gave pensions to many of those that fled out of Germany into England; and kept up that which is hospitality indeed at his table, where great numbers of the honest and poor neighbours were always invited, instead of the luxury and extravagance of great entertainments, which the vanity and excess of the age we live in has honoured with the name of hospitality, to which too many are led by the authority of custom to comply too far. He was so humble and affable, that he carried himself in all conditions at the same rate. His last fall was the only blemish of his life; but he expiated it with a sincere repentance, and a patient martyrdom. He had been the chief advancer of the reformation in his life; and God so ordered it, that his death should bear a proportion to the former parts of his life, which was no small confirmation to all that received his doctrine, when they heard how constantly he had at last sealed it with his blood. And though it is not to be fancied that king Henry was a prophet, yet he discovered such things in Cranmer's temper as made him conclude he was to die a martyr for his religion; and therefore he ordered him to change his coat of arms, and to give pelicans instead of cranes, which were formerly the arms of his family; intimating withal, that as it is reported of the pelican, that she gives her blood to feed her young ones; so he was to give his blood for the good of the church. That king's kindness to him subjected him too much to him; for great obligations do often prove the greatest snares to generous and noble minds. And he was so much overborne by his respects to him, and was so affected with king Henry's death, that he never after that shaved his beard, but let it grow to a great length which I the rather mention, because the pictures that were afterwards made for him, being taken according to what he was at his death, differ much from that which I have put in my former volume. Those who compared modern and ancient times, found in him so many and excellent qualities, that they did not doubt to compare him to the greatest of the primitive bishops; not only to the Chrysostoms, Ambroses, and Austins ; but to the fathers of the first rate that immediately followed the apostles, to the Ignatiuses, Polycarps, and Cyprians. And it seemed necessary that the reformation of this church, which

was indeed nothing else but restoring of the primitive and apostolical doctrine, should have been chiefly carried on by a man so eminent in all primitive and apostolical virtues. And to those who upbraided the reformed with his fall, it was answered, that Liberius, whom they so much magnify, had fallen as foully upon a much slighter temptation, only out of a desire to re-enter to his see, from which he had been banished; and that he persisted much longer in it.

History of Reformation.

P. 119, 1. 15. In any of their church, i.e., in any one.

P. 120, 1. 7. Heat seems here to have the sense which we now colloquially assign to "hot water." "Notwithstanding the troubles into which he got as regarded them." It cannot mean “his zeal for them.”

P. 121, l. 36. Rate, in its proper sense of “rank" or“ order," with no allusion to merit.

P. 122, L. 5. Liberius, who, in a. D. 355, refused to concur in the condemnation of Athanasius, despite the commands of the Emperor Constantius. Banishment broke his resolution and he submitted, but afterwards repented of his complaisance.

CHARLES LESLIE.

Charles Leslie was born at Dublin in 1650; his father was Bishop of the Isles, Raphoe, and Clogher. He first studied law, but was ordained in 1680, and for a short time held the Chancellorship of Connor. The Revolution made him a nonjuror and a Jacobite. In the Rehearsal newspaper and in his polemic against deists and dissenters he showed controversial powers of the highest kind. He died in 1722.

THE ARGUMENT FROM PROBABILITY.

THERE

'HERE are several other topics from whence the truth of the Christian religion is evinced to all who will judge by reason, and give themselves leave to consider :-as the improbability that ten or twelve poor illiterate fishermen should form a design of converting the whole world to believe their delusions, and the impossibility of their effecting it, without force of arms, learning, oratory, or any one visible thing that could recommend them! And to impose a doctrine quite opposite to the lusts and pleasures of men, and all worldly advantages or enjoyments! And this in an age of so great learning and sagacity as that wherein the Gospel was first preached! That these Apostles should not only undergo all the scorn and contempt, but the severest persecutions and most cruel deaths that could be inflicted, in attestation to what themselves knew to be a mere deceit and forgery of their own contriving! Some have suffered for errors which they thought to be truth, but never any for what themselves knew to be lies. And the Apostles must know what they taught to be lies, if it was so, because they spoke of those things which, they said, they had

both seen and heard, had looked upon and handled with their hands, etc.

Neither can it be said, that they, perhaps, might have proposed some temporal advantages to themselves, but missed of them, and met with sufferings instead of them: for, if it had been so, it is more than probable that, when they saw their disappointment, they would have discovered their conspiracy; especially when they might have not only saved their lives, but got great rewards for doing of it. That not one of them should ever have been brought to do this!

But this is not all: for they tell us that their Master bid them expect nothing but sufferings in this world. This is the tenure of all that Gospel which they taught; and they told the same to all whom they converted. So that here was no disappointment.

For all that were converted by them, were converted upon the certain expectation of suffering, and bidden prepare for it. Christ commanded His disciples to take up their cross daily, and follow Him; and told them that in the world they should have tribulation; that whoever did not forsake father, mother, wife, children, lands, and their very lives, could not be His disciples that he who sought to save his life in this world, should lose it in the next.

Now, that this despised doctrine of the cross should prevail so universally against the allurements of flesh and blood, and all the blandishments of this world, against the rage and persecution of all the kings and powers of the earth, must show its original to be Divine, and its Protector Almighty. What is it else could conquer without arms, persuade without rhetoric; overcome enemies; disarm tyrants; and subdue empires without opposition ?

P. 124, 1. 9. That. ability" at p. 123, l. 3. than to written style;

A Short and Easy Method with the Deists.

This, like the preceding "thats," depends on "the improbThe construction is rhetorical, and better suited to spoken but it is effective enough.

DANIEL DEFOE.

Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1661, and died there in 1731. He conducted the first daily review in English; he was the first English novelist properly so called; he has never been equalled for realism without tediousness of detail; his variety is extraordinary, and with Bunyan he stands at the head of all writers who have employed vernacular English as a written language.

THE SHIPWRECK.

AND now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw

plainly, that the sea went so high, that the boat could not live, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor, if we had, could we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew, that when the boat came nearer the shore, she would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards the shore, we hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could towards land.

What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal, we knew not; the only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of expectation, was, if we might happen into some bay or gulf, or the mouth of some river, where, by great chance, we might have run our boat in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was nothing of this appeared; but, as we made nearer and nearer the shore, the land looked more frightful than the sea.