For the Faith | Page 4

not that he sought popularity, or made efforts to sway the minds of
those about him, but there was something in the personality of the man
which seemed magnetic in its properties; and as a Regent Master in
Arts, his lectures had attracted large numbers of students, and whenever
he had disputed in the schools, even as quite a young man, there had
always been an eager crowd to listen to him.
Last summer an unwonted outbreak of sickness in Oxford had driven
many students away from the city to adjacent localities, where they had
pursued their studies as best they might; and at Poghley, where some
scholars had been staying, John Clarke had both preached and held
lectures which attracted much attention, and aroused considerable
excitement and speculation.
Dr. Langton had taken his two daughters to Poghley to be out of the
area of infection, and there the family had bettered their previous slight
acquaintance with Clarke and some of his friends. They had Anthony
Dalaber and Hugh Fitzjames in the same house where they were
lodging; and Clarke would come and go at will, therein growing in
intimacy with the learned physician, who delighted in the deep
scholarship and the original habit of thought which distinguished the
young man.
"If he live," he once said to his daughters, after a long evening, in
which the two had sat discoursing of men and books and the topics of
the day--"if he live, John Clarke will make a mark in the university, if

not in the world. I have seldom met a finer intellect, seldom a man of
such singleness of mind and purity of spirit. Small wonder that students
flock to his lectures and desire to be taught of him. Heaven protect him
from the perils which too often threaten those who think too much for
themselves, and who overleap the barriers by which some would fence
our souls about. There are dangers as well as prizes for those about
whom the world speaks aloud."
Now the students had returned to Oxford, the sickness had abated, and
Dr. Langton had brought his daughters back to their beloved home. But
the visits of John Clarke still continued to be frequent. It was but a
short walk through the meadows from Cardinal College to the Bridge
House. On many a pleasant evening, his work being done, the young
master would sally forth to see his friends; and one pair of soft eyes had
learned to glow and sparkle at sight of him, as his tall, slight figure in
its dark gown was to be seen approaching. Magdalen Langton, at least,
never wearied of any discussion which might take place in her presence,
if John Clarke were one of the disputants.
And, indeed, the beautiful sisters were themselves able to follow, if not
to take part in, most of the learned disquisitions which took place at
their home. Their father had educated them with the greatest care,
consoling himself for the early loss of his wife and the lack of sons by
superintending the education of his twin daughters, and instructing
them not only in such elementary matters as reading and writing (often
thought more than sufficient for a woman's whole stock in trade of
learning), but in the higher branches of knowledge--in grammar,
mathematics, and astronomy, as well as in the Latin and French
languages, and in that favourite study of his, the Greek language, which
had fallen so long into disrepute in Oxford, and had only been revived
with some difficulty and no small opposition a few years previously.
But just latterly the talk at the Bridge House had concerned itself less
with learned matters of Greek and Roman lore, or the problems of the
heavenly bodies, than with those more personal and burning questions
of the day, which had set so many thinking men to work to inquire of
their own consciences how far they could approve the action of church

and state in refusing to allow men to think and read for themselves,
where their own salvation (as many argued) was at stake.
It was not the first time that a little group of earnest thinkers had been
gathered together at Dr. Langton's house. The physician was a person
held in high esteem in Oxford. He took no open part now in her
counsels, he gave no lectures; he lived the life of a recluse, highly
esteemed and respected. He would have been a bold man who would
have spoken ill of him or his household, and therefore it seemed to him
that he could very well afford to take the risk of receiving young men
here, who desired to speak freely amongst themselves and one another
in places not so liable to be dominated by listening ears as the