Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

clergymen of the Established Church, and seven or eight Nonconformist ministers, all acting together in perfect harmony, forgetting all differences, and exerting themselves indefatigably to rouse and sustain the spirit of the people. Lord Macaulay tells us how cannon were planted on the summit of the broad cathedraltower, ammunition being stored in the vaults. How, "in the choir, the liturgy of the Anglican Church was read every morning," how, "every afternoon, the Dissenters crowded to a simpler worship." A battering cannonade was poured into the town, which was soon on fire in several places; chimneys crashed down, roofs were beaten in, and the inhabitants of the ruined houses were often crushed, or killed by the explosion of the bombs. But still the heroic band within the walls kept up their courage, and held out resolutely through all the horrors of famine and disease. Governor Baker died of fever, but Walker still lived on, and his cry was "No surrender." Again, quoting from Lord Macaulay, we recount that, "at one moment it was suspected that Walker had leid up somewhere a secret store of food, and was revelling in private, while he exhorted others to suffer resolutely for the good cause. His house was strictly examined; his innocence fully proved; he regained his popularity; and the garrison, with death in near prospect, thronged to the cathedral to hear him preach, drank in his earnest eloquence with delight, and went forth from the house of God with haggard faces and tottering steps, but with spirit still unsubdued."

And all through those July summer days the men of Derry saw the English ships riding far off on the bosom of Lough Foyle, but not till the 28th of July did the Mountjoy succeed in crossing the boom which the enemy had thrown across the river, bringing to the famished population abundant stores of food; and during the night of the 31st, the besieging ranks retreated, and Londonderry was saved! By no art could the remnant of provisions left have been made to hold out two days

longer. "Five generations have passed away," says the great historian," and still the wall of Londonderry is to the Protestants of Ulster what the trophy of Marathon was to the Athenians. A lofty pillar, rising from a bastion which bore during many weeks the heaviest fire of the enemy, is seen far up and down the Fovle. On the summit is the statue of Walker, such as when in the last and most terrible emergency, his eloquence roused the fainting courage of his brethren. In one hand he grasps a Bible; the other, pointing down the river. seems to direct the eves of his famished audience to the English topmasts in the distant bay.

Such a monument was well deserved; yet it was scarcely needed, for, in truth, the whole city is to this day a monument of the great deliverance. The wall is carefully preserved, nor would any plea of health or convenience be held by the inhabitants sufficient to justify the demolition of that sacred enclosure, which in the evil time gave shelter to their race and their religion." On the 31st of July, 1689, Walker gave thanks to the God of armies for the victory achieved; and sometime afterwards he paid a visit to London, where he was received with boundless enthusiasm. Both Universities offered him the degree of D.D., and he met with a most gracions reception at Hampton Court. William III. presented him with an order for £5,000, saying with benignity, “ And do not think, Doctor, that I offer you this sum as payment for your services. I assure you that I consider your claims on me as not at all diminished."

There were those who rose up as this great man's detractors, but he defended himself with moderation and candour. Doubtless, in some minor points he erred; and the multitude seem always to imagine that a hero should be a perfect man in every way.

Notwithstanding his advanced age, Walker accompanied the men of Londonderry to the battle of the Boyne; he had been just chosen by William as Bishop of Derry, and

was overwhelmed with congratulations. Unhappily, he had by force of circumstances contracted a passion for war, and he easily persuaded himself that by indulging it, he was discharging his duty to his country and his religion. He forgot that a fighting divine is sure to be a cause of scandal; and he pressed forward in the fight, and almost in the moment of victory, while exhorting the men of Ulster, was shot dead. So perished the celebrated George Walker, July 1st, 1690, at the memorable battle of the Boyne.

66

Sir," said an attendant, after the fight was over, to the King, "the Bishop of Derry has been killed by a shot at the ford." "What took him there?" growled William, who thought him, and not unjustly, a busybody, for running into danger without any real call of duty.

