“The towery City, branchy between towers,”
which was so dear to him to the last. In October of this year, 1580, he was bidden towards London as far as Uxbridge: farther he could hardly come, without the gravest peril2, as the Privy3 Council were just issuing their third warrant for the capture of Jesuits. There he was joined by Fr. Parsons and several other missionaries4. A[113] conference was held: it was represented that Norfolk and Lancashire were eager to claim Fr. Campion’s ministrations, and it was decided5 that he was to go to Lancashire, preferable as being not only farther from London and also “more affected6 to the Catholic religion,” but as having better private libraries. For they were now urging Campion to write again: this time something on the burning questions of the day, aimed particularly at the Universities (where his Challenge was still the staple8 of daily talk), and therefore to be written in Latin. We are not so sure, now-a-days, that controversy9 does much good, but one reason for that may be that we have few Campions to carry it on. It is well to remember that people then read nothing else, except poetry! Campion’s work was his famous Decem Rationes Proposit? in Causa Fidei, or, as the title is given in its only modern translation (1827), Ten Reasons for Renouncing10 the Protestant, and Embracing the Catholic Religion. At first the author was for calling his thesis Heresy11 in Despair: De H?resi Desperata. His[114] counsellors agreed, amid laughter, that it would be odd indeed to nail such a title as that to the mast, when heresy was so powerful and flourishing; but, according to Campion’s own philosophy, there was no life in an argument whose only premisses, as he once said, are “curses, starvation, and the rack.” Here we come back at once to his root principle, which modern research so fully12 justifies13, in regard to the England of his own day. A “gentleman saint” who uttered many an ironic14, but never a contemptuous word, Campion could not be persuaded that “the received religion” was a genuine thing. He believed that temporal interest alone led people to conform to the new alterations15 and restrictions16; that the lay statesmen who were pushing things through were concerned not with doctrine17, but only with negations of doctrine, and that on the other side, nothing was so promising18, nothing so gloriously fruitful, as persecutions and martyrdoms. First and last, he had a strong dash of optimism. In this spirit he began his last treatise19, writing it as best he could, depending on his[115] memory, and on such books as country squires20 might have in their houses, and putting it together in among the almost incessant21 journeys, duties, fatigues22 and alarms of the next few weeks.
The two Jesuit friends parted at Uxbridge, “with the tenderness of heart which in such a case and so dangerous a time may be imagined.” Gervase Pierrepoint conveyed Campion into Nottinghamshire to spend Christmas at Thoresby, his home; thence into Derbyshire, where one of the young Tempests succeeded as guide; and the gentleman who directed the Yorkshire part of the journey reached in safety the house of his own brother-in-law, Mr. William Harrington of Mount St. John, near Thirsk, where the Father was received with open arms. Here he settled down for less than a fortnight at his desk, among his note-books, at peace. But to have him in the house at all was to risk the contagion23 of the things of God. The eldest24 of the large family, a wild boy, his father’s namesake, was quick to feel the spell of this most attractive guest. “Not only his eloquence25[116] and fire,” says Fr. Henry More of Campion, “but a certain hidden infused power, made his words strike home.” Some of these simple words of every day “struck home” to the young William Harrington, so that fourteen years afterwards he found the palm-branch of martyrdom growing green and fair for him on the public execution ground. At this very time of Campion’s visit, the Lent of 1581, there was another lad of fourteen or fifteen, John Pibush, running about the streets of Thirsk, his native village, who may have gone to Confession26 to the strange priest at the Manor27, and wondered at him, unknowing that he, too, was sealed as a future holocaust28 in the same immortal29 cause.
From Mount St. John, where he must have tasted much natural happiness, Campion travelled into Lancashire, under the protection of a former pupil and his wife. There he was affectionately welcomed and cared for in each of eight great houses, where himself and his spiritual conferences were still a glowing tradition, sixty or seventy years afterwards. He had to live,[117] think, write, in a crowd. The local gentry30 drove from great distances and slept in barns, only to hear and see him once. At Blainscough Hall, the seat of the Worthingtons, the pursuivants would have discovered him, where he was walking in the open air, had it not been for the cleverness and splendid presence of mind of a faithful maidservant, standing31 hard by. She ran up against him, in a pretended fit of temper, and shoved him into a shallow pond! The pursuivants, sent out by the terrible Huntingdon, President of the North, to apprehend32 a distinguished33 cleric and scholar, naturally never gave that mud-covered yokel34 a second glance.
