praises unto God? Did St. Paul, when he was made a spectacle in the theatre, summon together the churches of Christ by the edicts and writs of kings? It is likely he had the safe conduct of Nero, or Vespasian, or Decius, through whose hate unto us the confession of the faith grew famous. Those men who maintained themselves with their own hands and industry, whose solemn meetings were in parlours and secret closets, who travelled through villages and towns, and whole countries by sea and land, in spite of the prohibition of kings and councils." 6. Parlour: a parlour, Fr. parloir, was originally the room in a nunnery where the nuns conversed with visitors through a grating. From the same source, Fr. parole, It. parola, from parabola, a speech, word, we get the word parliament also, which is the national "talking apparatus." 85. William Chillingworth. 1602-1644. (History, p. 110.) When I say the religion of Protestants is, in prudence, to be preferred before yours,1 I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon; nor the Confession of Augusta 2 or Geneva; nor the Catechism of Heidelberg; nor the Articles of the Church of England; no, nor the harmony of Protestant confessions; but that wherein they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as the perfect rule of their faith and actions,—that is, THE BIBLE. The BIBLE-I say the BIBLE only-is the religion of Protestants! Whatsoever else they believe besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but, as matter of faith and religion, neither can they, with coherence to their own grounds,3 believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I, for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of "the true way to 1. Yours, the Jesuit Knott's, in answer to whom Chillingworth wrote his famous work. 2. Augusta, Augsburg. Augusta was a common epithet of great cities, and supplied a syllable to many of their names, as in Autun (Augustodunum). It continued to be a poetical name for London even as late as Pope's time. See Windsor Forest, 377. 3. With coherence to their own grounds: consistently with the avowed basis of their own belief. eternal happiness," do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest to the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only. I see plainly, and with my own eyes, that there are popes1 against popes; councils against councils; some fathers against others; the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age; the Church of one age against the Church of another age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No tradition, but only of Scripture, can derive itself from the Fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in, in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty, but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe; this I will profess; according to this I will live; and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly, lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me anything out of this Book, and require whether I believe it or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this:-God hath said so; therefore it is true. In other things I will take no man's liberty of judgment from him, neither shall any man take mine from me. I will think no man the worse man, nor the worse Christian; I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me. And what measure I mete to others, I expect from them again. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore that man ought not, to require any more of any man than this, to believe the Scripture to be God's Word; to endeavour to find the true sense of it; and to live according to it. This is the religion which I have chosen, after a long deliberation; and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely, much more wisely, than if I had guided myself according to your Church's authority. 4. Popes: the pope is the papa, or general father of Christendom. 5. Sorry verbal resemblances are often delusive: thus there is no connexion between sorry and sorrow, the first being sárig, from sár, a wound, sore, the second O. E. sorh, Ger. sorge. See Max Müller's Lectures, 2nd Series, F. 529. 86. Sir Thomas Browne. 1605-1682. (History, p. 110.) THOUGHTS ON DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. (From the Hydriotaphia.') In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, not far from one another: not all strictly of one figure, but most answering these described; some containing two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their combustion; besides, the extraneous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs handsomely1 wrought, handles of small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of opal. That these were the urns of Romans, from the common custom and place where they were found, is no obscure conjecture; not far from a Roman garrison, and but five miles from Brancaster, set down by ancient record under the name of Brannodunum; and where the adjoining town, containing seven parishes,2 in no very different sound, but Saxon termination, still retains the name of Burnham; 3 which being an early station, it is not improbable the neighbour parts were filled with habitations, either of Romans themselves, or Britons Romanised, which observed the Roman customs. There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being, and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar 4 of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted, as not to suffer even from the power of itself. But the sufficiency of * * * * 1. Handsomely, elegantly, skilfully. 2. Parishes: Fr. paroisse, E. parish, comes from the L. L. parochia, a corruption of Gk. Tароikía, an ecclesiastical district or neighbourhood. 3. Burnham: ham, of which hamlet is a diminutive, is a pure English termination, and means either an inclosure -that which hems in-or a home, i.e. secret, mystic place, Ger. geheim. See * * * * * * Mr. Taylor's Words and Places, p. 123. * 4. Peculiar, a property found solely in this one object. The adjective peculiaris comes from peculium, the property that persons otherwise incapable of property were allowed by those who had control over them to acquire. Shakespeare, Othello, iv. 1, contrasts "peculiar " with " "improper." Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes a folly of posthumous 5 memory. Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave; solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre. 5. Posthumous: an imaginary derivation from post humum has imported ar h into this word. It, in reality, comes from Lat. postumus, the superlative of post. 87. Thomas Fuller. 1608-1661. (History, p. 111.) (From the Holy State.') There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these:-First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea, perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others who are able, use it only as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to their children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxy1 of the usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself. His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. God, of his goodness, hath fitted several3 men for several callings, that the necessity of Church and State, in all conditions, may be provided 1. Proxy: as procurator became proketor, proctor, so procuracy became prokecy, proxy. 2. Usher: an usher, spelt husher in Spenser, was originally a door-keeper, fr. Fr. huissier, Lat. ostiarius, ostium becoming huis in French. Johnson connects the older sense of the word with the later by defining a modern usher as "one who introduces young scholars to higher learning." 3. Several, different, separate - with which latter word indeed it is in a certain sense identical; only separate reaches us direct from the Lat. separare, while several passes through the Fr. sevrer. In legal language a "several fishery" still means a separate, i.e. private, fishery. for. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life, undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it with dexterity and happy success. He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their books; and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures. He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him. He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster better answereth the name paidotribe than paidagogos, rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping, than giving them good education. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends and furies. Such an Orbilius4 mars more scholars than he makes. Their tyranny hath caused many tongues to stammer which spake plain by nature, and whose stuttering, at first, was nothing else but fears quavering on their speech at their master's presence, and whose mauling them about their heads hath dulled those who in quickness exceeded their master. To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make schoolmasters careful in their place-that the eminences of their scholars have commended the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity. 4. Orbilius, a Roman schoolmaster, whom Horace, once his pupil, calls plagosus, a man of many stripes. 88. Jeremy Taylor. 1613-1667. (History, p. 112.) THE LAST JUDGMENT. The majesty of the Judge and the terrors of the judgment, shall be spoken aloud by the immediate forerunning accidents, which shall be so great violences to the old constitutions of nature, that shall break her very bones, and disorder her till she be destroyed. Saint Jerome relates, out of the Jews' books, that their doctors used |