But now the struggle between the House of Orange and civil and religious liberty, and the false House of Stuart with its treachery and love of arbitrary rule was virtually over, and on the ninth day after the battle the exiled monarch landed at Brest, and from thence proceeded to St.. Germains, where, after several ineffectual attempts to re-assert his claims on England, he settled down, and kept a dull Court, where abject superstition, discord, and dissembling reigned supremely; and at length, one Good Friday, while engaged in the solemn service of his Church, he was seized with paralysis. He rallied, however, but on the 13th of September had a second fit, to which he succumbed, and he died on the 16th of September, 1701, and his remains were afterwards laid in the chapel of the Benedictines, at Paris, in the vain hope that at some future time they would be removed and re-interred with kingly pomp at Westminster, among the graves of Plantagenets and Tudors.

The 14th of July is memorable as the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastile in France. It was in the year 1789, and the infuriated populace had risen, crying-" let us storm the Bastile!" and on they rushed like an overwhelming flood

VOL. II.

that nothing could withstand. The fortress was taken, the horrible dungeons thrown open to the day, the emaciated victims were brought forth; the siege lasted but three hours! In 1831 was erected in the Place de la Bastile the Colonne de Juillet, in memory of those who fell in the three days' struggle of the previous year. This column of July is of bronze, on a marble base, 154 feet high, and cost nearly £50,000. The Bastile, which formerly stood on this spot, was used as a state prison; it was built in 1379.

[ocr errors]

The 15th, as everybody knows, is St. Swithin's day! and the popular idea is, that if it rain on this day there will be rain for the next forty days succeeding! The superstition takes its rise from the legend of St. Swithin, which I copy verbatim from the respectable authority of the antiquary Brand. In the year 865, St. Swithin, bishop of Winchester, to which rank he was raised by King Ethelwolfe, the Dane, dying, was canonized by the Pope. He was singular for his desire to be buried in the open churchyard, and not in the chancel of the minster, as was usual with other bishops, which request was complied with; but the monks, on his being canonized, taking it into their heads that it was disgraceful for the saint to lie in the open churchyard, resolved to remove his body to the choir, which was to have been done with solemn procession on the 15th of July. It rained, however, so violently on that day, and for forty days succeeding, as had hardly ever been known, which made them set aside their designs as heretical and blasphemous; and instead, they erected a chapel over his grave, at which many miracles are said to have been wrought." It is alleged that St. Swithin, or Swithun, was a sort of private chaplain to Egbert, king of England; he also educated Ethelwolfe, who appointed him to the see of Winchester; also that tithes were by him established in England, he prevailing on Ethel wolfe to enact a law by which the tenth of the land was given to the Church.

F

Notwithstanding the forty days' demonstration of the elements, the relics of the saint were afterwards removed into the cathedral, on its being rebuilt by William the Conqueror; and there they still remain, inasmuch as his grave is always pointed out to whomsoever visits the stately and historic old cathedral of Winchester.

In "Poor Robin's Almanac" for 1697 occurs these lines

"In this month is St. Swithin's day,
On which, if that it rain, they say
Full forty days after it will,

Or more or less some rain distil."

There is also another familiar quartrain

"St. Swithin's day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain ;
St. Swithin's day, if thou be fair,
For forty days it will rain na mair!"

Certain it is that at this time of the year a great quantity of rain generally falls. A learned writer, discussing "Solstitial and Equinoctial Rains," attempts to account for this undeniable fact, but his reasons are too abstruse to be favoured with any place in these simple pages. On this day, if it rains, country people say that the apples are christened, and begin to be fit for eating.

July 25th is St. James' Day, that is the festival of James the Great, apostle.

