devilish cats at her table every day. After her seventieth year she was attacked by three burglers, whom, with the most extraordinary courage and presence of mind, she kept at bay for a considerable time; being at last overpowered, she was robbed of a large sum of money, principally in gold coins; but she never ceased her exertions till she convicted the thieves. She had filled her office for full forty years, during which time she had never been once absent from duty until the day of her death: the parishioneers, finding that she was not at her post, broke open the door and found her dead. She left a large sum of money."

99*

The facetious Tommy Hood has been making himself very free with sextons, but at their expense: if he had met with such a person as this, (could he have been so ungallant?) he, for his satire, might have passed under a different ordeal than that of the ordinary critic, even if the sage was equally venerable, equally orthodox, and had delved equally as deep in his grave researches. He says: "A sexton is like an undertaker, who have each a percentage on the bills of mortality,' and never see a picture of health but they long to engrave it; both have the same quick ear for a churchyard-cough, and both the same relish for the same piece of music, to wit, the tolling of St. Sepulchre's bell: moreover, both go constantly in black; howbeit, it is no mourning with their livery, for they grieve no more for the defunct than the carrion crow of the same plumage does, who is the undertaker of the dead horse."

RELIGIOUS LECTURES.

"A LECTURE Commenced 1672, called 'Lecture Merchants.' It was encouraged and supported by some of the principal merchants and tradesmen of the city of London, and is still continued every Tuesday morning."

“The Honourable Robert Boyle instituted a course of eight sermons in 1691, to prove the truth of the Christian religion against infidels, without descending to any controversies among Christians, and to answer any difficulties, scruples, &c. To this institution we are indebted for many excellent defences of natural and revealed religion."

"Morning lectures commenced during the civil wars."† From this period commenced lectures on science, history, and all other subjects, where

"Your rich men have now learn'd of latter days

To admire and come together,

To hear and see a worthy scholar speak,
As children do a peacock's feather."

* Gentleman's Magazine.

+ Buck's Theological Dictionary,

BOOK OF SPORTS.

THE Sunday sports were common, as the following lines too clearly prove. They also show what these sports were, and the people's full feeding:

"Now, when their dinner once is done, and that they well have fed,
To play they go, to casting stones, to runne, or shoote,

To tosse the light and windy ball alofte with hande or foote;
Some others trie their skill in gonnes, some wrastell all the day,
And some to schools of fence do goe, to gaze upon the play;
Another set there is that do not love abroad to roam,
But for to pass their time at cards or tables still at home."
BARNABY GOOGE, 1570.

A writer, endeavouring to prove the impropriety of an established form of prayer for the church service, among other arguments, uses the following: "He (the minister) posteth it over as fast as he can gallope; for eyther he hath two places to serve, or else there are some gaymes to be playde in the afternoon, as lying for the whet-stone, heathenish dancing for the ring, or a beare or bull to be bated, or else a jack-a-napes to ride on horseback, or an interlude to be playde in the church; we speak not of ringing after matins is done."*

The Puritans opposed these things with all their might; but, as they did not substitute any other pleasant way of passing their time on this day, and from the numerous changes in the forms of religion, the people had lost much of their church reverence, and would not go there: they kept on with their sports as well as they could. At length King James I. put forth his celebrated book to regulate them.

As it was the cause of much controversy, it may be as well to give the history. In the year 1604 King James issued a proclamation against hunting, which was of about as much use as whistling to allay a storm; but it serves to show the temper of his mind at that time. In 1617, on his return from Scotland, while staying at Hoghton Hall and other places, he received petitions complaining of the strictness of the Puritans in keeping the Sabbath, and putting down all manly exercises and harmless recreations. He therefore, in this book, pointed out with minuteness what pastimes they might, and, indeed, ought, to use on Sabbath days and festivals of the church; what running, vaulting, and morrice-dancing; what may-poles, churchales, and other rejoicings they might indulge in after evening prayers were ended. He ordained that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decoration of it, ac* Admonitions to Parliament, by Thomas Cartwright, 1572.

cording to their old customs.* He prohibited, upon Sundays only, all bear and bull batings, and bowling; he forbid any one joining in them who abstained from divine service; and he commanded every person to resort to his own parish church to hear divine service, and not to appear afterward in their sport with any offensive weapons. He ordered it to be read in all the parish churches by the clergy, and that both the judges on the circuits and the justices of the peace be informed thereof. It met with some opposition by the clergymen, but seems to have been generally approved of by the church-going people: among the Puritans it was a terrible eye-sore; but their murmurings then had but little effect. In 1633 complaints were made in Somersetshire about church-ales and revels on the Lord's day, when two of the judges, being on the circuit, took upon themselves to issue an order for their suppression: as soon as this reached the ears of King Charles I., it was considered as an invasion of his prerogative, and they were censured; and this Book of Sports was again put forth, to create farther commotion. It remained till the year 1643, when the parliament ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman.

