being at once nurseries of superstition and of misery. In their least objectionable point of view they serve as Bedlams, with this difference, that they are not intended for the cure, but for the promotion of religious madness. But they serve, also, as Penitentiaries, in which bigoted, or hard-hearted and ambitious parents condemn their daughters to imprisonment for life. This dreadful abuse is so notorious, that such institutions would not be tolerated even in superstitious countries, unless some weighty advantages were found in them, whereof the great body of the people are sensible. And how easily might those advantages be obtained in communities founded upon the principles of our own Church, and liable to no such evils!

SIR THOMAS MORE.

The Reformation itself has rendered them more necessary, by relieving the clergy from their obligation to a single life.

MONTESINOS.

Sir Thomas, I can account for any thing in your controversial writings, except for the sort of temper which manifests itself whenever you touch upon that point.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

O Montesinos! what errors are there which may not be explained by the frailty and the

sinfulness of poor human nature? They who are under the direction of an erring conscience may, in a certain sense, properly be said to be possessed wonder not, therefore, that the same possession, which divested me of my natural humanity, should, in this other and more excusable point, have corrupted my judgement also! The angry feeling which I betrayed upon that subject had its rise partly in personal considerations. My early bent had been toward the ecclesiastical profession, and I was deterred from pursuing it, only by the obligation of celibacy which it would have imposed. But looking always upon it as a holier way of life, and perhaps thinking sometimes that in certain respects it might have

*

*"Quin et evolvendis orthodoxorum voluminibus non segnem operam impendit: Augustini libros de Civitate Dei publicè professus est adhuc penè adolescens auditorio frequenti; nec puduit, nec poenituit sacerdotes ac senes à juvene profano sacra discere. Interim et ad pietatis studium totum animum appulit, vigiliis, jejuniis, precationibus, aliisque consimilibus progymnasmatis sacerdotium meditans. Quá quidem in re non paulò plus ille sapiebat, quam plerique isti, qui temerè ad tam arduam professionem ingerunt sese, nullo priùs sui periculo facto. Neque quicquam obstabat quo minus sese huic vitæ generi addiceret, nisi quod uxoris desiderium non posset excutere. Maluit igitur maritus esse castus, quam sacerdos impurus."-Erasm. Epist. L. x. Ep. 30. 536.

proved a happier one, some dissatisfaction with myself was naturally felt when the subject of clerical celibacy was forced upon my attention. "Our most unreasonable prejudices are generally the strongest."* I was not willing to admit that those persons, who protested against this obligation, as being contrary both to the letter and spirit of the scriptures, had perceived a plain and manifest truth,..one, too, of great importance to society,.. where I had been blind; and I fell into the common fault, (not the less reprehensible for being common,) of imputing the worst motives to those from whom I differed

in opinion. We carry our habits of mind with us from this world into the next, be they good or evil, and such as they are is the lot which they have prepared for us; but our errors are mortal, and for them there is no resurrection. Luther and I are friends and associates now, and Frith and Bainham have forgiven me...I offer no excuse for the means which I employed against the Reformers, farther than that in that unhappy and unchristian course of conduct, I was acting in the spirit of the age. Be you thankful that your lot has fallen in times, when, though there may be as many evil tongues and

* Jonathan Boucher.

exasperated spirits, there are none who have fire and faggot at command! But it should be remembered that the Reformation had its dark side, and with that side it presented itself to my view. I grieved over a spoliation, which cannot even now be called to mind without regret; I resisted opinions which in their sure consequences led to anarchy in all things, tending not only to overthrow the foundations of authority both in church and state, and thus to the destruction of all government and all order, but to subvert the moral law, and dethrone conscience from its seat in the heart of man. The evil which I apprehended came to pass. That I did not with the same perspicuity foresee the eventual good, was because it was less certain, and more remote.

MONTESINOS.

Perhaps, also, because you regarded the natural and probable course of human affairs, without sufficiently considering the ways of Providence.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

My friend, let no man presume that he can see prospectively into the ways of Providence! His part is to contemplate them in the past, and trust in them for the future; but, so trusting, to act always upon motives of human prudence,

directed by religious principles. I beheld a system of profligate robbery, a transfer of property from religious establishments to knaves and courtiers, in which Gardiner and Bonner, afterwards the most inhuman agents of a bloody reign, acquiesced; I knew what convulsions Muncer had excited, and we had seen also in that age the consequences of fanaticism carried to their full extent by the Anabaptists. Are you quite safe from a repetition of either evil? Time passes on, and the fashions of the mind, as well as of the body, change; but the mind and the body remain the same in all ages, and are subject to the same accidents of disease and

error.

MONTESINOS.

This I have learnt from history: and the earth itself affords an emblem of it. Let a deep trench be opened in the cleanest field, or the most highly cultivated garden, and when the mould that is thrown out shall have lain long enough to be clothed with vegetation, it will be covered with the same plants which overran the surface before it had ever been disturbed by the spade or by the plough. The system of spoliation we have seen renewed in these days, as the first effect of the French Revolution wherever it extended. We have seen, also, in