give up the point rather than he? And why may not you as well have the pleasure of a triumph? To the former question I answer, that if you avoid occasions of dispute more frequently than he, the reason is because you have more sense or temper. He is doubtless in this respect under the same obligation: but folly on his part makes your prudence the more necessary. To the latter question I reply, that there is no triumph at all where there is no victory; and no victory where there is no engagement. Now I do not advise you to fight first, and after some time to yield or fly; but to decline the combat entirely. And 1 must confess I shall ever think it the height of folly, for a woman to run the risk of quarrelling with her husband for no better reason than to gratify her vanity. Wonder not that I speak of quarrelling; for no one who begins a dispute can venture to prophesy how it will end. But you may inquire secondly, whether I would restrain you from contradicting in the presence of intimate friends, or children, or servants. I auswer, yet more in

their presence than in that of strangers; lest by imprudence your friends should cease to esteem, and your children and servants should begin to despise you." Disputes between married persons are daggers to those who love them; and I dare even appeal to yourself whether you was ever witness to any thing of this nature without feeling some degree of concern? Why then should you give pain to your friends?-To shew them truly that you are wiser than the man you have married. Alas! you may do this more effectually by allowing your discretion to get the better of your pride; and so leaving him in quiet and peaceable possession of all his mistakes. Such a conduct as this never fails to meet with the approbation of others; and is of all things most likely to endear you to him. But if you pursue the contrary method you will every day give pain both to them and him; and human nature must be different from what it is, before men can receive pain, without being offended, or be often offended, and yet continue to love.

Sketches of the Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain. No. IX.

FROM the death of Wilfred, in the year 709, to the desolation of the whole country by the Danes, there is little which deserves notice in the external history of the Church. 'Bede brings down his narrative to the year 731, and concludes by enumerating the dioceses into which England was divided, and the names of the Prelates in possession: Bert wald, Archbishop of Canterbury, died in the beginning of 731, and was succeeded hy Tatwin, a native of Mercia, who received consecra

tion from four Bishops of different Saxon nations, viz. the Bishops of London, Rochester, Lichfield, and Winchester. The Saxon territory was divided into seventeen dioceses. Kent contained Canterbury and Rochester. The whole of Essex was subject to the Bishop of London, The East Angles were divided into the dioceses of Dunwich and Elmham. Wessex contained Winches ter and Sherborn, and Mercia was divided into the four dioceses of Lichfield, Lincoln, Hereford, and Worcester. Sussex was committed to the Bishops of Selsey. Northumberland comprized York, Lindisfarne, Hexham, and Candida

appealing to the Pope in a dispute with Archbishops and Bishops. Adrian likewise was aware of the ultimate effect of his interference, and knew that by coniplying with the King's wishes in the first instance, he should be able to dictate to him in the end. The Legates, therefore, were sent to England for the double purpose of supporting the King's measure, and strengthening the Pope's authority. Jaenbercht, Archbishop of Canterbury, was deprived of half his province in pursuance of this very honourable and Christian scheme.

The division displeased King Offa's clergy, and the first act of his successor restored Canterbury to its rights. Rome was again appealed to, and again consented and confirmed; and a correspondence is preserved between Kenulph, King of Mercia, and Pope Leo, in which his holiness affirms that Adrian was not to be blamed for his share in the division of the province, as he had been as sured by King Offa that it was universally desired. He admits, however, that Adrian's confirmation was uncanonical, since it violated the privileges conferred upon Canterbury by Gregory the Great. The epistle concludes by reminding Kenulph that Offa had sworn to remit an annual sum of 365 marks to St. Peter, and that no more victories could be expected unless payment was promptly made. Leo appears to have been somewhat too intent upon his marks, and is accused in plain terms by the whole body of the English Bishops, of requiring the Archbishops to come to Rome for their palls, in order to extort simoniacal presents and bribes. Their resistance to the claim was not immediately successful, but ultimately the personal appearance of the Prelates was dispensed with, upon condition that their money should be laid at St. Peter's tomb.

The aggrandizement of the Mercians had now reached its term, and the men of Wessex, who had been

gradually rising in civilization and strength, reduced the Heptarchy to a single kingdom. This event was evidently connected with the state and progress of Christianity, and led to material changes in them. It is also a noted epoch in English history, and affords a conve nient opportunity of adverting to the alteration which had gradually taken place between the landing of St. Austin in Kent, aud the accession of King Egbert (in the year 800,) to the throne of England.

In a

Two centuries had elapsed since the Gospel was first preached to the Saxons, and it is doubtful whether the change which had ensued was a change for the better or the worse. The converts of Austin, Paulinus, aud Aidan were brave but cruel savages. The subjects of Egbert were corrupt and effeminate monks, or lawless and disobedient soldiers. large proportion of this melancholy change neither Christianity nor even Monkery had any hand. The internal wars and divisions of the Heptarchy are sufficient to account for it; and those wars had reduced the nation to a state of the greatest exhaustion, and the King was still hated by his vanquished rivals and newly acquired vassals, when the Danes overrun and destroyed the kingdom. But Christianity might have been expected to coun teract those evils, and it is desirable to consider why it failed to do so.

The conversion of the Saxons was not carried on after the apostolic or primitive manner. The first object of the missionaries was to gain the attention of Kings and Queens, and when these were persuaded or bribed to profess themselves Christians, courtiers and subjects followed their example in such numbers, that there was difficulty in baptizing them fast enough. The great majority of the converts knew just as much about the Gospel as the Mexicans, who were christened by the followers of Cortes. The Saxons heard that

Christianity would confer important benefits, but little or nothing was understood of their real nature; and baptism was represented as the only indispensable condition for obtaining them.

