ST. BONIFACE, MARTYR. ABOUT THE YEAR 307. (Concluded from our last.) His companions in the meantime not finding him return to the inn, searched for him in those parts of the city where they thought him most likely to be found. Being at last informed by the gaoler's brother, that a stranger had been beheaded the day before for his faith in Christ, and being shown the dead body and the head, they assured him that it was the very person they were in search of, and beseeched him to bestow the martyr's relics upon them; this he refused to do without a reward; so they paid down five hundred pieces of gold; and having embalmed it, carried it home with them, praising God for the happy end of the blessed martyr. Aglaë, upon information of the affair, gave God thanks for his victory, and taking some priests with her, met the corps with tapers and perfumes half a mile out of Rome, on the Latin road; and in that very place raised a monument in which she laid them, and some years after built a chapel. She from that time led a penitential retired life, and dying fifteen years after, was buried near his relics. They were found in Rome in 1603, together with those of St. Alexius, in the church in Rome formerly called of St. Boniface, but now of St. Alexius. The bodies of both St. Boniface and St. Alexius, lie under the stately high altar in two rich marble tombs. The martyrdom of St, Boniface happened about the year 307. Whilst we praise the divine mercy, who of sinners maketh saints, we ought earnestly to pray that he change our hearts from vessels of corruption into vessels of grace and his divine charity. Regret and sorrow for sin has many degrees; but till it has entirely subdued the corruptions, changed the affections, and purified the heart, it is not a saving repentance, or that charity and love which animates or impregnates the new creature. The certain proof of regeneration or of a real conversion is victory. He that is born of God overcometh the world. The maxims of the gospel, the rules of the Church, and reason itself forbid us to look upon him as a sincere convert whose life is very uneven, inconstant, and contradictory to itself; if he be today a saint, and to-morrow a sinner; if he follow to-day the impulses of the Holy Ghost, and yield to-morrow to the temptations of the enemy; or if he has not courage to fly the dangers and renounce the occasion, which are fatal to him. TRUTH. PRICE ONE PENNY ST. IRENÆUS, BISHOP OF LYONS, M. A.D. 202. (Continued from our last.) It is evident from the whole series of the history of the Roman emperors, that the people, from the days of Augus The confirmation of the senate in the name of the whole tus, never looked upon that dignity as strictly hereditary. Roman people, seems to have been regarded as the solemn act of state, by which an emperor was legally invested with that supreme dignity; on this account the Christians every where acknowledged and faithfully obeyed Severus. that a Christian, called Proculus, cured him of a certain He had also other obligations to them. Tertullian tells us, distemper, for which benefit the emperor was for some time he lived in his palace. This Proculus was the steward of favourable to the Christians, and kept Proculus as long as Euhodus, who was a freed man of the emperor Severus, and by him appointed to educate his son Caracalla. Tertullian tory of devils cast out. This cure is confirmed by pagan mentions this cure as miraculous, and joins it to the his writers. Yet the clamours of the heathens at length moved this ungrateful emperor, who was naturally inclined to severity, to raise the fifth persecution against the Church; for he was haughty, cruel, stubborn, and unrelenting. He published his bloody edicts against the Christians about the tenth year of his reign, of Christ 202. Having formerly been governor of Lyons, and eye witness to the flourishing state of that church, he seems to have given particular instructions that the Christians there should be proceeded against with extraordinary severity; unless this persecution was owing to the fury of the particular magistrates, and of the mob. For the general massacre of the Christians at Lyons seems to have been attended with a popular commotion of the whole country against them, whilst the Pagans were celebrating the decennial games in honour of Severus. It seems to have been stirred up, because the Christians refused to join the idolaters in their sacrifices. Whence Tertullian says in his Apology, "Is it thus that your public rejoicings are consecrated by public infamy!" Ado, in his chronicle, says that St. Irenæus suffered martyrdom with an exceeding great multitude. An ancient epitaph, in leonine verses, inscribed on a curious mosaic pavement in the great church of St. Irenæus at Lyons, says the martyrs who died with him amounted to the number of nineteen thousand. St. Gregory of Tours writes, that St. næus