argues Pascal, St. Augustin is heretical also-and yet his views of doctrine had never before been condemned in the catholic church. It was certainly at that particular time alone that the charge would have been advanced; at another, the spirit of Jansenism would have been permitted to work, without the odium of its name.

That in many of their opinions the Jansenists and the followers of Calvin were agreed, it is impossible to doubt. It will have been observed, however, that they distinctly renounced the ultra-Calvinism of the five propositions; while, at the same time, they put upon them a construction which most members of the church of England would disclaim. It is to be recollected; however, that they spoke controversially; and that, like St. Augustin, they would probably have stated things less strongly if they had not been opposing extreme opinions ⚫ on the other side. From the more dangerous views, too, of Calvinism, they appear to have been free; the supreme efficacy of divine grace was the main point upon which they insisted, and although they certainly maintained this doctrine with some of the restrictions which predestinarian opinions bring upon it, yet they connected with it such views of the efficacy of the sacraments as rendered it practically harmless. It was probably far more for what they rejected than from what they held that the followers of Calvin were in error; they adopted the Augustinian views in part, rejecting from his opinions what was an important counterpoise to the dangerous character of their own tenets. The Jansenists made the doctrine of St. Augustin their model altogether, and in so doing had they likewise thrown off the errors and superstitions which, subsequently to his time, had been engrafted upon the church, they would have been nearer to the truth of Holy Scripture, as maintained in the present ages, than many of the reformers. The life of faith, in contradistinction to the life of sight -the love of God-the constant reference of all things to his providence and his spirit-humility-and godly sincerity-such seem to have been the practical characteristics of Jansenism, and we cannot form a proper estimate of it until we have the consideration of it as a controversial system, and view it as set forth in the meditations of Pascal, or as exemplified in his life. F. O.

Oxford, Feb. 26th, 1836.

THE DARK AGES.-No. XV.

SOMEWHAT more than eleven hundred years ago, a young man of noble family quitted the military service, and entered a monastery. By the time that he had been a monk two years he had become acquainted with the lives of the early ascetics; and, like many other monks, at various times, and especially in the earlier centuries of monasticism, he resolved to imitate them. Having discovered a wretched and solitary place, suited to his design, among the fens of Lincolnshire, Guthlac, commending himself to the special patronage of St. Bartholomew, for whom he had peculiar respect, took up his abode there on the festival of that saint, in the year 699. Some years

afterwards, Ethelbald, then an exile and a wanderer, came to the hermit, with whom he was wont to consult, and whom he called his father confessor, for advice in his distress,-ut ubi consilium defecit humanum, divinum acquireret,-and received from his lips a prediction that he should come to the throne of Mercia without battle or bloodshed. Ethelbald declared that, in that case, he would found a monastery on the spot to the praise of God, and in remembrance of his father Guthlac; and when the prediction was fulfilled, in A.D. 716, he lost no time in performing his promise. Instead of the wooden oratory of the ascetic, he built a stone church, and founded a monastery, which he endowed with the whole island of Croyland, on which it stood, by a charter, which begins thus:

"Ethelbald, by divine dispensation King of the Mercians, to all that hold the catholic faith, everlasting salvation. I give thanks, with great exultation, to the King of all kings, and Creator of all things, who has hitherto with longsuffering sustained me while involved in all crimes, has drawn me with mercy, and raised me up in some degree to the confession of his name. Wherefore it is good for me to cleave unto God, and to put my trust in him. But what shall I render unto the Lord, for all things which he has given unto me, so that I may be pleasing before him in the light of the living; since without him we have nothing, we are nothing, and we can do nothing? For the Author of our salvation, and Giver of all things, accepts with great desire our things which are least, that he may have a cause of returning those which are greatest, and joys that are infinite. Those who follow his teaching by works of mercy, he comforts, saying, What ye have done unto one of the least of mine, ye have done unto me.' Hence it is, that when I had been instructed by the advice, and urged by the prayers, of my beloved confessor Guthlac, the devout anchoret, I cheerfully acquiesced," &c.

Kenulph, a monk of Evesham, was appointed the first abbot. Pega, the sister of Guthlac, who had long resided as a solitary some miles from her brother, having brought to the monastery his psalter, the Scourge of St. Bartholomew, and some other relics, went back to her own cell, where she remained two years and three months; after which she went to Rome, where she spent the rest of her life. Bettelmus, Tatwin, and two other ascetics, who lived in cells by the hermitage of Guthlac, for the sake of his neighbourhood and instruction, were permitted by the abbot to remain in statu quo.