This was the original stumblingblock, and the endeavours which were subsequently made to surmount or remove it, were rendered ineffectual by the absence of a parochial clergy. In the first instance the clergy were necessarily confined to the cathedral or mother churches in each kingdom or diocese, and consisted of the Bishop and his assistants. As converts and endowments increased, the dioceses ought to have been subdivided again and again, until a cathedral was erected in every considerable town, and the country portioned out among his priests by the direction of the Bishop. But instead of adopting this plan, the Prelates were generally desirous of retaining their original jurisdiction, and even of extending it when circumstances would permit. The tithes which were granted to the Church at a very early period, were not divided among a resident parochial clergy, but were paid to the Bishop, who seldom visited the remoter parts of his diocese, while that zeal and enthusiasm which should have been sent out into the mountains and forests, was cooped up in monasteries to prey upon itself and waste, and to cover the land in the next generation with sanctified receptacles of immorality and superstition.

The principal sources from which this information is derived, are, in addition to Bede's History, his Epistle to Egbert Bishop of York, the Penitentiary of the sauc Egbert, and his Dialogue on the duties of Priest; the laws of Ina, King of Wessex; the letters of Boniface, Bishop of Mentz, to Ethelbald, King of Mercia, and Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the decrees of the councils of Calcluith and Cloveshoe. These are all con

temporary authorities, and nothing can more clearly exhibit the weakness of human nature than their statements respecting the primitive Anglo-Saxon Church. Its doctrines wear a strange mixture of Christianity and superstition. The seven sacraments, transubstantiation, communion under one kind, the worship of images, and the prohi bition of a general perusal of Scripture were unknown; purgatory, prayers to the Virgin, and the Saints, the celibacy of the Clergy, belief in the supernatural efficacy of relics, and in the merit of good' works, were considered parts of true religion. The Penitentiary of Bishop Egbert acquaints us with the mode of expiating all imaginable and some unimaginable crimes. He recommends fasts of various lengths, and of greater or less strictness; and their duration and intensity might in every instance be diminished by receiving the holy communion, or paying a fine to the Church.

But monasteries were the great and fatal evil. In their original state they were sufficiently absurd and mischievous, and in their season of degeneracy, which soon arrived, they became a mass of corruption and impurity. Wilfrid, who introduced the Benedictine Order into England, died in the year 709. And it was within thirty years of the decease of this first patron of regu lar monastic institutions, that Bede wrote his epistle to Egbert. The letters of Boniface are dated in 745, not much later. Bede declares that many towns and villages of Northumberland had not been visited by a Bishop for several years, though tribute was received regularly from them all: he says that there are monasteries without number, useless both to God and man; depriving the king of the soldiers who might defend him against barbarians, and disgracing the monas. tic name by their luxury and vices, Some monasteries he also describes

as occupied entirely by laymen, who obtained grants of land from the king, filled the house with a swarm of monks, were elected by these monks to the office of abbot, and then bribed the Bishops to connive at the irregularity of their appointment. The same system was pursued by the wives of the courtiers in the foundation and government of nunneries; and the nuns themselves are described in no wery flattering terms.

Boniface speaks in still stronger language. He was a native of England, and anxious to keep up an interest in the country of his birth. It is to this effect that he addresses one of her most powerful kings. "I am informed that your faith is pure, that in many respects you are obedient to the laws of righteousness, and that you give alms to the poor and indigent. But it is also said that you have never entered into the bands of lawful wedlock, nor have accus. tomed yourself to lead a life of innocence and chastity; on the contrary, that you have formed improper connexions with nuns and holy women, set apart and dedicated to God; that your subjects, corrupted by your example, have given themselves up to debauchery and vice. If such things continue, you must expect that as the Spaniards and Burgundians have been overrun and destroyed by foreign enemies, so the English, degenerating from their ancient courage and loyalty, as well as from their ancient faith, will be come an easy prey to their invaders." This may be considered as the appeal of Boniface to the civil powers. To the ecclesiastical he speaks with equal plainness. His celebrated epistle to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, is in every respect superior to the ordinary compositions of that age. It exhibits an intimate acquaintance with Scripture, and explains and enforces the pastoral duties in terms which would do credit to a more REMEMBRANcer, No. 45.

enlightened period of the Church. But his picture of English manners is melancholy. "The goodness, and honour, and purity of your Church are become little better than a jest. There might be some alleviation of your disgrace if you could prevent those female pilgrimages to Rome, which commonly terminate in the ruin of the travellers; and by which Lombardy, France, and Gaul have been filled with English courtezans. The ornamented and fanciful style of dress which has been introduced by the device of Satan into monasteries, is a symptom and a cause of immorality. Drunkenness is too common in your various dioceses, and your bishops not contented with intoxicating themselves, promote excessive and intemperate drinking among others, This practice is peculiarly English and Pagan; Franks and Gauls, Lombards and Greeks, have no such custom. And if we cannot check it by the decrees of synods and the denunciations of Scripture, at least it is in our power to shun and to denounce the crime, and to deliver our own souls from the blood of the guilty."

In opposition to this decisive evidence, it is absurd to pretend that the Saxons of the seventh century afforded a creditable specimen of the effects of Christianity. The Popish historians made the attempt, and Hume and others found no difficulty in proving that the attempt has failed.

The unfavourable circumstances of the case are too notorious to be denied: by endeavouring to disguise or to doubt them, we only induce the captious and sceptical inquirer to put the favourable features out of sight, and to forget that even those of an opposite class, are capable upon Protestant principles of an easy explanation.

T

The predictions of Bede and Boniface were accurately accomplished by the Danish invasion, and its consequences serve to confirm the decla 3 Y