privations and hardships which she had afterwards to endure..... Having left the palace on the death of her father, to take charge of her widowed mother and the younger branches of the family, she was treated in a very harsh and ungrateful manner by the court;" the duke's mind having been alienated from her by Papal emissaries; and " she would have suffered still worse treatment, had not a German student of medicine married her, and carried her along with him to his native country..... On retiring into Germany, she and her husband were kindly entertained by George Hermann, the enlightened counsellor of Ferdinand, king of the Romans, through whose influence they were offered an advantageous situation in the Austrian dominions, which they declined on account of its being incompatible with their religious profession. In Schweinfurt, an Imperial town, and the native place of her husband, Olympia resumed her favourite studies; but the muses were soon disturbed by the trumpet of war. The turbulent Albert, marquis of Brandenburg, having thrown his forces into Schweinfurt, was besieged by the German princes. During the siege, which was tedious and severe, Olympia was obliged to live in a cellar; and when the town was taken, she escaped with great difficulty from the fury of the soldiers, and reached the village of Hammelburg in a state of exhaustion. If you had seen me' (she writes to Curio) with my feet bare and bleeding, my hair dishevelled, and my borrowed and torn clothes, you would have pronounced me the queen of beggars'.... Her delicate constitution had received an irreparable shock from the agitation and fatigue which she had undergone; the symptoms of consumption became decided; and, after a lingering illness, during which the sweetness of her temper, and the strength of her faith, displayed themselves in such a manner as to console her husband, who doated upon her, she expired on the 26th of October, 1555, in the 29th year of her age. She ceased not to the last to remember her ungrateful but beloved Italy, though every desire to return to it had been quenched in her breast from the time she saw the apathy with which her countrymen allowed the standard of truth to fall, and the blood of its friends to be shed like water in their streets. Before she was confined to her bed, she employed her leisure time in transcribing from memory some of her poems, which she bequeathed to her friend Curio, by whom her works were published soon after her death. They consist of dialogues and letters in Latin and Italian, and of Greek poems, chiefly paraphrases of the Psalms, in heroic and Sapphic verse; all of them the productions of a highly cultivated and pious mind?" pp. 74, 212, 400-402.

But of all the histories in this volume, few are more affecting and monitory than that of Bernardino Ochino, a native of Sienna, in Tus

by which the minds of all who live under the yoke of the wicked Antichrist are enthralled; so that I believed that we were to be saved by our own works, fastings, prayers, abstinence, watchings, and other things of the kind." Hence he joined himself to the strictest orders, and observed their discipline. "Still, however," he proceeds, "I remained a stranger to true peace of mind; which at last I found by searching the Scriptures, and such helps for understanding them as I had access to."

"I now came to be satisfied of the three following truths: first, that Christ, by his obedience and death, has made a plenary satisfaction, and merited heaven, for the elect, which is the only righteousness and ground of salvation; secondly, that religious vows of human invention are not only useless, but hurtful and wicked; and thirdly, that the Roman church, though calculated to fascinate the senses by its external pomp and splendour, is unscriptural and abominable in the sight of God." p. 110.

Ochino was at this period, and to the end of his days, distinguished by unrivalled talents as a preacher.

"He was a natural orator: and the fervour of his piety and the sanctity of his life gave an unction and an odour to his discourses, which ravished the hearts of his hearers. In such reputation was he held' (says the annalist of the Capuchins, after Ochino had brought on them the stigma of heresy), 'that he was esteemed incomparably the best preacher of Italy; his powers of elocution, accompanied with the most admirable action, giving him the complete command of his audience; and the more so that his life corresponded to his doctrine. His external appearance, after he had passed middle age, contributed to heighten this effect. His snow-white head, and beard flowing down to his middle, with a pale countenance, which led the spectators to suppose that he was in bad health, rendered him at once venerable and deeply interesting. He never rode on horseback or in a carriage, but performed all his journeys on foot; a practice which he continued after he was advanced in years. When he paid a visit to the palaces of princes or bishops, he was always met and received with the honours due to one of superior rank; and he was accompanied, on his departure, with the same marks of distinction; yet, wherever he lodged, he retained all the simplicity and austerity of the religious order to which he belonged. As a preacher, he was admired and followed equally by the learned and illiterate, by the great and the vulgar. Charles V., who used to attend his sermons when in Italy, pronounced this high encomium on him: That man would make the stones weep! Sadolet and Bembo, who were still better judges than his Imperial Majesty, assigned to Ochino the palm of popular eloquence. At Perugia, he prevailed on the inhabitants, by

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commendation of his preaching from Cardinal Bembo, one of the most elegant scholars of his age, by whose influence Ochino had been deputed, at the solicitation of the most respectable inhabitants, to preach at Venice a course of Lent sermons, in the year 1538, Dr. M'Crie urges the following judicious and weighty reflections.

