Crying for the Light, Volume 1

The village to which the reader has already paid a visit was sleepy and healthy, but not without a certain rustic grace of its own. At one end, the gates of the neighbouring park gave almost an aristocratic air to the place. Far off among the trees was the parish church, as if it never could be of any use to anybody, while the old red-brick meeting-house was a formidable rival, inasmuch as it was nearer to the people, and therefore more convenient of access. It had quite a history, that old place. Norfolk and Suffolk have been the home of Nonconformists from the earliest times. One of the first victims of the writ _De heretico comburendo_ was a Norfolk man. Dr. Grosteste, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, a divine of great learning and courage, who is said to have sympathised with Wycliffe, was born at Stradbrook, in Suffolk. The earliest martyr of the Reformation, according to Fox, was William Sawtree, parish priest of the church of St. Margaret in the town of Lynn, and here, as elsewhere, the blood of the martyrs was not shed in vain. Heresy continued to grow, and Mary, whom history calls the Bloody, owed her throne in no small degree to the loyalty of the old Nonconformists of Suffolk, who believed her to be the rightful heir to the Crown, and aided her effectually in asserting her rights, only stipulating that they should be unmolested in the exercise of their religion. But Mary had learnt of her Popish priests to keep no faith with heretics, and in Suffolk the race of martyrs never failed. Many Protestants fled from this fierce persecution, and some found an asylum in Frankfort.

When Elizabeth came to the throne the people still required a reformation in the Puritan sense, but Elizabeth, a Ritualist herself, had no sympathy with them. In 1592, when an Act was passed for the punishment of persons obstinately refusing to come to church, Sir Walter Raleigh declared his conviction that the Brownists at that time were not less than twenty thousand, chiefly in Norfolk and Suffolk. Their idea was that, in the language of their founder, ‘The Church planted or gathered is a company or number of Christians and believers, which, by a willing covenant made with their God, are under the government of God and Christ, and keep His laws in one communion. The Church government is the lordship of Christ in the communion of His offices, whereby His people obey His will, and have mutual use of their graces and callings to further their goodliness and welfare. ' Such was the teaching of old Browne. In the good old times he was persecuted for saying it, and people were sent to gaol for believing it. Nay, more, Barrow and Greenwood, for doing so, were hanged at Tyburn. In the village of which I write there had been many Nonconformists, and tradition told how the preacher was hidden in a tree while the people listened below. When fair times came, ejected ministers continued their services in a more open manner. Wealthy individuals befriended them, and chapels were built and endowed. In this way the meeting-house of which I speak had come into existence. On the evening of which I write it had been crowded. The one subject of conversation all that night was the sermon. At that time all the cottagers took a deep interest in theology. There was no end of theological disputations, especially among the women, and as usual among the most illiterate of the women.