also one text of the Saxon Chronicle: "On | gathered a great host, and came against him that day there was very stout fighting on at the hoar apple-tree, and William came both sides. There was slain Harold Har- upon him unaware, ere his men were set in fager [Hardrada], and Earl Tostig also; and array. But the King for all that, fought the Northmen, those of them that were left, stiffly against him, with those men who would took to flight, and the English behind them stand by him, and there was great slaughter hotly slew them, until some of them came to on either side. There was slain King Harold their ships; some were drowned and some and Earl Leofwin, his brother, and Earl were burned, and so perished in divers ways Gurth his brother, and many other good that there was little of them left; and the men, and the French were masters of the English were masters of the field of carnage. battle-field, as God granted them for the sins Then the King gave 'peace' to Olaf the son of the people." * So fell on the day of St. of the Northmen's King, and to their Bishop, Calixtus, October 14th, King Harold Godand to the Earl of Orkney, and to all those win's son, and there no doubt fell with him who were left on board the ships; and then the flower of the Anglo-Saxon soldiery. No they fared up to our King, and swore oaths nation could have withstood such slaughter that they would ever keep peace and friend- of its bravest sons, as befell England twice ship towards this land, and the King let them within three weeks in that fatal autumn of fare home with twenty-four ships." They 1066. The English loss in those two battles, came with almost a thousand ships great and the first at Stamford Bridge on the 25th of small, and they left with twenty-four. Too September, and the last at Hastings, on the truly had the dismal visions of the night 14th of October, cannot be reckoned at less been fulfilled. The wolf and raven had got- than fifty thousand men; but even then the ten a banquet such as few kings had ever nation might have rallied had it not been for spread for them. Could any lesson be more that unlucky arrow which smote our Harold striking than that taught to all intending in the eye, just as his gigantic namesake had Vikings in Norway by the sight of these fallen by a stray shaft in the throat. As it twenty-four ships sailing into the port which was, they had no leader; they were as sheep they had so lately left, then a little squadron, without a shepherd, and after waiting in vain but now the last remnant of a mighty armada? for a chief, they sulkily submitted to the Even the body of their King they left behind Conqueror, who was too wise to drive them them, and there it lay in English earth till to desperation till he had them more comsome time after, when King Olaf sent Skuli, pletely in his power. On the contrary, he the son of Tostig, to beg his father's body swore on Midwinter Day, when Archbishop from William the Conqueror. Ealdred crowned and consecrated him in Westminster Abbey, that he would be a kind lord to them, and "govern this nation as well as any king before him had best done, if they would be faithful to him."t After chasing the fugitives to their ships, Harold returned to York to celebrate his triumph. The battle of Stamford Bridge had been fought on a Monday, three clear days before Michaelmas Day; and while he was busy burying his dead and counting his spoil, among which was that huge weight of gold which Harold Hardrada brought with him from the East a treasure so weighty that twelve strong men could scarcely lift it-a messenger, who had spurred in hot haste from Sussex, brought Harold word that on Michaelmas Eve, September 28th, William of Normandy had landed at Pevensea with 60,000 valiant men. What follows is best told in the simple words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:-"Then came Earl William of Normandy into Pevensea on Michaelmas Eve, and as soon as ever they got over, they built a castle at the port of Hastings. Then this was told to King Harold, and then he And a little further on “Vel Vusam vetitam corporibus fluere,”— where Mr. Luard reads "busam vetitum," and where the ignorant scribe has mistaken the AngloSaxon v for a b. Cotton. Tib. B. iv. The "hoar apple-tree" where Harold mustered his men, was evidently some venerable tree, grey with years, and well known as a landmark. *This is the text of the Chronicle, as given in The following Genealogical Tables, which are for the most part taken from Munch, will serve to show the alliances and kinships which existed between the ruling families of the three Scandinavian nations. It will also be seen that they often intermarried with Russian and English princes and princesses. It is curious to see how Tostig's son Harold Godwin's son's daughter Gytha became the Skuli founded a great family in Norway; while ancestress of Russian Grand-Dukes. We are also justified in supposing that