ing about two hours afore day, he opened his 'He likewise commanded Mr. Herbert to curtain to call Mr. Herbert; there being a give to the Princess Elizabeth "Doctor Angreat cake of wax set in a silver bason, that drews' Sermons," "Archbishop Laud against then, as at all other times, burned all night; Fisher the Jesuit," which book (the king said) so that he perceiv'd him somewhat disturb'd would ground her against Popery, and "Mr. in sleep; but calling him, bad him rise; Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity." To the Duke "For," said his Majesty, "I will get up, hav-of Gloucester, "King James's Works," and ing a great work to do this day;" however, he "Dr. Hammond's Practical Catechism."'— would know why he was so troubled in his Herbert, p. 126. sleep? He reply'd, "May it please your Majesty, I was dreaming." "I would know your (V.) 'His Majesty then bade him withdraw; dream," said the king; which being told, his for he was about an hour in private with the Majesty said, "It was remarkable. Herbert, Bishop; and being call'd in, the Bishop went this is my second marriage-day; I would be to prayer; and reading also the 27th Chapter as trim to day as may be; for before night I of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which relateth hope to be espoused to my blessed Jesus." He the Passion of our Blessed Saviour. The then appointed what cloaths he would wear; king, after the service was done, ask'd the "Let me have a shirt on more than ordinary," Bishop" If he had made choice of that Chapsaid the king, "by reason the season is so ter, being so applicable to his present condisharp as probably may make me shake, which tion?" The Bishop reply'd, "May it please some observers will imagine proceeds from your Gracious Majesty, it is the proper lesson fear. I would have no such imputation. I for the Day, as appears by the Kalendar;" fear not Death! Death is not terrible to me. [which the King was much affected with, so I bless my God I am prepar'd." aptly serving as a seasonable preparation for his death that day.

"These, or words to this effect, his Majesty spoke to Mr. Herbert, as he was making ready. Soon after came Dr. Juxon, Bishop of London, precisely at the time his Majesty the night before had appointed him. Mr. Herbert then falling upon his knees, humbly beg'd his Majesty's pardon, if he had at any time been negligent in his duty, whilst he had the honour to serve him. The king thereupon gave him his hand to kiss, having the day before been graciously pleased, under his royal hand, to give him a certificate expressing that the said Mr. Herbert was not impos'd upon him, but by his Majesty made choice of to attend him in his bed-chamber, and had serv'd him with faithfulness and loyal affection. At the same time his Majesty also delivered him his Bible, in the margin whereof he had with his own hand writ many annotations and quotations, and charged him to give it the Prince so soon as he returned; repeating what he had enjoyned the Princess Elizabeth, his daughter, that he would be dutiful and indulgent to the queen his mother (to whom his Majesty writ two days before by Mr. Seymour), affectionate to his brothers and sisters, who also were to be observant and dutiful to him their sove. reign; and for as much as from his heart he had forgiven his enemies, and in perfect charity with all men would leave the world, he had advised the prince his son to exceed in mercy, not in rigour; and, as to episcopacy, it was still his opinion, that it is of Apostolique institution, and in this kingdom exercised from the primitive times, and therein, as in all other his affairs, pray'd God to vouchsafe him, both in reference to Church and State, a pious and a discerning spirit; and that it was his last and earnest request, that he would frequently read the Bible, which in all the time of his affliction had been his best instructor and delight; and to meditate upon what he read; as also such other books as might improve his knowledge.

and

'So as his Majesty, abandoning all thoughts of earthly concerns, continued in prayer meditation, and concluded with a cheerful submission to the will and pleasure of the Almighty, saying, "He was ready to resign himself into the hands of Christ Jesus, being, with the Kingly Prophet, shut up in the hands of his enemies; as is expressed in the 31st Psalm, and the 8th verse."-Herbert, p. 132.

(VI.) The Chapter of the day fell out to be that of the Passion of our Saviour, wherein it was mentioned that they led him away for envy and crucified their king, which he thought he found it was the Canon of the Rubric, he had been the Bishop's choosing; but when put off his hat, and said to the Bishop, "God's will be done."- Warwick's Memoirs, p. 385.

