blished, it will want very little mending for a long time. Some cinders will fall out, of course; but these may be shovelled on the fire; they will do it good, if the fire be brisk,-they will burn very well; they may perhaps check the blaze a little, but this will save the coal, and will take nothing from the heat;thus all the cinders may be completely burned;—not a particle need be wasted; the next mending must, of course, be with fresh coal, and the cinders can be put on, by and by, before too many are made, and before the fire is allowed to go low. Thus there will always be a good fire, and a clean fire-side, and all done at as little expense as having a poor bad fire, and a dirty choked-up cinder hole beneath. When a labourer comes home tired from work, nothing cheers him so much as a good bright fire, and a clean hearth, and a happy look from his wife, who thus shews how glad she is to see him, and what care she takes to give him a cheerful welcome. I never could help being pleased with the bustling goodwife in the old song, with all her pains to welcome home her husband, and to make every thing about the house cheerful and pleasant for him, she does not forget the clean fire-side.

Rise up and make a clean fire-side,
Make every thing look gay,

'Tis all to please my own good man,
For he's been long away.

V.

LETTER FROM A FATHER TO HIS SON, AN APPRENTICE BOY.

MY DEAR BOY,

I TOLD you that Henry the eighth left behind him two daughters and a son. The daughters were Mary and Elizabeth, and they were both queens afterwards; but the son had the crown first. This was Edward the sixth. He was only nine years old when

he began to reign, and he only lived till he was 'sixteen; but he was an excellent young man, and seemed to have a delight and pleasure in all that was good. He was, besides, a remarkably good scholar, and he was able to see what was the true religion, and he did all he could to encourage it. During his short reign, then, the great work of the Reformation was carried on with such activity, that the superstitious practices of the Roman Catholics were almost

holly laid aside. This young king seemed to wish to give his mind, in earnest, to this great work; and the people were ready to receive the change gladly; for, since the Bible had been turned into English, and studied, it was easy to see, now, that many of the Romish practices had no foundation in Scripture, and that they ought, therefore, to be set aside. There were, besides, many good and learned Bishops, whose minds were enlightened to see the truth; and they lent all their help towards this good work. You have heard of Archbishop Cranmer, and Bishops Ridley and Latimer, and other such good men, who took great pains to make known the Gospel of Christ, and to bring the people to the knowledge and the practice of the truth. The young king took wonderful pleasure in hearing those good men preach, and in reading the good books which they wrote; for he wished to learn the doctrines of the Gospel, both for his own sake, and for that of his people. It was, indeed, a great blessing that it pleased God to graft in the heart of this young king this love for the truth; and we may return our humble thanks for the mercy which hath come down to ourselves, and of which we are, at this very day, partakers. How thankful we ought to be, that we have now the true religion of the Gospel, and that the vain ceremonies and superstitions of Popery are laid aside! But this ought to lead us to a diligent examination of ourselves, to see whether we, really, from our hearts embrace the truth, and whether we are really anxious to live according to that Gospel, which it is our hap

piness to have, now, within our reach. During the Popish times, we know that many abuses were introduced into the service of the Church. There were, no doubt, good and excellent men among the Papists. themselves, and they would, perhaps, tell us that the practices which we condemn, had either their foundation in Scripture, or that they were introduced for the sake of some good purposes. Perhaps there might be some truth in this; but we know that they did, in fact, produce a great deal that was wrong, and lead the people to very false notions of the religion of Christ.

They had their churches filled with images and pićtures of saints, and of the Virgin Mary; and to these the people would kneel down and offer their worship. Then they thought, that, by penances and mortifications, they could atone for their past sins; and this led them to depend on these things, and to establish a doctrine wholly contrary to the Gospel. And then this would, in many cases, lead a man to go on in bis sins, when he thought that he could, at any time, purchase the pardon of them. Now, we know, that man has no power to atone for his sins. It is our Saviour himself, who is the only atonement for our sins. He paid the penalty of them by shedding his own blood: on that alone we can depend for safety; and whatever, therefore, tends to injure this doctrine, is not only untrue, but it is ruinous. And, in accepting this great atonement for our sins as the great blessing of the Gospel, we know that we must make it our great aim, in future, to forsake sin, or we shall never be prepared for that kingdom which Christ hath purchased for us. And the Gospel teaches us this need of holiness, and shews us the help which will be given us to enable us to lead a godly life. How thankful then ought we to be, that, as Protestants, we have the pure religion of the Bible itself! How glad we ought to be to embrace its offers! How anxiously ought we to endeavour to live by its rules!

As King Edward was too young, when the late king died, to govern the nation himself, he was put under the care of executors and guardians; and, at the head of these was the Duke of Somerset, who was called the Protector. This nobleman was a great encourager of the Reformation, and this was of great use to the cause. It flourished in a wonderful manner, and was favoured by nearly all the nation, though a few still clung to the old practices, and tried to stop the hopes of the Protestants. These excited some disturbance; and some blood, unhappily, was shed. Two bishops, Gardiner and Bonner, of whom we shall hear more by and by, still clung to the ancient religion; and, for the opposition which they shewed, they were sent, as prisoners, to the Tower. I am always sorry when I read of the Protestant's using violence and cruelty towards those who differed from them. The Catholics, as we shall find, were dreadfully guilty of cruelty towards the Protestants. But that is no reason why we should do the same. We ought to know better; and besides, a good cause does not require this.

This king's short reign, though so happy for the nation, was one of much grief and trouble to himself. You remember that he had two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth; and in case of the King's death, the crown would naturally belong to the eldest of these sisters. But it was said that the late king had set them both aside by his will, declaring that they were not born in lawful wedlock, as neither of their mothers were his lawful wives. This was exactly of a piece with the tyrannical spirit of Henry the eighth. If, however, this had really been so, the next heir to the throne was the Queen of Scotland, the niece of Henry. There was, moreover, another lady called Jane Grey, an excellent lady; and she too was related to the King, but not near enough to have a right to be queen.

This good lady Jane, indeed, never wished it; but there happened to be a proud and ambitious

nobleman, the Duke of Northumberland, who contrived that his son, Lord Guilford Dudley, should marry Lady Jane, and then he entered into a scheme to get this lady to be acknowledged the heir to the throne; and he even prevailed upon the young King to believe that it ought to be so.

During all this time, the health of the young King was in a very bad state; and he seemed to shew strong symptoms of a decline; and this was, perhaps, the reason why Northumberland was so desirous of having Lady Jane at once declared to be his successor. The King's end seems to have been hastened by bad management; Northumberland was constantly about him, and he sent away the regular physicians, and had the King put into the hands of an ignorant old woman, who declared that she could cure him. Whether this was a contrivance of Northumberland to get rid of the King, we cannot say ; but it is certain, that from this time, he grew worse and worse; and it plainly appeared, that his end was fast approaching. He expired, at Greenwich, in the 16th year of his age, and the seventh of his reign, greatly lamented by all the good people in the kingdom; for so early a love of all that was excellent, did indeed give the best hopes of a happy and prosperous reign. The King died in the year 1553. I am, your affectionate Father,

T. S.

Nov. 19th, 1823.

MURDER OF MR. WEARE.

WE generally furnish our readers with some extracts from the newspapers; though these, in many cases, can scarcely be called news, as our intel ligence must frequently be at least a month too late We, therefore, usually endeavour to make such extracts as may prove of general use and interest, rather than to give such as mere novelty only might