The following day is dedicated to St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, whose birth, like that of our Blessed Lord, the Roman Catholic Church declares to have been miraculous. The legend, which tells an altogether fictitious story, pretends that Anne and her husband, Joachim, lived for twenty years without issue, and Joachim was reproached by his friends as being counted unworthy of God to have children. Joachim retired to bewail his misfortune, when an angel appeared to him, and assured him that he should have a daughter, who should be called Mary, and for a sign he declared that Joachim should meet his wife at the Golden Gate, much troubled at his absence from home. Then the angel appeared to

Anne and made her a similar promise, and gave her as a token that she should meet her husband at the Golden Gate, the which came to pass, and they rejoiced at each other's visions, and returned thanks, and lived in cheerful expectation that the promise would be fulfilled. In the Romish breviary of Sarum there are forms of prayer to St. Anne, which show, how high these stories placed her. She is called "a vessel of celestial grace;" and her devotees blasphemously beg of her “remission of all former sin." They also beseech her to appease her daughter, that she in turn may appease her Son! The mind sickens at the contemplation of folly so profane, and the heart rejoices that our own days are not cast in such an age of ignorance and darkness, but in a time when he who runs may read, and learn the revealed will of God from the pages of a pure unmingled Scripture!

Also in the breviary of the Church at Salisbury there is a prayer for the 27th of July, beseeching the benefit of the Resurrection through the prayers of the "Seven Sleepers!" Who were these "seven sleepers" of whom mention is so frequently made? Alban Butler says they were Ephesians, who for their faith, were in A.D. 250, under Decius, walled up together in a cave, wherein they had hidden themselves, and there they remained a matter of two hundred years more, when their rest being invaded by a mason at work with his tools, "they awoke, and were raysed, and they supposed verylie that they had slepte but one nighte onely," instead of 229 years! Being hungry, Malelius, one of the seven, went into Ephesus to buy bread, and found to his surprise the sign of the cross on all the gates of the city; and his money when he offered it was refused, and he charged with having found a treasure of old coin. Poor Malelius was terribly afraid, imagining that they would carry him before the Emperor Decius; but they took him to a certain church, and there the consul and the bishop examined him, first of all disbelieving his statement on ac

count of the date of the money he had tendered, and then coming to the conclusion that he was in a heavenly vision!

And so a great multitude went with Malelius to the cave, and there "they saw the saynted syttynge in the cave, and theyr vysages lyke unto roses flourying! And the bishop sent for the emperor from Constantinople, and he came marvelling greatly, as well he might; and as soon as the saints beheld the emperor, "their vysages shone like to the soune," and the emperor embraced them. Then they demanded of the emperor that he should believe in the resurrection of the body, for to that end they had been raised; and immediately they gave up the ghost, and the emperor wept, and "embraced them and kyssed them debonayrly;" and he would have buried them magnificently, but the same night they appeared to him, and besought him to let their bodies lie on the earth, as they had been before, till the general resurrection; and the emperor obeyed, but he caused the place of their sepulture to be adorned with precious stones.

This ridiculous story was actually read in churches and chapels, and doubtless believed devoutly as we believe the record of our Blessed Lord's life, death, and resurrection. One hears it said sometimes that such and such a disturbance was enough "to wake the seven sleepers!" But few persons know who these sleepers were, that is to say, know the exact legend of their two centuries and a quarter's slumber. Who they really were no

one can ever know, the question arising whether they ever lived at all, save in lying fictions of monkish tales. It is of no great consequence, only in the perusal of such traditions one feels devoutly thankful for the Reformation, which swept away such heaps of senseless histories and blind observances.

The last day of the month the Romish calendar dedicates to that wonderful man, Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order of Jesuits. He was born in the castle of Loyola, in Guipuscoa, in Spain. He distinguished himself as a soldier and a man of letters, and was converted during an illness, resulting from a wound received at the siege of Pampaluna. He immediately set about mortifying the flesh, scourging himself three times a day, and passing the greater part of the night in praying, watching, and weeping. He travelled extensively, and finally instituted the "Fathers of the Order of Jesus," whom he persuaded John III. of Portugal to send to the East Indies as missionaries. Ribadeneira says "Our blessed father, Ignatius, was general of the society fifteen years, three months, and nine days, from the 22nd of April, 1541, until the last of July, 1556, when he departed this world."

