reverend an appearance you make behind Hammond on the New Testament, a Concordance on one hand and a folio Bible with references on the other. You shall be welcome, sir, replied the gentleman, and perhaps you may find some company more to your own taste; he is but a poor counsel who studies one side of the question only, and therefore I will have your friend Woolston, T- [Tindal], and C-s [Collins] to entertain you when you do me the favor of the visit. On this we parted in good humor, and all pleased with the appointment made, except the two gentlemen who were to provide the entertainment.

Second Day.-The company met at the time appointed; but it happened in this, as in like cases it often does, that some friends to some of the company, who were not of the party the first day, had got notice of the meeting; and the gentlemen who were to debate the question found they had a more numerous audience than they expected or desired. He especially who was to maintain the evidence of the resurrection began to excuse the necessity he was under of disappointing their expectation, alleging that he was not prepared; and he had persisted in excusing himself but that the strangers who perceived what the case was offered to withdraw, which the gentleman would by no means consent to: they insisting to go, he said he would much rather submit him. self to their candor, unprepared as he was, than be guilty of so much rudeness as to force them to leave the company. On which one of the company smiling said, It happens luckily that our number is increased; when we were last together we appointed a judge, but we quite forgot a jury, and now I think we are good men and true, sufficient to make one. This thought was pursued in several allusions to legal proceedings, which created some mirth and had this good effect that it dispersed the solemn air which the mutual compliments on the difficulty before-mentioned had introduced, and restored the ease and good humour natural to the conversation of gentlemen.

The judge perceiving the disposition of the company, thought it a proper time to begin, and called out, Gentlemen of the jury, take your places; and immediately seated himself at the upper end of the table. The company sat round him, and the judge called on the counsel for Woolston to begin.

Mr A., counsel for Woolston, addressing himself to the judge, said, May it please your lordship, I conceive the gentleman on the other side ought to begin, and lay his evidence which he intends to maintain before the court; till that is done it is to no purpose for me to object. I may perhaps object to something which he will not admit to be any part of his evidence, and therefore, I apprehend, the evidence ought in the first place to be distinctly stated.

Judge. Mr B., what say you to that?

Mr B., counsel on the other side.-My Lord, if the evidence I am to maintain were to support any new claim, if I were to gain any thing which I am not already possessed of, the gentleman would be in the right; but the evidence is old, and is matter of record, and I have been long in possession of all that I claim under it. If the gentleman has any thing to say to dispossess me, let him produce it, otherwise I have no reason to bring my own title into question. And this I take to be the known method of proceeding in such cases; no man is obliged to produce his title to his

possession; it is sufficient if he maintains it when it is called in question.

Mr A.-Surely, my lord, the gentleman mistakes the case. I can never admit myself to be out of possession of my understanding and reason; and since he would put me out of this possession, and compel me to admit things incredible in virtue of the evidence he maintains, he ought to set forth his claim or leave the world to be directed by common sense.

Judge.-Sir, you say right; on supposition that the truth of the Christian religion were the point in judg ment. In that case it would be necessary to produce the evidence for the Christian religion; but the matter now before the court is whether the objections produced by Mr Woolston are of weight to overthrow the evidence of Christ's resurrection. You see then the evidence of the resurrection is supposed to be what it is on both sides, and the thing immediately in judgment is the value of the objections, and therefore they must be set forth. The court will be bound to take notice of the evidence, which is admitted as a fact on both parts. Go on, Mr A.

Simon Patrick (1626–1707), born at Gainsborough, was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge. There he came under the influence of John Smith, the Cambridge Platonist, then a youthful Fellow, whom he revered till the end of his life. Successively rector of St Paul's, Covent Garden (1662), and Dean of Peterborough (1678), he became Bishop of Chichester (1689) and of Ely (1691). He was a devout and erudite theologian, and a sagacious and catholic Churchman, equally anti-puritan and anti-papal. His sermons, commentaries, and devotional works were long famous; though now they seem prolix enough ; amongst them A Brief Exposition of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, The Parable of the Pilgrims, The Heart's Ease, The Christian Sacrifice, and The Devout Christian Instructed. He translated some Latin hymns, and wrote a number of religious poems. autobiography is included in his works (9 vols. Clar. Press, 1858). In it he tells us that his grandfather was a gentleman of good quality and fair estate, as well as a competent scholar, who had fifteen children, for the younger of whom he could accordingly make but slender provision.

