and her piety was genuine and unaffected, of which she gave the most exalted proof, in dying a martyr for the cause of her religion and liberty of conscience."

23. ADAM WALLACE.

THE martyrdom of Adam Wallace took place at St. Andrews, in Scotland, during the reign of Edward V1. The precise year, whether in 1547 or 1549, is uncertain. John Lander, was appointed to preach the sermon of accusation. The judges and a vast concourse of people being assembled in the abbey, Wallace was then called. before them. He was apparently a simple and poor man. Lander told him that he was accused of preaching and teaching various blasphemies and heresies, which he denied, and said he taught nothing but what he found in the Bible, and he was ready to be judged by it. He was then charged with teaching that the mass is idolatry, and abominable in the sight of God; and he answered, that he had read the Bible in three tongues,-French, Dutch, and English, for he had not much Latin,-and had demurred to the word Consecration, and could not find the word Mass. If it could be found in Scripture, he would grant his error, and submit to all lawful punishment. Then he was charged with saying, that the God they worshipped was only bread; but he said that he worshipped the three persons of the trinity in one Godhead, yet could not tell what God they worshipped. On returning to what the sacrament is after consecration, he said, he had already answered. On repeating the whole, Wallace answered to them as before; and, turning to the lord-governor and others, he said, "If you condemn me for holding by God's word, my innocent blood shall be required at your hands, when you shall be brought before the judgment-seat of Christ, who is mighty to de

fend my innocent cause, before whom you shall not deny it, nor yet be able to resist his wrath, to whom I refer the vengeance."

No more was said, but sentence was given, and he was delivered to the provost of Edinburgh to be burned on the Castle-hill. He was instantly sent to the highest house in the town, with irons on his legs and neck. Two gray friars were sent to instruct him, but he would not hear them; and then two black friars, one an Englishman, who had no commission to enter into disputation. The dean of Roscalrigg next came to him, but he would hear nothing without evidence from Scripture. They had robbed him of his Bible as soon as he was condemned, and therefore he spent the night in singing psalms; and his enraged keeper, upon this, plundered him of the rest. Next day he was kept in irons, when the dean came to him again, but he still referred only to the Scripture; and when Terry, his ignorant keeper, though a minister and an imp of Satan, came, he desired to be alone in quiet. On being brought from the town to the Castle-hill to meet his doom, the common people said, "God have mercy upon you;" "And on you too," said he. Though the provost had commanded him not to speak, when at the fire he said, "Let it not offend you that I suffer death this day for the truth's sake; for the disciple is not greater than his master." The provost having expressed his anger, Wallace only added, "They will not let me speak;" on which, the cord being about his neck, the fire was lighted, and he firmly submitted to his fate.

of age

24. HUGH LAVERICK AND JOHN APRICE.

THESE two individuals suffered martyrdom during the third year of the reign of Mary. The first was a painter by trade; he was also a cripple, and sixty eight years The other was blind,-dark indeed in his visual faculties, but intellectually and spiritually illuminated with the radiance of the everlasting Gospel of truth. These inoffensive men were informed against, and dragged before the bishop of London. Here they underwent examination, and boldly declared the truth, showing themselves worthy to tread in the footsteps of the Christian martyrs who had gone before them. They were afterwards re-examined in the consistory of St. Paul's, and entreated to recant; and upon their refusal, were sent to Fulham, where Bonner, by way of a dessert after dinner, condemned them to the agonies of fire. On the 15th of May, 1556, they were taken in a cart from Newgate to Stratford-le-Bow, where they were fastened to the stake. When Hugh Laverick was secured by the chain, having no further occasion for his crutch, he threw it away, saying to his fellow-martyr: "Be of good cheer, my brother; for my lord of London is our good physician; he will heal us both shortly— thou of thy blindness, and me of my lameness." They then sank down into the flame, and were honoured with the martyr's crown.

25. BISHOPS RIDLEY AND LATIMER.

THESE reverend prelates suffered martyrdom together on the 16th of October, 1555, at Oxford. "Pillars of the Church, and accomplished ornaments of human nature, they were the admiration of the realm, amiably conspicuous in their lives, and glorious in their deaths."

Ridley was born in Northumberland, and educated at Cambridge, where his learning and abilities raised him gradually, till he became the head of Pembroke College. Subsequently he was appointed chaplain to Henry VIII., and bishop of Rochester, and afterwards was transferred to the see of London in the time of Edward VI.

His tenacious memory, extensive erudition, impressive oratory, and indefatigable zeal in preaching, drew after him not only his own flock, but persons from all quarters, desirous of godly exhortation or reproof. His tender treatment of Dr. Heath, who was a prisoner with him during one year, in Edward's reign, evidently proves that he had no Catholic cruelty in his disposition. In person, he was erect and well-proportioned; in temper, forgiving; in self-mortification, severe. brief, he was a pattern of godliness and virtue, and such he endeavoured to make men wherever he came.

In

His attentive kindness was displayed particularly to old Mrs. Bonner, mother of Dr. Bonner, the cruel bishop of London. Dr. Ridley, when at his manor in Fulham, always invited her to his house, placed her at the head of his table, and treated her like his own mother; he did the same by Bonner's sister and other relatives: but when Dr. Ridley was under persecution, Bonner pursued a conduct diametrically opposite, and would have sacrificed Dr. Ridley's sister and her husband, Mr.

George Shipside, had not Providence delivered him by the means of Dr. Heath, bishop of Worcester. Dr. Ridley was first in part converted by reading Bertram's book on the Sacrament, and by his conferences with Archbishop Cranmer and Peter Martyr. When Edward VI. was removed from the throne, and bloody Mary succeeded, Bishop Ridley was immediately marked as an object of slaughter. He was first sent to the Tower, and afterward, at Oxford, was consigned to the common prison of Bocardo.

Bishop Latimer was the son of Hugh Latimer, of Thirkelson, in Leicestershire, a husbandman of repute, with whom he remained till he was four years old. His parents, finding him of acute parts, gave him a good education, and then sent him at fourteen to the University of Cambridge, where he entered into the study of the school divinity of that day, and was from principle a zealous observer of the Romish superstitions of the time. In his oration, when he commenced bachelor of divinity, he inveighed against the reformer Melancthon, and openly declaimed against good Mr. Stafford, divinity lecturer in Cambridge.

Mr. Thomas Bilney, moved by a brotherly pity towards Mr. Latimer, begged to wait upon him in his study, and to explain to him the groundwork of his (Mr. Bilney's) faith. This blessed interview effected his conversion; the persecutor of Christ became his zealous advocate, and before Dr. Stafford died he became reconciled to him.

Once converted, he became eager for the conversion of others, and commenced public preacher and private instructor in the university. His sermons were so pointed against the absurdity of praying in the Latin tongue, and withholding the oracles of salvation from the people who were to be saved by belief in them, that he drew upon himself the pulpit animadversions of