By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



81 



character, none who fairly consider his life can deny him that of 

 an earnest piety and a desire to promote peace and love among all 

 who professed a common faith. 



In several important particulars it would not be difficult to draw 

 a parallel between Aldhelm, and one of his most illustrious successors 

 in the See of Salisbury. Jewel, — no less than Aldhelm, — lived 

 in troublous times when a great struggle was being waged for the 

 truth. Both of them, according to their opportunities and the 

 special needs of the church of which they were chief ministers, 

 became valiant champions for its doctrine and its discipline. Each 

 put his hand to the plough, and looked not back, nor let go his 

 hold, till death loosened his grasp of it. We all know the simple 

 and touching story of Bishop Jewel's decease ; — how, against the 

 expostulations of friends, he preached his last sermon at Lacock 

 though then stricken with a mortal malady, — how, bent with 

 suffering, he toiled on wearily to Monkton Farleigh, and there laid 

 him down to die. It would seem almost a repetition, with a change 

 of time and place, of the tale of Aldhelm, — borne in his last sick- 

 ness from the very scene of active labour, to the little wooden 

 church, that gave a rude yet peaceful shelter to the dying bishop. 

 And Jewel's noble saying, — " Oportet Episcopum prcedicantem mori," 

 — fully as he carried out its principle himself, had found no unworthy 

 exemplification in the life and death of one, who, some nine hun- 

 dred years before, had presided over the same see, as the first 

 Bishop of Sherborne. 



vol. vm. — NO. XXII. 



Q 