Wulfnoth the "Child" was of Royal descent; for that title, like Enfant de France, was only bestowed on those who claimed kinship with the ruling race in England. It is this title "Child" to which Edward the Confessor alludes in his letter to Magnus the Good, when he says that his only title was "that of a swain of noble birth." This letter is only known to us from the Scandinavian Sagas, and the writer has evidently translated the Saxon "cild" by its Norse equivalent, "swein," But if God win could claim kinship with the Kings of Wessex, his sons were doubly royal. Their But our purpose here has been to write not so much of Harold Godwin's son, or his enemy William, as of Harold Hardrada and his invasion. Luckier than his namesake, he left his kingdom to his children, and the Norway which he had wooed and won so sternly, enjoyed after his death unwonted peace. In securing her that blessing, Harold Hardrada had the greatest share. He completed what Saint Olaf had only begun, and he succeeded where his half-brother failed. He broke the haughty spirit of the chiefs by his iron will, and stamped out the sparks of that unbridled liberty, which, if uncontrolled, would have made all government impossible. Though called "The Stern" in his lifetime, and though that title still clings to his name in history, his people acknowledged after his death the greatness and firmness of his character, which procured them the peace for which Norway was famous in the days of his son Olaf the Quiet. Some time after the battle of Stamford Bridge, most probably in the year 1069, when William was more firmly seated on his new throne, and the peaceful policy of King Olaf was well ascertained, messages of friendship passed between England and Norway, and then it was that Skuli, the son of Tostig, who was called King Olaf's foster-child, was sent from Norway to ask the Conqueror for Harold Hardrada's body. The prayer was granted, and then all mother Gytha's grandfather, Styrbjörn, was a Swedish prince, and her grandmother Thyra was sister of Harold Bluetooth, King of Denmark. Though they were not legitimate heirs to the English crown so long as Edgar Atheling was alive, they were still of the blood-royal of England on their father's side, while on their mother's they were akin to the kings both of Sweden and Denmark. An additional proof of what modern German jurists would call them, ebenbürtigkeit, may be found in the fact that a Grand-Duke of Russia chose his wife from their family, when its fortune was at the lowest ebb: 4. Our Companions in Glory. By the Rev. J. M. KILLEN, Author of "Our Friends in Heaven." Edinburgh. 5. Tracts. By the Rev. C. B. TAYLER. Religious Tract Society. 6. Tracts. By the Rev. J. C. RYLE. that was left of that bold and politic prince | ART. V.-1. Heaven our Home. Edinburgh. was disinterred, put on board ship at Grims- 2. Life in Heaven. By the same Author. by, borne to Norway, and at last buried at 3. Meet for Heaven. Do. Drontheim. But if his heart was with his treasure after death, his spirit must have lingered in England, for it is expressly said that all that huge hoard of gold for which he had toiled so hard became the spoil of the Conqueror. Harold Hardrada was fifty-one years old when he fell. He was still fair of face and strong of body, of most majestic mien, to which his enormous stature contributed not a little. His hair and beard were light-brown; his hands and feet, though large, were well made. He, too, like his nephew Magnus, and like the meek Confesa royal man," and, like his nephew, he had but one blemish, in that one of his eyebrows was higher upon his brow than the other. So there at Drontheim those tall bones were laid by the side of St. Olaf, and Norway had rest for seven-and-twenty years. sor, was 66 8. The Earnest Communicant. ALL human things are still, in a certain sense, if not quite in the Pythagorean, “resolvable by numbers." If we would understand the great motive powers of any age, if we would know how our fellow-men at any given period of time have been used to live, and feel, and act, we must have recourse to statistics-the "old lamp," rusty and unattractive-looking, which, when brighter guides would fail us, can lead us through many an intricate passage of thought, and admit us into the Pilgrim missed in the first outstart of his many a richly stored chamber of feeling. If immortal journey, hard to find, apt to be obto know the number of marriages taking place scured. Man upon such a path is thankful within a certain year leads us to an estimate for small helps, glad of the glowworm's ray, of of the existing amount of national prosperity, the rushlight in some distant cottage. And so from the number and character of books in the very titles of the books now before us, sold within any given period, may we predi- we may discern the voice of our common hucate that period's leading tendencies. For to manity, which says:-"Who will show us few books, as to few men, is it given to com- any good?"