One of his biographers states the case thus: "He found himself in a strait between opposing difficulties. No doubt the late King had violated his coronation oath, that he would maintain unimpaired the Church of England—to Ken the most sacred of all things upon earth. On the faith of that oath he, and all the clergy, had sworn allegiance to him. Had not James broken this mutual compact? Ken himself had joined in thanks to the Prince as the instrument of their deliverance from Popery; the estates of the realm had declared the crown to be forfeited by the one, and their decree had already placed the other in possession. Could he set up his own sense of their respective rights against the voice of the nation, making himself judge in the difficult points of casuistry, involved in the claims of a King de facto and a King de jure, with the other political questions that followed in their train? Again, the refusal of the new oath would involve him in an unequal contest with the temporal power, separate him from his flock, deprive him of all influence in preserving true doctrine throughout his extensive diocese. It would, perhaps, expose him to persecution and imprisonment, certainly reduce him to poverty, above all lead to a schism in the Church. Here were his love of peace, the law of obedience, long-cherished friendships, his own personal safety and interests, and especially the cause of unity, prompting him to submit. These, in their several degrees, had induced the majority of the bishops and the great mass of the clergy to yield acquiescence.

"One single fact, however, to his mind, outweighed them all. If he should forfeit his oath of fidelity to James, by transferring an allegiance which he conscientiously believed to be irrevocable, he would peril his own soul. His plighted faith was not his own to barter away at any price; the awful words 'so help me God' sealed on the holy Evangelists, were registered in heaven, beyond the dispensing power of man. All, therefore, was as dust in the balance against the solemn sense of his duty, and of his account hereafter to be rendered. No interests could swerve him-no terrors shake him—no persuasions seduce him to do evil that good might come. There was a moral com

pulsion that bound him indissolubly.”

"There are men," says Dean Plumptre, "not without a certain measure of honesty-men who would not consciously descend to baseness for the sake of gain and honor, and who rise to the high places of the earth in Church and State amid the plaudits of their fellows, who seem to act on the rule given to inexperienced whist-players, 'When in doubt, take the trick.' Most of Ken's contemporaries belonged to this class. They passed from régime to régime, from one form of worship to another, unconscious of reproach. They took oaths, from that of the League and Covenant, under the Long Parliament, to that of abjuration under Queen Anne, with a facility which reminds one of Talleyrand's 'aside,' when he swore allegiance to Louis Philippe: 'It is the thirteenth; Heaven grant it may be the last!' With Ken and his fellows it was just the opposite of this. The rule on which they appear to have acted was, 'When in doubt, take the losing side.' Follow the path which leads, not to wealth and honor, but to loss, privation, contumely. We can think of them as giving thanks, as Mr. Maurice did in the later years of his life, that they had always been on the side of the minority."

Twenty years followed with their varying experiences. When Queen Anne came into power, Ken's old see was offered to him, so that he might have died in actual service as Bishop of Bath and Wells. But the advancing years had brought more and more a love of quiet; and so he declined the gracious offer, urging his friend Hooper to take the place. Day by day, unlike some of the nonjuring bishops, he followed the things that make for peace, so that his very presence seemed a benediction of God.

In his seventy-fourth year, after much physical suffering, the summons came for him to die. Realizing that the time of his departure was at hand, he put on his shroud, gave his blessing to his friends who stood by his bedside, and passed away calmly "as sinks the sun behind the western hills.' He was buried, by his own direction, "in the churchyard of the nearest parish within his diocese, under the east window of the chancel, just at sunrising, without any pomp or ceremony besides that of the Order for Burial in the Liturgy of the Church of England,"

For his tomb he had himself written this inscription: "May the here interred Thomas, late Bishop of Bath and Wells, and uncanonically Deprived for not transferring his Allegiance, have a perfect consumation of Blisse, both in body and soul, at the great Day, of which God keep me always mindfull.”

