Sir Thomas More | Page 5

of the world with so good a character that he will hardly escape canonisation if ever you get a Roman Catholic king upon the throne. And now what test do you require?
Montesinos.--I can detect no smell of brimstone; and the candle burns as it did before, without the slightest tinge of blue in its flame. You look, indeed, like a spirit of health, and I might be disposed to give entire belief to that countenance, if it were not for the tongue that belongs to it. But you are a queer spirit, whether good or evil!
Stranger.--The headsman thought so, when he made a ghost of me almost three hundred years ago. I had a character through life of loving a jest, and did not belie it at the last. But I had also as general a reputation for sincerity, and of that also conclusive proof was given at the same time. In serious truth, then, I am a disembodied spirit, and the form in which I now manifest myself is subject to none of the accidents of matter. You are still incredulous! Feel, then, and be convinced!
My incomprehensible guest extended his hand toward me as he spoke. I held forth mine to accept it, not, indeed, believing him, and yet not altogether without some apprehensive emotion, as if I were about to receive an electrical shock. The effect was more startling than electricity would have produced. His hand had neither weight nor substance; my fingers, when they would have closed upon it, found nothing that they could grasp: it was intangible, though it had all the reality of form.
"In the name of God," I exclaimed, "who are you, and wherefore are you come?"
"Be not alarmed," he replied. "Your reason, which has shown you the possibility of such an appearance as you now witness, must have convinced you also that it would never be permitted for an evil end. Examine my features well, and see if you do not recognise them. Hans Holbein was excellent at a likeness."
I had now for the first time in my life a distinct sense of that sort of porcupinish motion over the whole scalp which is so frequently described by the Latin poets. It was considerably allayed by the benignity of his countenance and the manner of his speech, and after looking him steadily in the face I ventured to say, for the likeness had previously struck me, "Is it Sir Thomas More?"
"The same," he made answer, and lifting up his chin, displayed a circle round the neck brighter in colour than the ruby. "The marks of martyrdom," he continued, "are our insignia of honour. Fisher and I have the purple collar, as Friar Forrest and Cranmer have the robe of fire."
A mingled feeling of fear and veneration kept me silent, till I perceived by his look that he expected and encouraged me to speak; and collecting my spirits as well as I could, I asked him wherefore he had thought proper to appear, and why to me rather than to any other person?
He replied, "We reap as we have sown. Men bear with them from this world into the intermediate state their habits of mind and stores of knowledge, their dispositions and affections and desires; and these become a part of our punishment, or of our reward, according to their kind. Those persons, therefore, in whom the virtue of patriotism has predominated continue to regard with interest their native land, unless it be so utterly sunk in degradation that the moral relationship between them is dissolved. Epaminondas can have no sympathy at this time with Thebes, nor Cicero with Rome, nor Belisarius with the imperial city of the East. But the worthies of England retain their affection for their noble country, behold its advancement with joy, and when serious danger appears to threaten the goodly structure of its institutions they feel as much anxiety as is compatible with their state of beatitude."
Montesinos.--What, then, may doubt and anxiety consist with the happiness of heaven?
Sir Thomas More.--Heaven and hell may be said to begin on your side the grave. In the intermediate state conscience anticipates with unerring certainty the result of judgment. We, therefore, who have done well can have no fear for ourselves. But inasmuch as the world has any hold upon our affections we are liable to that anxiety which is inseparable from terrestrial hopes. And as parents who are in bliss regard still with parental love the children whom they have left on earth, we, in like manner, though with a feeling different in kind and inferior in degree, look with apprehension upon the perils of our country.
"sub pectore forti Vivit adhuc patriae pietas; stimulatque sepultum Libertatis amor: pondus mortale necari Si potuit, veteres animo post funera vires Mansere, et prisci vivit non