And likewise yours.-[Aside.] Yea, this is as I heard:

A wily woman hither sent from France.

Alas, alas, how frail the state of man!

How weak the strongest! This is such a fall

Your swift return auspicious? Sure it denotes
A prosperous mission?

Father John

What I see and hear

Of sinful courses, and of nets and snares
Encompassing the feet of them that once

Were steadfast deemed, speaks only to my heart
Of coming judgments.

Cecile

What I see and hear

Of naughty friars and of

Elena

Peace, Cecile !
Go to your chamber: you forget yourself.
Father, your words afflict me.

Artevelde [as he enters]

Enter Artevelde

[Exit Cecile.

Who is it says

That Father John is come? Ah! here he is.

Give me your hand, good father! For your news,
Philosophy befriend me that I show

No strange impatience; for your every word

Must touch me in the quick.

Father John

To you alone

Elena

And through me speaks the Master whom I serve;
After strange women them that went astray

God never prospered in the olden time,

Nor will he bless them now. An angry eye

That sleeps not, follows thee till from thy camp
Thou shalt have put away the evil thing.

This in her presence will I say

O God!

Elena

This foreign tie is not to Heaven alone

Displeasing, but to those on whose firm faith

Father John

Elena

Rests under Heaven your all; 'tis good you know

It is offensive to your army; — nay,

And justly, for they deem themselves betrayed,
When circumvented thus by foreign wiles
They see their chief.

Oh! let me quit the camp.
Misfortune follows wheresoe'er I come;
My destiny on whomsoe'er I love
Alights: it shall not, Artevelde, on thee;
For I will leave thee to thy better star
And pray for thee aloof.

Thou shalt do well

For him and for thyself: the camp is now
A post of danger.

Artevelde! O God!

In such an hour as this-in danger's hour-
How can I quit thee?

Father John

Dost thou ask? I say,
As thou wouldst make his danger less or more,
Depart or stay. The universal camp,
Nay more, the towns of Flanders, are agape
With tales of sorceries, witcheries, and spells,
That blind their chief and yield him up a prey
To treasons foul. How much is true or false
I know not and I say not; but this truth

I sorrowfully declare,- that ill repute
And sin and shame grow up with every hour
That sees you linked together in these bonds
Of spurious love.

Elena

Artevelde

Father, enough is said.
Clerk's eyes nor soldier's will I more molest
By tarrying here. Seek other food to feed
Your pious scorn and pertinent suspicions.
Alien from grace and sinful though I be,
Yet is there room to wrong me. I will go,
Lest this injustice done to me work harm
Unto my lord the Regent.

Hold, I say;

Give me a voice in this. You, Father John,
I blame not, nor myself will justify;

But call my weakness what you will, the time

Is past for reparation. Now to cast off

The partner of my sin were further sin;

'Twere with her first to sin, and next against her.

And for the army, if their trust in me

Be sliding, let it go: I know my course;
And be it armies, cities, people, priests,

That quarrel with my love, wise men or fools,

Friends, foes, or factions, they may swear their oaths,
And make their murmur,- rave, and fret, and fear,
Suspect, admonish,- they but waste their rage,
Their wits, their words, their counsel: here I stand
Upon the deep foundations of my faith

To this fair outcast plighted; and the storm

That princes from their palaces shakes out,

Though it should turn and head me, should not strain

The seeming silken texture of this tie.

To business next: Nay, leave us not, beloved,—

I will not have thee go as one suspect;

Stay and hear all. Father, forgive my heat,
And do not deem me stubborn. Now at once
The English news?

Father John

Your deeds upon your head!
Be silent my surprise- be told my tale.

JEREMY TAYLOR

(1613-1667)

BY T. W. HIGGINSON

AWTHORNE once pointed out the intrinsic perishableness of all volumes of sermons; and the fact that goes farthest to refute this theory is the permanent readableness of Jeremy Taylor. Not always profound as a thinker, and not consistent in that large theory of religious liberty in which he surpassed his times, he holds his own by pure beauty of rhetoric, wealth of imagination, and abundant ardor of mind. Coleridge calls

him "most eloquent of divines;" adding further, "had I said 'of men,' Cicero would forgive me, and Demosthenes add assent." So beautiful is Taylor's imagery, so free the motion of his wings in upper air, that when he once appeals to the reader with a sentence beginning "So have I seen," it is impossible to withdraw attention until the whole series of prolonged and balanced clauses comes to an end. Like other fine rhetoricians, he has also a keen ear for rhetoric in others; and his ample notes preserve for us many fine and pithy Greek or Latin or Italian sentences, which otherwise might have faded even from human memory. carefully prepared works, 'Holy Living' and 'Holy Dying,' need to be read twice with different ends in view: once for the text, and once for the accompanying quotations.

JEREMY TAYLOR

Jeremy Taylor, the son of a Cambridge barber, was born on August 15th, 1613, took his degrees at the University (Caius College), where he was also a fellow; and afterwards obtained through Archbishop Laud a fellowship at Oxford (All Souls). He later became rector at Uppingham, and was twice married; his second wife, Joanna Bridges, being, in the opinion of Bishop Heber, an illegitimate daughter of Charles I. when Prince of Wales. His first work, published in 1642, bore the curious name of 'Episcopacy Asserted against the Acephali and Aërians New and Old,' and hardly gave a hint of his future

reputation. He is thought to have served as chaplain during the civil war, and was impoverished by that great convulsion, as were so many others; becoming later a schoolmaster in Wales. Here he was befriended by Richard Vaughan, Earl of Carbery, whose residence "Golden Grove" affords a title to Taylor's manual of devotion, published in 1655. This, with the other works by which the author is now best known, was prepared during his retirement from the world, between 1647 and 1660. The Liberty of Prophesying' (1655) was far above the prevalent opinions of the time, or indeed of any time. In this he sets aside all grounds of authority except the words of Scripture, placing reason above even those; and denies the right of civil government to exercise discipline over opinions. The fact that he was three times in his life imprisoned for his own utterances may well have strengthened this liberality; but unfortunately it did not prevent him, when after the Restoration he became Bishop of Down and Connor, from ejecting thirty-six ministers from their pulpits for doctrines too strongly Presbyterian. He was capable even of very questionable casuistry; justified the Israelites for spoiling the Egyptians, maintained that private evil might be employed for the public good, and that we may rightfully employ reasonings which we know to be unfounded. This was in a book expressly designed as a guide to learners, the Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in all her General Measures (1660).

Taylor's whole theory of religious liberty may be found summed up in one passage, which heads the series of selections that follow in this volume; and which may be thus condensed still further: No man, he thinks, can be trusted to judge for others unless he be infallible, which no man is. It is, however, perfectly legitimate for men to choose guides who shall judge for them; only it is to be remembered that those thus choosing have not got rid of the responsibility of selection, since they select the guides. The best course for a man, Taylor also points out, is to follow his guide while his own reason is satisfied, and no farther; since no man can escape this responsibility without doing willful violence to his own nature. Reason is thus necessarily the final arbiter; and all things else - Scriptures, traditions, councils, and fathers-afford merely the evidences in the question, while reason remains and must remain the judge. It is needless to say that in this statement every vestige of infallible authority is swept away.

In handling practical questions, Jeremy Taylor displays an equal freedom from traditional bondage. In dealing with the difficult subject of marriage, for instance, it is to be noticed that he places the two parties, ordinarily, on more equal terms than English usage, or even the accustomed discipline of the English Church, has recognized;