One sentence of his will has been very often quoted:

"As for my religion I die in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith, professed by the whole Church, before the disunion of East and West; more particularly I die in the Communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papall and Puritan Innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross."

The words which follow are equally worthy of quotation: "I beg pardon of all whom I have any way offended; and I entirely forgive all those who have any ways offended me. I acknowledge myself a very great and miserable Sinner; but dye in humble confidence, that, on my repentance, I shall be accepted in the Beloved."

Many have thought that Dryden's lines concerning the Good Parson were suggested by the saintly life and character of Bishop Ken. The elements of the description meet in Ken. They do not meet in any other noted man amongst his contemporaries.

Some will be interested, I think, in reading a part of what Dryden has so beautifully said:

A parish priest was of the pilgrim train,
An awful, reverend, and religious man;
His eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face:

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor,
(As God had clothed His own Ambassador
For such, on earth, his blest Redeemer bore).
Of sixty years he seemed, and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived to fast:
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense,
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe;
But such a face as promised him sincere,
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see
But sweet regards and pleasing sanctity:

Mild was his accent and his accents free.
With eloquence innate his tongue was armed,
Tho' harsh the precept, yet the preacher charmed;
For, letting down the golden chain on high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky;
And oft, with holy hymns, he charmed their ears
(A music more melodious than the spheres);
For David left him, when he went to rest,
His lyre; and, after him, he sang the best.
He bore his great commission in his look,

But sweetly tempered awe, and softened all he spoke.
He preached the joys of heaven, and pains of hell,
And warned the sinner with becoming zeal,

But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.

He taught the Gospel rather than the Law,

And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw.

Wide was his parish, not contracted close

In streets, but here and there a straggling house:
Yet still he was at hand, without request,
To serve the rich, to succor the distressed,
Tempting on foot, alone, without affright
The dangers of a dark, tempestuous night.

*

The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheered,
Nor to rebuke the rich offender feared.

His preaching much, but more his practice wrought,
A living sermon of the truths he taught.

The prelate for his holy life he prized,
The worldly pomp of prelacy despised.
His Saviour came not with a gaudy show,

Nor was His Kingdom of the world below.

Patience in want, and poverty of mind,

These marks of Church and Churchmen he designed, And living, taught, and dying, left behind.

*

Such was the Saint who shone with every grace,
Reflecting, Moses-like, his Maker's face.

God saw His image lively was expressed,

And His own work, as in creation, blessed.

Much to himself he thought, but little spoke,

And, undeprived, his benefice forsook.

Now, through the land, his cure of souls he stretched,
And, like a primitive Apostle, preached:

Still cheerful, ever constant to his call,

By many followed, loved by most, admired by all.

With what he begged his brethren he relieved

And gave the charities himself received;

Gave while he taught, and edified the more

Because he shewed by proof 'twas easy to be poor.

In this connection one brief passage from Macaulay is worth quotation. He is writing of a time when the jails of Somersetshire and Dorsetshire were filled with thousands of captives, and says: "The chief friend and protector of these unhappy men in their extremity was one who abhorred their religious and political opinions, one whose Order they hated, and to whom they had done unprovoked wrong-Bishop Ken. That good prelate used all his influence to soften the jailers, and retrenched from his own Episcopal State that he might be able to make some addition to the coarse and scanty fare of those who had defaced his beloved Cathedral. His conduct on this occasion was of a piece with his whole life. His intellect was indeed darkened by many superstitions and prejudices; but his moral character, when impartially reviewed, sustains a comparison with any in ecclesiastical history, and seems to approach as near as human infirmity permits to the ideal perfection of Christian virtue."

There is space remaining for a final word concerning those three hymns, two of which have been sung for two centuries and may be sung for centuries yet to come. They were first printed (with their author's approval) in that Devout Manual for Winchester Scholars, which has not yet lost its charm or power. Following Dean Plumptre, I give the three hymns in full from the edition of the Winchester Manual of 1697, noting in italics the various readings of that of 1712.