speech, and after looking him steadily in the face I ventured to
say, for the likeness had previously struck me, "Is it Sir Thomas
More?"

"The same," he made answer, and lifting up his chin, displayed a
circle round the neck brighter in colour than the ruby. "The marks
of martyrdom," he continued, "are our insignia of honour. Fisher
and I have the purple collar, as Friar Forrest and Cranmer have the
robe of fire."

A mingled feeling of fear and veneration kept me silent, till I
perceived by his look that he expected and encouraged me to speak;
and collecting my spirits as well as I could, I asked him wherefore
he had thought proper to appear, and why to me rather than to any
other person?

He replied, "We reap as we have sown. Men bear with them from this
world into the intermediate state their habits of mind and stores of
knowledge, their dispositions and affections and desires; and these
become a part of our punishment, or of our reward, according to
their kind. Those persons, therefore, in whom the virtue of
patriotism has predominated continue to regard with interest their
native land, unless it be so utterly sunk in degradation that the
moral relationship between them is dissolved. Epaminondas can have
no sympathy at this time with Thebes, nor Cicero with Rome, nor
Belisarius with the imperial city of the East. But the worthies of
England retain their affection for their noble country, behold its
advancement with joy, and when serious danger appears to threaten
the goodly structure of its institutions they feel as much anxiety
as is compatible with their state of beatitude.