a

An

He gave his sons a taste of learning, keeping a schoolmaster in his house to instruct them. My father kept such a tincture of it, that though he was bound apprentice to mercer, yet he was a great lover of books, and read very much to his dying day. He had a great desire to breed me a scholar, and put me early to a master of great fame, but of no great skill in teaching, as I myself found when I came under the tuition of that worthy man Mr Merryweather, who was an excellent Latinist, as he showed by his translation of Religio Medici. But I ought to acknowledge, what my former master wanted in learning he made up in piety. For he touched my heart betimes by his affectionate discourses upon some part of the Church Catechism, which he

was wont to explain on Saturday in the afternoon; which I cannot think of without thankfulness to God for those discourses. Before which time my mind was prepared to receive those good instructions, by the care of my godly parents in my very childhood; wherein they endeavoured to instil good principles into me and I can remember many exhortations which my mother upon all occasions made me to be good, and to avoid the sin of lying and such like; which made such an impression upon me, that I cannot remember I ever disobeyed her in the smallest injunction she laid upon me. She was the daughter of an holy minister in Nottinghamshire, and had been bred up by the rules of the Practice of Piety, a book of great note in those days. To those she laboured to conform me, causing me, for instance, to read to her three chapters in the Bible every day; whereby (reading six psalms when I came there) it was read over every year.

My father constantly prayed with his family morning and evening when he was at home, and when he was abroad my mother thought herself obliged to it; and I can never forget with what warmth she commended us all to God. Especially on the Lord's day they were very strict, and ordered things so that every one went to church; and we having no sermon in the afternoon, my father after prayers was wont to read a sermon at home, and sing psalms both after dinner and after we came from church. Sometimes indeed he would go to hear a sermon in the afternoon in a neighbouring town; for which reason he got the name of a Puritan, but very undeservedly, for I remember very well that the sermons he read at home were some of the famous Dr Sanderson's, which he read over and over with high admiration: and he constantly went to the church where the Common Prayer was read (as it was where we lived), a long time after the beginning of our civil wars without any scruple; and at the return of the king immediately attended them again to the end of his days. This I have often reflected upon as an argument of great judgment in my father, that he should make choice of such a volume of sermons to read constantly, and none else but those he heard in the church, which he wrote and would repeat in his family.

of

Being thus educated, I had an early sense religion (blessed be God) imprinted on my mind; which was much increased by my attending to sermons: for having, when I was a school boy, learnt to write in characters, my father required me to take the sermons I heard in that manner, and read them over when I came at home. This, no doubt, fixed my thoughts upon what was delivered, and made me remember it. Insomuch that hearing a rigid sermon about reprobation of the greatest part of mankind, I remember well that when I was a little boy, I resolved if that were true, I would never marry; because most, if not all my children, might be damned.

When I was about twelve years old, I had a most dangerous fever, and there was little hope of my life, when I was extremely troubled that I had neglected often to say my prayers; and I resolved, if God would spare me, to be more careful in time to come, as I think I was. Many other deliverances I had in my very young years, which I shall not here set down, but only mention one which

was

very remarkable. When I was about thirteen or fourteen years old, it was thought I might very safely ride alone with my father and mother a small journey. And being set upon a little horse, we went through a gate entering into a large common; this gate being let fall to, gave a great clap, and made such a noise as frightened my horse and made him run away with me. I sat a good while, but at last he threw me, and I fell into a sawpit, which my father and mother feared might prove my grave. But, blessed be God, I was laid there all at length, and taken up without the least hurt. This I have often thought of as a singular providence of God over me, which I now acknowledge with thankfulness to him.

For

Not long after it was thought I might be fit for the university. But the war between king and parlia ment breaking out, put by all those thoughts; my father falling into great straits and difficulties. the town of Gainsborough thought it would be most for their security, if they cast up some works round the town, and got fire arms, and formed themselves into a company of six score men. But they declared neither for king or parliament, intending only to stand upon their guard against rovers. But in a short time the garrison of Newark (which was but seventeen miles from it) sent out a strong party who surrounded the town very early in the morning, and demanded it should be instantly surrendered to the king; which was immediately done without the least resistance or dispute. Whereupon our schoolmaster fled, and left all his scholars to play; till at last a neighbouring minister undertook the charge, who we found did not understand so much as ourselves; and besides, sometimes never came among us for three days together. This made the school break up, and, which was worse, there was a great breach in the town by a new oath that was tendered to them. I do not remember what it was, but only that my father was one that refused to take it: whereupon he was ordered by some furious persons in the committee to leave the town, and not permitted to stay and dispose of his wife and children and goods. He obeyed; but from a neighbouring place sent a petition to be delivered by my mother to the Earl of Kingston, who was the governor of the town. He received her with much humanity, and asked her, among other things, what made her so cheerful in such a distress; for she did not appear before him in tears, but with an humble modest confidence. To which she replying that she always had a good hope in God, and now expected to find favour with his lordship, he immediately revoked the order of the committee, and gave my father leave to return, and to dispose of his family and affairs before he departed. When he came back, he found a gentleman in town of singular goodness, and a great friend of his, Sir William Pelham of Brocklesby, who very much pitied his condition, and prayed him to leave what money he had with him, and go with his wife and children to his house at Brocklesby, where they should be kindly entertained. This extraordinary kindness he most thankfully embraced, and carried my mother, my younger brother and sister, with his goods, to Sir William's house; but thought fit to go himself with me to Boston, where he had a cousin who received us into his house.