Fr. Campion would have learned by now the fate of most of the enthusiastic band who had travelled in his company, from Rome or Rheims to England, during the preceding summer: five priests, including the lovable gay-hearted Sherwin, were languishing35 in cells and on the rack; Fr. Parsons, though hunted, was free. Following a suggestion of Campion’s, he set up a private printing press, in order that the Ten Reasons and[118] other Catholic works of defensive36 controversy might be issued as they were needed. Publishing, like every other major industry open to the Catholics, was outlawed37; devotional and doctrinal books had to be brought out in this hole-and-corner fashion, if at all. Another of those lay associates of the mission, whose devotion and usefulness had been proved at every point, came forward to bear the brunt of the new enterprise. The young Stephen Brinkley, Bachelor of Civil Law, called by Parsons “a gentleman of high attainments38 both in literature and in virtue,” volunteered to become manager and head compositor, and amid many dramatic and exciting interruptions, carried his task through. Machinery39, types, paper, and the rest were bought with money supplied by the ever-helpful George Gilbert. Brinkley himself, to avert40 suspicion, had to buy horses for his workmen, and attire41 them like persons of quality whenever they went abroad. He quite knew what he was risking. After him, still another knight42 of letters in a far less perilous43 field, offered himself in the person[119] of Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton, then newly married (long afterwards a priest, and Rector of the English College in Rome). His not undelightful duty was to verify the mass of references and authorities quoted in the margins44 of Campion’s manuscript: this he did in a scholarly way, satisfactory to the scholarly author, who believed in research, and liked nothing at second-hand45. Lastly, Parsons, as Campion’s Superior, recalled him to London in April or May to see the little volume through the press, and cautioned him to put up only at inns on the way, where happily he might pass as “the gentleman in the parlour.”
Thirty miles or so north of the great city, Campion had one of his ever-recurring narrow escapes. A spy, hungry for reward, had dogged his steps on his way from York. At a certain town not named, a little boy who knew Campion by sight overheard this man describing the Father to a magistrate46, and calling him “Jesuit,” a word the child had never heard. He ran straight to the tavern47 where the “Jesuit”[120] had put up and succeeded in finding him and warning him! so the bird was safely on the wing before the fowlers were in sight.
Campion came to Westminster and Whitefriars, and set to work, diligently48 as ever. With Father Robert he had frequent occasion to visit the Bellamys of Uxenden Hall near Harrow, a family under whose roof his old friend Richard Bristow had died in the preceding autumn. Their later adversities and annihilation were only too typical of Catholic domestic history under Elizabeth. Going to Harrow meant going up the Edgware Road, and in the mouth of that road, between waste lands (facing the spot across the street where the Marble Arch now stands), was the famous Tyburn gallows49. This particular one had been put up new for Dr. Storey’s execution, ten years before: it had three posts set in a triangle, with connecting cross-bars at the top. Once every week, without intermission, batches50 of criminals perished there. Even now, and with far greater frequency afterwards, holy and innocent men and[121] women made up a large proportion of the “criminals”; and remembering these dear souls, and conscious that there he was to follow them in confession of the King of Martyrs51, Campion would always solemnly take off his hat and pause, in passing, to salute52 Tyburn Tree.
