the impression. The surrounding villages are thrown into excitement and consternation. The peaceful stillness of the Sabbath morning is broken by the din and clang of war. Being informed of Rupert's advance, Hampden sent off a messenger to Thame, to the Lord-General, advising him to hasten a force of infantry to intercept the Cavaliers. The only point at which Rupert could cross the river was at Chiselhampton Bridge, over which he had passed yesterday on his way from Oxford. Hampden, with a troop of horse, and joined by Gunter's dragoons, did all he could to harass and check the retreat, sustained by the hope that Essex would speedily be there. The opposing forces met on Chalgrove Field. The standing corn was waving over many hundreds of acres of unenclosed land. In the standing corn the forces were drawn up for battle. Rupert, ever prompt and daring, began the charge, which was hotly sustained. Major Gunter was slain, and his squadron scattered. Hampden put himself in the front ranks, and fought bravely, hoping to engage Rupert till Essex came up Essex came too late. Hampden had received his death wound, "being shot in the shoulder with a brace of bullets, which broke the bone." One of the prisoners taken in the action, said that he was confident Mr. Hampden was hurt, for he saw him ride off the field before the action was done, which he never used to do, with his head hanging down, and resting his hands upon the neck of his horse, by which he concluded he was hurt.* Tradition says he first rode in the direction of Pyrton. Twentyfour years ago, within six days, he had taken his first beloved bride, Elizabeth Simeon, from this place. It was natural that he should turn thither to die, but Rupert's soldiers were covering the ground, and he turned his horse towards Thame. In great agony, and almost fainting, he was conducted to the house of Ezekiel Browne. In the Grammar School, at Thame, he had received his education. At first the doctors held out hopes of recovery, but Hampden felt a conviction that his end was come. His country's weal still engaged his thoughts. As he lay in that great agony, he was heard to say, "That if he had twenty lives, all should go this way, rather than the gospel of our salvation should be trampled under foot." During this time he showed a wonderful measure of patience and meekness, being full of divine sentences, speaking as if he felt no pain, saying, "It was nothing but what he daily expected, and that he had long prepared against that time;" and he continued of perfect memory, cheerful spirit, constant in the cause, and encouraging others to the last.† He was attended by his old friends, Dr. Giles, of Chinnor, and Dr. Spurstow, of Hampden Church, who was Chaplain to the Green Coats. Clarendon, Hist. Rebellion. † Weekly Accompt. Being nearly exhausted, and labouring for breath, he turned himself to die in prayer. "O Lord God of hosts," said he, "great is Thy mercy, just and holy are Thy dealings unto us sinful men. Save me, O Lord, if it be Thy good will, from the jaws of death. Pardon my manifold transgressions. O Lord, save my bleeding country. Have these realms in Thy special keeping. Confound and level in the dust those who would rob the people of their liberty and lawful prerogative. Let the king see his error, and turn the hearts of his wicked councillors from the malice and wickedness of their designs. Lord Jesu, receive my soul !" He then mournfully uttered, "O Lord, save my country! O Lord, be merciful to . . . . ." And here his speech failed him; he fell back in the bed and expired.* Thus nobly died England's great patriot. His name shall be had in everlasting remembrance. The laurels of earthly victory did not deck his brow, but his end was worthy of his life, and a divine glory encircled his dying bed. His mortal remains were deposited in the church adjoining his mansion, among his own sweet and beloved Chiltern Hills. His soldiers escorted him to the tomb, singing the 90th Psalm as they went, and the 43rd as they returned. The happiest portions of his life had been spent at the noble family mansion. Here were the playgrounds and rural walks of his boyhood-the rabbits, and hares, and squirrels-pheasants and partridges, which are seen in such abundance now, were familiar to him. Hither he had returned after the dissolution of Parliament in 1628. Here he spent ten years in study, his favourite book being Davila's "Civil Wars of France." Hither his cousin Oliver the Great had often come to talk with him on those grave matters which affected his country's welfare. Here he had often had sweet converse with Egeon Askew, the learned divine who spent a silent, sedentary, studious life in the beech woods of Great Hampden. Here he spent the first years of his married life with the gentle wife whose memory he has honoured and immortalised by a simple and beautiful epitaph in the little church where his own bones now lie. And here dwelt his venerable mother, who was a woman of thirty when Queen Elizabeth died, and who lived to see her once slovenly nephew Oliver the greatest man in England, and who was passing a ripe old age near the ashes of her slumbering children when that terrible tempest swept over Britain on the night that Cromwell, the Lord Protector, left the world. She was a widow sixty-seven years, and died Feb. 21st, 1664, aged ninety. John Hampden was a gentleman, a Christian, a scholar, and a • Nugent's Memorials of Hampden. patriot. Even his political enemies can find nothing to say against him. Clarendon has given us a masterly sketch of his parts and abilities. His character as portrayed in history is stainless. He was beloved, respected, and feared. As a country gentleman he had the affections and goodwill of all who