The Love of the Soule

Extract

[While the name and the story—a spiritual romance—of Blessed Edmund Campion are known to all, we are probably less familiar with the name of his contemporary and friend at Oxford, Gregory Martin, one of the notable scholars of the day, who spoke the word that under God converted Edmund Campion.

Martin, after giving brilliant promise in his studies, left Oxford in 1569 to accept the post of tutor to the sons of the Duke of Norfolk, but resigned it in the following year when the duke’s household were ordered to conform outwardly to the new religion.

Before leaving England to practise his religion unmolested in Flanders, he made his appeal to his friend Campion, entreating him to abandon the idea of a merely worldly career, to choose the better part, and to accompany him into poverty. The pleading prevailed, in that as we know, Campion turned his back on Oxford and entered the Society of Jesus.

Martin went to Douay, there presided over by Dr. Allen and was ordained Priest in 1573. He then went to Rome to take part in the foundation of the English College—but in 1578 was recalled to Rheims. There his great work was the translation of the Bible from the Vulgate into English, the version which came to be known as the Rheims Version. Martin died at Rheims, 1582. His death was a blow to Dr. Allen and the College; for he was not only a fervent Catholic, but a ripe scholar, and one with the intellectual modesty that characterises the true scholar—one of Oxford’s most distinguished sons.