(VII.) Upon the king's right hand went the Bishop, and Colonel Tomlinson on his left, with whom his Majesty had some discourse by him the Guards. In this manner went the king the way; Mr. Herbert was next the king; after through the Park; and coming to the stair, the king passed along the galleries unto his bedchamber, where, after a little repose, the Bishop went to prayer; which being done, his Majesty bid Mr. Herbert bring him some bread and wine, which being brought, the king broke the manchet, and eat a mouthful of it, and drank a small glassful of claret-wine, and then was some time in private with the Bishop, expecting when Hacker would the third and last time give warning. Mean time his Majesty told Mr. Herbert which satin night-cap he would use, which being provided, and the king at private prayer, Mr. Herbert address'd himself to the Bishop, and told him, "The king had ordered he was not able to endure the sight of that him to have a white satin nightcap ready, but violence they upon the scaffold would offer the

king." The good Bishop bid him then give

work of Hume.' Then pause, and decide him the cap, and wait at the end of the Ban- whether the following answer does not conqueting-House, near the scaffold, to take care tain the opinions which Hume has taught of the king's body; "for," said he, "that, and his interment, will be our last office."-Her- you to deduce and to form. bert, p. 134.

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL CHARACTER OF
CHARLES I. AS DEDUCED FROM HUME.

That the virtue of Charles I. was in some degree tinctured by superstition, cannot be denied; but whilst the elegant historian, whom we deservedly consider as the soundest champion of monarchy, most candidly admits this tendency as the chief defect of the king's character, it is equally evident that the blemish existed only in the smallest degree, so as to be an evanescent quantity, scarcely to be discerned. Possibly nothing more than the doubt, the uncertainty, the suspense of judgment, naturally resulting from our most accurate scrutiny into religion.

(VIII.) "I think it my duty, to God first and to my country, for to clear myself both as an honest man and a good king, and a good Christian. I call God to witness, to whom I must shortly render an account, that I never did intend to encroach upon their privileges As to the guilt of those enormous crimes which are laid against me, I hope in God that God will clear me of it. God forbid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that God's judgments are upon me. For to show you that I am a good Christian, I hope there is a good man," pointing to Dr. Juxon, "that will bear me witness that I have forgiven all the world, and even those who have been the chief causes of my death who they are God knows, I do not desire to know; I pray God forgive them. 'Consider the manner in which Charles passI pray God with Saint Stephen, that this be not laid to their charge. Sirs, to put you in the ed the three awful days allowed to him beright way, believe it you will never do right, tween his sentence and his execution. Lay nor God will never prosper you, until you give your hand upon your heart, and, after giving him his due. You must give God his due by the most serious consideration to the natural regulating rightly his Church according to his history of religion, as exemplified in the whole Scripture. A national synod, freely called, history of the human race, declare whether freely debating amongst themselves, must do you can think that the king's conviction apthis. I declare before you all that I die aproached in any degree to that solid belief and Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left me by my fathers."-Whitelock's Memorials, p. 375.

persuasion, which governed him in the common affairs of life. He now avowed by his acts the doubts he entertained; and fully showed, that, whatever assent his outward deHas the reader performed our injunction? meanor may at any previous time have given Has he compared Hume with the original to the doctrines of superstition, it was an unauthorities; and will not the comparison disbelief and conviction, but approaching much accountable operation of the mind between convince him, that Hume's narrative, tran-nearer to the former than to the latter. Charles, quil, clear, and pathetic-unquestionably in the awful hour of death, never betrayed any possessing a very high degree of rhetorical weakness which a philosopher would despise. 'When dissolution is brought on by the ormerit-persuasive without the show of argument, solemn without affectation, digni- dinary course of malady or the decay of nafied without grandiloquence, the more im-ture, the last symptoms which the intellect discovers are disorder, weakness, insensibility, pressive from its apparent simplicity-com- and stupidity, the forerunners of the annihilabines every species of untruth: the suppres- tion of the soul; and it is then always most sio veri, the suggestio falsi, and the fallacy, susceptible of religious fictions and chimeras. more efficient, because less susceptible of The griefs and afflictions which Charles had detection, than either-the artificial light sustained, the horror of a public execution, thrown on peculiar incidents, for the pur- might have troubled his mind even more than pose of disguising others by comparative pain or sickness; yet-instead of making any of the preparations suggested by popular credulity, whether nursed by superstition or inBut now we must venture to impose a flamed by fanaticism, as the means of appearsecond injunction. In order to test the ef- ing an unknown and vindictive being-the fect which this wonderful piece of sophis- main, and, as it should seem, almost the only try is intended to produce, read Hume again, object which occupied his thoughts, was securcompare Hume with Hume, and throw your-ing the succession of the throne to his son, by self into the mind of a student required by the examination-paper, to 'Give the religious and moral character of Charles I. as exemplified in his death; and state the reasons of your opinion as deduced from the

shade?

