"I would have you abandon your reading and discussions--for a time. I would have you, perhaps, even quit Oxford till this storm sweeps by. Why should you not visit your friends in Cambridge? It would excite no great wonderment that you should do so. We cannot spare you to the malice of enemies; and Garret being escaped from the snare, there is no knowing upon whom they may next lay hands. It would break my heart if mischance happened to you, Master Clarke; wherefore I pray you have a care for yourself."
Clarke regarded both young men with a very tender smile.
"I think I will not go; and how can I refuse to speak with those who come to me? The reading of the Scriptures in any tongue has not been forbidden by the Holy Catholic Church. I will maintain that against all adversaries. What I say here in my room I will maintain before all men, and will show that the Lord Himself, by His holy apostles and prophets, has taught the same. If any are in peril through words which I have spoken, shall I flee away and leave them to do battle alone? Nay; but I will remain here and be found at my post. My conscience is clear before God and man. I have not disobeyed His voice nor yet that of the Catholic Church. Let Him judge betwixt us. I am in His hands. I am not afraid what man can do unto me."
Dalaber's face kindled at the sound of these words, and the flame of his enthusiasm for this man blazed up afresh. There had been times when he had fancied that Garret possessed the stronger spirit, because his words were more full of fire, and he was ever a man of action and strife. But when Garret had been brought face to face with peril his nerve had given way. He had struggled after courage, but all the while he had been ready to fly. He had spoken of coming martyrdom with loftiness of resolution; but he had wavered, and had been persuaded that the time had not yet come.
Something in Clarke's gentle steadfastness seemed loftier to Anthony Dalaber than what he had witnessed in Garret a few days back. Yet he would have said that Garret would have flown in the face of danger without a fear, whilst Clarke would have hung back and sought to find a middle course.
"But if these meetings be perilous," urged Arthur, "why will you not let them drop--for the sake of others, if not your own?"
He looked calmly in the questioner's eyes as he answered:
"I invite no man to come to me to read or discourse. If any so come, I warn them that there may be peril for them; and many I have thus sent away, for they have not desired to run into any peril. Those who gather round me here are my children in the Lord. I may not refuse to receive them. But I will speak earnestly to them of the danger which menaces them and us; and if any be faint hearted, let them draw back. I would not willingly bring or lead any into peril. But I may not shut my door nor my heart against my children who come to me. The chariots of God are thousands of angels. They are round and about us, though we see them not. Let us not fear in the hour of darkness and perplexity, but wait patiently on the Lord, and doubt not that in His time and in His way He will give us our heart's desire."
Clarke's face was uplifted; in the gathering gloom they could scarcely see it, and yet to both it appeared at that moment as the face of an angel.