"These extracts will be considered as sufficient to establish the character of Ochino for piety and eloquence; but there is another reflection which they can scarcely fail to suggest. How deceitful are the warmest feelings excited by hearing the Gospel! and how do they vary with the external circumstances in which the truth is presented to the mind! Bembo was delighted with the sentiments which he heard, as well as the eloquence with which the preacher adorned them; and yet the future conduct of the Cardinal leaves us at no loss in determining, that he would have felt and spoken very differently, had he been told that the doctrine, to which he listened with such devout ravishment, was essentially Protestant. Names exert great influence over mankind; but let not those who can laugh at this weakness flatter themselves that they have risen above all the prejudices by which the truth is excluded or expelled. The love of the world outweighs both names and things. Provided men could

enjoy the Gospel within the pale of their own church, within the circle of that society in which they have been accustomed to move and shine, and without being required to forego the profits, honours, or pleasures of life, all the world' might be seen wondering after Christas it once wondered after the beast.' p. 115.

The principal scene of Ochino's labours, for some time, was Naples, where, in conjunction with John Mollio and the admirable Peter Martyr, he widely spread doctrines substantially Protestant. "The favourite doctrine of Ochino was justification by faith in Christ, which, as appears from his printed sermons, he perfectly understood, and explained with much scriptural simplicity. Purgatory, penances, and papal pardons, fell before the preaching of this doctrine, as Dagon once did before the ark of Jehovah." p. 119.

In the year 1542 Ochino was again, in compliance with the carnest solicitation of the inhabitants, deputed, under the Papal sanction, to preach the Lent sermons at Venice. But the jealousy of the court of Rome, as might naturally have been expected, was awakened, and instructions were sent to the Papal nuncio, to watch his conduct; and he was soon summoned before the nuncio, on the charge of having advanced doctrines at variance with the Catholic faith. He defended himself, however, so dexterously that he was dismissed. Perceiving that he was surrounded by spies, he proceeded cautiously; but at length, having heard that Julio Terentiano of Milan, with whom he had been intimate at Naples, was thrown into prison, he could no longer restrain himself: he noticed the subject with such bold and spirited animadversion, in a sermon at which the senators and principal persons of the city were present, that the nuncio instantly suspended him from preaching, and reported the matter to the Pope. But the Venetians

were so importunate in his behalf, that th terdict was removed in three days, an again appeared in the pulpit. Soon after, ever, he was cited to Rome, to answer c charges, founded on what he had advan a course of lectures on St. Paul's Epistl livered at Verona; and, finding that h was aimed at, or rather his death resolv he fled to Geneva, and openly joined th testants. In 1547 he became the compar Peter Martyr, in his removal into Englan exercised his talent of preaching in the polis; while Martyr occupied a prof chair at Oxford. In 1554, in conseque the change of religion produced by the of Edward VI. and the succession of these distinguished foreigners retired rich.

And here, alas! we come to the pain monitory part of Ochino's history. H all, as far as appears, has been satisfacto "let him that thinketh he standeth tal lest he fall." Let us never consider o past the reach of danger, till we have a arrived within the gates of the celesti Let us not feel as if even the fact of suffered for the truth ensured our ne parting from it to the risk of our own sa or so as to give "occasion to the ene the Lord to blaspheme." "Be not hig ed, but fear." "Walk humbly with th He that walketh humbly walketh sure

Such commanding pulpit eloquence no possessed, attracting the admirati ranks of people wherever he went, and the hearts of all hearers, is one of t dangerous endowments that can be b upon a frail mortal. We cannot Ochino not to have been exposed to up by it; while, being wholly employe cause of religion, to inculcate truth, an duce apparently the best impressions o this very circumstance might put its the more off his guard. Then, if, wit captivating talent, and the admiratio every where attended it, there were a in which the possessor could not but scious of his own inferiority, and te be jealous of others with whom he ciated, and who in this respect evid celled him; this might bring anothe corrupt passions into play, and inc danger. And such was the case with With all his brilliance, and unrivalle as a preacher, he was not a man of At Zurich he was surrounded with men; and he fancied, and very likely cied, that they looked down upon this he could not bear. Here, too, h supported by his wonted popularity, b could preach only to a small congres customed to the Italian language. cumstances contributed to lead hin new associations, with men of unsou ples: and he finished his course at writing in favour of polygamy and a tarian doctrines! This produced his from Zurich. He retired into Boh died associated with persons of heret ments-sentiments allied at least to ism. Such a close of his course is mentable. He was at the time of