the morning of his execution, during his most the prerogative right of primogeniture. On pathetic interview with his infant children, his mind was wholly engrossed by that object. Young as these infants were, he would, had religious conviction predominated over doubt,

have endeavored, at such a solemn moment, [ sincere in his religious convictions-and let it to impress on their tender hearts some notions of the faith which has been ascribed to him. No such effort was made by him. Equally removed from superstition and fanaticism, he may bave endeavored to comfort them by the usual commonplaces; but he received them without a blessing, and dismissed them for ever without a prayer.

'Indeed, there are no incidents in the life of the King that more strongly mark the noble independence of his mind, than the minuter circumstances attending this, the most affecting passage in his history. One of his own chaplains, Hammond, had been remarkable for his diligence in catechising youth, that is to say, instructing them in the nonsense which passed for religion.-Did Charles deem it right to enable his infant boy, the Duke of Gloucester, to obtain any perplexing knowledge of such absurdities? No! Charles wholly discarded it.-The Princess Elizabeth was a child endowed with judgment beyond her years, and capable of appreciating any advice which he might have bestowed, and of understanding the doctrinal works advocating the theological extravagances then so much in vogue. But when any man of sense takes up a volume of divinity, what are the questions which he asks ?-Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it contains nothing but sophistry and illusion. So thought Charles, now that intellect asserted her full empire. Of these writers, many were familiarly known to Charles, both through their works and his personal connexion with the men; and he had quoted them with sufficient point, when he could employ their arguments against his political enemies. But what was his conduct now?-Did he attempt to strengthen the religious obedience of his child by recommending to her the sophistries of Hooker? No.-Did he teach her to seek consolation in the superstitions of Andrews? No. -With philosophical contempt he rejected them all.

be recollected, that the great lesson to be derived from the contemplation of the death of Charles I. is the absence of any practical influence possessed by religious tenets-he might have afforded the most efficient caution to his children, without expressing the slightest want of confidence in their mother, or even mentioning her name. Amongst the works of Laud is his celebrated reply to Fisher, which all zealots must consider as the most cogent refutation of Popery ever produced; for whilst the crafty archbishop annihilates his antagonist, he never uses any argument which could be employed against the superstition of the Church of England by the fanatics; yet Charles, anxious, no doubt, that his children should be preserved, as far as possible, from the contagion of all religious opinions, never even alluded to a book which might have influenced their conscience in favor of any positive belief.

'On the scaffold, his dying words contained a most earnest exhortation to his subjects to pay obedience to his son as their lawful king. Whilst he thus employed the last moments of his existence in laboring to support the royal prerogative, by the sympathy which his fate excited amongst his bitterest enemies, he purposely, deliberately, and advisedly abstained from any expression or exhortation displaying any attachment or feeling of duty towards the Church, for which he had contended so earnestly, when its interests were connected with the rights of the crown.

'The total want of any allusion to the late established religion is most remarkable. The more we investigate the character of Charles as delineated by Hume, the more shall we be confirmed in the opinion that his superstition had now entirely passed away; at least not a trace of it can be found in Hume's accurate narrative. The only incident which might tend to show that Charles had the slightest recollection of the Church of England, any veneration for its priestcraft, is the circumstance that Bishop Juxon assisted him in some species of devotion when on the scaffold. Yet, as far as we can discover from the con'Indeed many men of sense might think that duct of Charles, he justly regarded priests as Charles carried his indifference almost too far, the invention of a timorous and abject superconsidering the need of conciliating the pre-stition. Rejecting the foundation of a priestdominant opinions of the vulgar. The mere suspicion of being inclined to the Popish superstition had been most calamitious to him; and he was now consigning his children to the care of a mother zealously affected to that superstition, and yet without bestowing the slightest caution against the errors which she might instil into their minds. But it will be an swered, Was it to be expected that Charles, with his dying breath, would adopt any course which might diminish the affection of his children towards the wife whom he so tenderly loved, or encourage them to depreciate the parent whom he taught them to respect and honor? Certainly not; but, had he been

