WILLIAM HUNTER was a young man whose home was at Brentwood, Essex. He was employed in London as a weaver, but while his daily life was passed in the busy city, his father's house in the country was dear to him, and there he spent many a quiet time. William loved and could read the Bible, though he did not possess a copy. He was therefore in the habit of repairing to the chained treasure within those well-known walls in his native village. There, in the quiet stillness of the place, he delighted to read and study the precious book. God had given to this young man a desire for the "sincere milk of the word," and truly he grew thereby in the divine life.
One day, William was observed by a papist to be thus engaged, and taunted with attempting to explain the sacred volume. The boy answered gently and respectfully, that he did not do so; but, he said, “I read it for my comfort." A conversation followed, in which William spoke modestly of his belief in the scriptures, but the papist spy only answered with hate and scorn. The latter then left the building, that he might bring a priest to see this “heretic." That official spoke in the same threatening strain, and plainly sheaved that fatal results would follow.
The young man immediately returned to say good-bye to his parents, and left for London without delay. William considered that the only hope of safety lay in flight, for the attitude of those two enemies had been too plain to be mistaken. To leave his parental home and become a fugitive for the truth's sake seemed the only course open to him.
Popery was too thirsty for the blood of the saints to be thus baffled. The father was sent for, and demanded to give up his son. “What, sir," he asked the priest, "would you have me seek my son that he may be burned?" Yet with these words of parental affection on his lips, the old man was forced to set out at once in search of his son. He hoped that he might not find him, but suddenly and unexpectedly he found himself face to face with his beloved boy. William had seen his father in the distance, and made haste to meet him. When he heard on what errand his parent had been sent, he immediately desired to return, that he might save him any further trouble. It was a difficult position for the father, but he gave in to the wishes of his son, and the two returned to Brentwood the same evening.
During the darkness of that night, the papist messengers came for their victim. In their cruel hands, there remained little else but suffering for William Hunter. He was, however, kept cheerful in his spirit, and thus the name of the Lord was honored. He passed twenty-four hours in the stocks, and then with day-dawn, his persecutors began their efforts to make him recant. By the grace of God given in that hour of need, every effort was unavailing. The next step was to send William at once to the Bishop of London. The latter, in his turn, tried every possible way of making the young believer deny the truth, but equally without success.
The bishop's mode of seeking to overcome the youth was very cunning, and had William not had divine wisdom given to him, he would have yielded. That unprincipled man endeavored to get his captive to believe that anything which he might say would be in confidence. But that young witness was not to be beguiled into saying aught to such a man, other than a repetition of his faith in Christ, and in the teaching of the word of God. Therefore, by all his wiles and worldly inducements, Bishop Bonner failed to make William Hunter recant. This being the case, poor William was again sent to the stocks, there to remain for forty-eight hours. A crust of bread and a cup of water were put by his side, but were left untouched at the end of that time.
When the bishop came to see this young victim in the stocks, and saw that he had eaten nothing, he ordered him to be taken out and breakfast given to him. After the meal, the crafty Bonner once more summoned William before him. Again he demanded whether he would recant, and again he met with a firm refusal. Bonner then taunted him with denying the faith in which he was baptized. “I was baptized in the faith of the Holy Trinity," said William, "which I will not go from, God assisting me by His grace."
The bishop further asked how old he was. On making the reply that he was nineteen years of age, he said, “Well, you will be burned ere you be twenty years old, if you will not yield yourself better than you have done yet."
“God strengthen me in this trouble!" was the brief but earnest reply of William Hunter, and thus closed his interview with the Bishop of London.
That wicked, cruel man had not done, however, with his young prisoner. He kept him in captivity for nine months, and during that period, he called him five times before him. The money spent daily on William's food at that time, was the small coin of one halfpenny. So, while the bishop was living in comfort and luxury, he was keeping a young man, in the bloom of youth, starving and suffering within those prison doors. The instructions given by the bishop when the imprisonment began were, that the jailer should “put as many irons upon him as he could possibly bear." There, within those gloomy prison walls, that bright young spirit was kept till the final sentence was given.
Still, however, William Hunter clung to the word, and trusted God through Christ.
Once when the bishop sent for the young man, in the hope that prison life had made him willing to yield, he offered what was a considerable sum in those days, if he would only abjure his faith. Then he proposed to make him steward of his own house, but neither temptation could move the steadfast youth. “My lord," he answered, “if you cannot persuade my conscience by scripture, I cannot find it in my heart to turn from God for the love of the world; for I count all worldly things but loss, in comparison with the love of Christ."
Seeing that nothing succeeded, the angry-bishop then gave orders that the courageous witness should be burnt at the stake.
A month afterward William Hunter went again to his beloved Brentwood, knowing full well that he entered the little town only to die. As the place was too small to possess a prison, he was taken to an inn, and a guard set to watch him. There he was visited by his brokenhearted mother, for the constables had been unable to resist the sight of her grief and affection. It was a very great comfort to that sorrowing mother to witness the calm firmness and courage of her imprisoned boy. Her heart and thoughts were turned to God, and found relief in praising Him for the faith given to her son.
