nobly answered them that he did not regret his blindness, since it only gave him a greater claim on God's love and protection, speaking of his affliction not as the shutting out of light, but as the darkness beneath God's sheltering wings. 18. His blindness and the death of his wife came near together, and the poet was left with his three little motherless girls, one just a baby. About that time he was appointed Cromwell's foreign secretary, his great knowledge of Latin making him well fitted for the post. A young poet, Andrew Marvell,1 his assistant, was able to do all the mere writing work. 19. Milton married a second time; but in a year his wife died, and again the poet was left alone with his three young children. 20. When Cromwell died, and his son ruled so weakly that people spoke of having the Stuarts back again, Milton wrote strongly advising the people not to do so. These were his last political writings, for a Stuart king was brought back in 1660; and for a time Milton was, as you may imagine, in great danger. But though his Defence was burned by the hangman, Milton himself escaped, and lived calmly, though in poverty, in Bunhill Fields. He suffered from gout; but in spite of his blindness and pain, he was able to write the great poem that he had planned. For a time he had some difficulty in making up his mind what subject he should choose. He thought of King Arthur among others, but at last chose Paradise Lost. 21. We sometimes wonder why God allowed Adam to disobey him, and fall into sin and unhappiness in which all the world has shared. Milton in his poem answers that question and many others. He shows that God made both man and the angels free to obey him or disobey him; for if not, if they had all been obliged to obey him, there would have been no value in their obedience. It would not show either love or a sense of duty as free obedience does. As the angel Raphael explained to Adam, both angels and men are happy so long as they obey: : 1 Andrew Marvell. He became Member trary Government in England." Born of Parliament for Hull, and wrote a power- 1620; died 1678. ful prose treatise on "Popery and Arbi "Myself and all th' angelic host that stand In sight of God enthroned, our happy state Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not." 22. It is only loving obedience, not forced, that God cares for. But both angels and men disobeyed. Satan and his companions disobeyed God, and were driven out of heaven; and in revenge he resolved to bring sin into the new world which God had made. So he goes to Adam and Eve in the happy garden of Eden, and, disguised as a serpent, tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Then they are driven, weeping, from the garden. But God seeing their repentance, promises them forgiveness; for in heaven, at a great meeting of the angels, God's Son had himself offered to suffer death for the sins of the world, and God had accepted the offer. Through the whole poem, which is a very long one, Milton has one great purpose-to 23. All epic poems must, like his, have one great subject, must begin right in the midst of the action, and show the consequences of the great event described. Milton's Paradise Lost fulfils all these conditions, and so is a true epic. It is written in blank verse; and all through the different books are beautiful passages descriptive of places and people. Some, very grand but very awful, describe Satan and the rebel angels standing on the burning plain; others tell of Adam and Eve and their lovely garden home, and sometimes even of heaven itself and the angel hosts. And 24. Milton got very little money for this grand poem. perhaps it was not much read at the time it was published ; but now every one who loves good poetry reads it, and many people go to it again and again, ever finding out fresh beauties. The sound of the verses is like that of grand organ music, and even when we cannot quite understand the meaning we like to hear the poem read. 25. A friend to whom Milton lent Paradise Lost before it was published, when he returned it, said, "Thou hast said much here of 'Paradise Lost,' but what hast thou to say of 'Paradise Found' ?" This led to Milton's writing Paradise Regained, in which he describes Christ's life on earth and temptations on the mount, showing how by his victory over sin and death Christ won back for mankind a chance of Paradise. 26. Milton also wrote many fine sonnets, and a dramă called Samson Agonistes-that is, Samson the wrestler. He shows us the Samson of the Bible struggling against the Philistines; and perhaps he meant to show also that though the Puritans, like Samson, had been shorn of their strength and had fallen, yet, like Samson, they had done their work. As Samson, when he leant against the pillars of the house of Gaza, perished with his enemies, so the cause of the Puritans had been overcome. Yet they had pulled down the pillars of tyrannical government, and God would still carry on the war they had begun for truth and freedom. 