instant their security, or to keep them from being at ease in Zion. The sinner is not only guilty, but diseased; but they are concerned only to remove the sentence of condemnation, while the disorder is left. They absolve, but not heal: they justify, but not renovate. The king's daughter is all glorious within, while her clothing is of wrought gold: with them the righteousness of Christ is a fine robe to cover a filthy body. All their sin, past, present, and future, is so completely done away, that it were folly to feel anguish on the account of it. Their miscarriages are not theirs; but those of sin that dwelleth in them. Their imperfections are regretted less, because unavoidable: no man can keep alive his own soul.

"Now we are willing to concede, that all those from whom we occasionally hear complaints, do not go into these lengths and we are persuaded that were these worthier individuals perfectly informed concerning the men we have very truly but inadequately sketched, they would exclaim, 'My soul, come not thou into their secret; and mine honour, to their 'system' be not thou united.' Yet they sometimes murmur, as if in sympathy with them; and borrow their language, unconscious whose . technicality it is: and are in danger that their good should be evil spoken of. To be strenuous for evangelical preaching is commendable; but they view the desideratum in too confined an import. They think it, if not improper, yet needless, for a minister to inculcate many things which he must feel to be binding upon him. Oh!' say they, The grace of God will teach people all this.' The grace of God will incline, and enable us to do all this: but it is the Bible that teaches. This contains all our religious information; and we only want to be led into all truth. The sacred writers never left these things to be taught by the grace of God, without instruction. They never intrusted them to inference. They particularized and enforced them." pp. viii-xiv.

Nothing can be more just or more important than this last remark. To speak of the grace of God as "teaching," otherwise than through the medium of Scripture precept and expository instruction, an absurdity. Yet, thus it is that persons impose upon themselves by vague abstractions. But is it "religious information," merely, that our congregations stand in need of? Is not inconsideration the source of half the failings and follies of religious persons; inconsideration relating to those obvious duties which the high-fed and ill taught doctrinalist is peculiarly apt to overlook? But then, it is sometimes said, there is the press, and such points of religious instruction may be urged in books and tracts; the proper business of the Christian instructor is to preach the Gospel. Unfortunately, however, the only op

domestic education? Properly viewed, the object of the pastoral office is no other than to carry on the spiritual education of the Church, at the same time that it holds up to view those grand doctrines which are adapted to disarm the carnal mind of its enmity, and to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.

But still, the distaste for practical preaching to which Mr. Jay alludes, though for the most part proceeding from the sources to which he ascribes it, has sometimes, we imagine, been either caused or strengthened by the injudicious tone and temper in which such subjects have been treated. We shall not be understood as meaning to insinuate that Mr. Jay is chargeable with the fault to which we allude; but instances may have fallen within his knowledge, of ministers whose earnestness has led them to adopt an angry, a scolding tone, to indulge in sarcasm and philippics, adapted to offend those whom it was intended to reprove, and to wound the feelings of others. In such cases, the minister has himself only to blame, if such topics are unwelcome to the best disposed part of his auditory. He is, perhaps, unconscious of the transformation which his whole manner undergoes, when, passing from those doctrines which call into exercise all his best and holiest feelings, he launches out into the admonitory strain. Here, more especially, the preacher stands in need of the meekness and gentleness of his Divine Master. We have heard "murmurs" against the choice of subjects for the pulpit, as unedifying and so forth, which we have known to proceed from no morbid distaste for the practical parts of God's word, but from disappointment at hearing so little that was adapted to minister to devout feeling, and sometimes much to disturb it.

Mr. Jay proceeds to notice objections which have been brought against his familiar style of illustration and occasional homeliness of diction, as beneath the dignity of the pulpit. “We need not," he says, 66 plead for coarseness or faults;" and with this qualification, we are quite willing to allow him all the freedom he advocates. A correct mind will not easily fall into incorrectness of expression; and if the care sometimes bestowed on polishing discourses, were spent in cultivating the taste and judgment, there would be little danger of a preacher's committing any improprieties which would require an apology. We do not think Mr. Jay very happy, however, in his illustration of different styles of pulpit eloquence, drawn from the French Drama and Shakspeare. In the first place, he is quite out in supposing that a French drama "produces no effect," "excites no sentiment." The effect produced on a French audience by the tragedies of their best writers, is quite as powerful, we apprehend, as that of Shakspeare on John Bull. But Mr