Here I did but lose my time, and therefore my father, who still in his low condition was desirous to make me a scholar, sent me to Hull, where he had a good friend, Mr Foxley, who, with his wife, were as kind to me as to their own children. There I went to school every day with a master who preserved what learning I had, if he did not add unto it. Mr Foxley, who was an wholesale grocer, had such an affection to me, as his wife had also, that he offered to take me his apprentice for nothing, if I would be of his trade. This was a great temptation, he being a great dealer, and a very rich man. But my father was so kind as to leave me to my own choice, and I persisted in my desire to be a scholar, in which Mr Foxley mightily encouraged me, and both he and his wife gave me some pieces of gold, when I went from them to the university: for I had given some proofs of my being religiously inclined, which made them, being pious persons, have a more than ordinary love to me. For instance, when Mr Foxley was gone a journey (who always used to pray with his family before he went to bed) I composed a prayer, about the sixteenth year of my age, and said it in the family without book, during his absence. This was highly acceptable to them, as I hope it was well pleasing to God, who thus early disposed me to his service.

But many things hindered my going to the university; for my father was brought still lower, and disabled to maintain me there as he desired. For the parliament soldiers plundering Sir William Pelham's house, took away my father's goods, which were there with my mother, as well as his. Several other losses befell him, and all the country was so infested with soldiers that it was dangerous to travel. Notwithstanding which, my father adventured to carry me round from Boston to Lynn, and so to Cambridge; whereby we passed without any impediment.

It was in the year 1644, when I was between seventeen and eighteen years old, and had some discretion to govern myself. My father had recommendations to Dr Whichcote and Dr Cudworth, of Emanuel College, who, it was hoped, might take me to be their sizer. For my father was SO mean then, he could not otherwise maintain me. They were both very kind, and being full themselves, recommended us to Queen's College, which was newly filled with fellows from thence. Thither we went, and I was admitted there June 25th of that year, under Mr Wells, who loved me very well, insomuch that he left me the key of his chamber, and of his study, when he was out of town. Here I found myself in a solitary place at first; for though Mr Fuller, in his Church History, was mistaken in saying this college was like a landwrack (as I think his words are), in which there was [not] one left to keep possession, yet there were about a dozen scholars, and almost half of the old fellows: the visitors at first doing no more than putting in a majority of new to govern the college. The others, rarely appearing, were all turned out for refusing the covenant ; which was then so zealously pressed, that all scholars were summoned to take it at Trinity College. Thither I went, and had it tendered to me. But God so directed me, that I, telling them my age, was dismissed, and never heard more of it-blessed be God.

I had not been long in the college before the master, Mr Herbert Palmer, took some notice of me, and sent for me to transcribe some things he intended for the press; and soon after made me the college scribe, which brought me in a great deal of money, many leases being to be renewed. It was not long before I had one of the best scholarships in the college bestowed upon me; so that I was advanced to a higher rank, being made a pensioner. But before I was bachelor of arts this good man died, who was of an excellent spirit, and was unwearied in doing good. Though he was a little crooked man, yet he had such an authority, that the fellows reverenced him as much as we did them, going bare when he passed through the court, which after his death was disused.

I remember very well that, being a member of the assembly of divines, he went off to London, and sometimes stayed there a quarter of a year. But before he went, he was wont to cause the bell to be tolled, to summon us all to meet in the hall. There he made a pathetical speech to us, stirring us up to pious diligence in our studies, and told us, with such seriousness as made us believe, he should have as true an account from those he could trust, of the behaviour of every one of us in his absence, as if he were here present with us to observe us himself. This he said we should certainly find true at his return. And truly he was as good as his word; for those youths whom he heard well of, when he came back to college, he sent for to his lodgings, and commended them; giving books to those that were well maintained, and money to the poorer sort. He was succeeded by a good man (Dr Horton), but not such a governor: under whom I was chosen fellow of the college, when I was one year bachelor of arts; before which time I had been so studious as to fill whole books with observations out of various ancient authors, with some of my own which I made upon them. For I find one book begun in the year 1646, wherein I have noted many useful things, and another more large in the year 1647, having the word Æternitas at the top of many pages, by the thought of which I perceive I was quickened to spend my time well. For I have set down what I did every day, and when I took the liberty to recreate myself.

