+ Blessed EVERARD HANSE, Priest, 1581

SHOD FOR THE GOSPEL

BORN of Protestant parents in Northamptonshire, he received heretical Orders and was presented to a rich living. His preaching was much admired, and he was carried away by his success. Meantime his brother William, having been reconciled, went to Rheims, and in 1579 returned to England as a priest. He tried in vain to open Everard's. eyes to the truth, but a dangerous illness placed all things in a new light, and William had the consolation of receiving his brother into the Church. Everard lost no time in entering the seminary at Rheims, and in 1581 was sent as a priest on the English Mission. He was visiting some prisoners in the Marshalsea when the gaoler noticed the foreign make of his boots, and took him before a magistrate. He confessed himself a priest, and only three months after his arrival in England he was imprisoned in Newgate. 

On his trial he publicly defended the Pope's spiritual supremacy, and frankly confessed that he wished all believed the Catholic faith, as he did himself. That was enough. He was sentenced to death, and on the scaffold he appeared bright and untroubled as ever. When his heart was thrown into the fire, it leapt repeatedly, as if marking God's approval of his constancy. He suffered at Tyburn, July 31.

"How beautiful are the feet of those that preach the gospel of peace, that bring glad tidings of good things."—ROM. x. 15.