hood, the absurd superstructure of an apostolic succession would of course fall to the ground. We have no reason to suppose that Bishop Juxon was chosen by the king, or that Charles would not equally have accepted of what were then termed spiritual consolations from the fanatical ministers, or indeed that he required any religious consolation at all. It was only in the capacity of a friend that the bishop paid the last melancholy duties to his sovereign. In every respect the conduct of Charles, in repudiating all adherence to the superstitions of the Church of England, was calm and solid. The period of dissimulation had passed by. Whatever ridicule may, by a

philosophical mind, be thrown upon pious ceremonies, they are unqestionably advantageous to the rude multitude; and upon that ground, no doubt, Charles I. had so strenuously contended for the share of popish ceremonies which the Church of England, as is well known, had retained. They were now wholly and entirely cast off. Charles discarded all the mummery of a liturgy, all the solemn farces of lessons and gospels, rubrics and set forms of prayer; and freeing himself from all superstitious influences, he disdained to partake of the Communion which, according to the rites of the Church of England, he was enjoined to have sought in his dying hour. No philosophical mind can doubt the origin of the works which superstition and fanaticism equally receive as the production of those who have been tempted to appear as prophets or ambassadors from Heaven: books presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and resembling those fabulous accounts which every nation gives of its origin. Charles fully appreciated the insufficiency of such testimony. We have the strongest proofs that he never entered into the delusion, from the marked circumstance, that, during the three days which, as before mentioned, were allowed him between his sentence and his exe

cution, an interval which he passed in great tranquillity, the Scriptures, as they are called, were never in his hands; nor did he, according to the practice of all religionists, whether guided by superstition or fanaticism, seek any comfort in his afflictions from a book so contrary to human reason. Charles neither saw the Bible, nor heard the Bible, nor read the Bible, nor touched the Bible, nor expressed any belief in the Bible, nor recommended the Bible to his children or his friends. Do we need any stronger proof that Charles was a philosopher in the fullest sense of the term? His devotions, as we must style them according to the conventional language of society, appear to be nothing more than that reverence which every philosopher renders to the hypothesis by which he endeavors to account for the unalterable and immutable order of the universe. His allusions to passing from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can take place, if they mean any thing beyond a species of rhetorical play upon words, only imply that he contemplated the eternal rest of annihilation. For they were wholly detached from any other expressions implying any belief in a future state. Charles may have admitted its possibility, but nothing more. And how could it be otherwise? Even at this day, the Christian religion cannot be believed by any reasonable person without a miracle; and whoever is moved by faith to assent to it,

is conscious of a continued miracle in his own

person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience. This miracle was not work

ed in Charles; and he died without making the slightest, the most remote, the most transient profession of Christianity.'

Such, then, are the inferences intended to be deduced by Hume, who, in his most dishonest statement, has, as will be seen by comparison with his sources, purposely omitted every historical memorial or record testifying either the king's allegiance to the Church, or his unshaken faith as a Christian. Charles truly suffered death for the belief that Christianity, according to the profession of the Church of England, was the fundamental law of the state, unchangeable by any political or constitutional power, being an obligation contracted with the Almighty, from which he could not be absolved by any human authority. Let it further be remarked, that, whilst Hume falsifies the narrative by expunging all the particulars teaching the reader to profit by the religious sentiments of the monarch, he endeavors to excite a factitious sympathy, by the false and theatrical representation of the king's hearing the noise of the scaffold, which authentic accounts entirely disapprove.'

And, for the same purpose of effect, whilst Hume gives to the interview with the children more prominence of detail than its relative importance requires, he suppresses that portion of the king's advice which most peculiarly discloses the mind of the dying father, namely, the recommendation made by Charles of Hammond, Hooker, Andrews, and Laud, as the expositors of the doctrines of that Protestant Church of England, for which he and Laud equally died as martyrs.

