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ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARTYRDOM OF
ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

Thomas

of Canter

A LECTURE was delivered on Friday evening, in Exeter Hall, by the Rev. Dr. Rule, in commemoration of the three hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer. The spacious hall was crowded with a respectable audience, Mr. Wilbraham Taylor occupying the chair. After prayer, Dr. Rule proceeded with his lecture. Three hundred years Rev. Dr. ago, he said, that day, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canter- Rule and bury, was burnt to death. Such an event demanded a solemn Cranmer, remembrance; and when the question arose how it could be best Archbishop and most appropriately commemorated, it was suggested, among bury. other things, that an address or lecture should be delivered in that place, in order to relate some of the leading facts in Cranmer's martyrdom, and point out some of the principal features of his character. When they looked back through history for the long period of three hundred years they would find this country endeavouring to raise itself out of the darkness and ignorance which had so long prevailed in it. In Germany, Martin Luther was successfully raising the banner of ecclesiastical reform, while their own king, Henry the Eighth, was busying himself in writing a book to contradict his statements. The Pope was so pleased with this kingly and royal interference, that he called together his cardinals and great ecclesiastics, in order to confer with them as to what distinguished mark of pontifical honour they should confer upon the Royal disputant. Apostolic, said some, the distinction must be; angelic, said others, it ought to be; but the idea of associating the name of Henry the Eighth with anything angelic seemed somewhat out of course, and it was decided that King Henry he should be dubbed "Defender of the Faith." And accordingly he was installed by Leo the Tenth as such. But while Henry the Eighth and Luther were sharpening their pens and arranging their arguments, Dr. Thomas Cranmer was making himself Rome. busy in Jesus College, Cambridge, in sharpening the understandings of easy, lazy monks, by questioning them out of the Scriptures, and thereby, in his capacity of examiner in Divinity at that University, greatly promoting the study of the Word of God. The Reverend Doctor then referred to the circumstance which led to Cranmer being introduced to Henry the Eighth; such arising from the project of the King to be divorced from

the Eighth dubbed.

Defender of

the Faith by

the Pope of

King
Henry's

wife Cathe-
rino and
Anne
Beyn.

Catherine, in order that he might marry Anne Boleyn; Cranmer, on the point in dispute between the Pope and Henry being referred to him, disregarding Papal authority, and treating it as a pure matter of conscience to be decided by the Word of God. He also detailed how he was sent to Rome by the King to argue the case; the circumstances connected with his stay in Italy; how he quitted the precincts of the Papal Court, confirmed in his Scriptural convictions, which were greatly strengthened by his intercourse with the Reformers of Germany, on his way home, and where he married the nicce of one of the most distinguished of those Reformers, in emphatic defiance of the authority of the Church of Rome; and how, on his return to this country, he was at once installed Archbishop of Canterbury, being considered the fittest man of that day to be placed at the head of the Church of England. On his being so appointed, he, for the first time, protested against the oath of allegiance taken to the Pope. He, no doubt, read the words of the oath, but he publicly protested, at the same time that those words did not bind him to a foreign prelate, or prevent his obedience to his own natural sovereign, the King of England. Thus, then, did Cranmer publicly avow The Popo's his secession from the Church of Rome. He went into the Houses of Parliament, where he was met by the Pope's adherents-for there were such in Parliament then as well as now-and there he declared that no foreign prince nor prelate ought to have jurisdiction in these realms; while he had the Bible translated into the vernacular language of the country, and compelled the priests to read it audibly to the people. Most of them, it would appear, could read it, but it was certainly much against their grain to do so; for while they read, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image," those images were staring them in the face; and in respect of their mode of reading it, a writer of the day said, they mumbled it and hacked it, making it as unintelligible as they could; but, in spite of all this mumbling and hacking, words of power would seem to have crept out from it, for there was a general cry after its doctrines over all the land. Besides conferring upon the country this gift of the Bible in the vernacular language, Archbishop Cranmer conferred another and highly-important gift, The Roman namely, the assertion of national independence. "The Roman Bishop (so he styled the Pope) has no greater jurisdiction allotted to him by God in the Holy Scriptures in this kingdom than any other foreign bishop." That was a declaration which held

adherents

in the Houses of Parliament.

Bishop,

alias the

Pope.

It is ne

cessary to

form the

of Oxford.

Cranmer

land the

asylum for

the Ger

man, It

lin, Po.e,

Adherents

of Rome Jesuits pour out their

and the

venom.