CHURCHES.

"Within that temple where the air

Seems loaded with the breath of prayer."

ALTHOUGH the Christian religion will never change, there are many things connected with it that have changed and are still changing. Some of these changes I will endeavour to place before the reader.

I cannot help first observing on the difference between this period and that of Catholic times.† The sedilias and piscinas

* Strewing the churches with rushes was an annual festival. The bunches of rushes were gayly ornamented with ribands, &c., and attended from the river's brink by banners and music borne in triumph by the young and old in the village. The object and intention of them was to keep warmth in kneeling, and to deaden the sound of the nailed shoes in walking.

† At the same time that the "Book of Sports" was ordered to be burnt, another ordinance was passed, "for removing all monuments of superstition and idolatry, commanding all tables and altars of stone to be demolished, communion-tables to be removed from the east end of the churches, the rails to be removed, the chancels to be levelled, all superstitious furniture to be removed from the communion-tables, and all crosses, crucifixes, images, copes, surplices, and superstitious vestments to be taken away and defaced." See Diurnal, vol. i.

were no longer used; the pictures at the chancel end were superseded by the ten commandments, the Lord's prayer, and the creed; no lights were permitted on the altar, shedding their lurid, yet expressive, beams; no flowers on festival days, so symbolic of the joy of those periods; these flowers were of the rainbow tints, which "surpass all tints," and can be traced in use from time immemorial. At a later period, and at those seasons when natural ones were scarce, ingenuity, prompted by piety, introduced artificial ones: these were first made in Tuscany. During the period under review they could no longer, in the language of Drayton,

"Load the altars till they rise
Clouds from the burnt sacrifice;
With your censors sling aloof

Their smells till they ascend the roof."

If, on some festival day, a devout Catholic of an ancient family was to stray into the parish church, probably built by an ancestor, how would he be surprised! What Protestant could comprehend his feelings! That, I conceive, would be impossible, however, whether the change has been for the better or the worse, and to this query "this deponent saith not," yet he may say,

"The lights are fled, the garlands dead,
And all but he departed."

The learned author of " Europe during the Middle Ages," in writing of England, states that, "if it had not been for the clergy, the whole nation would have been one den of thieves, and have inevitably become depopulated." He says that "the churches under feudal grants were placed under some warrior, who was styled tutor or advocatus." The Rev. E. Burton, in his description of "The Antiquities of Rome," states: "The kings of England in former times were protectors of the church of St. Paul, in Rome, as the Emperor of Germany is now of that of St. Peter, the King of France of St. John of Lateran, and the King of Spain of St. Maria Maggiora.”

Dr. Wiseman writes: "The old Christians loved to be called apostolic, the moderns prefer being called evangelical." "By the early canons of the church, there were to be no temporal affairs carried on in them. By the council of Chalons in 650, no one wearing arms was to presume to enter; the weapons were left outside. There were no seats in them. St. Ambrose would not permit the emperor to remain in the choir after making his offering. The poor could then walk as near the altar as kings. Among the laity there was perfect equality. The

churches, particularly some of the large cathedrals, were made sanctuaries, which, in that former rude state of society, saved numbers from being put to death in lawless quarrels, and gave time for wicked sinners to gain repentance and become reconciled."*-Digby.

How wise was this regulation, particularly at that uncivilized period. Even now, how often have the best of us had occasion to regret some rash act we may have committed for want of time for due reflection! How excellent it often is to have some superior power to thwart us in our unholy resolves, and thus compel a pause! for

"The soul's dark cottage, battered and dismayed,

Receives new lights through chinks that time has made." WALLer.

In the porches of former times marriages were often celebrated, and over the porches frequently were schools,† and even courts of law have been held in them. They were also considered safe places to store deeds and other valuable writings.

The fonts were large, some of them sufficient to immerse a child all over.

Pulpits were sometimes attached outside of churchs, in the churchyards. Sermons were often delivered in the cloisters of cathedrals, and in the open courts of colleges and religious houses.

The custom of writing sermons was pretty uniform during the reign of Henry VIII., to prevent malicious accusations.

CHURCH DESECRATION

It appears pretty clear that Henry VIII. never intended the reformation of religion to extend so far as it has done he could set the ball in motion, but he had not force sufficient to stop its progress when he wished it. In 1536 he issued a proclamation, (and his proclamations had the force of law,) that one copy of the Scriptures might be in each church, chained there that "it was only permitted out of his goodness and liberality, not out of his duty."

In the time of Queen Elizabeth the Irish parliament passed an act, that the uniformity of the common prayer should be in Latin, where the minister had not the knowledge of the Irish

* Holyrood Palace, Edinborough, is now a sanctuary: no one residing there can be arrested.

† John Evelyn, Esq., who died in 1705, was first taught reading in Wotton church-porch.