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Collections, Illustrating the History of the Catholic Religion (1857)
Collections Illustrating the History of the Catholic Religion - 1857 Author:George Oliver Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 35 CHAPTER IV. uEst mihi Sttppliciam, causa fuiise Pium." THE SUFFERERS FOR Till: FAITH IN DORSETSHIRE. The Catholic cause was honoured in Dorsetshire ... more »by' the constancy and heroic fidelity of its votaries. For in this county, persecution assumed the character of inhuman brutality. Whoever peruses the sufferings of some of its martyrs, especially of FF. Pilchard and Green, might suppose that he was reading the hloody feats of Indian savages and cannibals, not the conduct of Englishmen and Christian Protestants. The first in the order of time, who shed his blood and sacrificed his life for confessing Christ, was the Rev. Thomas Pilchard. Dr. Challoner, in his truth-telling " Memoirs of Missionary Priests," could glean but slender information of this apostolical man ; but from a MS. of his early friend at college, the Rev. William Warford, who learnt much of his subsequent history from his sister, and others of his kindred, persons deserving of all credit, — " Hsec omnia ex sororc et aliis affinibus viri, hominibus fide dignissimis, cognovi,"— I am happy to supply the following particulars :— " I knew him at Oxford, a Fellow of Baliol College, and a Master of Arts; thence he went to Rheims, and was ordained priest, where I lived on intimate terms with him, in 1583. He gave general edification by his singular modesty, candour, and gravity, and his exemplary piety at the altar. Returning to his native country, he conducted himself in so commendable a manner, that I knew no priest in all the west part of England who equalled his merits, and to this day his memory is held in benediction there. By his unwearied zeal, either at home, on his journeys, or in prison, he gained very many souls to God; he was incessant in preaching the divine word, and in administering the sacra...« less