But is she guilty? Yes, for her sun is rapidly, visibly sinking: and so good and gracious is the Lord in his dealings towards the children of men, that while of his own free and sovereign grace alone he exalts any people, irrespective of their merits or deservings, he never casts a nation down until they have so filled the measure of their iniquities as to drag destruction upon their heads. This is apparent even with regard to heathen lands: how much more so where the light of Christianity has shone, and the living God is worshipped, and served in the gospel of his Son! Did he ever remove a candlestick from the place where he had set it until warning, rebuke and menace had been utterly set at nought? If tomorrow's sun were to light a conqueror to our shores, and his setting beam leave England enslaved even to a pagan foe, could we call the Lord's ways unequal? We have broken our covenant in every way that power has been given us to break it in, and what follows but that he should cast our crown down to the ground, shorten our days, and cover us with dishonour?

Two sins we have committed: one is, apparently, irretrievable, the other is new every week. The latter is the breach of that remarkable covenant, which, from the very creation God has expressly marked as a recognition of himself-the Sabbath. What marvel if a return from the hallowed seclusion of a village parsonage to the vicinity of the great capital causes my heart to sink with dismay while I feel so near the very focus of impiety,-the very highest and most responsible taking the lead, where the very lowest and most abject eagerly follows, in the awful array of a nation trampling under their horses hoofs the law of

the eternal God. "Hallow my Sabbaths," is the gracious command of him who sitteth in the heavens, "that they may be a covenant between me and you." 'We will not hallow them,' is the defying shout of a Christian nation, favoured above all others since the day when Israel enjoyed her theocracy. 'I cannot afford to hallow it,' mutters the beggar who sweeps the crossing, and shrinks back as the carriage of royalty dashes by to head the throng of Sabbath revelry, within the sound of many a chiming bell, that sweetly flings upon the air the echo of that loving invitation, "Hallow my Sabbaths."

This crime is one that could at once be broken off: it is new every Sabbath morning: it is a systematic, periodical, premeditated defiance of the Most High. And he holds a measure, rapidly filling, of which the token is that our national sun is rapidly sinking, but oh who shall tell what crimson dyes the last expiring beam may wear-in what blackness of darkness a people who have thus provoked the Lord may be made to gnaw their tongues for pain, and yet be unable to repent!

But there was another sin committed for which it is to be feared no atonement will now be accepted; for the plague is begun. That crime was perpetrated in the national senate, ratified in the national palace, and the plague of leprosy has broken out in the most ancient seat of national learning, whence it now spreads over the land. When James the second endeavoured to fling the accursed chain over the necks of his people, a church well built up by his Protestant grandfather, rescued from the wiles of his Popish mother, and escaped from the corrupting influence of his profligate brother, presented a noble front of re

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sistence, and her captive bishops conquered him in Westminster hall, before William could interpose to rid the nation of his rule. But now, alas! the nation has sinned, and implicated the throne in its dark transgression, while the church permitted it. What follows? Judgment begins at the house of God; Popery is openly preached by men appointed to minister in pure Protestant forms of worship, and where are the seven bishops, where is the one bishop who will now, wielding the authority that of right belongs to him, say to the overflowing pollution, stay.'

Once more I can look out upon the fleeting glories of summer: once more I follow the retiring gleams of day, and feel that my country's sun must also set; but I feel it less acutely—I cannot desire that my God should be dishonoured, and his enemies permitted to laugh him to scorn. No-let England repent, or let England perish.

C. E.

THE THREE MARIES.

THE three Maries most readily suggested to the minds of my readers, probably are those of the holy women of old, who, while "all His disciples forsook him and fled," attended our blessed Saviour in his dying agonies. These were indeed great women—noble women; great and noble in the eyes of Him who seeth not as man seeth. In the eyes of men, however they were poor and despised; their name and their memory would never have found a place in the pages of worldly historians, the panegyrists of ruthless conquerors and blood-stained heroes; but their deeds are recorded by the Holy Spirit, and their names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

But the three Maries of whom I now mean to speak were the reverse of those; the Hebrew Maries were poor and humble; the British Maries were at the summit of human grandeur; each was the daughter of a king, and each was herself the possessor of a throne. Having said this, I need hardly announce them as Mary Tudor, Mary Stuart, and Mary of Orange.

Whatever may be the acquired taste in literature, which varies in different nations and at different periods of time, we may safely assume biography to be that to which the natural taste of man is most strongly directed. The early history of every nation is only to be found in the records of its heroes; their

notable exploits and sage counsels being the sources whence we incidentally learn its political and social state. And in the infancy of each individual there is always an earnest desire for stories about persons, rather than accounts of things; and of persons, too, of like passions with ourselves; for though the giant and the hobgoblin may add great interest to the tale, it is not so much those powerful personages considered in themselves, that affect the youthful listener, as the impression they make on the minds of the inferior actors, and the consequences of the controul they exercise in their affairs. And though, from duty, or interest, or necessity, other branches of literature may form the chief study in after life, yet biography never ceases to possess a powerful charm for every reader, a charm founded on the involuntary sympathy we feel in the joys and sorrows of others.

This sympathy is doubtless most lively, when those, whose memoirs pass under our review have been in circumstances somewhat similar to our own. But if it be less interesting, it may not perhaps be less profitable to study the working of those propensities and feelings on the great scale, that in private life are necessarily restrained within more narrow bounds. It may therefore not be unprofitable to Christian ladies, in any sphere of life, to contemplate the characters and conduct of the three British Queens.

Mary, the eldest daughter of King Henry the Eighth, was born at Greenwich on the 18th of February, 1516. Her youth was not spent like that of most of those who are in her exalted station: she was exempt from the frivolous gaieties of a court, and the flattering adulation of its attendants. When she was only ten years old, her father began to estrange