good to this day, and was the charter of liberty of the Church of England. Besides this he promoted the Reformation by breaking up the monasteries and distributing plain Protestant tracts among the common people. He also brought about great reforms in the University of Oxford and reformed the worship of the Church, taking away Latin prayers, and giving University the people the beginning of the Prayer-book of the Church of England. He was the means, too, of rendering this country Archbishop an asylum and a home for the outcast Reformers of other lands, makes Eng so that the German, the Italian, the Pole, and the Spaniard, found here a place of safety. It was not, however, to be supposed, that such a man as Cranmer would be free from the venomous slander of enemies. Such was heaped upon him and with no measured hand by the adherents of Rome and the Spaniard. Jesuits. But that was to be, as he had said, expected; for he had himself read, in a French book, that John Kirby was a man of abandoned moral character, and also a drunkard, and if such things were said of a man whose memory was precious in this land, and whose name was far above the loftiest shafts of calumny, what might they expect to be said of one who, of necessity, had to mingle in the highest affairs of the State, and who, after, was obliged against his conscience, to submit to the will of a majority, and to the fiercer judgments and the darker consciences of the men with whom he was obliged to act? The Reverend Doctor then went over the leading facts connected with Cranmer's career, after the death of Henry the Eighth, down to his martyrdom, at Oxford, by order of Queen Mary, or Que y Bloody Mary, as she was popularly designated. His recanta- alias tion of the reformed faith in the course of the persecutions he Mary. was subjected to, he considered a great weakness in his character, and it gave a blow at the time to the reformed churches; but it was amply compensated for in the end, when, full of the truth as it in Jesus, he denounced the declaration which, in a moment of weakness, he had made, and suffered at the stake for the sake of that faith which he held so precious, and which he had done so much to defend. During Cranmer's imprison- Cranmer ment, England was reconciled back to the faith of Rome, but ha imprisoned and she could not be so by the same means now. Then she was so reconciled by the act of a single man, Cranmer's successor; but she could not be so by such means now. The system now was to bring about a gradual, almost imperceptible, recognition and reconciliation, by rendering them familiar with the doc,

Bloody

at the stake Ronian Ca

by the

tholes for the crime of

adhering to the truth.

A something called the Archbishop of Westminster.

trines of Rome; by having them talked about in Parliament; by placing a sort of image, and tolerating a sort of image worship in their churches; by setting up side by side with the Archbishop of Canterbury a something called the Archbishop of Westminster; by having mass-houses with unfinished steeples, waiting for bells, silently imploring relief; just as a beggar, who was not allowed to beg with his tongue, did so by his attitude, as he stood by the way-side, for the purpose of procuring relief. That was the mode a reconciliation with Rome was now attempted; but let the people be on the alert; let them search the Scriptures, publish them, and practise them, and all those insidious efforts would utterly fail.

On the Rev. Doctor concluding, a cordial vote of thanks was passed to him for his lecture, which was throughout listened to with the greatest attention.

A hymn, appropriate for the occasion, was then sung, and the meeting separated.-Patriot, 24th March, 1856.

L. Kossuth the exGovernor of Hungary.

A TRIED AND FAITHFUL GENERAL OF THE
GREAT KING.

LOUIS KOSSUTII ON THE AUSTRIAN CONCORDAT

LAST night the ex-Governor of Ilungary delivered a lecture on the Austrian Concordat, at the school-rooms connected with Spa-fields Chapel, Exmouth-street, Clerkenwell. Although there was a charge for admission, the room was crowded to excess. The illustrious exile was cheered in the most enthusiastic manner as he ascended the platform, accompanied by a number of his friends.

The Rev. T. E. THORESBY, the pastor of the chapel, introduced the lecturer by observing that the illustrious man, to whom it would be their high gratification to listen that evening, needed no introduction to an English audience. He was sure they would give him a hearty welcome. It was necessary, however, for him to say one word as to the course of lectures which Mr. Kossuth was now about to inaugurate. The place was built for the instruction of children in the day, and of adults in the evening. They would attain that object by a variety of means. They would diffuse a knowledge of history, politics, science, art, litera

ture, and also of social economics, our rights, duties, reforms, and progress. The gentlemen who had had the arrangement of the lectures, differed in their religious and political opinions. They were, therefore, in no case responsible for the opinions of the lecturers, nor were the lecturers to be supposed, in any case, to favour their opinions.

cis Joseph

an enemy of

not allow

the church

to encroach

upon the

State.

Mr. Kossuth then came forward, amidst loud and long-con- The Emtinued applause. After a brief introduction, he gave a very able peror Fran historical sketch of Hungary, in relation to Protestantism; and of Austria showed the services that country had rendered to the cause of the Great civil and religious liberty. He showed also the advantages it King. had conferred upon Europe by distinguishing between religion itself and the tyrannical ambition of the Papacy. The Hun- The Hungarian people drew a broad distinction between Church and garians will State, and would not allow the former to encroach upon the latter. This had led to a great deal of manly independence on the part even of the Hungarian Catholics themselves. They had even refused to become the tools of the Papal See. In the centre of Europe, Hungary had always constituted a great barrier to Papal aggression. Their Diet, and their municipal privileges, enabled his patriotic countrymen not only to speak against tyranny, as Englishmen could do in public meetings, but to counteract its intentions. But this free expression of opinion had been put an end to by foreign bayonets. England looked The rulers on, without saying a word, while Russia destroyed the liberties of England, of Hungary; but Europe-particularly England-had already sition to suffered retribution for her indifference upon that occasion, and withhold her people, would suffer still more. Had Hungary still been free there aid from would have been no Concordat, no war, no Paris Conferences, garians. and no temporising, unsatisfactory peace. How was it that this feeble and vacillating Pio Nono had been able to accomplish that which many of his ablest predecessors had attempted, but which none of them had effected? Because, time was when the Pope and temporal tyrants were at variance; in this case they had united for the common object of the subjugation of the peoples. Rome never changed in her endeavours to secure universal dominion; although, as to the means by which she sought to attain her ends, she was perpetually changing. He showed the importance to liberty and Protestantism of Hungary being free, by asking his audience to consider what would have been the fate of Europe, if Hungary had embraced Mahomedanism, instead of repulsing its aggressions on Europe? or if it had

in oppo

the Hun

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