As I am not writing history, and am bound by no unities, let us skip over rather more than a century, and we shall find this monastery, founded by the piety of a Saxon king, become the sanctuary of more than one of the royal race of Mercia. Etheldritha, daughter of Offa, the betrothed of Ethelbert, king of the East Angles, (who was treacherously murdered by her father,) had retired to a cell in the southern part of the church of Croyland. Thus she was enabled, more than thirty years after her sad betrothal, to offer a sanctuary to a successor of her father, Wichtlaf, king of Mercia, when he fled from Egbert, king of Wessex, in the year 827. The Abbot Siward, who was the only other person privy to his retreat, negotiated for his safety and restoration as a tributary to Egbert; and the grateful, though humbled monarch, never forgot the benefit. Six years afterwards he gave a charter, which begins thus:

"Wichtlaf, by divine dispensation King of the Mercians, to all the worshippers of Christ inhabiting all Mercia, everlasting salvation. Far from feeling it any disgrace,

I esteem it to be honourable and glorious, to publish and set forth the wonderful works of God. Wherefore, I will openly confess unto the Lord, who dwelleth on high, but hath respect unto the lowly in heaven and on earth, because for a time he was angry with me; but his anger is turned away, and he hath comforted me. In his anger, humbling the sinner unto the ground, bringing him down even unto the dust; and again, in his mercy, raising the needy from the dust, and lifting up the poor from the dunghill, that I may sit with princes, and possess the throne of glory. In the day of good things, then, let me not be unmindful of the evil things. I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon, to them that know me,' not Rahab the harlot, but the most holy virgin, my kinswoman, Etheldritha, a recluse at Croyland for the love of her spouse, the Lamb without spot; who, in the time of my trouble, most carefully hid me in her cell, by the space of four months, from the face of the enemy and the persecutor. I will make mention also of Babylon; not of the tower of confusion, but of the most holy church of Croyland, which is a tower reaching to heaven,—with watchings and prayers, psalms and lessons, disciplines and penances, tears and sobs, alms, and innumerable other acts of devotion and works of piety, offering most powerful violence to the kingdom of heaven on behalf of a sinful world. Therefore, since the venerable father, the Lord Siward, abbot of Croyland, hath protected me in his tabernacle in the evil day, hiding and saving me from the face of him that troubled me, beside the privileges of my predecessors, kings of Mercia, who have amply enriched the aforesaid monastery with various gifts and immunities, I also offer to the great altar of the said monastery, out of my poverty, a golden chalice, a golden cross, and a table out of my own chapel covered with plates of gold, pro fessing that I will constantly defend the said church to the best of my power.'

Then, after other matter—

"I also offer to the sacrist of the said monastery, for the service of the most holy altar, the scarlet robe with which I was invested at my coronation, to make a hood or chasuble; and for the ornament of the most holy church, my golden curtain on which is wrought the taking of Troy, to be hung on the walls on my anniversary, if they shall see fit. I also offer to the refectory of the said monastery, for the use of the president every day in the refectory, my gilded cup which is chased over all the outside with savage vine-dressers fighting with serpents, which I am wont to call my crucibolus, because the sign of the cross is impressed transversely on the inside of it, with four projecting corners having a like impression; and also the horn of my table, that the elders of the monastery may drink out of it on the festivals of the saints, and may sometimes, amidst their benedictions, remember the soul of the donor, Wichtlaf."

Many other gifts are contained in this charter; and Wichtlaf, we are told, remained constant in his affection to the monastery as long as he lived, visiting it at least once a year, and always making some rich and valuable present.

As to the destruction of this monastery by the Danes in A. D. 870, I must not here run into all the details of that horrible event; but one or two facts I wish to mention. News of the enemy's approach was brought by some fugitives, who arrived at the monastery while the monks were performing matins. The Abbot Theodore, who had succeeded Siward, resolving to remain at his post with those whose advanced or tender age rendered flight or resistance equally impossible, and might perhaps excite compassion, ordered the younger and stronger part of the monks to escape, if possible, into the surrounding marsh, taking with them the reliques, principal jewels, and documents

• The reader will, I trust, understand that I give this introduction, and some other things of the same sort, not for the taste with which Scripture language is used, but as shewing the fact that it was so used, and leading to the inference that it was familiar, or, at least, not unknown.