-of humanity, which " can recog mand the age they appear in. Of the myriads nise, even in an age of material prosperity which have their "run," and are read by those like our present one, that this desired good, who run along with them, it may be safely this coveted gladness, is not to be sought for affirmed that they are carried onwards less by in the increase of corn and wine and oil, were strength of inward impetus, than by force of these never so abundant, but to be found in outward stress and pressure. "The wind had the deepened sense of God's goodness, in the bound them up within its wings;" and, by clearer revelation of his Spiritual Presence:" fixing our eyes upon their flight, we may learn "Lord, lift THOU up the light of thy countewhat way the wind is now setting. Viewing nanee upon us." things in this light, we may find sermons and stories in advertisements, and discover a deep significance in the announcements now greeting us from the cover of every periodical : Literature of this class, it is evident, must not be measured by the canons of ordinary criticism. Schiller has told us that a direct object in writing is fatal to a work of high imagination; but of books like these the aim is the very life, and soul, and strength; but HEAVEN OUR HOME, 89,000 copies, MEET FOR HEAVEN, by the Author of "Heaven for it they would not have been written at all, our Home," 23,000 copies. LIFE IN HEAVEN, Do., 15,000. Thus, even in our work-day world, wherein it is often hard enough to find the meat which perishes, in our modern scientific world, which furnishes so many popular treatises on Astronomy, it seems that there is a great number of persons who do not so entirely live by bread alone, but that a book about Heaven will interest them! Let us make every reasonable deduction from the enormous sale of books of a decidedly religious character; let us allow for the certainty of Sunday coming once in every week, and bringing with it a length of leisure which passes over more comfortably with a book in the hand than without one; let us concede that many of these books are read upon the opus operatum principle by simpleminded persons to whom one "good book" is, in a true and literal 66 sense, as good as another, if not better;" let us even grant that in many places these books are probably not read at all, but that the prettily bound, giltedged volume, given as a parting memento, or sent as a far-off remembrancer, is kept thenceforth by its owner as a sort of literary and spiritual amulet, to be looked at rather than looked into; let us allow for all this, and we shall still find, in the hold which religious literature has upon the less educated portion of the community, the revelation of a deep and true devotional instinct. Man loves his home, and loves to hear about the way to it, the path which the vulture's eye hath not known. The steps to Heaven, though marked out by God himself, have been ever like those which so that the question of their claims and merits is chiefly one of fitness and acceptability. These are books written to a certain end; do they meet it? They are addressed to a given area of intelligence; do they tell within that area? Do they, in short, hit their mark or miss it? And while we keep these distinctions in view, we must none the less bear in mind that the poem or story addressed to the uneducated or partially educated mind, with a directly religious purpose, has its own peculiar standard of excellence, even of perfection, and that this standard has been reached, not only by masters of popular writing like Bunyan and De Foe, but in days more near our own, and by voices whose slenderer compass has been so truly pitched within their own limits, as to have awakened deep vibrations. It would be easy, for instance, within the range of lyric narrative, to find a poem which, considered as a poem, surpasses Mrs. Sewell's popular ballad," Mother's last Words;"* hard to find one so completely answering the end for which it was written, so fraught with the secret of true pathos-that which grows out of the very nature of the things it deals with, the pathos that is entangled and involved in life, the sadness of the streets, that comes across us in the cracked tones of the balladsinger, in the bare feet of the forsaken child. We have seen a class of adult criminals so sunk in the strange apathy habitual to those in whom the moral sense has lain even from infancy as an unquickened germ; so stolid and indifferent, that the voice of instruction | it; it is a mode of viewing things which may and warning seem to pass through them to the easily degenerate into a sort of elaborate triblank wall beyond; we have seen such a class fling, yet in skilful hands it is capable of huroused, interested, awakened to life, to intel-mour, tenderness, and allegoric point, and is ligence, to affection, through the mere