through the Grace of God: we owe our knowledge, and still more our love, of what is good, to the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit: and our power of persisting in the practice of holiness is derived from the same source: no truth is more clearly laid down in the Scriptures; and it is illustrated in our own experience. It will be, therefore, to little purpose, that you shall resolve to lead Christian lives, unless you will maintain a continual intercourse and communion with God: I do not exceed the truth, when I affirm, that prayer is as necessary to the well-being of the soul, as food is to that of the body: we have no spiritual strength without it: we are left to our natural weakness: for what confidence can we place in the Divine protection, unless we seek it? or how can we expect to resist evil, if we take not the means to confirm ourselves in the love of that which is good? But these effects flow from prayer: we are sure that God will hear us, if we earnestly ask, that He will enable us to fulfil his commandments, and teach us to love his law: and as little can we doubt, if we believe in a Gracious Providence, that He will direct us aright, when we submit ourselves entirely to his disposal. The very habit, indeed, of prayer is salutary to the soul: it keeps alive within us whatever is pure and holy; it creates in us an abhorrence of sin! it gives us an interest in the service of God; it dispenses a sanctifying influence, and places us above the world; not above the duties, or the charities, or the wants of life; that were, indeed, a delusion; but above its vicissitudes, its fashions, its corruptions and tempta. tions in the constant practice of prayer our nature is gradually changed: we are benefited by frequent and intimate intercourse with men, who are eminently good: how, then, can we fail to be improved, and even transformed, by the habit of holding communion with God? Let,

therefore, the good resolutions, whatever they may be, which you have this day formed, be connected and blended in your minds with the need of divine succour: our best resolves are, that we will do what we know to be right, with the help of God: but a part of every such purpose will be, that we will seek for that help, and cease not to pray for it from day to day, while we remain in this state of trial.

"3. In the next place, however, let me remind you, that though our secret and individual wants should be the subject of private prayer, (and they cannot be fully represented in any other) the religion of Christ could not be maintained in the world without the public service of the Church and to imagine that either supersedes the use of the other, is to mistake the proper objects of both. The uses of private prayer may be gathered, in some measure, from what has been already said: but the service of the Church is a public and continually renewed profession of our faith in Christ, and that not merely for our own sakes, but for the good of our brethren. If I might venture to make such a distinction, I would say, that self-examination, and contrition, and gratitude for especial mercies, are the principal features of secret devotion; which, however, refer chiefly to ourselves: whereas of public prayer the prominent character will be, that it proclaims "glory to God in the highest, and good-will towards men." We meet in this place to offer to the Almighty the tribute of our common homage, to give evidence to others of our faith in the Redeemer, and to shew, that however some may think or act, we are " on the Lord's side;" that in a conflict between religion and irreligion, such as exists in the world, we throw our weight, whatever it may be, into the scale of the former; that we acknowledge our deliverance from sin and misery to be only through Christ; that we de

light in beholding others making the same profession; that we can cordially join with our brethren in cal. ling down on our common frailties the mercy of God, and his common blessing on our endeavours to serve him; and we attest, what in an age of religious empiricism and causeless separation is not unimportant, that we are in the unity of the Church. It is not, however, my meaning, that social worship has no relation to private and individual wants; and as little should it be supposed, that in our most secret devotions our brethren are altogether overlooked: I speak only of these leading distinctions of the two, with the view of shewing you, that both are necessary to the Christian. Let it, therefore, be your care to lose no opportunity of joining in the service of the Church: let your attendance be not casual, but regular: no measure of secret piety will excuse you: what you need not for yourselves, you will in charity ask for your brethren, and assist them in their prayers: above all, you will feel it incumbent upon you, especially in this heathen land, to

bear testimony unto Christ. It is, indeed, deeply to be lamented, that many of you may be thrown into situations, where religion is not publicly maintained: if, however, you shall feel the privation, (and such it must be to every Christian mind) you will be the more anxious to avail yourselves of the public worship, whenever it may be had. It might, indeed, be expected, that they, who have resided at stations, where no religious provision exists, would, on the first opportunity, direct their footsteps to the house of prayer: we do not, however, always find this to be the case: and we account for it by the melancholy truth, that men may live without religion, till they cease to think of it, or perhaps regard it with disgust. From this fact I will derive one word of advice, which, however, I would press upon you with all earnestness; that if God has blessed you with religious impressions, cherish and mature them by all the means, which He has graciously afforded you; or they will become weaker, till they are effaced for ever."

Sketches of the Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain.

