For the Faith: A Story of the Young Pioneers of Reformation in Oxford

They looked breathlessly at Arthur, and he spoke again.

"I will not describe to you what we found when we entered the prison. Enough that one would not herd one's swine in such a place. Two out of the three were dying; and the third, though sick as you now see him, was yet dragging himself from one to the other, to minister to their still greater needs, as he had done from the first, giving to them of his own meagre food and water-neither of which was fit for human beings to touch-and enduring all the slow agonies of fevered thirst day after day, that their in some way be lightened.

"Sumner lived to tell us that. From the first Radley had sickened, as the strong men ofttimes do in such places more quickly than the weaker and feebler of body. Clarke, who had brought his body into subjection by fasting, who had nursed the sick in their filthy homes, and spent weeks at times in fever-stricken spots-he resisted longest the ravages of the fell prison fever. He and Sumner nursed Radley as best they might. Then Sumner fell sick, and Clarke had them both to care for.

"To the very last he tended them. Though well nigh in as evil a case, he yet would rise and crawl to them, and give them food and water, or moisten their lips when they could no longer eat the coarse prison fare. His patience and sweetness were not quite without effect even on the jailer, and from time to time he would bring them better food and a larger measure of water.

"But even so, there was none to help or succour them in their hour of extremest need. May God look down and judge the things which pass upon this earth, and are done by those who take His name freely upon their lips! He whose eyes see all things have seen those three men in their prison house. May He be the judge of all things!"

"Thank God you came in time!" spoke Magdalen, with streaming eyes. "Thank God they did not die in that foul hole!"

"I do thank Him for that. I fear me poor Radley did not know that release for him had come; his greater release followed so hard afterwards. But Sumner lived long enough to know us, and to rejoice in the hope that Clarke's life would be spared. We did not tell him how little chance there was of that. 'He is one of God's saints upon earth,' were amongst his last words; 'surely He has a great work for him to do here. Afterwards he will walk with Him in white, for he is worthy.' And then in broken words he told us the story of those weeks in prison; and with a happy smile upon his lips he passed away. He did not desire aught else for himself. He left Clarke in the hands of his friends. He folded his hands together and whispered, 'Say the Nunc dimittis for me, and the last prayer;' and as we did so his soul took flight. The smile of holy triumph and joy was sealed by death upon his face."

"Faithful unto death," whispered Freda softly to herself, "he has won for himself a crown of life."

Anthony came to her presently, looking strangely white and shaken. They passed together out into the moonlight night. He was deeply moved, and she saw it; and her silence was the silence of sympathy.

"If only I had shared their faith, their steadfastness, their sufferings!" he spoke at last.

But she laid her hand upon his arm and whispered tenderly:

"Think not now of that. The past is not ours; and I know that God has forgiven all that was weak or sinful in it. No sin repented of but is washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Let us rejoice in that there are ever those who will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, both here and hereafter, and will sing the song that no man else can learn. And if we ourselves fail of being counted in that glorious numbered host, may we not rejoice that others are found worthy of that unspeakable glory, and seek to gain strength and wisdom and grace from their example, so that in the days to come we may be able to tread more firmly in the narrow way they have travelled before us?"

They saw him the next day, for he asked to be moved out into the garden, into the sunshine of the sweet spring day. Weak as he was, Dr. Langton was of opinion that nothing could either greatly hurt or greatly restore him. And to fulfil his wishes was the task all were eager to perform. So, when the light was just beginning to grow mellow and rosy, and the shadows to lengthen upon the grass, Clarke was carried out and laid upon a couch in the shelter of the hoary walls, whilst he gazed about him with eyes that were full of an unspeakable peace and joy, and which greeted with smiling happiness each friendly face as it appeared.

They knew not how to speak to him; but they pressed his wasted hand, and sat in silence round him, trying to see with his eyes and hear with his ears, and listening to the fitful words which sprang from time to time to his lips.

"It is like the new heavens and the new earth," he said once-"the earth which the Lord will make new, free from the curse of sin. Ah, what a glorious day that will be! If this fallen world of ours can be so beautiful, so glorious, so full of His praise, so full of heavenly harmonies, what will that other earth he like, where He will reign with His saints, and sin and death shall be no more?"