had in a very short time converted to the faith almost the whole city of Lyons; and that with him were butcherd almost all the Christians of that populous town; insomuch, that the streets ran with streams of blood. Most place the martyrdom of these saints in 202, the beginning of the per secution, though some defer it to the year 208, when Severus passed through Lyons in his expedition into Britain. The precious remains of St. Irenæus were buried by his priest Zachary, between the bodies of the holy martyrs SS. Epipodius and Alexander. They were kept with honour in the subterraneous chapel in the church of St. John, till in 1562 they were scattered by the Calvinists, and a great part thrown into the river. The head they kicked about in the streets, then cast it into a little brook; but it was found by a Catholic, and restored to St. John's church. The Greeks honour his memory on the 23d of August; the Latins on the 28th of June. The former say he was be headed. (To be concluded in our next.) FALSEHOOD. DIVISIONS AND CONTESTS IN THE CHURCH: (Concluded from our last.) According to the revelations of the Montanist Paraclete, all those who, after baptism, had been guilty of grievous sins, fornication or adultery, could receive no remission of them from the Church, and, consequently, could not be admitted to the communion of the Church: they might be exhorted to repentance, and take part in the public ecclesiastical penance, but they must look for pardon, not from the power of the Church, but from the grace of God. The Montanists, while they denied that the Catholic Church had received power to remit these enormous sins, claimed it for the prophets of their own party. These prophets, however, never exercised their privilege, for as one of their number declared, "the Church (ecclesia spiritus, the spiritually-minded Church, and in particular the prophets) can pardon sins, but I would never do so, lest others should sin. Upon the same authority, they based their new laws of fasting; they pronounced that the observance of these fasts alone were necessary, for they rejected the fasts of the Church, either on account of their Severity, or of the source whence they were derived. In addition to the ordinary fast which preceded Easter, they introduced the xero-phagi, which were observed in two weeks of the year, with the exception of Saturday and Sunday; during which fast they took no other than dry, tasteless food, and water they prolonged the weekly fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays (on which days the Catholics took their meal at three in the afternoon) until after the setting of the sun. By another law, the Montanists pro. hibited second marriages after the death of husband or wife; those who should presume to marry a second time, they expelled from their Church. More severe yet was the precept that forbade Christians to flee or to secrete themselves in times of persecution: the faithful were com. manded not to avoid death for the faith, but to consider it as the greatest of all happiness, and to strive with every effort to gain the crown of martyrdom. "Desire not," says one of their oracles, "desire not to die upon your beds, in child-birth, or in a debilitating fever; but aspire to die as martyrs, that He, who suffered for you, may be glorified in you." Hence the Montanists boasted of the many martyrs who had adorned their Church, the constancy of whom they proclaimed to be a proof of the Divine nature of the revelations for which they suffered. Lastly, they severely reprehended the Catholics, because in some of their churches they permitted virgins to appear unveiled, an abuse not tolerated in the assemblies of the faithful. Montanus and his prophetesses foretold also the near approach of the destruction of the world, and of the consequent reign of happiness for a thousand years. Pepuza and Tymium, two villages of Phrygia, were to be the future celestial Jerusalem, and the happy abodes of blessed souls. The Montanists were therefore sometimes named Pepuzians or Kataphrygians. In the time of Tertulian, their hierarchy differed but little from that of the Catholic Church. St. Jerome is the first who relates that their bishops occupied the third rank, that over them stood a class called overseers, and that a patriarch, who resided at Pepuza, was the head of their Church. How far the small and almost unknown sects of the Artotyrites, and of the Tascodrugites or Passalorynchites, were similar to the Montanists, it is now impossible to determine. Of the former, it is related that in their Eucharistie sacrifice they offered cheese with the bread, and that they raised females to the dignity of priest, and even of bishop. The latter received their name from their practice of placing their finger on their mouth during prayer, to signify that prayer to God should be interior and not expressed in words. A controversy with the