No. X.

hood from truth. But of the main facts of the case, there can be no doubt. And even the particulars are not destitute of a degree of probable evidence. The ruin of the great monasteries was a subject upon which tradition would not fail to busy herself; and if she exaggerated the cruelties of the despoiler, and the original splendour, and opulence of the destroyed, allowance for such inaccuracies may easily be made.

The first Danish armament landed in Northumberland, and the monastery and shrine of St. Cuthbert, were immediately levelled with the ground. The reliques of the Saint were preserved by the piety of

over

that age, or by the credulity of subsequent times; but every thing else which appertained to the Church of Lindisfarne was involved in one undistinguishing ruin. The monasteries of Jarrow and Weremouth shared the same fate. Few years had elapsed, before the Mercian and EastAnglican territories were whelmed in a similar manner, Croyland, or Crowland, Medehamstead, or Peterborough, and Ely, were among the most celebrated monasteries in the whole island. The first and the last were situated among impenetrable morasses; and are supposed to have had their origin in the cell of some pious anchorite, who retired from the world and its inhabitants, to mortify his body in the bogs of Lincolnshire, and Cambridge. Of the size of the original buildings nothing can now be known. The monks had recovered from the Danish invasion, and been comfortably re-established for upwards of two centuries, before their earliest historians lived and wrote. And it is impossible to reflect upon the singular situation of these famous churches, without remembering that in such a position, Cassibelaunus held out against Cæsar; and Alfred preserved himself when every thing else was lost. Croyland and Ely, (and Medehamstead likewise, if it was placed not on the scite of the present town of Peterborough, but in the neighbouring marshes,) were well chosen places of defence; but the taste of the monks, which was subsequently so correct, had not yet taught them to select very agreeable situations, if their abode in these desolate fens was the result of preference, rather than necessity. The truth probably may be, that the original monasteries were built on the scite of Saxon or British fortresses, and that after the monastic fervour ceased, a great part of the building was used for military purposes.

This supposition derives credit from the History of Ingulphus, who

represents the taking of Croyland monastery as a protracted and bloody victory. The Danes were defeated in the immediate neighbourhood; the battle in which they ultimately triumphed, was obstinately disputed and only gained by stratagem, and even then the relics and jewels and charters were conveyed away by water, to a place of security, and reproduced in after times. At Medehamstead also, the resistance is described as having been most fordable, and the revenge of the barbarians as at least equal to their loss. Ely yielded without much opposition; but even there multitudes had assembled as in a place of security, and the ruin which ensued might have been delayed, if not averted, by a handful of brave men. Considering the slight resistance which the invaders experienced throughout the country, and how a great part of this little proceeded from Croyland and Medehamstead, it is certainly not improbable, that these celebrated houses had been converted into castles of defence, and were the stage upon which Saxon liberty was fought for and lost. The most circumstantial detail of the Danish ravages amounts merely to a repetition of what has already been described. Those who resisted were put to death in battle, and those who yielded were murdered in cold blood; until at length nothing remained even to King Alfred himself, upon whose head the crown of Wessex had descended, except the island or bog of Athel. ingay in Somersetshire, in a corner of which, he secreted himself both from friend and foe.

But Alfred, although reduced to great straights, was born to re-establish the independence of his country, and he united in his person as many of the requisites for such a task, as any individual is known to have enjoyed. His genius was every way superior to the age in which he lived. Called to rule over defeated and dispirited tribes, his courage,

perseverance, and resources never failed. The king of an island, which had not yet learned to defend itself by sea, he was the first to prepare a naval armament, and its success must have answered his most sanguine expectation. His favourite military manœuvre, in the face of a superior aud practised enemy, consisted of long and rapid marches; and when he could not fight at an advantage, he retired, or pretended to retire, until an opportunity offered of attacking the invader in detail. These are so many proofs that King Alfred was born a general; and if his talents were exerted on a small scale, against barbarous adversaries, and at the head of troops of savages, he had still the means of shewing what he could have done in a nobler sphere, and he merited the high reputation which was given to him by his contemporaries and successors. He placed his territory in a state of security by means of his fleets and castles. His militia was ready to be called out at any moment, and at any place, and a few fortunate and favourable events, (especially the Danish inroads on France,) concurred, with his own great achievements, to give him the highest place among our Saxon kings. The title, however, was earned by his civil, as much as his military conduct; and it is to the former, and especially to that part of it, in which he appears as the restorer of religion, that we are now particularly to advert.