Meanwhile, in the quiet and seclusion53 of Dame54 Cecily Stonor’s park, near Henley, and in the attics55 which she bravely set apart for the purpose, the Decem Rationes got itself safely printed by Stephen Brinkley and his seven honest men. Campion, with fine bravado56, dated it from “Cosmopolis”; and the distribution of it was as audacious as the dating. The first copies bound, about four hundred in number, were hurriedly stabbed, instead of stitched, in time to go up for the Oxford1 commemoration, June 27th of that year. The church of St. Mary-the-Virgin was then used for all the “Acts,” for the accommodation of which, a century later, the Sheldonian Theatre was built. When the company entered St. Mary’s, the benches were found littered with the “seditious” books. Their[122] dedication57 was “to the studious Collegians flourishing at Oxford and Cambridge,” and the youths in question were just in the humour to read them; and read them they did, then and there, instead of attending to the important annual function going on! This rudeness bred protest, and protest bred a lively scene. To understand it we must recall that the undergraduate element was then, by comparison, the conservative element. Heads of Houses, Fellows and Tutors, learned and popular men, had been removed wholesale58 by the Elizabethan settlement of religion in favour of new men concisely59 described as “extremists from Geneva, intellectually inferior to those who had been displaced, and representing a different spirit, and different traditions.” The student body looked on them with scorn. Again, to quote another chief authority on this subject, “the young Oxonians did not bear easily the Elizabethan drill, and felt that if their liberty must be crushed they would fain have it crushed by something more venerable than the mushroom authority of the Ministers of[123] the Queen. They were as tinder, and Campion’s book was just the sort of spark to set them in a blaze.” The excited Government told off relays of clergymen to courtmartial and shoot it. Aylmer, Bishop60 of London, wished to commission nine Deans, seven Archdeacons, and the two Regius Professors of Divinity to punish the tiny offender61; but the actual ammunition62 brought into the field was not quite so imposing63 as all this. The answers were duly published, dealing64 in the most unmeasured personal abuse of Campion. No attempt was made in any instance to rival either his religious fervour or his literary grace. His last labour with his pen made, in short, a very great and an extremely prolonged stir. Its fate was a romantic one from start to finish, for it was so quickly and thoroughly65 confiscated66 that not more than a couple of copies are now known to exist. Despite the outcry, or because of it, edition after edition was called for. There have been nearly thirty reprints in the original Latin, and many translations into modern languages, inclusive of three beautiful translations into[124] the good English common in 1606, 1632, and 1687, one of which should be re-issued. The Ten Reasons, written under such immense difficulties, had all of Campion’s zeal67 and pith, and was “a model of eloquence, elegance68, and good taste.” Marc Antony Muret, the greatest Latinist of the time, called it libellum aureum, “a golden little book, writ7 by the very finger of God.” Campion had gone, in his ardent69, sensitive, rhetorical, compendious70 way, over the whole ground of the credentials71 of that Church which had had the allegiance of England for more than a thousand years: Scripture72, the Fathers, the Councils, the evidence of human history, are all drawn73 upon, in the best spirit of the new learning. The characteristic note of personal appeal to the Queen is not lacking here at the end. Campion’s theme is the Church, and he quotes from the Prophet Isaiah: “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and Queens thy nursing mothers;” and he names as among the great monarchs74 whose joy it was to further the Church in their day, St. Edward the Confessor, St. Louis of France,[125] St. Henry of Saxony, St. Wenceslaus of Bohemia, St. Stephen of Hungary, and the rest. Then he cries out to “Elizabeth, most mighty75 Queen,” to listen. “For this Prophet is speaking unto thee, is teaching thee thy duty. I tell thee one Heaven cannot gather in Calvin and these thine ancestors. Join thyself therefore to them, else shalt thou stand unworthy of that name of thine, thy genius, thy learning, thy fame before all men, and thy fortunes. To this end do I conspire76, and will conspire, against thee, whatever betideth me, who am so often menaced with the gallows as a conspirator77 hostile to thy life. (‘All hail, thou good Cross!’) The day shall come, O Elizabeth! the day that shall make it altogether clear which of the two did love thee best: the Company of Jesus, or the brood of Luther!”
