Deliverance of John Foxe at the Hour of Extremity
By W. A. S.
We recognize the fact that it is the bountiful hand of God that "daily loadeth us with benefits." Every good gift cometh down from heaven. But this does not preclude recognition of the special providences that in times of special need may bring relief in the extraordinary way that makes manifest the fact that there is a Father in heaven watching over his children on earth. In Townsend's "Life of John Foxe," author of the "Book of Martyrs," we are told of a providential deliverance that came to Foxe when in dire need, preserving his life and setting his feet into the road that enabled him to give to the world that wonderful "Acts and Monuments" of the martyrs of papal persecution. As a young man suspected of Protestant heresy, Foxe was expelled from Oxford University. He knew not which way to turn with his young wife. His native home was Boston, in Lincolnshire; but his stepfather, while allowing him to come for a short visit, advised that he would better move on quickly, lest he should "bring him and his mother into hazard of their lives and fortunes." Foxe thought of London, then as now, the world's greatest city. "Great cities," as his biographer Townsend, said, "are great solitudes. He would be less observed, and obtain a livelihood more easily. His life would be safer from spies. Prudence demanded instant concealment." So to London he went. But the way of making the livelihood did not appear. Day after day Foxe sought employment in vain, having to keep secret his identity lest he be apprehended as a heretic. He had reached the last extremity. Townsend's "Life," evidently quoting from Foxe's son, says:— "As Master Foxe one day sat in St. Paul's church, spent with long fasting, his countenance thin and eyes hollow, after the ghastly manner of dying men, every one shunning a spectacle of so much horror, there came to him one whom he never remembered to have seen before, who, sitting down by him, and saluting him with much familiarity, thrust an untold sum of money into his hand, bidding him be of good cheer, adding withal that he knew not how great the misfortunes were which oppressed him, but supposed it was no light calamity; that he should, therefore, accept in good part that small gift from his countryman which common courtesy had forced him to offer; that he should go and take care of himself, and take all occasions to prolong his life; adding that within a few days new hopes were at hand, and a more certain condition of livelihood." Foxe could never learn to whom he was indebted for this seasonable bounty, though he used every endeavor to find out the person. . . . "Certain it is, however, that within three days after the transaction, the presage was made good. Some one waited upon him from the duchess of Richmond, who invited him, upon fair terms," says the writer, "into her service."—"Acts and Monuments," Vol. I, page 19. In the dark days of Queen Mary's persecution, when the fires were frequently burning at the martyr's stake, Foxe was compelled to flee to the Continent, there to begin his compilation of the story of the great cloud of witnesses who overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, loving not their lives unto the death. The lesson that all may read in the record of those times when the light of the Reformation was breaking, is that there is a living God in heaven who walks through the waters and through the fires with his own, giving sustaining grace, and who is able to deliver out of troubles when such deliverance is to his glory and for his children's good.