Born: Pierre Bayle,
celebrated critic and controversial writer, author of
Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, 1647, Carla-en-Coant�,
Foix; Sir David Wilkie, painter, 1785, Manse of Cults,
Fifeshire.
Died: Cardinal Reginald
Pole, eminent ecclesiastic, 1558; Cuthbert Tunstall,
bishop of Durham, 1559; Jacob B�hme, or B�hm,
celebrated mystical writer, 1624, Alt-Seidenberg,
Upper Lusatia; Dr. T. F. Dibdin, author of numerous
bibliographical works,1847; Charles Heath,
line-engraver, 1848; Captain George William Manby,
inventor of apparatus for saving life in shipwrecks,
1854, near Yarmouth; Professor Edward Forbes, eminent
naturalist, 1854, Edinburgh; Frank Stone, artist,
1859.
Feast Day: The
Dedication of the Churches of Saints Peter and Paul,
at Rome. Saints Alphsus, Zachmus, Romanus, and Barulas,
martyrs, about 304. St. Hilda or Hild, abbess, 680.
St. Ode, abbot of Cluni, confessor, 942.
CARDINAL REGINALD
POLE
Cardinal Pole was, among many
such, the most remarkable man of his time. The
unyielding uprightness with which he preserved his
conduct true to his convictions, made him many enemies
among those he opposed. By his faithful and energetic
adherence, during the reigns of Henry and Edward, to
the Papal See, even, as it must have seemed to many,
at the expense of the liberty of his country, as well
as by the active share which he took in the
retrogressive measures of Mary, he rendered himself
unpopular with the English people. But ever adorning
the nobility of his birth, with the additional lustre
of nobility of mind, he merited respect by his
singular learning, his parity of conscience, his
uniform consistency, his genuine piety, and the most
refined and amiable manners.
Reginald Pole was the son of
Richard Pole, Lord Montague, cousin-german to Henry
VII; his mother was Margaret, daughter of George, Duke
of Clarence, brother to Edward IV. Born in 1500, he
was educated for the church from his earliest years,
first by the Carthusians, at Sheen, in Surrey, and
afterwards by the Carmelites of Whitefriars. He
entered Magdalen College, Oxford, as a noble-man, at
the age of twelve. He early obtained various
preferments, among others the Deanery of Exeter. He
resided abroad several years, under Henry VIII's
patronage; after which, returning to England, he
retired into seclusion to prosecute, uninterrupted,
his devotional studies.
Pole's first great trial was
his rupture with Henry. After fruitless endeavours,
often renewed on the king's part, to induce the
churchman to acquiesce in Catharine's
divorce, and the
rejection of the papal supremacy, and equally vain
attempts, and as often reiterated on the side of Pole,
to avoid coming to any decision, he was finally
induced to declare his opinion, and as he expressed it
fully, with the utmost honesty, and with considerable
eloquence, he was duly placed under ban, and a price
set on his head. Pole kept clear of the danger, and
Henry had to content himself with depriving him of all
his preferments, and his two brothers and aged mother
of their lives.
In the same proportion as the
affections of Henry were alienated from the
uncompromising counsellor, the Roman see took him into
favour. He was created a cardinal, and employed on
several important trusts. He actively exerted himself
in the formation of a league which should have for its
object the restoration of England to the Catholic
faith; and, in 1546, along with two other cardinals,
he represented the Pope at the
Council of Trent. In
1549, Pole was elected to the popedom; but as the
election was tumultuous, he refused to accept its
decision. Upon this the conclave proceeded to elect
him again, and this decision also, somewhat
arrogantly, he set aside, saying: 'God was a God of
light and not of darkness,' and bidding them wait for
the morning. The Italians, disconcerted, proceeded
once more to an election, and this time the friends of
the cardinal were outvoted.
