Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Life of Froude by Herbert Paul
page 53 of 357 (14%)
flayed alive, and, to show that it was done in the cause of
religion, an inscription was suspended over their bodies, "Not as
Frenchmen, but as heretics." Even at this distance of time it is
satisfactory to reflect that these defenders of the faith were not
left to the slow judgment of God. A French privateer, Dominique de
Gourges, whose name deserves to be held in honour and remembrance,
sailed from Rochelle, collected a body of American Indians, swooped
down upon the Spanish forts, and hanged their pious inmates,
wretches not less guilty than the authors of St. Bartholomew, with
the appropriate legend, "Not as Spaniards, but as murderers." "It
was at such a time," says Froude, "and to take their part amidst
such scenes as these, that the English navigators appeared along the
shores of South America as the armed soldiers of the Reformation,
and as the avengers of humanity." Hawkins, Drake, Raleigh, Davis,
Grenville, are bright names in the annals of British seamanship. But
they were not merely staunch patriots, and loyal subjects of the
great Queen; they were pioneers of civil and religious freedom from
the most grievous yoke and most intolerable bondage that had ever
oppressed mankind.

In The Westminster for 1853 appeared Froude's essay on the Book of
Job, which may be taken as his final expression of theological
belief. Henceforward he turned from theology to history, from
speculation to fact. Even his friendship for Frederic Maurice could
not rouse him to any great interest in the latter's expulsion from
King's College. "As thinkers," he wrote to Clough on the 22nd of
November, 1853, "Maurice, and still more the Mauricians, appear to
me the most hopelessly imbecile that any section of the world have
been driven to believe in. I am glad you liked Job, though my
writing it was a mere accident, and I am not likely to do more of
DigitalOcean Referral Badge