Hardly was the last of the original imprints78 bound and distributed, when the pursuivants in search of what was roughly, but significantly enough, called “Massing-stuff,” pounced79 upon Stonor Park, and caught red-handed there, and carried off,[126] the two gentlemen, John Stonor and Stephen Brinkley, and four of the printers, one of whom, a poor frightened fellow, conformed, and was let off at once. William Hartley, ordained80 the year before, who had in person strewn the Ten Reasons over the benches of the University Church, and made special gifts of copies in various Colleges, was arrested a little later. His fate was not exceptional, like that of his comrades just mentioned, who were eventually released on bail81. He suffered at Tyburn; and his mother, heroic as the mother of the Macchabees, stood by his young body in its butchering, and thanked God aloud for her privilege in so giving back to Him such a son.
Campion spent St. John’s Day (marking the first anniversary of his return to England) at Lady Babington’s, at Twyford in Buckinghamshire, a house not many miles from Stonor, on the other bank of the Thames. He stayed a little while at Bledlow also, and at Wynge, with the Dormers, his whole heart bent82, every moment of the time, upon his Father’s business. But his free days were almost done.
[127]
The outcry redoubled, now that he had again succeeded in catching83 public attention. Fresh and monstrously84 cruel measures were therefore taken against all Papists. “Naught is lacking,” wrote to Acquaviva the tender soul who too well knew himself to be the cause of many sorrows, “but that to our books written with ink should succeed others daily published, and written in blood.” Fr. Parsons prudently85 ordered him back to the North. The two heard each other’s confessions86 and renewal87 of vows88 at Stonor, and said good-bye, exchanging hats as a parting gift, after the friendly fashion of their time. Campion was to ride straightway into Lancashire to get his manuscript and notes, left behind, his former companion Ralph Emerson going with him; and he was then to betake himself to the fresh mission field in Norfolk. As it fell out, he soon spurred back after Parsons to tell him of a letter that moment received. It was from a gentleman named Yate, then a prisoner for his religion, earnestly begging Campion to visit Lyford Grange in Berkshire, the gentleman’s own estate, hard by, where his[128] wife and mother still were, together with Edward Yate, and part of a proscribed89 community of English Brigittine nuns90, driven back into England by troubles in the Low Countries. Fr. Parsons, knowing the house to be a conspicuous91 one, and already supplied with chaplains, was unwilling92 to grant the permission. But eventually he gave in, warning the two others not to tarry beyond one night or one day, and as a precaution, putting Campion under the lay brother’s care and obedience93. Parsons parted from him not without a rueful and affectionate word. “You are too easy-going by far,” he said to his friend and fellow-soldier, purposely giving its least heroic name to that intentionally94 prodigal95 zeal for souls. “I know you, Father Edmund; if they once get you there, you will never break away!”
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1 Oxford | |
n.牛津(英国城市) | |
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2 peril | |
n.(严重的)危险;危险的事物 | |
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3 privy | |
adj.私用的;隐密的 | |
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4 missionaries | |
n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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5 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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6 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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7 writ | |
n.命令状,书面命令 | |
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8 staple | |
n.主要产物,常用品,主要要素,原料,订书钉,钩环;adj.主要的,重要的;vt.分类 | |
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9 controversy | |
n.争论,辩论,争吵 | |
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10 renouncing | |
v.声明放弃( renounce的现在分词 );宣布放弃;宣布与…决裂;宣布摒弃 | |
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11 heresy | |
n.异端邪说;异教 | |
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12 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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13 justifies | |
证明…有理( justify的第三人称单数 ); 为…辩护; 对…作出解释; 为…辩解(或辩护) | |
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14 ironic | |
adj.讽刺的,有讽刺意味的,出乎意料的 | |
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15 alterations | |
n.改动( alteration的名词复数 );更改;变化;改变 | |
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16 restrictions | |
约束( restriction的名词复数 ); 管制; 制约因素; 带限制性的条件(或规则) | |
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17 doctrine | |
n.教义;主义;学说 | |
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18 promising | |
adj.有希望的,有前途的 | |
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19 treatise | |
n.专著;(专题)论文 | |
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20 squires | |
n.地主,乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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21 incessant | |
adj.不停的,连续的 | |
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22 fatigues | |
n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 );杂役;厌倦;(士兵穿的)工作服 | |
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23 contagion | |
n.(通过接触的疾病)传染;蔓延 | |
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24 eldest | |
adj.最年长的,最年老的 | |
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25 eloquence | |
n.雄辩;口才,修辞 | |
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26 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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27 manor | |
n.庄园,领地 | |
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28 holocaust | |
n.大破坏;大屠杀 | |
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29 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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30 gentry | |
n.绅士阶级,上层阶级 | |