of the monastery. The golden table given by Wichtlaf, the chalices, and all that was metal, were sunk in the well; but the table was so large that, place it which way they would, it could not be prevented from shewing above water; and at length they drew it out again; the fires were seen nearer and nearer, and the monks who were to fly with the other still more valuable things, which were already in the boat, pushed off, leaving the abbot to conceal the table as well as he could, He, with the help of two of his old companions, did it so effectually that I believe it has never been found to this day. Certainly it had not been two hundred years afterwards, at which time there seems to have been a tradition that it was buried somewhere outside the church on the north side. After this, they dressed themselves, and assembled in the choir to perform divine service, which they had scarcely finished when the Danes broke in. The abbot was slain upon the altar. The old men and children attempted in vain to fly. They were caught, and tortured to make them tell where treasure might be found, and then murdered. All perished but little Turgar, a beautiful child of ten years old, who kept close to Lethwyn the sub-prior, when he fled into the refectory, and seeing him slain there, besought his persecutors that he might die with him. The younger Count Sidrok was touched-he pulled off the cowl of the little monk, threw a Danish tunic over him, and bade him keep by his side. Under his protection, the child, who alone survived to tell the tragic story, went in and out among the Danes all the while they were at Croyland, went with them to Peterborough, and while accompanying them on their way towards Huntingdontaking advantage of the moment when Sidrok's followers, who brought up the rear, were suddenly called to rescue two carriages laden with spoil which had sunk in fording a river-he escaped into a wood, and, walking all night, got to Croyland early in the morning. There he found his brethren who had fled, and who, having spent the interval in a wood not far distant, had returned the day before, and were engaged in attempting to extinguish the fire which was still raging in many parts of the monastery.

How they endeavoured to repair this desolation, and how the exactions of Ceolwlph which followed brought the monastery to such poverty that the abbot was obliged to disband the greater part of the monks, I need not here relate. All the chalices but three, all the silver vessels except Wichtlaf's crucibolus, all their jewels, were coined or sold to satisfy his rapacity; and the few monks who staid by the abbot were in the deepest poverty. When Athelstan succeeded his father, Alfred the Great, in A. D. 924, this little company of twentyeight had dwindled down to seven; and when that monarch was succeeded by his brother Edmund, in A. D. 941, the number had decreased to five. Two of these, Brunus and Aio, after losing about the same time King Athelstan and the Abbot Goodric, gave up all hope of the restoration, and even the continued existence of the monastery, and migrated, the former to Winchester, and the latter to Malmesbury. Clarenbald, Swartting, and Turgar (the child of A. D. 870, and apparently the youngest of the three,) alone remained.

VOL. X.-July, 1836.

C

In A. D. 946, Edmund was succeeded by his brother Edred. If I had been writing the history of the Anglo-Saxons, I should have had much to say in the reigns of these sons of Edward,-of the old soldier Turketul, who had been chancellor to them all three, and to their father before them, and who was, moreover, their first cousin, being like them a grandson of Alfred the Great. In the second year of his reign, Edmund was threatened with invasion from the north, and Turketul was sent to York. Passing through Croyland on his way, with a great train-for he was not only the king's cousin, but himself lord of sixty manors-the chancellor was intercepted by the three old monks, who begged that, as night was approaching, he would be their guest. It is true that they had no suitable means for entertaining such a person, with such a retinue; and had it not been that in those days travellers of rank knew that they must, and therefore did, in a great measure, provide for themselves, they could never have enterprised such a matter. As it was, how they got through it is past my comprehension. But they did; they took him to prayers in the little oratory which had been got up in one corner of the ruined church, shewed him their reliques, told him their story, and implored him to intercede with the king for the rebuilding of their church. He was quite taken with the old men-senum curialitatem intimis visceribus amplexatus; he promised to be their advocate with the king, and their benefactor from his private means; and, when he went forward in the morning, he ordered his servants to leave provisions sufficient for them until his return, with an hundred shillings for their expenses. The old monks had made a strong impression, and during his whole journey the chancellor could talk of nothing, even to strangers whom he met on the way, or at inns, but the old monks of Croyland. After settling his business at York, he revisited them in his way back to London; and having passed the night there, and left them twenty pounds, he went on to tell the king, first about the northern business, and then about them. In short, (I assure the reader that I am not making a long story, but, I fear, spoiling one for brevity's sake,) having obtained the king's orders to do what he saw fit in the matter of restoring the monastery, he astonished his royal master by declaring his intention to turn monk. "The king hearing this, wondered beyond measure, and endeavoured by all means to dissuade him from his purpose, especially as he was now growing old, and, having been bred up in ease, had not been accustomed to the rigour of monastic life. Beside this, as in the most important affairs of state everything depended on his help and counsel, he not unjustly feared that the kingdom would be endangered." The chancellor answered, "My lord the king, God who knows all things is my witness that I have fought for my lords your brothers, and for yourself, with all my might; now, for your soul's sake, let your clemency permit that I may at least in my old age fight for my Lord God. As to my counsel and every assistance that my poor means can give, it shall be promptly given to all your affairs as long as there is life in my body; but your highness must certainly understand that from this time forth I will not handle the weapons of war." The king was grieved, but unwilling