happy: yea, they that work wickedness, if their purposes were carried on boldly and skilfully, are set up on high for admiration. The effect of such unscriptural views of men's conduct, and of events, is, too frequently, to make the student rise from a course of historical reading, impressed with the notion that religion is merely theoretical; what wise men will not, and conscience need not upbraid him for neglecting in practice, provided his inattention to its dictates be influenced by what he thinks good policy, and does not extend to what he calls gross offences.

That acute, and certainly not over-fastidious observer of human life, Dr. Paley, has made remarks of the same kind, on the evident tendency of such opinions as are read in the ordinary course of historical studies, and heard in ordinary worldly society, to communicate a corrupting and indelible taint to the sentiments of youth.

"The general course of education," he observes, "is much against religious seriousness, even without those who conduct education foreseeing or intending any such effect. Many of us are brought up with this world set before us, and nothing else. Whatever promotes this world's prosperity is praised; whatever hurts and obstructs and prejudices this world's prosperity is blamed; and there all praise and censure end.

"We see mankind about us in motion and action, but all these motions and actions directed to worldly objects. We hear their conversation, but it is all the same way.

Malachi iii. 15.

"And this is what we see and hear from the first. The views which are continually placed before our eyes regard this life alone, and its interests. Can it then be wondered at, that an early worldly-mindedness is bred in our hearts, so strong as to shut out heavenly-mindedness entirely? In the contest which is always carrying on between this world and the next, it is no difficult thing to see what advantages this world has. One of the greatest of these advantages is, that it pre-occupies the mind; it gets the first hold and the first possession. Childhood and youth, left to themselves, are necessarily guided by the senses; and the senses are all on the side of this world. Meditation brings us to look towards a future life; but then meditation comes afterwards. It only comes when the mind is already filled, and engaged, and occupied, nay, often crowded and surcharged with worldly ideas. It is not only therefore fair and right, but it is absolutely necessary to give to Religion all the advantages we can give it by dint of education; for all that can be done is too little to set Religion upon an equality with its rival; which rival is the world. A creature, which is to pass a small portion of its existence in one state, and that state preparatory to another, ought, no doubt, to have its attention constantly fixed upon its ulterior and permanent destination *.”

This statement is as strikingly just as it is dispassionate. It is to be feared that these impediments to a thorough devotedness to God will never cease to occur and to operate, till the prayer be fully heard and granted, which

• Paley's Sermons, Serm. I. pp. 7, 8. Ed. 4.

asks that God's kingdom may come and be established; and that His will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Yet the weakest endeavours may, by God's blessing, destroy much of the pernicious influence of evils which man cannot remove. Under this conviction, and from a most anxious wish to do something towards rescuing unsus picious youth from the snares laid in their way by such as call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, the writer has been induced to resolve on offering his countrymen a History of England, in which all praise and censure will not be found to be distributed solely with reference to the tendency of actions to promote or obstruct worldly prosperity.

Bishop Butler has observed, that "Scripture gives us an account of the world, in this one single view, as God's world; by which it appears essentially distinguished from all other books, except such as are copied from it." Such an imitation of the tone of the sacred penmen, the author trusts he cannot be wrong in proposing to himself, as the rule whereby to regulate his opinions of events and of pub lic characters. He will endeavour, in forming his estimate of either, to think how they, who constantly regarded the world as God's world, would have spoken of what it becomes his duty to notice.

But though the writer may perceive what ought to be his object, and his manner of speaking, the defects of his predecessors are an awful warning to him to take heed himself, that the effect of the subjects which must engage

Butler's Analogy, Part II. chap. vii.

his attention, be not to overcharge his heart likewise with the cares of this life. It may now seem to him quite as much a proof of a little as of a corrupt mind to be incapable of perceiving, that all which can be gained or lost of earthly treasures, of power or fame, is lighter than dust in the balance, when compared with the hopes of that glory in which they, who serve God faithfully, shall reign for ever and ever when this earth and heaven are fled away. But yet he reads, and believes, that instead of its being an easy thing to keep this infinite disproportion between the objects of a day and of eternity effectually present to the mind, the Spirit of wisdom must be given, and the eyes of the understanding must be enlightened, that man may be made capable of knowing what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance. For these blessings, therefore, he will feel it his urgent duty to seek; lest, whilst labouring to please his neighbour for his good to edification, his heart should become so estranged by worldly objects from communion with its Maker, as to wish to hide itself from the presence of the Lord God, when he shall say, Where art thou?

On the other hand, in the performance of his task, though it be undeniably the duty of every Christian writer, as it was that of the sacred penmen, to speak of facts with a fixed impression of the power and of the influence exercised by the King of kings, and Lord of lords, as from His throne beholding all the dwellers upon earth, the uninspired historian, instead of the certainty with which the purposes and the judgments of God are declared in Holy Writ, can only offer humble, and frequently erroneous con

jectures as to the lesson which it was intended mankind should receive from God's suffering that to happen which we see, in any case, He has permitted.

Perhaps, too, of all the works which God hath wrought during certain periods of history, the most glorious in the sight of heaven may have been precisely those which elude the research of the historian. For the domestic virtues, and the affectionate yet humble love of God, which His grace has formed, and His blessing matured, are hidden from the public eye.

Men may have lived, willingly submitting to insult and oppression that they might literally comply with all their Sa viour's words; but unless they have been religious martyrs whose firmness under the fear, or even in the midst of tortures, made their courage too manifest to be disputed, it will invariably be found that their character has been mistaken, and if noticed at all is held up to scorn. He who having done well, and suffered for it, taketh that patiently, must have had the Spirit of God poured out abundantly upon him, to make him thus victorious over temptation. But though this be acceptable with God*, historians in general have felt no admiration for such characters; and therefore, where they have spoken of them, they have in contempt, or in ignorance of their exalted motives, confounded their conduct with the effects of cowardice, or with the behaviour of the mercenary wretch, who bears the injustice and the contumelies of his 'superiors in the hope of still making profit out of those who despise him. Details, which, if

1 Pet. ii. 20.