It seemed to others as though he were already living in that new earth of peace and joy, and in the immediate presence of the Lord. The light in his eyes grew brighter day by day, the shining of his face more intense. As his hold upon the things of this world relaxed, so did his sense of heavenly realities increase in intensity. All his words were of peace and love and joy. It seemed as though for him the veil were rent in twain, and his eyes saw the unspeakable glories beyond.

His gratitude to those who had brought him forth from the prison and set him in this fair place was expressed again and again. But once, in answer to something Freda spoke, he said with a wonderful lighting of the eyes:

"And yet, if you can believe it, we were strangely happy even there, for the Lord was in the midst of us, as surely as He is here amid this peace and loveliness. When we are holding Him by the hand, feeling His presence, seeing His face in the darkness, believing that it is His will for us to be there, it is strange how the darkness becomes light, the suffering ceases, the horror all passes away. I do not mean that the enemy does not intervene-that he does not come and with his whispers seek to shake our faith, to cloud our spirits, to shroud us in darkness and obscurity. But thanks be to God, His Son, having overcome temptation in human flesh, we in His strength, by Him, and through Him, and in Him, have power to overcome. Satan came; but he did not stay, for One that was mightier was with us. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

That was all he ever spoke of the prison life-no word of its hardships and sufferings, only of the power of the Lord to take away the bitterness, and to comfort, cheer, and strengthen. And so they ceased to think or to speak of it, too. It had not hurt him. The iron had never entered into his soul. And almost by now he had forgotten. All was peace and joy and love. And even the knowledge that his companions had passed away was no trouble to him.

"We shall meet so soon again," he said, and the light deepened in his eyes. "I am so curious to know how it is with the departed-whether they lie at rest as in a heaven-sent sleep, while their heart waketh; or whether the Lord has work for them beyond the grave, into which they enter at once. I long to know what that blessed state is like, where we are with Christ, yet not in the glory of the resurrection, but awaiting that at His good pleasure. Well, soon all this will be made known to me; and I cannot doubt we shall meet again in joy and love those with whom we have walked in fellowship upon this earth, and that we shall in turn await those who follow after into peace, and so with them look forward to the glorious day when the living shall be changed and the dead receive their bodies back, glorified in resurrection life, and so enter all together into the presence of God, presented as one holy mystical body to Him, the Bride of the Lamb."

There was just one shadow that fell for a moment athwart the perfect peace and joy of this departure. But it was not one that could touch his spirit for more than a moment.

As he felt life slipping fast away, and knew that very soon he must say farewell to earth and its sorrows and joys, he called Arthur to his side and asked:

"Will they admit me to the rite of the Holy Communion before I die?"

It was a question which Arthur had foreseen, and he had himself taken a special journey to Oxford to see the dean upon that very point.

But Clarke still lay beneath the ban of excommunication. He was still regarded as a heretic; and although, after all he had passed through, much sympathy was expressed for him, and any further cruelty was strongly deprecated, yet the law of the church forbade that the holy thing should be touched by unhallowed hands, or pass unhallowed lips.

So now he looked compassionately into Clarke's face and said:

"I fear me they will not do so. I have done what I can; but they will not listen. None may dare to bring it to you until the ban of the church be taken off."

Clarke looked into his face at first with a pained expression, but gradually a great light kindled in his eyes. He half rose from the couch on which he was lying, and he stretched forth his hands as though he were receiving something into them. Then looking upwards, he spoke-spoke with a greater strength than he had done for many days-and a vivid smile illuminated his face. They were all standing about him, for they knew the end was near, and they all saw and heard.

"Crede et manducasti," he said; and then, with a yet more vivid illumination of his features, he added in a whisper, "My Lord and my God!"

Then he fell back, and with that smile of triumph upon his face, passed away.

Over his remains, which were permitted to lie in consecrated ground, they set up a white cross; and beneath his name were the words:

"Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

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"Believe, and thou hast eaten." Words often used by the early "heretics," who were debarred from partaking of the feast of Holy Communion.