Soon after this, Pole obtained
leave to retire from all public offices; but Mary
succeeding to the English throne, he accepted the
appointment of legate to her court; and being at once
freed by parliament from the charge of treason, on
which he had been banished, took his seat in the House
of Peers. He applied himself with zeal to the
furtherance of that cause to which he had always
firmly clung, and saw his efforts successful. How far
he was instrumental in promoting the cruel
persecutions which have invested the reign of Mary
with such horror, cannot now be very clearly
ascertained, but the general mildness and rectitude of
his character warrant us in forming the belief that
these atrocities met, at least on his part, with no
zealous encouragement.
Gardiner, ambitious to succeed
Cranmer as archbishop of
Canterbury, endeavoured to
hinder Pole from obtaining the vacant office; but
dying in the midst of his schemes, the Cardinal was
consecrated soon afterwards, in February 1556. The
reigning pope opposed Pole's promotion, but the
Queen's support rendered the opposition futile.
Brighter times seemed to await him. But falling sick,
he only survived to receive the, to him, fatal news of
the death of Mary, and followed his mistress in the
short space of sixteen hours.
Pole was buried at Canterbury.
His funeral was magnificent, but his epitaph was
humble, being only: Depositum, Cardinalis Poli.
JACOB B�HME
Jacob B�hme, or, as commonly
written in English, Behmen, is one of the many notable
men bred under the tutelage of
St. Crispin, and in
various particulars he resembles his
brother-craftsman, George Fox, the first of the
Quakers.
B�hme was born near G�rlitz, in Upper Lusatia,
in 1575. His parents being poor, and unable to give
him much education, he was employed when a child to
herd cattle, and in his twelfth year was apprenticed
to a shoemaker. It chanced one day, he relates, when
his master and mistress were from home, that a
stranger in mean apparel, but with a grave and
reverent countenance, came into the shop, and taking
up a pair of shoes, desired to buy them. Jacob had
never been trusted as a salesman, and knew not what
money to ask; but as the stranger was importunate, he
named a price which he felt sure would bear him
harmless on the return of his master. The stranger
took the shoes, and going out of the shop a little
way, stood still, and with a loud and earnest voice
called:
'Jacob, Jacob, come forth!'
Surprised and fascinated, the
boy obeyed, and the old man, taking him by his right
hand, and fixing his bright and piercing eyes upon
him, said:
'Jacob, thou art little, but shalt be
great, and become another man, such a one as the world
will wonder at; therefore be pious, fear God, and
reverence His Word. Read diligently the Holy
Scriptures, wherein thou East comfort and instruction;
for thou must endure much poverty, and suffer
persecution; but be courageous and persevere, for God
loves and is gracious unto thee!'
-whereon he departed,
and was by Jacob seen no more.
The strange messenger
and his prediction made a deep impression on the boy's
mind. He grew serious beyond his years, and at one
time was 'for seven days surrounded with a divine
light, and stood in the highest contemplation, and in
the kingdom of joys.' He was raised above all
frivolity, and in his sacred zeal rebuked his master
for light and profane speech. At nineteen he married,
and set up as shoemaker in G�rlitz on his own account.
Years passed away, four sons
were born to B�hme, and he was known only in G�rlitz
as a pious cobbler, with a taste for reading.
Meanwhile he was the subject of remarkable
experiences. On one occasion, in his twenty-fifth
year, when gazing on a dazzling light produced by the
sun's rays breaking on a tin vessel, he fell into a
trance, in which he again felt himself encompassed
with celestial light, and filled with more than mortal
joy. Thereafter when he walked abroad in the fields,
there was opened in him a new sense whereby he
discerned the essences and uses of plants. He
commenced writing, but merely for his own
satisfaction, living in peace and silence, and
speaking to few persons of the mysteries which were
opened to him. A volume, called The Aurora,
which he had in this manner privately composed, he
lent to a friend, who made a copy of the work. The
treatise found its way to Richter, primate of G�rlitz,
who denounced it from his pulpit, and had B�hme
summoned before the senate, which advised him to leave
off scribbling and stick to his last. Strange to say,
he took the advice, and for seven years let his pen
lie idle.