Montanists was the origin of a sect, the members of which, on account of a consequence drawn from their doctrines, were called by St. Epiphanius Alogists, men who believed not in the Logos, the Word, When the Montanists at Thyatira had gained over nearly the whole community to their party, a few Christians of the city opposéd them with such inconsiderate zeal, that they rejected the gospel and the apocalypse of St. John, both of which they ascribed to the heresiarch Cerinthus not on any historical grounds, but because in the gospel there was contained a promise of the Paraclete, upon which the Montanists founded their claims to revelation, and because in the apocalypse the same heretics pretended to discover the proofs of their millenium. Carried away by the same impetuosity of contradiction, the Alogi denied that the gift of prophecy existed in the Church; and as they appealed to the difference that is to be found in the gospel of St. John, from the gospels of the other three evangelists, it is probable that they impugned the divinity of the Logos, and approached therefore near the Antitrinitarians of the sects of Theodotus and Artémon. From their rejection of the Logos, they derived their appellation. Whether this heresy extended beyond Thyatira, and how long it existed, is now unknown. Connected with the Montanists by his severe ascetism, was the Egyptian Hieracas, to whom, on account of his erroneous doctrines, we may fearlessly assign a place amongst the heretics of his age. He lived at the end of the third century, at Leontopolis in Egypt, and was pos sessed of great learning: he wrote commentaries on the Scripture, in the Greek and Coptic languages, and in the midst of severe corporal austerities attained the advanced age of ninety years. Following his master, Origen, he interpreted many parts of the Old Testament in an allegorical sense: he denied the reality of the terrestrial paradise, and considered the narrations centained in the book of Genesis as no more than symbolical representations of what we are not informed: the history of Melchesidec he viewed only as an allegory relating to the Holy Ghost. His denial of the resurrection of the body sprung from his excessive, rather Gnostic or Manichean, that Christian asceticism. For, according to his teaching, the essence of Christian morality, that by which it was distinguished from the ethics of the old law, was the absti. nence from marriage, from flesh, and from wine commanded by the Messias, and although he granted that St. Paul permitted matrimony, it was to avoid greater evils; he maintained that the state of celibacy was for all the surest way to happiness. While he thus, derogating from the grace of God, prescribed severities which exceeded the ordinary strength of men, for the attainment of beatitude. he, as a consequence, closed the entrance into heaven to all children who died before the age of reason; they had not gained for themselves merit in the combat, they could not therefore be crowned. Hieracas formed a society of perfect asceties, into which only unmarried men, virgins, and widows, were admitted. This ascetic society, or religious order, continued to exist many years after the death of its founder, under the name of Hieraclites, but it soon mitigated its primitive severity. Whether these Hieraclites adopted the erroneous doctrines contained in the writings of Hierachs, and thus separated themselves from the Church, is, and must remain, doubtful. At day break next morning, Sophia set out for the city. Her first visit was to the good priest, for whom, even in her childhood, she had felt the most implicit and reverential confidence. He was now a venerable, grey-haired old man, universally respected. She showed him the cross, and told him the story. "Thus," said she, at the conclusion of her story," the words which you said to me twenty years ago, at parting, have again come true. In your sorrows and afflictions, pray with filial confidence to God, and He will always be your true helper !'" "So you have not forgotten them!" said the kind old man, who was deeply moved. "You have done well; you see now that I spoke the truth. Yes, God is a true helper in necessity. No one has recourse to Him in vain. It is true He does not always aid us as speedily and instanta'neously as He has done you. Your deliverance from your trial is among the extraordinary interpositions of His providence; but it is always true, 'Who trusteth in God, him He forsaketh not. God gives him consolation of heart, stands by him, lest he sink under affliction, turns his affliction to a good purpose, and brings them all to a joyous end. This you have often experienced. From your childhood to this hour, He has always cared for you, and protected you like a true Father. Remain ever, therefore, henceforward, immovably firm in your faith in God and His beloved Son: fulfil God's holy will, trust to