on its own wings, it may be to cleave its course into the sunlight, and be the wonder of after-times, but more often to fall like Icarus. The man of working ability tempers his judgment by the opinion of others. He leads his age—he bears the brunt of the battle—he wins the victory; but the motive force which bears him forward is not in himself, but in the great tidalwave of human progress. He is the guide of a great movement, not the creator of it; and he represents in his own person the highest average wisdom, combined necessarily in some measure with the mistakes and prejudices of the period to which he belongs.[1]
On receiving the list of grievances, the King, then three weeks married to Jane Seymour, in the first enjoyment, as some historians require us to believe, of a guilty pleasure purchased by an infamous murder, drew up with his own hand,[2] and submitted to the two Houses of Convocation, a body of articles, interesting as throwing light upon his state of mind, and of deeper moment as the first authoritative statement of doctrine in the Anglican Church.
By the duties of his princely office, he said, he held himself obliged, not only to see God's Word and commandment sincerely believed and reverently kept and observed, but to prevent also, as far as possible, conten-
- ↑ Luther, by far the greatest man of the sixteenth century, was as rigid a believer in the real presence as Aquinas or St Bernard.
- ↑ We were constrained to put our own pen to the book, and to conceive certain articles which were by you, the bishops, and the whole of the clergy of this our realm, agreed on as Catholic.—Henry VIII. to the Bishops and Clergy: Wilkins's Concilia, vol. iii. p 825.
