Blessed Edmund Campion

suits to help him so far as their Rule permitted. Novices were sent out among the neighbouring villages, to catechize and instruct the poorer Catholics; and no one had so instant a succes

isiting the prison and the hospital, or helping the cook in the kitchen! In January, 1575, he set up at his College a branch Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, or Sodality of Our Lady, of which he became president. About the same time he made his first vows. He was continually called upon for great College occasions, and to pronounce public panegyrics. "Whatever had to be done," says his pompous but sympathetic biographer Bombino, "was laid upon him." On getting a fresh task he would ask his Superior, in a spirit of perfect[66] humility and confidence, if he was thought strong enough to add that to the rest? and if the answer were Yes, he shouldered the new duty at once, much to the wonder of others. "I am

h a hankering after Catholicism, though in all his public actions he was conspicuously Protestant. Campion, who knew him from boyhood and was not given to misjudgment, believed that he had almost won over the star of English chivalry: "this young man so wonderfully beloved and admired," he calls him in 1576; a testimony doubly interesting, when we remember that Philip Sidney was then but three-and-twenty, to the effect which his short life made upon all his contemporaries. "He had much conversation with me," Campion's letter goes on, "and I hope not in vain, for to all appearances[68] he was mos

Jesuit, for he loved his own Society in the extreme; but that was not to be. A letter to Martin, glowing with that interior fire which was shed out[69] from Edmund Campion upon everything he touched, ends most tenderly. "Since for so many years we two ha

missed the old unhappy scruple about his Oxford diaconate, and it troubled him no more. He was made Professor of Philosophy. "You are to know," he pleasantly says, "that I am foolishly held to be an accomplished sophist!" During the course of this year 1578, he wrote his last and most famous drama, now lost,

at Launceston, November 29, 1577. He had been captured near Probus; his wealthy host, Francis Tregian, was attainted of pr?munire, and his children completely beggared. This young Westcountryman[71] had a character all his own. He had been charged with nothing but the exercise of his priestly functions, and was offered his life, on the day of his execution, if he would but swear that the Queen was Supreme Head of the Church of England. "Upon this," continues the chronicle, "he took the Bible into his hands, made the sign of the Cross upon it, kissed it, and said:

he proposal, but the answer given to Dr. Allen was that the Society would do its best to supply missioners thenceforward, and that Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion should be sent first as forerunners of the rest. Allen was naturally overjoyed. While Merc?ur, the Father-General, wrote officially to Campion's Superior at Prague, Allen wrote a moving letter to Campion hims

7

Campianus, Martyr." For such a romantic irregularity the old saint was reprimanded. He replied quite simply: "But I had to do it!" Poor Campion, who was shy, had seen both these things, before Campanus, the sympathetic Rector, gave him his marching orders to start at once for Rome. "The Fathers do verily seem to suspect something about me; I hope their suspicions may come true!" he said. "God's will be done, not mine." And then, ad