Him in all afflictions; bring up your children in this happy faith, and God will ever be with you and with your children, and will never fail to deliver you all from every trial, till all your trials shall be at an end, and He shall receive you into the joys of your eternal home on high." Sophia, however, still had a great difficulty of conscience which lay heavy upon her heart; and the especial object of her visit was to consult regarding it with the prudent and pious old man. "May I look upon this valuable cross," said she, "as my own? and am I not doing an injury to the heirs of Madam von Linden by retaining it, and applying it to my own own use? Alas! it is more valuable than all the other trinkets which the good lady left behind her." "The cross is yours," said the worthy priest. "Possibly Madam von Linden herself may not have known the value of what was concealed in this ancient heirloom. It came to her, probably, from an uncle of hers, who held a high dignity in the church. But it undoubtedly was her in tention to bequeath to you the most valuable among all her ornaments. From love of peace, and pious disinterestedness, you chose but this paltry wooden cross, which seemed of little intrinsic value in your eyes. But God has blessed your choice; and, under His direction, the most valuable of all her precious ornaments has, as was clearly her own wish, fallen to your share. With this cross, God has given you a hidden treasure. The diamonds are of great size, and the cross may be worth from two to three thousand dollars. Take the diamond cross, as from the hand of God; sell it; apply a part of the price to your present necessity; lay up the rest as a resource in time of need, and enjoy your good fortune with gladness, moderation, and gratitude to God. But preserve the WOODEN CROSS for your children, and your childrens' children, as a cherished memorial of your benefactress, the pious Madam von Linden, and, still more, of the great mercy God has shewn you.” The pious old man placed the diamond cross in its wooden case, and closed the slide again. Who could guess," said he, "by looking at this poor piece of wood, what a treasure it contains within 2 But, believe me, as with this cross, so, also, is it with those afflictions which Christians beautifully and expressively call' crosses. To the eye, the affliction resembles this paltry wood; but, within, it contains a precious treasure, more valuable than gold or precious stones. For crosses and afflictions bring us nearer to God-teach us to see the nothingness of earthly things-purify us from frailties and imperfections-exercise us in confidence in God, patience, and humility, and render us at length fit for the happiness of heaven. Think of this under all your afflictions, and consider it not a misfortune, but a happiness and a blessing when God visits you with suffering. For the hour will come when the rude case, under which these riches lie hidden, will fall off, and will disclose the purest treasures underneath, more precious than gold and jewels; and, though this should not happen here on earth, yet, in that better life beyond the grave, shall you be convinced that affliction was a secret, but yet unspeakable favour from God, which enriches us for eternity, and lays up treasures of happiness for us when the world shall have been consumed by fire, and all its splendour, all its gold and jewels, shall be dust and ashes." The venerable priest was acquainted with a jeweller in the city, who was his intimate friend, and a man of perfect integrity. As the old man was no longer active upon foot, he sent to beg that his friend would come to the presbytery for a few moments. The jeweller, who was a man of very extensive business, examined the cross minutely, and declared that he would give three thousand dollars for itone thousand on the spot, and the rest by instalments. Sophia was delighted at the offer, and on the following day went at the appointed hour to the jeweller's house, and received the money. As she made no mystery whatever of the history, the news soon flew through the city, and came to the ears of Madam von Linden's relations, who lived there. They assembled immediately, consulted together, and unanimously resolved to summon Sophia into court, and compel her to give up the treasure she had discovered." For," said they, "it would clearly be absurd to give a beggar, like this Sophia, a diamond cross, worth three thousand dollars, as a keepsake. Greater folly could not be conceived!" At this moment old Mr. von Hagen walked in, and asked what they had resolved upon. They told him. "Stay at home with your accusation," said he, with great vehemence, striking his crutch repeatedly upon the ground," and congratulate yourselves, if no one else hear of the matter; and, if your bitterness has not so deprived you of all understanding that you cannot listen to a ra tional word, just