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31 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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32 apprehend | |
vt.理解,领悟,逮捕,拘捕,忧虑 | |
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33 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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34 yokel | |
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35 languishing | |
a. 衰弱下去的 | |
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36 defensive | |
adj.防御的;防卫的;防守的 | |
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37 outlawed | |
宣布…为不合法(outlaw的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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38 attainments | |
成就,造诣; 获得( attainment的名词复数 ); 达到; 造诣; 成就 | |
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39 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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40 avert | |
v.防止,避免;转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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41 attire | |
v.穿衣,装扮[同]array;n.衣着;盛装 | |
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42 knight | |
n.骑士,武士;爵士 | |
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43 perilous | |
adj.危险的,冒险的 | |
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44 margins | |
边( margin的名词复数 ); 利润; 页边空白; 差数 | |
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45 second-hand | |
adj.用过的,旧的,二手的 | |
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46 magistrate | |
n.地方行政官,地方法官,治安官 | |
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47 tavern | |
n.小旅馆,客栈;小酒店 | |
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48 diligently | |
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49 gallows | |
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50 batches | |
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51 martyrs | |
n.martyr的复数形式;烈士( martyr的名词复数 );殉道者;殉教者;乞怜者(向人诉苦以博取同情) | |
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52 salute | |
vi.行礼,致意,问候,放礼炮;vt.向…致意,迎接,赞扬;n.招呼,敬礼,礼炮 | |
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53 seclusion | |
n.隐遁,隔离 | |
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54 dame | |
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55 attics | |
n. 阁楼 | |
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56 bravado | |
n.虚张声势,故作勇敢,逞能 | |
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57 dedication | |
n.奉献,献身,致力,题献,献辞 | |
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58 wholesale | |
n.批发;adv.以批发方式;vt.批发,成批出售 | |
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59 concisely | |
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60 bishop | |
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61 offender | |
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62 ammunition | |
n.军火,弹药 | |
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63 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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64 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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65 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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66 confiscated | |
没收,充公( confiscate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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68 elegance | |
n.优雅;优美,雅致;精致,巧妙 | |
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69 ardent | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,强烈的,烈性的 | |
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70 compendious | |
adj.简要的,精简的 | |
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71 credentials | |
n.证明,资格,证明书,证件 | |
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72 scripture | |
n.经文,圣书,手稿;Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》,《圣经》中的一段 | |
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73 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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74 monarchs | |
君主,帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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75 mighty | |
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76 conspire | |
v.密谋,(事件等)巧合,共同导致 | |
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77 conspirator | |
n.阴谋者,谋叛者 | |
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78 imprints | |
n.压印( imprint的名词复数 );痕迹;持久影响 | |
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79 pounced | |
v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 );猛扑;一眼看出;抓住机会(进行抨击) | |
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80 ordained | |
v.任命(某人)为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 );授予(某人)圣职;(上帝、法律等)命令;判定 | |
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81 bail | |
v.舀(水),保释;n.保证金,保释,保释人 | |
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82 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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83 catching | |
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84 monstrously | |
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85 prudently | |
adv. 谨慎地,慎重地 | |
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86 confessions | |
n.承认( confession的名词复数 );自首;声明;(向神父的)忏悔 | |
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87 renewal | |
adj.(契约)延期,续订,更新,复活,重来 | |
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88 vows | |
誓言( vow的名词复数 ); 郑重宣布,许愿 | |
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89 proscribed | |
v.正式宣布(某事物)有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90 nuns | |
n.(通常指基督教的)修女, (佛教的)尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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91 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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92 unwilling | |
adj.不情愿的 | |
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93 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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94 intentionally | |
ad.故意地,有意地 | |
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95 prodigal | |
adj.浪费的,挥霍的,放荡的 | |
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