William comforted his mother with these touching words: “For the little pain which I shall suffer, Christ has procured for me a crown of joy; are you not glad of that, mother?" There together, for the last time, they knelt in prayer, when the mother commended her son to God, and asked for needed grace in the dying hour.
When the day dawned on which William was to die, he was led forth with a poor empty show of law. Needless, indeed, it was to guard him by constables, for he was submissive enough, and turned not from the death appointed. A sheriff and the men calling themselves justices, had little need of expending their energies on that happy, radiant martyr, yet they formed part of the procession to the stake. Priests, too, were there, in their endeavors to carry out an ignorant zeal, but better had it been for them to have been less active. To add to the number of that imposing company leading a young man to death, were those miserable men who were to carry out the final sentence. What a mockery! what infatuated zeal was this in the garb of religion! Ah! for every deed of darkness God has yet to reckon with them, unless any afterward turned to the blood that "cleanseth from all sin."
On the way from the prison to the stake his father met the procession, and in bitterness of soul poured forth his heart's deep affection. But while his tears fell fast, his farewell words were full of hope as his wife's had been. “God be with thee, son William!" The quiet and loving esponse was, "God be with you, father! be of good cheer; I trust we shall meet again, where we shall rejoice together."
As he passed that which had been his home, he could only give a passing glance of love on his weeping sisters. To the companions of his youth and childhood he expressed an affectionate farewell, and indeed, to all whom he knew there. Many a tear of sympathy flowed for William Hunter, that day, from eyes that were not wont to weep. When the place of death was reached, he was bound to the stake by a chain, and fagots of wood were heaped around, for all had been carefully prepared. Then the victim having been secured, the fire was speedily applied to complete the Satanic work.
Once more William was asked to deny his faith, and pardon was promised if he would. “No," he answered firmly, “I will not recant, God willing." He then turned to the people, and asked prayer for him in the moment of need. One cruel, blasphemous man, whose position was nominally that of a justice, scornfully replied, “I will no more pray for thee than I would for a dog." With touching meekness, the young believer gave the gentle answer, “I pray God this may not be laid to your charge at the last day."
Expressions of sympathy broke forth from some of the bystanders, when the final scene began. The lighted fagots burned readily, for a malicious care had been taken that they should be dry for the occasion. William held in his hand a copy of the Psalms, which he was able to throw to his brother who stood near. The latter on receiving that dying gift, cried, “William, think of the sufferings of Christ, and be not afraid!"
“I am not afraid," was the prompt reply, and then the inspired prayer broke from his dying lips, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"
Soon the crackling flames rose high, and consumed that body which was so precious in the sight of God. And thus died William Hunter, in the middle of the sixteenth century, in our own beloved England. In the morning of his days he trusted in Jesus, and he early entered into rest. An old elm-tree near the spot, serves to show the place where his spirit passed from earth to heaven. The happy confidence in God which marked his brief course and early end, may teach both old and young; and “faithful unto death," might indeed be written over the spot where he now rests.
Persecution is not confined to time or place, and history records its dire deeds again and again. These few chapters travel far and wide, both as to locality and date—from the glowing East, to our gray cold Isles in the West, and down the long vista of sixteen hundred years of time.
We have noticed the martyrdom of Stephen as given in holy writ, in the seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The place was outside the city of Jerusalem, and the time shortly after the beginning of the christian era. Next we followed the Lady Vivia Perpetua, from the home of her married life in Africa, to prison and to death with four christian companions. It was heathen hate which took their lives, early in the third century, on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Cyril, the child who suffered in the province of Cappadocia; Denisa, the girl martyred at the age of sixteen; Marcus and Marcellanius, the twin brothers, were each and all examples of very young Christians in the early centuries of the church's history.
Those followers of Christ were hated and despised because they refused to worship idols, and found their delight in the true God; therefore the rage of the heathen vented itself on them, and pagan rulers sent the Christians from the earth as often as they could. But the days changed when persecution came, not so much from the Jew, nor yet from the Gentile, but from that which was called the church of God.
The corruption of that which was so fair and beautiful in its beginning, led on to many wicked methods of obtaining submission to the Church of Rome.
Maria de Bohorques was a victim to the latter, and the spot whence she passed from earth was the Great Square of Seville. Over fifteen hundred and fifty years had run their course from the church's beginning till then.
Following the flow of time, popery in England came before us, the fires of Smithfield were lighted, and persecution raged fierce and keen. The good and brave John Rogers headed a long list of suffering witnesses, following each other in rapid succession. His death, and that of the youthful William Hunter, took place on English soil, in the middle of the sixteenth century.
We thus see the grace of God shining out in every relationship of life, in various paths on earth; the wife and mother, the husband and father, the young man and maiden, even to the little child, proving the reality of those divine words, As thy days, thy strength.” The unchanging God who stood by them to strengthen in their hour of need, will never, no never, forsake His own beloved people, thus divinely taught to trust in Him. We may not be called upon to die for Christ, but let us be able to to say from the heart, like Paul, “For me to live, Christ, and to die, gain!”
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