Lord Strafford, and saying, in a letter to her son Edwardwho accompanied his father to town, when he took his seat in the House of Commons-"I believe that the hierarchy must go down, and I hope now." "I am glad that the Bishops begin to fall, and I hope it will be with them as it was with Haman-when he began to fall, he fell indeed." The order of the two Houses for removing the relics of idolatry delighted her ladyship exceedingly, and with deep joy she communicated to her son, that the table in Hereford Cathedral had been turned, and that the copes and basins, and all such vestiges of Popery, had been put away. When the war broke out, she evinced no little zeal in the business of raising money for the Parliament, and sent her family plate to the military chest. When battle raged around the walls of her own castle, this Puritan Amazon manifested a masculine courage, and in her letters gave thanks to her son "for the hamper with powder and match "— whilst she waited for "the muskets "-and stated that she had sent to Worcester for fifty weight of shot. She met with opposition in all sorts of ways. The Royalists would not pay their rents; they would not let the fowler bring her any fowls; they arrested her servants; they drove away her horses; and they threatened to burn down her barns. The Marquis of Hertford came to besiege her fortress. Stories were told of 600 men marching up to her gates. Under these threatening circumstances she declared: "If I had money to buy corn and meal and malt, I should hope to hold out, but then I have three shires against me." When the assault came at last, and she heard that her cook was shot with a poisoned bullet, and that the waters of the village brook were poisoned also, this English Deborah, this Puritan mother in Israel, trusting entirely in Divine help, retained

the confidence she had before expressed, "I thank God I am not afraid. It is the Lord's cause that we have stood for, and I trust, though our iniquities testify against us, yet the Lord will work for His own name's sake, and that He will now shew the men of the world that it is hard fighting against heaven."

She died before the close of the siege, and the Puritan minister of Clun, in Shropshire-who preached her funeral sermon-observed: "When the naked sword, that messenger of death, walked the land, did God set His seal of safety upon her. Though surrounded with drums and noise of war, yet she took her leave in peace.'

We read, also, of Mrs. Margaret Andrews, who was constant in prayers three times a day, spending two hours in her closet in the coldest winter, and who rarely passed an hour without retiring from company, stealing away that she might look towards heaven of Lady Alice Lucy, of Charlcot-one of the Shakespeare Lucys-who made it her first employment every morning to address Almighty God in secret, and to read some portions of the Divine Word, and who also delighted in sacred literature, storing her memory with passages from favourite English authors: and of Lady Mary Houghton, who spent the earlier and later hours of the day in communion with God, and had books for contemplation, and books for conversation, and books for devotion, and who spent the rest of her time in needle-work, with her maidens sitting round about her, or in visiting the cottages of the neighbouring poor.

Lady Catherine Courten is another celebrity, who, having lost her fortune-a calamity she bore with Christian fortitude-spent the last and the retired season

1 Memorable Women of the Puritan Times, i. 105–116.

of her life with her noble sister, Lady Francis Hobart, at Chapel Field House, in the city of Norwich. She never neglected sermons; and when, on account of illness, she was unable to walk down stairs, she would be carried by her servants to the place of worship. Her habit of reading is also particularly noticed, and the few hours which she spent out of her closet were usually filled up with discourses tending to edification. Nor was she ever more in her element than when by debate with others, she was investigating some truth for the information of her judgment, or for the guidance of her practice. With her may be coupled Lady Francis Hobart, the wife of Sir John Hobart, of Blickling, in Norfolk; like the former lady, a particular friend of Dr. Collinge's, who observes :-"It was in September, 1646, that I was invited by Sir John Hobart (at that time alive) to take my chamber in his house whilst I discharged my ministerial office in the county (Norwich), and to take some oversight of his family in the things of God." The family had been in a state of religious

without any spiritual guide, and disorder, and the chaplain's design was to bring it into a course of prayer, in conformity, as he said, to David's pattern. He held services morning, evening, and at noon, reading some portion of Scripture every day, and expounding it as the time would allow. He catechised once a week, and accustomed the members of the household to repeat the sermons which they had heard on the Lord's Day, and at other public ordinances. The servants were required to attend these duties every morning at seven o'clock. The catechising was made easy by the parents prevailing upon their pious daughter to set an example by first herself answering the questions which were proposed by the minister.

A chapel was fitted up in the house, and a lecture was preached every Lord's day.1

The religious convictions of the reader must create a preference for some above others of the characters which we have described; yet, if we would be loyal to Christian charity and righteousness, we must judge all these individuals in no narrow spirit, but bring to bear upon our conclusions respecting them a careful study of the differences which exist in the ages, in the sects, in the minds, and in the morals of ancient and of modern Christendom.

The ages of the Church, down to the era of the Commonwealth, exhibit a series of ecclesiastical and theological revolutions running along through an extended line of generations which, under altering circumstances, still exhibit ever the same spiritual life. Primitive simplicity—when uninspired men accepted the authoritative teaching of apostles as a religion rather than a theology, and had but an imperfect apprehension of the profound truths of the New Testament, was succeeded by sundry innovations of doctrine and practice, drawn from sources which were open and active all around them in the Jewish and Pagan world, or from others which were hidden in the very depths of human nature. The true and the false soon became blended together, sometimes in very unequal proportions; and hence sprung Nicene developments, of doctrine touching certain vital points, associated, however, with certain meta

1 These notices are taken from Dr. Gibbon's Memoirs of Eminently Pious Women. We have purposely retained some forms of phraseology which are employed in the original narrative. It would be easy to add to these illustrations. Some interesting ones are given in Pattison's

Rise and Progress of Religious Life in England, chap. xii. See also Tomkin's Piety Promoted. Even amongst the Fifth Monarchy men there were instances of genuine piety; nor do we doubt that the persecuted Roman Catholics furnished examples of devotion and beneficence.

physical refinements and with certain forms of polity and of worship, which prepared for subsequent manifestations of despotism and of superstition. Traditionalism for a time stereotyped both that which was bad and that which was good in the sixth and the seventh centuries, and then afterwards came limited but violent reactions against authority in several different quarters, opening up paths which ultimately led to the Protestant Reformation. That Reformation followed as the result of applying the New Testament to human creeds, and canons, and formularies. In their sifting of opinions and practices, the Reformers sought to separate the wheat from the chaff; but when the first excitement of the Ecclesiastical Revolution had passed away, some persons thought that a measure of wheat had been cast away along with the chaff; and others again believed that the process had terminated too soon-that the sieve had been laid aside before all the requisite sifting work had been done, and that a good deal of chaff remained mixed with wheat. Such ideas, on the one hand and on the other, constituted the groundwork of Anglo-Catholic and of Puritan piety. Anglo-Catholicism, under James, arose as a reaction against Puritan Protestantism under Elizabeth. That Anglo-Catholicism led to a more violent Puritan reaction under Charles I. Hence followed the antagonism of parties, at that time of immense excitement, in connexion with the influences of early training, of associations in life, of different kinds of pulpit teaching, and of varied idiosyncracies of mental character. Not only did parties widely differ, but each regarded the other as an enemy. They fought as for life-and certainly the subjects of contention were not trifles. Scarcely could it be expected that on either side there would be an unprejudiced estimate of what was thought, said, and done on the other.