Blessed NICHOLAS POSTGATE, Priest, 1679

THE WINGS OF A DOVE

Biography

Hunted about during the Oates persecution, he was at last arrested and condemned, not as a plotter, but for high treason as a priest. On the eve of his martyrdom at York came, with other visitors, Mrs. Charles Fairfax and Mrs. Meynel of Kilvington in great grief at taking leave of him. But the Confessor, bright and cheerful, laid his right hand on one and his left on the other and said, " Be of good heart, you shall both be delivered of sons, and they will be both saved." The two ladies gave birth to sons, who were baptised and died in infancy. In his weary hunted life he prayed as follows :—

And thus, dear Lord, I fly about In weak and weary case ; And, like a dove in Noe's Ark, I find no resting-place.

My weaned limbs, sweet Jesus, mark ; And when Thou thinkest best, Stretch forth Thy hand out of the ark And take me to Thy breast.

The new Mission of Pickering is a memorial of the Martyr's ministry.

" Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest."—Ps. liv. 7.