Detrimental as Hume may be, when speaking his own sentiments in his own book, the evil which he effects in person is small when compared to the diffusion of his irreligion, by those who are frequently unconscious of the mischief which they perpetrate ;-we mean the writers who have been guided by him in what is at this day the most important branch of our literature -the numerous compilers of educational works; and, in order that our readers may pursue the inquiry for themselves, we wish them to consult three of the most popular histories of this class, Keightley, Gleig, and Markham; and selecting the death of

*This has been done so effectually by Mr. Brodie, and by Mr. Laing, that it is unnecessary to go into further particulars.

Charles I., judge for themselves whether] not in the least doubt, from a close examthis event-of all others in our annals, the ination of the work, that when the author most interesting to the imagination-has began it for the use of her own children, been presented by those writers to the ris- she resorted at once to the historian whom ing generation in such a tone or spirit as she had been taught to consider as her philto inculcate any dutiful affection towards osopher and guide. From her father, the the Church, or aid the parent in bringing inventor of the power-loom, she may have up the child in the nurture and admonition heard the name of Adam Smith mentioned of the Lord. with the highest honor; and Adam Smith, These three writers may in some meas- in the letter prefixed to the History, has ure elucidate the manner in which Hume's told her as he tells our children, if we influence has operated upon his successors, place Hume in their hands-that Hume's according to their individual characters character approached as nearly to the idea and opportunities. Mr. Keightley, a man of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perof considerable diligence and energy, has haps the nature of human frailty will perbeen taught by Hume's scepticism to boast mit; and therefore there is hardly any porthat he belongs to no sect or party in reli- tion of the work in which the professors of gion or politics;' hence he gives only a religion are mentioned, into which the senmoderate preference to the Church of En- timents of Hume are not infused. These gland, without taking upon him to assert passages are fortunately not numerous; that it absolutely is the best ;' and the same and we do most earnestly hope that, if a indifference has caused him, in his Out-production, in many respects so useful, and lines of history, to obtrude upon youth some which has obtained so much currency, of the most offensive doctrines which Ger- should come to another edition, they may man neology can afford. In the death of be all modified or expunged. Charles, all he finds edifying is that Hugh Peters prayed for him!

of a

Hume has been, and is still, valued by many, as a defender of monarchical principles; but his support kills the root of loyalty. By advocating the duty of obedience to the Sovereign, simply with reference to human relations, he deprives allegiance of the only sure foundation upon which it can rest.

Mr. Gleig is an amiable and most pleasing writer; when he works freely upon his own ground, speaks his own sentiments, and embodies his own observations, he produces narratives of rare and unaffected vigor and elegance ;* but when he is tempted to put on the sleeves and apron Perhaps the speculative atheism of Hume bookmaker, his genius deserts him. He is for it is a violation of the warning not to above such work, and goes about it accord- call evil good, if, when required to pass ingly. The circumstances under which he judgment, we designate his principles by produced his Family History,' as a mere any other name-may render his history, bespoken task, to be put on the list of a in some respects, more pernicious, if that Society, rendered it, we can suppose, need- be possible, than the ribald aggressive infiful that he should take what he found most delity of Gibbon. Arsenic may warn us by ready at hand. He perhaps went a step the pain which the poison occasions, but beyond Hume; but the only word of in- narcotics steal life away. Hume constantstruction which he can insert in the narra-ly tempts us to deny the existence of the tive of the death of the royal martyr, is the Supreme Being, before whom he trembles. dry historical fact, that Charles avowed He raises his foul and pestilential mists, himself a member of the Protestant Church seeking to exclude from the universe the of England. There is nothing positively beams of the Sun of Righteousness, whom wrong in Mr. Gleig's work-but, out of sight, out of mind; Christian knowledge is as diligently weeded out from this 'Family History' as Hume himself could desire.

he hates and defies. The main object and end of history is the setting forth God's glory, so as to show that national happiness arises from doing His appointed work, and that national punishments are the results of national sins; yet let it not be supposed that, in order to render history beneficial, it must of necessity be expressly written upon religious principles, still less that facts should be coarsely and presumptuously wrested, for the purpose of justifying the