listen to what I shall say to you. If, at the distribution of the inheritance, you had all been aware what a treasure the wooden cross, which you all despised, contained, and if Sophia had then resolved to select the diamond cross, you would have been compelled, greedy as you are, by virtue of the will, to permit it, and could not have made a word of objection. What would have been incontrovertible then, is just as incontrovertible now. Rest satisfied therefore. You well deserve to have missed this princely prize. Your want of piety, your disregard for the memory of the departed, and hard-heartedness towards the poor orphan, is the cause. You have always laughed at poor Sophia's wooden' choice, as you scornfully designated it. Now you are punished for ity and it is your tum to be laughed at. Keep your accusation to yourselves therefore, lest you make yourselves still more a mockery and a laughing stock for the public." Mortified as they were, they were forced to own in their hearts that he was right, and the accusation fell to the ground, ་་་ Before she returned home with her money, Sophia repaired once again to the chapel in the cathedral, where, twenty years before, her youthful prayer had been heard, as wonderfully as, now had been her prayer in her own garret; and, from her heart, she thanked once again that trusty and faithful God who never forsakes those who trust in Him and obey His law. A REVIEW OF THE PROTESTANT PRIZE ESSAY," &C. The Divine Maternity of the BV. Mary clearly proved from Scripture, Tradition, and the Testimony of the Anglican Church. XV. We pass over the rest of her life, thirty years of which were spent in the blessed company of Jesus; and all passed in an uninterrupted practice of the sublimest virtue, and a continual increase of grace and merits, until God was pleased to crown them with the last singular favour, we mean of her glorious assumption into heaven, where she is now seated, as we may say, nearest to the person of her dear Son, honoured by angels and saints as their queen, and cherished by God, answerably to the love she bore him, and the faithful obedience she paid him during the whole course of her life; so that her prerogative of glory is now as singular as were those of grace before her disso lution, be Now is there not here encouragement enough to pay a particular devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and to repose an entire trust and confidence in her intercession? Has she not all the conditions requisite to qualify her for the office of an intercessor? Does she want either will to ask, or power to obtain for us of Almighty God whatever helps we stand in need of ? To doubt of her will is to question her charity, which being a virtue that not only remains but is improved and perfected in heaven, we cannot doubt but her zeal for the good of souls is far greater now than when she was on earth; her soul burnt then with charity for her neighbour, because she loved God with her whole-heart; and since that love is more ardent now she sees God face to face, it follows that her charity for mankind, and zeal for the salvation of souls, is now also proportionably greater; and therefore the Church styles her the Mother of Mercy, not only because He who is essentially goodness and mercy is the sacred fruit of her womb, but also be cause she has the tenderness and merciful bowels of a mother for us. She regards us all as her children, because by the grace of baptism we are the adoptive sons of God and brothers of Jesus Christ. She loves the just, because they are conformable to the image of her Son; and she compassionates sinners because they are redeemed with his sacred blood; so that all may find a merciful mother in her, and one ready to interest herself in their behalf, and present their petitions to the Giver of all good gifts. Therefore we cannot question her good will to perform this charitable office for us; much less can we doubt of her power. Her charity alone secures us of her readiness to intercede for us ; but all her virtues, by which she was so eminently acceptable to God, plead for the efficacy of her intercession. For if St. James exhorts us to pray for one another, because (says he)" the continual prayer of a just man availeth much," (chap. v. 16), and that even in this life, whilst we are yet subject to many failings, how powerful then and efficacious in our behalf must be the intercession of a person who never offended God by the least thought, word, or deed, during the whole course of her life, and who is now in the highest degree of faith in the court of Heaven? Nay, may we not justly look upon all these singular and extraordinary graces which God bestowed upon her in this life, as so many assured pledges that he will refuse her nothing now she is triumphant with him in glory; where those virtues, which deserved so high a degree of favour upon earth, have now