Thomas More

“ Your doubts, Thomas, always most stubbornly assert themselves just as they are about to crumble. Thomas, I bid you be not faithless but believing—and I know you will believe, even with a whole heart."
When Thomas heard these words, he fell on his knees before the morontia Master and exclaimed, "I believe! My Lord and my Master!" Then said Jesus to Thomas: "You have believed, Thomas, because you have really seen and heard me. Blessed are those in the ages to come who will believe even though they have not seen with the eye of flesh nor heard with the mortal ear." ”

“ Unfortunately for Sir Thomas More, a lord chancellor is not merely a judge, but has high political functions to perform. In raising More to that eminent position, the king had not merely considered his professional distinction but had counted upon his avowed liberal and reforming tendencies. In the Utopia, which, though written earlier, More had allowed to be printed as late as 1516, he had spoken against the vices of power, and declared for indifference of religious creed with a breadth of philosophical view of which there is no other example in any Englishman of that age. ”

“ Master Thomas seemed to be aware of my hopes and expectations concerning him. I have thought before now that he looked at me in answer to my glances, as much as to say, "I will teach you, young man, that though I have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold my slaves, and go to heaven too."
There was always a scarcity of good-nature about the man; but now his whole countenance was soured all over with the seemings of piety, and he became more rigid and stringent in his exactions. ”

“ The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith. With his spirit at once humble and swift, his memory ready and tenacious, his life spotless throughout, a lover of truth for its own sake, richly endowed with human and divine science, like the sun he heated the world with the warmth of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his teaching. ”

“ SIR THOMAS MORE.
FORASMUCH as Sir Thomas More, Knight, sometime Lord Chancellor of England, a man of singular virtue and of a clear unspotted conscience (as witnesseth [1] Erasmus) , more pure and white than the whitest snow, and of such an angelical wit, as England, he saith, never had the like before, nor ever shall again: universally, as well in the laws of the Realm (a study in effect able to occupy the whole life of a man) as in all other sciences, right well studied, teas in his days accounted a man worthy perpetual famous memory. ”

“ When I recall Thomas's whole bearing and conduct I cannot for a moment accept the conclusions arrived at by him, whatever may be the present appearance of the facts he goes upon. Facts are like faces—capable of a thousand expressions and meanings. Were you satisfied entirely with Thomas's behavior in the talk you had with him? ”

“ But observant eyes see more than they look for. And Thomas, who took pains to visit and know the most untouched parts of England and Wales, and who drank to the dregs the considerable literature which can feed such curiosity, though he still loved nature, was undeceived about man and, as a corollary, about himself. It dawned upon him that man's need is nobler impulses rather than choicer circumstances, that the soul seeks a mood and should not be put off with hopes and desires, for we can only possess that which we can truly appreciate. ”

“ INTRODUCTION Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King's Bench, was born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earlier education at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed, as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth or influence and sons of good families to be so established together in a relation of patron and client. The youth wore his patron's livery, and added to his state. ”

“ The freedom of conscience Thomas More claimed for himself he most willingly allows to others. Just as the education he valued for himself he extends to all his children.
Standing largely aloof from the violent controversies Luther had started, hating the bitter intolerance and savage abuse of theological strife, refusing to be drawn into the deadly discussion of Henry VIII.’s divorce, Sir Thomas More is content to live in loyal devotion to his religion and to the service of the state, if haply he may. ”

“ Indeed, there is not a page of this Almanac that can be called Pg 428 dull, and its cheapness happily places it within easy reach of every reader. We only wish that such cheapness and real excellence could be oftener combined in Catholic books.
The Life and Letters of Sir Thomas More. By Agnes M. Stewart, authoress of Margaret Roper, etc. 8vo, pp. 365. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.
The lot of Sir Thomas More was cast in troublous times. He lived amid storms that wrecked many a noble life, and yet no man ever bore throughout a serener soul or a happier and gayer disposition. ”

“ Niece to Sir Thomas More, in whose house she was brought up, and carefully educated with his daughter in the learned languages, and almost all the liberal sciences, in which she seems to have made a great progress. She corresponded with the celebrated Erasmus, who commends her epistles for their good sense and chaste Latin. Mr. Thomas More, who wrote the life of his great grandfather Sir Thomas, makes honourable mention of her, and styles her a learned woman. ”

“ The sele of the day to thee, Sir Thomas, True Thomas! Fair is thy bed, and most fair thy bedfellow.
The Black Knight drew aback from him and was now come awake, wherefore he stood on his guard, but said nought. Then said the Red Knight: Sir Thomas, I have been asking this fair lady a question, but her memory faileth her and she may not answer it; perchance thou mayst do better. Tell me where and how many times hast thou bedded her betwixt last Tuesday and this? Nowhere and never, cried Sir Thomas, knitting his brows and handling his sword. ”

“ Thomas, I wish you may not all live to repent your handiwork, and to find, when too late, that you are like the countryman who brought up a young wolf, which no sooner grew strong enough than it began to tear his sheep to pieces. ”

“ Sir Thomas More, apart from any arguments about the more mystical meshes in which he was ultimately caught and killed, will be hailed by all as a hero of the New Learning; that great dawn of a more rational daylight which for so many made mediævalism seem a mere darkness. ”

“ Thomas, the man, looked silently in once or twice, and marveled to find his master reading what seemed to be a Bible, and muttered “That pictur,” to himself as he went back to his vigil. At last he ventured to open the door and say in a respectful tone, “Did you call me, sir?” which roused the master somewhat to the time of night, and moved him to tell his man to go to bed and he would put out the lights. ”