27. Such were the wonderful songs of the blind old singer. His life was nearly over; yet up to the last it was one of the highest enjoyment of noble work. His days were spent simply and peacefully. His daughters or friends read to him his beloved Greek and Latin and Hebrew books. His wife sang to him; while even in his blindness the poet still played the organ or sang the grand old hymns. His mornings were spent dictating his poems to his daughters, and his evenings in pleasant talk with his friends. In the year 1674, at the age of sixty-six, he passed away to the higher life for which his life on earth had been one long preparation. CHAPTER XIV. THREE GREAT PREACHERS. 1. You have seen how from the time of Henry the Eighth and the Reformation in England there had been much discussing, and writing, and fighting for religion. The strife still continued through the time of Charles the First and the Civil War, during the Commonwealth, and after the restoration of Charles the Second. In one way it was a good sign, as it showed how important the English people had begun to consider their religion; but it was certainly very sad that there should be want of union and such bitterness of feeling between different parties. Each of these religious parties thought itself right and all the others wrong, and tried to force its opinions on all the rest. 2. There were a few good men who wrote against the folly of acting thus, and tried to prove to people that they could love God without hating their brethren. One of these was a Churchman, JEREMY TAYLOR. He was the son of a barber at Cambridge, and was born in 1613. He went first to the Free School; but when he was thirteen he entered the University as a poor scholar. He must have worked hard, to keep himself and also to take his degree. At twenty years of age he entered the Church; and soon afterwards, at the desire of a college friend of his, went for a time to lecture instead of his friend at St. Paul's in London. His fine sermons soon brought large numbers to hear him. Archbishop Laud even sent for Taylor to preach before him, and was so pleased with him that he made him a fellow of Oxford University. The Bishop of London gave him a living in Uppingham,1 and for five years Taylor lived quietly there with his wife. 3. When the Civil War broke out he left his home and went to be the king's chaplain at Oxford; and in the same year his wife died. When the Royalist army was in Wales, Taylor was taken prisoner and was kept there for some time. Even when he was set free, he decided to remain in Wales, and along with another clergyman took a house and started a school in Caermarthenshire. Here Jeremy Taylor married as his second wife a lady who had some property near his new home. They seem to have led a quiet, happy life, with 1 Uppingham, in Rutlandshire. the school work in the morning, the afternoon and evening for quiet reading or thought, and pleasant friends near to talk with. Those friends were Lord and Lady Carbery of Golden Grove, the largest house near the Taylors. Lord Carbery, though a Royalist, had been allowed to retire after the battle of Marston Moor. His first wife was a kind, good lady, and a true friend to Taylor; his second was the Lady Alice, daughter of the Earl of Bridgewater, of whose purity and gentleness Milton has given us a picture in his Comus. 4. While Jeremy Taylor was living this quiet life in Wales, his thoughts were busy with the religious struggles of the times. He saw that it was impossible that all Christians should think alike except on a few great points; and yet he did not see why the English Church should not be wide enough to embrace every sect, and leave all men liberty of holding their own opinions on little matters, so long as they led good lives and were honest about great matters. So he wrote a book called Liberty of Prophesying, proposing that all who believed the Apostles' Creed should be received into the National Church, and that each man should be allowed to keep to his own meaning of the Scriptures. Thus he who had been persecuted taught that there should be no persecution in the Christian Church. 5. Some years afterwards he wrote another book, The Life of Christ, the Great Exemplar, showing that a holy life after the pattern of the most beautiful life ever lived on earth was of more importance than striving about differences of opinion. Two other little books which Jeremy Taylor wrote are called Holy Living and Holy Dying. One showed how the busiest, most active life could be one of obedience to God; and the other was intended to help those who were sick or old to prepare for death. The writing in these is very beautiful-quite like poetry in parts, with a fine musical rhythm. 6. The sermons which he preached before Lord and Lady Carbery and their neighbours in Wales were also printed and published, as was also a little book of prayers called, after Lord Carbery's house, The Golden Grove. Some of Taylor's works were written while he was in prison. He was twice |