“I will not, for it is idolatry.”
“Will you submit to the authority of the Pope?”
Elizabeth’s answer was even stronger than before.
“I do utterly detest all such trumpery from the bottom of my heart!”
They asked her no more. Dr Chedsey, for the sixth and last time, assumed the black cap, and read the sentence of death.
“Thou shalt be taken from here to the place whence thou earnest, and thence to the place of execution, there to be burned in the fire till thou art dead.”
Never before had Chedsey’s voice been known to falter in pronouncing that sentence. He had spoken it to white-haired men, and delicate women, ay, even to little children; but this once, every spectator looked up in amazement at his tone, and saw the judge in tears. And then, turning to the prisoner, they saw her face “as it were the face of an angel.”
Before any one could recover from the sudden hush of awe which had fallen upon the Court, Elizabeth Foulkes knelt down, and carried her appeal from that unjust sentence to the higher bar of God Almighty.
“O Lord our Father!” she said, “I thank and praise and glorify Thee that I was ever born to see this day—this most blessed and happy day, when Thou hast accounted me worthy to suffer for the testimony of Christ. And, Lord, if it be Thy will, forgive them that thus have done against me, for they know not what they do.”
How many of us would be likely to thank God for allowing us to be martyrs? These were true martyrs who did so, men and women so full of the Holy Ghost that they counted not their lives dear unto them,—so upheld by God’s power that the shrinking of the flesh from that dreadful pain and horror was almost forgotten. We must always remember that it was not by their own strength, or their own goodness, but by the blood of the Lamb, that Christ’s martyrs have triumphed over Death and Satan.