But he says all were not quite so perfect, and of these imperfect there were two leading divisions. The first[97] "fainted in courage, and, as St Cyprian noteth of his times, did offer themselves unto the persecutors before they felt the chief force of the blow that was to be expected." Sir Everard Digby was not one of these. The second division were, as Father Gerard might most veraciously say, "much different from these, and ran headlong into a contrary error. For being resolved never to yield or forsake their faith, they had not patience and longanimity to expect the Providence of God, etc." It is to be feared that he may have noticed this want of patience and longanimity in Sir Everard Digby and his companions. "They would not endure to see their brethren so trodden upon by every Puritan," he goes on to say of this class, "so made a prey to every needy follower of the Court, or servant to a Councillor, so presented and pursued by every churchwarden and minister, so hauled to every sessions when the Justices list to meet, so wronged on every side by the process of excommunication or outlawry, and forced to seek for their own by law, and then also to be denied by law, because they were Papists; finally both themselves and all others to be denounced traitors and designed to the slaughter. These things they would not endure now to begin afresh after so long endurance, and therefore began amongst themselves to consult what remedy they might apply to all these evils," &c., "so that it seems they did not so much respect what the remedy were, or how it might be procured, as that it might be sure and speedy--to wit, to take effect before the end of the Parliament from whence they seemed to expect their greatest harm." [97] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 50. Those who followed the latter course may have included some who were in other respects good Christians; whether they showed the spirit of Martyrs and Confessors is another question.