they "counted nothing so much against glory, as glory gotten in war." They were trained to carry arms, but only that they might defend themselves when attacked, or protect others from injustice. There were different opinions in regard to religion in Utopia, and each man was allowed to hold his own, and might do what he could by reason and gentleness to bring others to think the same as he did; but whoever used violent and angry words against those who differed from him was to be banished. There were laws in Utopia against the overcrowding of the cities; and no rich man was allowed to have a great house all to himself while another man with a large family was forced to live in a dwelling much too small. Great care was also taken to preserve the air pure, and nothing likely to pollute it was allowed to be done in the cities. The great principle at the root of the whole state in Utopia was love, instead of selfinterest, and from this sprang the arrangements and customs of society.

Sir Thomas More wrote his book in Latin, in which language it could be read by all the learned men and thinkers of the time, for the people generally were scarcely ready to receive it. He felt this in the last words of the book, where he says, "there are many things in Utopia which in our cities I may rather wish for, than hope after.” The year in which Sir Thomas More wrote "Utopia" was also marked by the publication of the Greek Testament of Erasmus; and the next year, 1517, Martin Luther began his work as a reformer, by fastening his protest against indulgences on the church door at Wittenberg. In England William Tyndal was translating the New Testament into English, and in 1525 copies of it, printed abroad, were brought into England. Everywhere the light was breaking and showing more and more clearly the errors and corruptions of the Church. But while all thoughtful and enlightened men saw these with grief or indignation, they

did not agree as to what was their own duty in regard to the Church. There were some who believed that there could only be one Church upon earth, and that the Pope was the divinely appointed head of it, and to separate from it seemed to them like separating themselves from Christ. These hoped that the spread of light within the Church might lead to its reformation and restoration to its original purity. This was the view held by Sir Thomas More. Others felt that it was hopeless to look for reform in a Church which had departed so widely from the truth, and the leaders of which were interested in keeping up the evils of it. They saw that to be steadfast to Christ they must give up the Church. This was the position of Luther.

In 1528 Sir Thomas More was employed in writing against the views of Luther and Tyndal, and in defence of the Church. At the same time the discussion was going on as to whether the king should put away his wife Katherine of Aragon. Wolsey's attempt to delay the proceedings of the Papal Court appointed to try the case caused his fall; and then Sir Thomas More was made Lord Chancellor. But it was only for a short time that he held this office. The Pope refused consent to the king's divorce, and condemned the English Court which had granted it; upon this Henry VIII. resolved to separate the English Church from that of Rome, and to make himself the head of it. In this act he would be supported by all those who were hopeless of obtaining reform in the Church of Rome, and who held that Christ was more than the Church; but on the other hand, those who believed that there could be but one real outward Church, at the head of which was the Pope, could not sanction the act of the king in establishing a separate English Church and in making himself the head of it. A statute was passed called the "Act of Supremacy," by which all persons who refused to

acknowledge Henry VIII. as head of the English Church were to be put to death.

As soon as the king's intentions were made known, Sir Thomas More resigned the Chancellorship; and he saw plainly that the day was coming when his steadfastness to what he believed to be the truth would be put to a severer test. Those must have been days of terrible anxiety to his family who honoured and loved him so well, but they were passed by Sir Thomas More in study and prayer. At last he was summoned to Lambeth to take the oath that he believed the king to be the true head of the English Church. He took farewell of his wife and family, and left the pleasant home at Chelsea, never to return to it again. He refused the oath, and was committed as prisoner to the Tower. There he was allowed to see his wife and daughters once more; but nothing could persuade him to be unfaithful to what he believed to be the truth, and on the 6th of July he was beheaded on Tower Hill.

CHAPTER VI.

LATIMER.

We have seen how the first influence of the new learning in England was to stir up men like Sir Thomas More to search for truth and right in all things; but while it led him and others to desire reform of what was false and wrong, they still held firmly to the deeply-rooted, long-established idea that the oneness of Christ's Church was outward-that is, that it was everywhere to have the same doctrines, forms of worship, government, and to be under the same head, the Pope. Now we must turn to another earnest man of the time, who, like Sir Thomas More, loved truth better than life, but who gave up the idea of the outward oneness of the Church, and worked hard to make men one in their faithful following of Christ. This was Hugh Latimer. Sir Thomas More was a man of great thought and study, who lived among scholars, and wrote for scholars. Latimer was a man of the people, loving them, and speaking to them in their own plain language and way. We want both kinds of men in the world, and it is not well to contrast them with one another, in order to say that one is less noble and serviceable than the other, or less worthy of our honour and love. We want the thinker and the scholar to find out truth; and we want the earnest warm-hearted worker to carry the truth down into the minds and hearts of the people, so that it may be wrought out in living deeds.

Hugh Latimer was born about the year 1491, at Thurcaston, in Leicestershire. His father had a small farm, in which

he employed about a dozen labourers, and where he kept a hundred sheep and about thirty cows. He was a brave, honest, God-fearing man, working hard upon his farm, and saving money; so that he was able to give each of his six daughters a marriage portion, and to give good education to his son, while he had always something for the poor, or for the help of a needy neighbour. He kept a horse and arms ready for the king's service, and would buckle on his armour and ride forth to battle, whenever the English yeomen were wanted in the field. His wife milked the cows, looked after the house, and trained their six girls in godliness and the fear of the Lord.

Hugh was their only boy who lived to grow up; and seeing that he was quick and intelligent, they sent him early to school, where he learnt readily all he was taught. At home his father taught him to shoot well with the bow, the English yeomen being famous archers above all other people at that time. When he was fourteen, he had done so well at school that he was sent to Cambridge; and while he was still a student there, and only eighteen, he was elected a fellow of his college. At twenty-four he was made professor of Greek, and he threw himself eagerly into the Greek learning; but he set himself strongly against the study of the Greek Testament, and tried to turn the students from what he called "this new-fangled study of the Scriptures."

He had now been ordained a priest, and he held firmly to the Romish Church, in which he had been brought up. On the day when he took his degree of Bachelor of Divinity, he had to make a Latin oration, and he took this occasion to attack with all his eloquence the teaching of the Reformer Melancthon. Among those who heard Latimer speak that day was Thomas Bilney, afterwards one of the martyrs of the Reformation; he followed Latimer to his rooms, and there explained to him more fully the teaching of the New Testament, and showed how the Church had departed from