“ Thomas shuddered; he had forgotten Felix, but as he heard these words he could no longer delay looking at the man who had offered to stand his surety for the performance of the unholy deed his father exacted from him. Turning, he saw a man who in any place and under any roof would attract attention, awake admiration and—yes, fear. He was not a large man, not so large as himself, but the will that expressed itself in frenzy on his father's lips showed quiet and inflexible in the gray eye resting upon his own with a power he could never hope to evade. ”

“ He lived so far above the range of little minds, the trivialities of everyday life, social gossip, and the like, seemed to shrink from his presence. One always felt the touch of noble thoughts, and the longing for high endeavor where he was. I lived over again in these long, quiet drives, with the silent Thomas, those last few months, when, with my innocent child's heart, I sunned myself in his presence, unconscious of the rare charm and fascination that drew me to him. ”

“ To this Sir Thomas More mildly made answer, saying, "No man living is there, my lords, that would with better will do the thing that should be acceptable to the king's highness than I, which must needs confess his manifold benefits and bountiful goodness, most benignly bestowed upon me. ”

“ He then related how, having entered the prison cell of Thomas More with Palmer and Sir Richard Southwell, he had heard Sir Thomas express himself strongly against the statute and declare that no Parliament in the world would be able to submit to the question of the supremacy.
“You hear, Sir Thomas!” cried all the lords. “There is nothing to reply to this.”
Sir Thomas arose immediately, and an expression of deep emotion showed itself on his weary features. “My lords,” he replied, “if I was a man who had no regard for my oath, I would not be here before you as a criminal. ”

“ Like his great teacher Albert, Thomas was respected even more for his piety than for his learning. Not long after his death, people began to speak of him as a saint. Though he was the most learned man of his time, he was considered to have given an example of heroic virtue. ”

“ Whatever cruelties or indignities the unprovoked insolence of unlimited authority might inflict upon him, it was his duty to submit in humble silence; and if his master smote him on one cheek, he was to turn to him the other also. This, with "Thomas, was not a mere form of words run through with, and then forgotten. In all my experience, I have never known a man over whom his creed appeared to hold so powerful a control. ”

“ But it isn’t the most precious thing in life, Thomas—no, before God, it is not. You are an egotist, that is what you are. I am still fond of you, even when you are angry, and tread on me, and thunder me down. ”

“ In the concluding whereof Sir Thomas More so worthily handled himself, procuring in our league far more benefits unto this realm, than at that time, by the king or his council was thought possible to be compassed, that for his good service in that voyage, the king, when he after made him Lord Chancellor, caused the Duke of Norfolk openly to declare to the people, as you shall hear hereafter more at large, how much all England was bounden unto him. ”

“ As soon as his grace was gone, I rejoicing thereat, said to Sir Thomas More, how happy he was whom the king had so familiarly entertained, as I never had seen him do to any before, except Cardinal Wolsey, whom I saw his grace walk once with arm in arm. "I thank our lord, son, (quoth he) I find his grace my very good lord indeed, and I believe he doth as singularly favour me as any subject within this realm: howbeit, son Roper, I may tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would win him a castle in France (for then there was war between us) it should not fail to go." ”

“ I consider Thomas not only a great dramatist but a great American. I am sure if he had entered politics the world would have recognized him as a great statesman. With a suavity of manner, full of repose and a geniality which few possess, Thomas exerts on an audience a combined feeling of restfulness and awe. I never heard him utter an unkind word to anybody nor discuss an actor's or author's ability with anything approaching antagonism. He goes along quietly and unassumingly, writes a couple of failures and then—bang!—he hits you in the eye with a play that has a knock-out punch. ”

“ And the consummate fashioning faculty, the devout and intellectual temperament of Thomas, are writ large in his treatises. His work has unity; it is a system; it corresponds to the scholastically creative personality, from the efficient concord of whose faculties it proceeded. The unity of Thomas’s personality lay in his conception of man’s summum bonum, which sprang from his Christian faith, but was constructed by reason from foundation to pinnacle ”

“ Indeed, such good company did Henry find him that, as quick to take fancies as he was to tire of them, he would hardly allow the poor man to spend an evening alone, so sir Thomas in despair gave up being amusing, and sat silent, though no doubt with a twinkle in his eye, resisting all the king's efforts to make him speak, till at length everyone grew weary of him, and his place was filled by some livelier man. ”

“ Thomas achieved freedom at the cost of disillusionment; yet it was part of his latter-day riches that he had been so deceived long ago. Better so, than to have been without fire, than to have been dull, torpid and mean. Yes, yes; but not better than to have been a creative artist, thrilling and anguishing about work that was more important than the workman. But with freedom came the inspired moods at last, and prose gave way to poetry. ”

“ But they did not see Thomas’ heart, or know what a wretched being he felt himself to be. Through necessity, neither he nor his wife had now tasted spirit for several days, as their means of obtaining it had failed. The cranberries were all gathered from [Pg 155] the meadow, and persons of their character could not obtain employment. Thus situated, Thomas knew he must take a different course, or himself and family would be sent to the work-house. ”

“ This special grace, this loving intimacy He reserved for Thomas in preference to all the others; and what other conclusion can we arrive at except that Thomas was especially dear to Him? He indeed reproved the incredulity of Thomas in the words: "Be not faithless, but believing;" and again: "Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed;" but He does not say that this incredulity or this faith concerned His resurrection. ”