At the mature age of
forty-two, however, the prophetic impulse came
irresistibly upon him; not from any desire to speak,
he says, but because the spirit was strong upon him he
resumed his writing, printed The Aurora, and followed
it up with thirty other publications, great and small.
Richter again exerted his influence to silence the
unlicensed shoemaker, and the magistrates begged him,
for the sake of peace, to leave G�rlitz, which, with
much good-nature, he did. He had now many friends who
recognised his genius, who encouraged him to write,
and who read all he produced with avidity. Amongst
these admirers was Balthasar Walter, a physician of
Dresden, who had travelled through Syria, Egypt, and
Arabia in search of magical lore, and after six years
of fruitless wandering, had returned home to find
more than he sought in the humble shoemaker's booth.
He and others would bring B�hme plants, and B�hme
would handle them, and instantly reveal their
properties. Then they would try him with a Greek or an
oriental word, and from the sound he would pronounce
its signification.
Once when Walter uttered the word
idea, Jacob sprang up in transport, and declared that
the sound presented to him the image of a heavenly
virgin of surpassing beauty. He was cited before the
Elector of Saxony, who had six doctors of divinity and
two professors of mathematics to examine the poor
shoemaker. They plied him with many and hard
questions, but B�hme had an answer for
them all. The elector was so pleased with his
demeanour, that he led B�hme aside, and sought from
him some information for himself. One of the
examiners, Dr. Meisner, is reported to have said: Who
knows but God may have designed him for some extra
ordinary work? And how can we, with justice, pass
judgment against what we understand not? Certainly he
seems to be a man of wonderful gifts in the Spirit,
though we cannot at present, from any sure ground,
approve or disapprove of many things he holds. After
this trial and charitable acquittal, B�hme returned to
G�rlitz, where he died on Sunday, 18th November 1624.
Early in the morning of that day, he called his son
Tobias, and asked him whether he did not hear sweet
music. Tobias said, No. Then said B�hme: 'Open the
door, that you may hear it.' In the afternoon he asked
the time, and was told three o'clock. 'My time,' he
said, 'is not yet; three hours hence is my time.' When
it was near six, he took leave of his wife and son,
blessed them, and said: �Now I go hence into
paradise!� and bidding his son turn him, he heaved a
sigh, and departed.
B�hme was a little man, withered, and with almost a
mean aspect. His forehead was low, and his temples
prominent; his nose was large and hooked, his eyes
blue and quick, his beard short and scanty, his voice
thin and gentle, and his speech and manners modest and
pleasing. His writings are voluminous, but they were
nearly all composed in the last seven years of his
life. They form a wonderful melange of alchemy,
astrology, soothsaying, theology, and mystical
conceptions concerning things supernal and infernal.
He wrote slowly, but steadily, and without revision,
and his style is diffuse, immethodical, and obscure.
The verdict of a cursory reader of B�hme is commonly
one of perplexity or disgust, yet he has never lacked
patient students, who have professed to find in his
pages a wisdom as profound as unique. Amongst these
have been many Germans, and in latter days, Schelling,
Hegel, Frederick Schlegel, Novalis, and Tieck. In
England, William Law, the author of A Serious Call to
a Devout and Holy Life, was an ardent disciple of
B�hme�s; and Henry More, the Platonist, and Sir Isaac
Newton, were his reverent admirers. B�hme�s works have
been translated from the German into Dutch, French,
and English, but have long ago ceased to he printed;
nevertheless, there exists a demand for them, and
second hand booksellers have seldom one of his volumes
long in stock.
Sir David Brewster, in his Life of Sir Isaac
Newton, observes that
Newton, at one period of his
life, was a believer in alchemy, and devoted much time
to the study and practice of its processes. The Rev.
William Law has stated that there were found among Sir
Isaac�s papers large extracts from Jacob B�hme�s
works, written with his own hand; and that he had
learned, from undoubted authority, that Newton, in the
early part of his life, had been led into a search for
the Philosopher�s Tincture, treated of by B�hme. It
would appear that Sir Isaac actually set up furnaces,
and spent several months in quest of the tincture.