But the celebrated order of Jesuits lived and prospered, as all the world knows, and are still in great force, though an enlightened age deprives them of the terrible power they once wielded, and defeats many of their machinations! In the atmosphere of a free government and a free press, Jesuitism can never flourish.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.

ALICE'S ALLEGORY; OR, THE LITTLE PILGRIMS.

CHAPTER IV.

WHEN the little travellers had rested themselves till the shadows began to lengthen, they rose up, and continued their journey till they came to the

wicket-gate. They knocked, and it was quickly opened, but they found, to their dismay, that the opening was 80 small they could not pass through it. They toiled and pushed for a long while to no purpose, and poor little

66

Lowly was almost exhausted, when Fearless saw a large gate a little to the left of the wicket, and as he was hesitating how to act, a smiling maiden made her appearance, beckoning him towards the gate. "This way," said she, "this is the way all the better sort of pilgrims go. Only strict, old-fashioned people pass through the wicket. It crushes the garments, and quite spoils them." Fearless was just about to follow "Delusion," (for that was the name of the maiden), when Lowly said “ Do not go. I have found out now why we cannot pass through. We wear all the thick garments of the City of Destruction, and it is those that prevent our entering in. Let us strip ourselves of the filthy rags of our own righteousness, and clothe ourselves in the Robe of Righteousness that our Saviour has wrought out for us, so shall we have entrance." Just then one of the shining ones made his appearance, smiled sweetly upon Lowly and her companions, and threw around each of them that heavenly garment, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, and removed from them the cumbrous, heavy garments of sin. Then they felt so light and joyous as they passed with ease through the gate. Now I saw that Delusion slipped away abashed through the great gate, for she could not face the heavenly messenger. Then, as they looked admiringly upon each other, the boys said, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the lowly." Their heavenly friend then took them into the lodge, and provided for them soft couches, where they sank into gentle slumbers, singing, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." Early in the morning their friend awakened them, gave them a feast of heavenly manna, making them drink of the pure water of the river of life. He gave them also a guide-book to direct them, and a staff and lamp to protect and cheer them. Then, tenderly kissing them, he looked up to heaven, and said, "Father, I pray for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. Father, keep through thine own name, those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. They are not of the world even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth.

[ocr errors]

Thy word is truth. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." Then, turning to the children, he said, " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Then he laid His hands upon them, and blessed them, and departed, and our little travellers went on their way rejoicing. "I little thought," said Fearless," when I lay fainting by the wayside, that I should ever get so far, and have the fellowship of two such dear friends, and be clothed with this garment of salvation. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O! my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies. Bless the Lord, O my soul !" "What made you think of coming on pilgrimage ?" inquired Earnest. "Why," said Fearless, 'I was always bold and daring, the first in every mischievons sport. If there happened to be a quarrel or an acci dent, I was quickly on the spot. One night I dreamed that I went on the new railroad, and met with a fearful accident. That dream (which would have terrified most children) made me wish to go by the railway, so the next day I went up to the station, and was just about to enter, when a voice said, Beware,' and a strong hand drew me kindly but firmly away. I turned to see who it was that was holding me back, and I perceived that it was one of the watchmen that are constantly trying to prevent pas sengers from going by the railway. I tried to be angry, but he looked so full of grief and love, as he said, Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? O! you know not the dangers of that road.' 'I care not for dangers,' said I, Nay I glory in them.' Then, why not choose the old, narrow way? there is always some trial there, always some difficulty to con quer, and the great King will give you the victory for the sake of His Son.' 'Well,' said I, 'Let me go, and I will consider of it.' I turned and walked back, but a voice sounded

[ocr errors]
« ElőzőTovább »