read- evidently rich in the same power of detecting ing aloud of this simple little story. We have the close yet obscure affinities between natuknown them follow its course with eager, at- ral and moral life which makes the strength tentive eyes, with broken exclamations, with of our most famous essayists, which gives the sobs, with floods of tears, as if there lay with- charm to our most sweetly moralizing old in it some spell, with power to restore them, English songs. were it but for a moment, to their share in all that is most holy and tender in our common nature. Popular religious literature has then its true province, its lowly, its enduring triumphs. It is something surely to win entrance into hearts at which Shakspeare would knock in vain, something to be the treasure of the poor man's little shelf, the solace of his heavily burdened heart; to be, as is the case with more than one of these that we could mention, the only book, except the One Book, for which the dying care. It is something to be printed out in large text-hand, as we have seen the hymn, "I lay my sins on Jesus," and firmly pinned upon the pillow of a dying factory woman, so that she might be sure it was always there,"-even as a hand holding out a leaf from the Tree of Life, as a light held out by Christ himself above the dark, thickly closing waters. So that, if in the generality of the works now before us we are struck by a prevailing flatness, monotony, and want of feature, it is not because the literature they belong to lacks its undying classics, and these of various modes of excellence. First, and never without its charms for minds of a certain order, comes the direct religious allegory, of which the Pilgrim's Progress is the immortal representative; then, closely allied with the allegory, and awakening the same sort of interest, though by a less sustained and artificial method, comes an order of writing in which we know no such master as a writer, who, under the signature of Old Humphrey, furnished the Religious Tract Society with a number of beautiful little volumes, stored with "hints, observations, thoughts for the thoughtful, etc." The secret of this mode of writing is a very simple one, enabling its possessor to turn every passing incident to some moral and spiritual capital; it lays all the events of life under contribution-a paper of flowerseeds, a passing regiment of soldiers, some chance observation overheard in the streets, such as, "So he died poor after all," the faroff sound of the woodman's stroke-everything furnishes its contingent. Here the subject is taken up as if it were a little child set upon the knee, caressed and played with till very heart is coaxed, perhaps teazed out of its But with a yet stronger hold on the popular heart than these, and filling a far wider space in it, comes the religious story of familiar life, of which the narrative is, as it were, the woof and web, out of which, with more or less of skill, the moral is thrown like the pattern in damask or brocade. It is perhaps scarcely possible to over-estimate the attraction of such stories for the partially educated mind, to overstate the charm of finding the attention powerfully engaged, the hidden springs of feeling touched, dormant sensibilities awakened, the heart, the memory, the imagination taken captive in turn, and not let go until each has been blessed. In the last generation, Mrs. Hannah More and Mrs. Trimmer were unrivalled in a homely and persuasive mode of story, or sometimes mere dialogue writing, which struck home some religious truth, or some point of cottage economy, as straight as the arrow labelled "for Philip's right eye." Of the same date, and of kindred excellence, were some tracts, also by a lady, which enforced an important branch of social science, connecting the duties of Saturday with the privileges of Sunday, in two admirable stories, now perhaps forgotten, called The Last and the First Day of the Week. Then, as belonging to a more spiritual and also more poetic region, came Leigh Richmond's still unforgotten Annals of the Poor, a work, in its own line, of genius, where clear expositions of evangelical truth are set into sweet and simple narratives, which in their turn are framed in descriptions of the beautiful scenery of the Isle of Wight, exquisitely harmonized in tone and colouring with the human interest of the stories. We know few passages more pathetic than the visit of the good clergyman to the young cottager, where he finds the dying little girl asleep, with her hand lying on the open Bible, her finger pointing to the words, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;" or few scenes more touching than her last affectionate parting with this, her soul's beloved friend and teacher; her sudden, sweet reply when asked by him in the course of a religious conversation,— * This scenery is also associated with Adams's beautiful and touching allegory, The Old Man's Home. |