received their full accomplishment and perfection, and, by consequence, have rendered her still more acceptable to him? Suppose that in the moment of her triumphant entry into glory (which, after the ascension of Christ, was the most solemn feast that ever was celebrated in the court of Heaven), suppose, we say, that in that moment she had asked grace for any sinner, can we think that God would have denied her request? And has she not the same interest and power now as she had then? Is she not in the same degree of favour, and will she not be so for all eternity? For we must not fancy as if favour had its vicissi tudes in Heaven as in this world. All things are fixed and permanent in the state of bliss. Rewards and honours are distributed there according to every one's holiness and merit; and therefore as the Blessed Virgin will always surpass all saints in holiness, so will she be always most acceptable to God, and have the greatest power with him. He will always honour her as Queen of Heaven, and Jesus Christ will always regard her as his mother, and of all creatures dearest to him. For which reason he has inspired the Church to pay her extraordinary honours, and consecrate several festival days in memory of her; because he will have his favours pass, as it were, through her hands; and he will render us sensible that our petitions will never be more effectual than when we prevail with her to undertake the presenting of them to Almighty God, through the mediation of her dear Son. So that the true and only reason of our addressing ourselves so often to her is, because we have a greater confidence in her prayers than our own; and in so doing we do but justice both to her and ourselves. For we are miserable sinners, and she is without spot or stain; we have deserved God's wrath, by so many repeated infidelities towards him, and she has erer been his faithful servant, and she has never offended him by the least venial sin; and is it not then just we should hope for a more favourable acceptance of prayers presented › by the holy and unspotted hands of the immaculate mother” of God, than when we ourselves present them to Almighty God? We read in the holy Scriptures (as noticed before) that God commanded Job's friends to go to him (Job) and them, and would not have regarded their prayers unless desire him to pray for them; because God was angry with Job had interceded for them. And ought we not then also, who in all likelihood are upon no better terms with Almighty God than Job's friends were, ought we not, we say, to endeavour to make an interest with some powerful intercessor, some select friend of God, such as the Blessed Virgin is, to pray for us, lest our prayers should be unacceptable to him? This certainly is not only the most... pious and most humble, but the most effectual course we can take. For if, by a sincere devotion and an assiduous application to her, we can but render her our patroness and advocate with her Son, there is nothing we may not hope for from his mercy. We cannot put our eternal interests into better hands than by engaging her to favour our cause who has the greatest power with Him, from whom alone we must expect the relief of all our necessities in this life, and a share in his eternal joys hereafter. THE ILLUMINATOR. MANCHESTER, SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1830. THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Seventhly, The religion" preached by St. Augustin and his followers, had no sooner got footing among the Saxons than there appeared a wonderful change in their lives and manners, which always is the immediate fruit of a true and solid conversion: And there is not perhaps a nation upon earth where religious piety and devotion flourished in a more remarkable manner for many years after its conversion than in the island of Great Britain. Mr. Collier has confirmed, or rather forestalled our three last observations, in the preface to his ecclesiastical history, p. 3, where he writes thus: "To insist a little upon the last circumstance, (relating to God's providence) we have a remarkable instance of it in our own nation. For the purpose, when St. Augustin, the monk, undertook the conversion of the Saxons, was any thing, humanly speaking, more unlikely to succeed? He had neither fleet nor army to back his enterprise, and none but a few naked men to attend him. He had no worldly motives to recommend him to king Ethelbert. He had no powerful alliances to offer, no new countries (like Columbus) to discover. We do not find him furnished with any rich presents, with any inventions for the polishing of life, with any curiosities of art or nature to make way for his design. On the other side the proposals of these holy men must needs be shocking to a Pagan court. Their doctrine laid new restraints upon pride and pleasure, and was unfriendly to the interest of flesh and blood. And as for