It is a great comfort now in my old age to find that I was so diligent in my youth; for in those books I have noted how I spent my time. What progress I made in 1648 I cannot tell; for I cannot find any book which gives an account of that year; but I have two which relate my improvements in 1649: and the next year, March 21st, 1650, I was admitted master of arts.

Thomas Ken (1637-1711), the saintly Nonjuring bishop, was a native of Little Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire, and was educated at Winchester and at Hart Hall and New College, Oxford. He held in succession, between 1663 and 1672, livings in Essex, the Isle of Wight, and Hants; but having been elected a Fellow of Winchester College, resided in Winchester till 1679. In 1667 he obtained from Morley, Bishop of Winchester, the living of Brixton, where he wrote his famous morning, evening, and midnight hymns, which he sang daily to his own accompaniment

on the lute. The first two of these hymns or part of them are in every collection of sacred poetry and in the memory of almost every English child. There must be few who do not know by heart at least one verse :

Awake, my soul, and with the sun,
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.

In 1674 Ken published a Manual of Prayers for the use of the Scholars of Winchester College. It was in this work the three famous hymns, subsequently altered in wording, were first published. In 1679 he was appointed chaplain to the Princess Mary, but was horribly dissatisfied' with the

THOMAS KEN.

After an Engraving from a Drawing by Scheffier.

Prince of Orange's behaviour to her, and returning to England next year, was made chaplain to Charles II. He refused the use of his house to Nell Gwynne when the court visited Winchester, where he was a prebendary. In 1683 he went to Tangiers as army chaplain, and in 1684 was made Bishop of Bath and Wells. Having refused to publish the Declaration of Indulgence issued by James II., Ken was one of the seven bishops sent to the Tower. He nevertheless found himself unable with a good conscience to take the oath of allegiance to William III., and was deprived. He had then saved a sum of £700, and in lieu of this his friend Lord Weymouth guaranteed him £80 a year and residence at his mansion of Longleat, where Ken lived till his death. In

his later years he interested himself in collecting subscriptions for relief of the poor Nonjurors. He was esteemed a great preacher in his own day, but is remembered now only for his three hymns and his saintly character. His chief prose work is his Practice of Divine Love, an exposition of the Church Catechism (1685), the others being mainly sermons.

From the following specimens of his other poetical works it will be easily understood why only the three hymns are remembered. This is the beginning of the hymn for Good Friday:

A song of Jesus I design,

But stumble at the leading line;
Of Jesus' passion I would sing,
And for this day's oblation bring;
But cannot the dispute decide

'Twixt grief and love, which me divide.

When Jesus' sufferings I review,
And know myself to be the Jew,
Whose sins created all the woe
God-flesh assumed to undergo;
I dread my guilt, and in my eyes
Of tears I feel two fountains rise.

But when sweet Jesus to my sight
Appears in a salvific light,
Where on the cross He suffers pain,
That I may bliss eternal gain,

O then my heart with love runs o'er,
And is inclined to grieve no more.

The Easter Day hymn commences:
Say, blessed angels, say,

How could you silent be to-day?

Your hymn the shepherds waked that morn,
When great God-man was born,

But when He rose again,
They heard no eucharistic strain.

You saw God-man expire,
Did you His rising not admire?
How when His soul at parting breath
Enter'd the realm of death,
He conquering forced His way,
And re-inspired His buried clay.

Had you His rise admired, Hymn is by admiration fired; But you profoundly were amazed When you upon Him gazed, And while amazement reigns,

It all poetic force restrains.

And this is the first verse of the hymn for Christmas:

Celestial harps prepare

To sound your loftiest air;
You choral angels at the throne,
Your customary hymns postpone ;
Of glorious spirits, all ye orders nine,

To sute a hymn, to study chords combine.

Ken's epic style may be illustrated by a fragment from Edmund, in which Prince Edmund thus confers with Saint Hubert about marriage:

O father, you can unperplex my mind,
My realm are for my marriage all inclined;
I love, but know not who she is, or where,
And to discover either, I despair;
Despairing, I in celibate would live,
Since I my heart can to no other give;
I feel too great a load in cares of state,
Cares conjugal may much increase the weight;
More hours I fain would in my closet spend,
Pure virgins best the affairs of Heaven attend.
Son, said the saint, if you both lives compare,
Both different ways may in God's favour share;
Prayers, meditations, and intentions pure,
A heart which no temptations can allure;
Self-abnegation and a conscience clear
Enduring no one lust to domineer ;
All graces which incarnate God enjoin'd,
The married equally with virgins bind.

