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This man, who became accuser and persecutor, was not made bishop by a minister of state's patronage until immediately after he had written his book. At Salamanca, Coimbre or Rome, he would have been obliged to recant and to ask pardon. In England he became a peer of the realm with an income of a hundred thousand livres; it was enough to modify his methods.
A lady out of Tennessee, which was early to join secession, came to Washington in search of her son, a youth enlisted in the Confederate Army. She found him in the Fort Henry hospital, where, allowed to see him, as she was loyal, in spite of regulations about prisoners of war, she learned that he would recover. She induced him to recant and offer his parole if he were allowed freedom.
"Let me be refuted and convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by the clearest arguments; otherwise I can not and will not recant; for it is neither safe nor expedient to act against conscience. Here I take my stand. I can do no otherwise, so help me God, Amen." In this sublime moral conflict Luther came off the undisputed conqueror.
Both parties turn to her as an arbiter. Pope Celestine assembles a synod. The Bishop of Constantinople is ordered by the Bishop of Rome to recant, or hold himself under excommunication, Italian supremacy is emerging through Oriental disputes, yet not without a struggle. Relying on his influence at court, Nestorius resists, excommunicates Cyril, and the emperor summons a council to meet at Ephesus.
He rises with the occasion, and the sheepish "gaby" becomes the knowing practical man; his is now the voice of authority, and his comrades recant on the spot, acknowledge his superiority without a murmur, and perform "ko-tow" before the once despised man of undeveloped abilities.
"Got to pull the poor devil out," said Uncle Martin, when in silence they had traversed fifty feet more of the shaded side of Maple Avenue. "How?" demanded the again practical Mr. Evans. "Make him take it back; make him recant; swing him over the last week before election. Make him eat his words with every sign of exquisite relish. Simple enough!" "How?" persisted Mr. Evans.
As Cranmer was known not to be a firm man, a plan was laid for surrounding him with artful people, and inducing him to recant to the unreformed religion. Deans and friars visited him, played at bowls with him, showed him various attentions, talked persuasively with him, gave him money for his prison comforts, and induced him to sign, I fear, as many as six recantations.
Even at the close of his reign, when the terrible logic of facts had proved his system to be a mistake when his armies had been defeated, his best fleet destroyed, his ports blockaded, and his treasury well-nigh emptied he could not recant. "My successor," he is reported to have said on his deathbed, "may do as he pleases, but I cannot change."
It must be that he understood the hopelessness of such a passion. Perhaps he had smiled! Only that was not like Covington. Rather, he had gripped his jaws and stood it. But if it had hurt and he hankered for revenge, he was to have it now. He, Noyes, had bared his soul to the husband and confessed a love that now he must stand up and recant. That was punishment enough for any man.
To err and to be a heretic are two things; I am no heretic, because I will not stand refractorily to defend any one thing that is contrary to the Word. Prove anything which I hold to be an error, and I will recant it. Cobb. But, Goodman Bunyan, said he, methinks you need not stand so strictly upon this one thing, as to have meetings of such public assemblies.
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