the happiness they promised, it was mostly out of sight, and not to commence till after death. Thus writes Mr. Collier. And he has only done justice to the greatness of St. Augustin, the apostle of England, on the one hand, and to the pious zeal and devotion of the primitive English church on the other. Eighthly, When England received the faith of Christ, all national Christian churches, both in the east and west, were united in communion' to the apostles' see. For the rupture of the Greeks (in the time of Photius) did not happen until 250 years after the time. Either, therefore, the church of which England formed a part by its conversion, was then the true church, or Christ had not then a true church upon earth. If Protestants grant the first, they must own that they ceased to be a part of the true church, when they separated themselves from the universal church in communion with the see of Rome. If they choose the latter, it follows that the three creeds were then false, and continued so for many ages, and then the Protestants of the Anglican church are bound to renounce the 8th of the 39 articles of their religion, which declares that the three creeds, the Nicene creed, the Athanasian creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy scripture. Ninthly, and lastly, We observe that the whole work of England's conversion was carried on with the utmost regn. larity and order. The workmen employed in it" wers1 qualified according to God's own appointment. That is, were all of the episcopal and priestly order. Their pro ceedings were according to the established laws and canons** of the church. They acted as ministers of Jesus Christ,' with a due subordination to their respective spiritual superiors, not as slaves to the arbitrary will of the secular magistrate. No laic of what rank soever invaded the sanctuary, or presumed to put his profane hands to the censer. Nothing of this nature was attempted in those early days of the English church; nor was any other force used than the prevailing force of truth, preached by men' · that lived up to their sacred character, and that were filled with the spirit of God, and acted in their proper sphere. In a word, what rendered them, like the primitive apos tles, powerful both in word and in works, was their truly apostolical method of life. They had renounced the world with its riches and pleasures, to serve God in a state of perpetual poverty and penance; and were therefore above the temptations of flattery and avarice, which always have some base lucre in view. They had neither wives nor children to maintain, and so they were not solicitous to gain wealth, but only to give souls to God. Their time was spent in prayer and retirement, as far as their apostolical functions would permit; and as they walked themselves. in the narrow way of the gospel, so they preached it boldly to others, in imitation of St. Paul, without Battering their inclinations in anything contrary to the law of God. "Notwithstanding these seeming impossibilities they were blessed with surprising success; the sanctity of their lives, and the force of their miracles broke through the difficulty of the enterprise. The Saxons were quickly prevailed upon to part with their old idolatry, and resign their manners and belief. The practice of the converts was wonderfully changed; and a glorious revolution made in the moral world. They had now no delight in barbarity and bloodshed. The ruggedness of their temper was smoothed, and they grew much more just and benevolent than formerly. Their pursuits were of a different kind, their affections regular and raised, and everything brightened within, as if nature had been melted down and re coined. In short, the quatuor novissima, or four last things viz: death, judgment, heaven, and hell, took such hold of their fears, that they sometimes stood off from the more innocent satisfactions of life, threw up the advantages of their condition, and removed from company and business. The other world sat so powerfully upon their spirit, that the entertainments of this grew flat and insipid. It was upon these thoughts that several of our princes resigned the government for the cloister. And those who did not conceive themselves obliged to such lengths of self-denial, laid out part of their revenues in the build-is to say, not by rapine, violence, and bloodshed, but by ing and endowing of churches, in founding houses for learning and education, and for the benefit of retirement and devotion." It was thus that the Catholic religion, now nick named Popery, was planted in this island by the same regular and canonical methods, as had been preached by the blessed apostles themselves, in the very infancy of the church; that the power of preaching only. Not by the intrusion of lay persons into the sanctuary, but by the ministry of bishops and priests, eminent for holiness of life, despisers of the |