with Bishop Jewel. On leaving, the bishop brought to him a staff, and said to him, "Richard, I do not give but lend you this, my horse; be sure you be honest and bring it back to me at your return this way to Oxford. And I do now give you ten groats to bear your charges to Exeter; and here is ten groats more, which I charge you to deliver to your mother, and tell her I send my blessing with it, and beg her prayers for me. And if you bring my horse back to me, I will give you ten groats more to carry you on foot to the college; and so God bless you, good Richard.”

Richard brought the bishop's staff back, and again. stopped at Salisbury on his return to Oxford, but this was the last time he ever saw his kind friend and helper, for a short time after the news was brought to Oxford that Bishop Jewel was dead. It was a great sorrow to Hooker to lose his good friend, and the sorrow for his loss was added to by the fear that he would no longer be able to stay at the university. This fear, however, was soon set at rest; for Dr. Cole, the head of the college, at once told him to go cheerfully to his studies, and he would take care he wanted for nothing. A few months later the means of providing for his own support at college was offered to him in a way which shows the high esteem in which he was held, both for character and learning. Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, had heard of Richard Hooker from Bishop Jewel, and being now about to send his son for the first time to Oxford, he determined to place him under the care of Hooker, though there was not much difference in their ages. "For," said the Archbishop, "I will have a tutor for my son that shall teach him learning by instruction and virtue by example, and my greatest care shall be of the last; and, God willing, this Richard Hooker shall be the man into whose hands I will commit my Edwin." About the same time Hooker was asked to take another pupil, George Cranmer, great-nephew of Archbishop Cranmer The

young tutor was only eighteen, and his pupils a year or two younger, and there soon grew up a most pleasant friendship between them; "a friendship," says Izaak Walton, "made up of religious principles which increased daily by a similitude of inclinations to the same recreations and studies; a friendship begun in youth, and in a university, free from self-ends. And in this sweet, this blessed, this spiritual amity, they went on for many years; and, as the holy Prophet saith, so 'they took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God as friends,' by which means they improved this friendship to such a degree of holy amity as bordered upon heaven; a friendship so sacred, that when it ended in this world it began in the next, where it shall have no end."

As soon as Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer had finished their college course, they left Oxford to travel on the Continent, which was considered necessary for a young gentleman of that time. Meanwhile Hooker continued to study and perfect himself in all kinds of learning, and many other pupils were sent to him. He took his M.A. degree, and was made Fellow of his College; he was also appointed Hebrew lecturer. About the year 1581 he was ordained priest, and soon after was requested to preach at St. Paul's Cross. These public preachings have been described in the account of Latimer; and in Queen Elizabeth's reign any celebrated man was sent for to preach there, the queen herself often going in state to hear the sermons. As the preachers frequently came from a distance, there was a house appointed where they might lodge while in London. It was called the Shunamite's house, from the story of the Shunamite woman who made the little room for Elisha. A good man, who had failed in business, was appointed to live in the house with his wife, and entertain the preachers.

Hooker rode up to London on horseback, in pouring

rain; and being unused to riding, and wet through, he felt so ill when he reached the Shunamite's house that he thought it impossible he should be able to preach on the Sunday. It was Thursday evening when he arrived, and for the next two days Mrs. Churchman, the wife of the man who kept the house, nursed him and doctored him so successfully that on Sunday he was quite well, and preached the sermon at St. Paul's Cross. He was very grateful to good Mrs. Churchman, and ready to listen to any advice she might give him; and seeing how much her care had done for him, he readily believed her when she told him that he ought to have a wife to nurse him and make his life more comfortable. Hooker probably objected, that he did not know any one whom he could ask to be his wife; for when Mrs. Churchman proposed that she should find one for him, he readily agreed to it, and left the matter in her hands.

About a year afterwards, Mrs. Churchman informed him that she had found a wife for him, and he went up to London to be married. The wife proved to be Mrs. Churchman's own daughter Joan; and Hooker, trusting Mrs. Churchman's choice, married her. He wanted a wife to nurse him and make him comfortable; and Mrs. Hooker seems to have been a busy, energetic woman. But he had not, perhaps, considered that times of illness are rare compared with the times of health and ordinary life, and that the bustle and activity of a woman who had no sympathy with his pursuits would be rather disturbing to his calm student life. She was a thoroughly practical woman, and perhaps true to a certain narrow sense of duty; but she had a violent and overbearing temper, and there were no doubt many things which made Hooker's married life a time of daily little trials. But Hooker was not a man to be overcome by these; he saw the hand of God in all the events of life, and he felt, perhaps, that there was a needful discipline in those things which drew him away from his favourite pursuits, and

obliged him to take thought and care for affairs which concern the life of others. And we shall see how true was Hooker's faith in the working of greater good out of what seems evil; for had it not been for the trials of his married life he might never have undertaken his great work, because the circumstances which called it forth arose out of the concern of his two old pupils at the "thorny wilderness" in which they found him.

Hooker on his marriage had given up his college fellowship, and had been appointed to the living of DraytonBeauchamp, in Buckinghamshire. He had been here about a year, when Edwin Sandys and George Cranmer came to see their old tutor. Izaak Walton gives the following account of their visit :--"They found him with a book in his hand-it was the 'Odes of Horace'-he being then like humble and innocent Abel, tending his small allotment of sheep in a common field; which he told his pupils he was forced to do then, for that his servant had gone home to dine, and assist his wife to do some necessary household business. But when his servant returned and released him, then his two pupils attended him into his house, where their best entertainment was his quiet company; which was presently denied them, for Richard was called to rock the cradle; and the rest of their welcome was so like this, that they stayed but till next morning, which was time enough to discover and pity their tutor's condition; and they having in that time rejoiced in the remembrance, and then paraphrased on many of the innocent recreations of their younger days; and thereby given him as much present comfort as they were able, they were forced to leave him to the company of his wife Joan, and seek themselves a quieter lodging for next night. But at their parting from him Mr. Cranmer said, 'Good tutor, I am sorry your lot is fallen in no better ground, as to your parsonage; and more sorry that your wife proves not a more comfortable

companion, after you have wearied yourself in your studies!' To whom the good man replied, 'My dear George, if the saints have usually a double share in the miseries of this life, I, that am none, ought not to repine at what my wise Creator hath appointed me; but labour, as indeed I do daily, to submit my will to His, and possess my soul in patience and peace.'"

Perhaps the looking after his sheep with a book in his hand, and still more the rocking of his baby's cradle, did not appear such great hardships to Hooker as they seemed to the young men; but, at any rate, Mr. Sandys was so persuaded of "his tutor's sad condition," that he induced his father, the Archbishop of York, to use his interest in getting Hooker appointed Master of the Temple. It was with much reluctance that Hooker left his quiet country parish and went up to London. His own wish was to live "where he might see God's blessings spring out of the earth, and be free from noise," but he had work to do in the active world of life; he must do battle in the noise and heat of the combat for that portion of Truth granted to him; and he was too true a hero to shrink from duty because it was distasteful to him. So he came up to London in the year 1585, just at the time when the later controversies of Queen Elizabeth's reign were going on in the Church. Whitgift and Cartwright had made peace with one another, and the Mar-Prelate controversy had scarcely begun; but there was much contention over disputed points, and the Puritan party was gaining strength among the people. The chief weapon of the Puritans lay in their assertion of the absolute authority of Scripture in matters of outward form and Church government, as well as in matters of faith; for this argument laid hold of many of the most faithful and conscientious Christians, who desired to obey the will of God in everything, and who had never perceived that Reason and Nature are