betrays to us; not as it is exhibited in contemporary documents
merely, but as it is carefully collected from these, and from the
_traditions_ of 'the next ages.'

That the suppressed Elizabethan Reformers and Innovators were men so
far in advance of their time, that they were compelled to have
recourse to literature for the purpose of instituting a gradual
encroachment on popular opinions, a gradual encroachment on the
prejudices, the ignorance, the stupidity of the oppressed and
suffering masses of the human kind, and for the purpose of making over
the practical development of the higher parts of their science, to
ages in which the advancements they instituted had brought the common
mind within hearing of these higher truths; that these were men whose
aims were so opposed to the power that was still predominant
then,--though the 'wrestling' that would shake that predominance, was
already on foot,--that it became necessary for them to conceal their
lives as well as their works,--to veil the true worth and nobility of
them, to suffer those ends which they sought as means, means which
they subordinated to the noblest uses, to be regarded in their own age
as their _ends_; that they were compelled to play this great game in
secret, in their own time, referring themselves to posthumous effects
for the explanation of their designs; postponing their honour to ages
able to discover their worth; this is the proposition which is derived
here from the works in which the tradition of this learning is
conveyed to us.

But in the part of this work referred to, from which the ensuing
extracts are made, it was the life, and not merely the writings of the
founders of this school which was produced in evidence of this claim.
It was the life in which these disguised ulterior aims show themselves