Contemplatives have easy loads to bear,
Freer from trouble and distracting care,

Loose from the world, and disembroil❜d from sense,
Their prayers may longer be, and more intense:

To no relations virgins have a tie

To pluck them back, but unmolested die ;

A virgin priest the altar best attends,

Our Lord that state commands not, but commends. Hawkins published the prose works, with a Life, in 1713, as did Round in 1838, and Benham in 1889. Several works attributed to Ken are by most authorities regarded as spurious. Ken's poetical works included hymns; poems on gospel subjects and the attributes of God; two epics, Edmund and Hymnothes or the Penitent, each in thirteen books; Anodynes; Preparations for Death; and Damonet and Dorilla, or Chaste Love, a pastoral. They were collected by Hawkins in 4 vols. (1721), and are mostly awkward and tedious. A selection of his 'Hymns and Poems for the Holy Days and Festivals of the Church' was published in 1868 as Bishop Ken's Christian Year. It is known that these hymns were highly prized by Keble, who apparently took thence the idea of his own Christian Year. See Lives by Bowles (1831), Anderdon (1851-54), Plumptre (2 vols. 1888), and Clarke (1896).

He

Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) is less remembered as the conscientious and persecuted Nonjuring bishop than as the trenchant and unsparing castigator of the corrupt stage of his time. was born at Stow-cum-Quy, Cambridgeshire, son of a clerical schoolmaster at Ipswich; and here and at Caius College, Cambridge, he was educated, afterwards becoming rector of Ampton near Bury St Edmunds, and lecturer at Gray's Inn. His reply to Burnet's Inquiry into the State of Affairs (1688) cost him some months in Newgate. He next waged warfare on the crown with incisive pamphlets, and was arrested in 1692 on suspicion of being involved in a Jacobite plot. In 1696 he gave absolution to the would-be assassins Friend and Parkyns on the scaffold, for which offence he was outlawed. In 1698 he published his Short View of the Immorality of the English Stage, which fell like a thunderbolt among the wits. It is inspiriting,' says Macaulay, 'to see how gallantly the solitary outlaw advances to attack enemies, formidable separately, and, it might have been thought, irresistible when combined, distributes his swashing blows right and left among Wycherley, Congreve, and Vanbrugh,

treads the wretched D'Urfey down in the dirt beneath his feet, and strikes with all his strength full at the towering crest of Dryden.' Collier's argument carried the country with it, and helped to bring back the English drama to good morals and good sense. That excessive stage-profligacy which was partly a reaction against the rigidity of Puritanism, and had far outrun the parallel laxity of contemporary social morals, was immediately to some extent checked. But it was not without a struggle that the wits consented to be worsted. Congreve and Vanbrugh, with many of the smaller fry, answered angrily but weakly, and were crushed anew by the redoubtable Nonjuror, who was 'complete master of the rhetoric of honest indignation.' 'Contest,' says Dr Johnson, 'was his delight; he was not to be frighted from his purpose or his prey.' There were not merely replies but defences, second defences, and vindications of the Short View by the irrepressible Censor Morum. Even Congreve and Vanbrugh condescended to omit 'several expressions' from the Double Dealer and the Provoked Wife. The great Dryden stood apart at first, but at length in the preface to his Fables (1700) acknowledged he had been justly reproved. 'I shall say the less of Mr Collier,' he says, 'because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good one.'

But Dryden complained, and fairly, that his antagonist had often perverted his meaning, that he was too much given to horse-play in his raillery, and came to battle like a dictator from the plough;' and that 'if zeal for God's house had not eaten him up, it had at least devoured some part of his good manners and civility.' No doubt Collier erred by pedantry and want of discrimination. He treats with as fierce indignation whatever appears to him 'profanity' as he does the grossest offences against decency. And amongst sins of profaneness he reckons not merely all light allusions to religious words, phrases, and subjects, but any disrespectful comments on Churchmen or ecclesiastical affairs. He does not merely protest against speaking of the clergy at large as hypocrites and impostors; even to assume that some of the clergy were unworthy of their cloth was with him a sin, and the usual ejaculations of impatience were treated as heinous examples of blasphemy. It must have been trying to him, a partisan of the Stewart cause, to have to attack an institution so intimately bound up as was the theatre with the principles of the Restoration; and painful to the High Churchman to be spokesman of an argument usually associated with censorious Presbyterians