sheffield, in the south-east of Yorkshire. He came to England along with Father Oswald Tesimond, in 1597.——See “Father Tesimond’s landing in England,” in Morris’s “_Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers_,” first series (Burns & Oates).——If Ashley were a Yorkshireman, one can easily understand his being the chosen companion of the two Yorkshire Jesuits, Oldcorne and Tesimond. This Jesuit lay-brother was acquainted with London; and as, _Qui facit per alium facit per se_, it was pre-eminently likely that Oldcorne would employ his confidential servant to perform so weighty a mission as the one I have attributed unto him. Again, since “he who acts through another acts through himself,” it is unnecessary for me to treat at large in the Text concerning my supposal respecting the part that Brother Ralph Ashley played in the great drama of the Gunpowder Plot. Ashley being identified with his master, Father Oldcorne, shares, in his degree, his master’s merits and praise. Professor J. A. Froude thought that Ralph Waldo Emerson was of the same stock as Brother Ralph Emerson. It is quite possible. For after the Gunpowder Plot, I opine that the younger Catholics in many cases became Puritans, and in some cases, later on, Quakers.] [Footnote 59:——Notwithstanding the endless chain of the causation of human acts and human events, man’s strongest and clearest knowledge tells him that he is “master of his fate,” nay, that “he is fated to be free,” inasmuch as at any moment man can open the flood-gates that are betwixt him and an Infinite Ocean of Pure Unconditioned Freedom: can open those flood-gates, and in that Ocean can lave at will, and so render himself a truly emancipated creature. The antinomies of Thought and Life do not destroy nor make void the Facts of Thought and Life. Antinomies surround man on every side, and one of the great ends of life is to know the same, and to act regardful of that knowledge.] [Footnote 60:——The copy in the “_Authorised Discourse_” gives “shift off,” not “shift of” as in the original. Doubtless “shift off” was the expression intended. It is still occasionally used in the country districts about York. The word “tender,” in the sense of “take care of” or “have a care of,” is to-day quite common in that neighbourhood (1901).] [Footnote 61:——“_Gunpowder Plot Books_,” vol. ii., p. 202.] [Footnote 62:——It is impossible to describe the emotions that welled up in the heart of the writer as he gazed on this small, faded, and fading document: emotions of awe and gratitude, blended with veneration and reverence, for the maker of this lever——this sheet-anchor——of the temporal salvation of so many human creatures, who had been barbarously appointed to die by those that had forgotten what spirit they were of.