The task would be comparatively short and easy, if it were confined to an explanation of what is related by contemporary authors. But the great body of English writers, antiquarians, commentators, lawyers, and historians, have agreed to work up the life of King Alfred the Great, into an amusing romance. From the solemn and laborious Spelman to the flippant and superficial Hume, the history of Alfred has been made the subject of extreme misrepresentation. His learning is spoken of in terms which would suit the at

tainments of a modern scholar. His writings are multiplied till they make a formidable catalogue. The whole cycle of the sciences is reported to have been familiar to him, and his religion is described not merely as sincere and effectual, but as free from the least tincture of superstition. And what is more extraordinary, these fictions are reported by historians upon the faith of the monk ish chroniclers; while they affect to be familiar with a contemporary of King Alfred, by whose assistance all such fictions may be detected. The narrative of Asserius, is the only authentic account of Alfred's private life. Its general credibility has never been impugned; one half of what it contains, is transcribed by the panegyrists of the Saxon Solomon; and the other is neglected for no better reason than that it brings down the highly coloured paintings of Malmesbury, to the sober hue of truth.

The fact appears to be, that the literary attainments of King Alfred were very slender, although his love of letters was intense. He was twelve years old before he learned to read his native tongue; and whatever knowledge of Latin he may have acquired, and probably its amount was always small, was communi. cated to him after he had reached his thirty-ninth year. The writings which are mentioned by later historians, as the compositions of Alfred, are either mere extracts from the Bible and other books, which were furnished by his instructors and associates, or translations from the Latin, of which he himself expressly says, that the originals were expounded to him by his bishops. But his merit consisted in having assembled eminent men about his court, and in endeavouring to profit by their lessons. When he came to the throne of his ancestors, there was not one individual in his native kingdom of Wessex, and scarely any within the limits of the Heptarchy, who could read the offices of the

Church in Latin, or even in Saxon. The learned persons by whom Alfred was subsequently surrounded, had been educated in foreign countries. Grimbald, who taught at Oxford, in France; Asserius at St. David's, in Wales; and Johannes Eujena, by birth a Scot or Irishman, at several continental schools. These and many others, were invited over to England by the munificence of its king, and entrusted with the general superintendence of learning. But what more especially distinguished Alfred from his predecessors, contemporaries, and followers, and even from many lovers of learning, in a more enlightened age, was his endeavour to diffuse knowledge over the great body of his people. He desired to communicate the rudiments of learning to the young of all ranks; and commanded that no one should be taught any art or science, until he could at least read English. The knowledge of Latin, as a secondary step, was also strongly recommended; and made indispensable to the acquisition of the King's favour, and to many of the most considerable of fices about his court and person. Learning was not locked up in universities and monasteries; though of both the King was a liberal patron. Knowledge was not confined to a privileged order, or to one profession, though the nobles and the clergy were expected to be better informed than their fellow-countrymen. The gate of virtue, of religion, and of happiness was thrown wide open, and all were invited to enter. If we had no other proof of the genius of Alfred, its claims might rest securely upon this fact. It proves his immense superiority over those with whom he lived-his intimate acquaintance with human nature-his possession of a wisdom which books and languages cannot bestow. The long night of darkness by which his reign was followed, the re-establishment of monkery,

and all its abuses, the complete success of papal usurpation, and even the errors and violences of the Reformation, might have been avoided if Alfred's great design had been carried into execution, in the spirit of its excellent author.

For the restorer of Saxon independence, and the founder of the Eng lish marine, was a sincere and pious Christian; and although his faith was deformed by superstition and ig. norance, few crowned heads have been such consistent supporters of religion. As our acquaintance with the state of religion during his reign, is confined to what Asserius has related concerning Alfred, a more particular notice of the facts which that historian has communicated, will form a proper addition to the present sketch. Alfred's connexion with the Pope is of an obscure and doubtful nature. There is no proof that the power of Rome was exercised in England during his long and glorious reign. Nor, on the other hand, can we discover any explicit assertion of the independence of the National Church. Catholic writers lay great stress upon the circumstance of Alfred having been taken to Rome by his father, when five years of age, and confirmed and anointed, (anointed, as Asserius says in regem,) by Pope Leo. But the most zealous controversialist will not pretend to say, that Alfred was more than pas sive upon this occasion; and the anointing, which has been called an instance of the Pope's sagacity, is also a pretty convincing demonstration of his fallibility; for the reigns of Alfred's elder brothers, intervened between his father's and his own; and he possessed no kingly power for twenty years after his solemn inauguration. The ceremony was probably nothing more than a compliment to the King, who had travelled to Rome to pay his respects to the Pope, and who bequeathed an annual sum of three hundred marks to be dispensed in