too late the Church cries to her lost children to return to her.[1] Or, again, Germany may teach you. How calm, how tranquil, how full of piety was Germany! How did Germany flourish while it held steadfast by the faith! How has it been torn with wars, distracted with mutinies, since it has revolted from its allegiance! There is no hope for Germany, unless, which God grant, it return to the Church—our Supreme Head. This is the Church's surest bulwark; this is the first mark for the assaults of heretics; this the first rallying point of true Catholics; this, Cæsar, those heroic children of the Church in England have lately died to defend, choosing rather to give their naked bodies to the swords of their enemies than desert a post which was the key to the sanctuary.
''That post was stormed—those valiant soldiers were slain. What wonder, when the champion of the foemen's host was a king! Oh, misery; worse than the worst which ever yet has befallen the spouse of Christ! The poison of heresy has reached a king, and, like the Turk, he shakes his drawn sword in the face of
- ↑ Elsewhere in his letters Pole touches on this string. If England was to be recovered, he was never weary of saying, it must be recovered at once, while the generation survived which had been educated in the Catholic faith. The poison of heresy was instilled with so deadly skill into schools and churches, into every lesson which the English youth were taught, that in a few years the evil would be past cure. He was altogether right. The few years in fact were made to pass before Pole and his friends were able to interfere; and then it was too late; the prophecy was entirely verified. But, indeed, the most successful preachers of the Reformation were neither Cranmer nor Parker, Cromwell nor Burghley, Henry nor Elizabeth, but Pole himself and the race of traitors who followed him.
