Gardiner would not dine till the martyrs were burnt.--Look at these two
contemporary situations, that of the persons with truth and immortal hope
in their spirits, enduring this slow and painful reduction of their bodies
to dissolution,--and that of those who, while their bodies fared
sumptuously, were thus miserably perishing in soul, through its being
surrendered to the curse of a delusion which envenomed it with such a
deadly malignity: and say which was the more calamitous predicament.

If we have no hesitation in pronouncing, let us consider whether we have
ever been grateful enough to God for the dashing in pieces so long since
in this land, of a system which maintains, to this hour, much of its
stability over the greater part of Christendom. If we regret that certain
fragments of it are still held in veneration here, and that so tedious a
length of ages should be required, to work out a complete mental rescue
from the infatuation which possessed our ancestors, let us at the same
time look at the various states of Europe, small and great, where this
superstition continues to hold the minds of the people in its odious
grasp; and verify to ourselves what we have to be thankful for, by
thinking what reception _our_ minds would give to an offer of subsistence
on their mummeries, masses, absolutions, legends, relics, mediation of
saints, and corruptions, even to complete reversal of the evangelic
doctrines.

* * * * *

It was, however, but very slowly that the people of our land realized the
benefits of the Reformation, glorious as that event was, regarded as to
its progressive and its ultimate consequences. Indeed, the thickness of
the preceding darkness was strikingly manifested by the deep shade which
still continued stretched over the nation, in spite of the newly risen