surrounded him. When his life was in danger in London, 4,000 Buckinghamshire gentlemen and farmers rode up to defend their noble squire. Hampden was a Christian. Salvation with him was a great spiritual reality, and not a mechanical ceremony. There is proof that a great and permanent spiritual change passed over him when a young man. Who can tell but his old friend Askew led him into the mysteries of redeeming love? He lived a life of strictness combined with cheerfulness. He was not a great talker. His words were few and weighty. He weighed the words and opinions of others before he gave his own. His letters to Sir John Eliot reveal a large, loving heart, and a mind filled with the most beautiful sentiments. Hampden was the great patriot of his day. "The eyes of all men were fixed on him as their Patriæ Pater, and the Pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. His reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided that no corrupt or private ends could bias them.' Hampden fought for a public principle. The ship-money imposed on him was trifling in amount, but the payment of it involved a principle the tendency of which was to undermine the constitution of the country, to make Parliaments a shadow, and the king's will supreme. He expended his money, his time, his talents, and at last laid down his life to preserve the constitution of his country from corruption and dissolution. He fought for law and liberty, against caprice and tyranny. His name is identified with all that is pure, and noble, and liberal, and spiritual in the history of this great nation. His blood is the seed of our precious liberties. As time rolls on the lustre of his name will increase. His cause was the cause of oppressed humanity. He put far from him personal ease, and self-applause, and self-aggrandizement, and laying his country's good on his benevolent and courageous heart, he yielded up himself, his property, his all, to the cause of truth, to the claims of justice, to lighten the burdens and assuage the woes of an afflicted nation. Hampden was a man of clear intellect, of warm affections, and of "dauntless breast," and to all large-hearted and liberal-minded Euglishmen-notwithstanding the snarl of party, and the sneer of bigotry * Clarendon. -his cause was justifiable, his course honourable, and his memory imperishable. "Was he not pious, valiant, wise, and just, Loyal and temperate? Everything that must Loughborough. G. H. THE REPULSED CONSTABLES; AND THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. NOTES ON TWO PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF JESUS.-JOHN VII., VIII.* MUCH of the historical interest and living force of Scripture is lost by those who read it only in short portions, and this is especially true of the Gospel of John. The account of the dealing of Jesus with the woman taken in adultery forms a part of the history of His visit to Jerusalem at that Feast of Tabernacles which preceded his death, extending over the whole of the seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters. The seventh chapter closes with a description of the miraculous effect produced by the holy aspect, demeanour, and discourse of Jesus, upon a body of constables sent by the chief priests to apprehend him as he taught in the Temple-courts. It was the last day"that great day of the feast" when the sacred precincts were crowded by a rejoicing throng of Jewish visitors from all parts of the world as well as of Palestine, and when the annual ceremony of pouring out water from Siloam was performed amidst the resounding songs of the Vintage-festival- that Jesus stood and "cried aloud assembled Israelites, like one of the ancient prophets, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink!" The people listened awestruck to his voice, "mauy" vaguely recognising in him the promised Messiah. Alarmed by the general disturbance of the popular mind at his discourses, and fearful of his growing influence, the Sanhedrim resolved on cutting short his career by suddenly * The following notes assume the genuineness of the opening passages of John viii. If the critical argument of Ebrard were insufficient to annul the trangely unappreciative reasons of Alford, we should find our justification in he internal evidence of truth, which we trust these "notes" may do something o bring into clearer light. The decisive argument of Ebrard is summed up n this, that abundant reason can be assigned for the attempted suppression of his passage if it were genuine and Johannine; none whatever for the inven ion or insertion of it if it were not originally in the gospel. "laying hands" on his person in the midst of the excited crowd, and probably by a sudden and secret execution. For this purpose they despatched a file of "officers to take him." We see these officers now approaching across the Temple quadrangles and colonnades, and at length standing before Jesus demanding his surrender. There is no difficulty in conceiving of the character of these men. We know the quality of the souls of constables and policemen in all ages and in all lands. They are pre-eminently persons who are little likely to be turned aside from their orders, those orders which give them all their official importance, by sentimental influences acting upon them from spectators, or from the persons whose activity they are sent to suppress. They are a class of men usually chosen for their firmness of purpose, their narrowness of view, and their steady power of resisting both moral and physical force which may be opposed to them in the execution of their duty. Now Jesus kept off a whole body of this class of people-a file of the police of Jerusalem attached to the service of the Sanhedrim-by his speech only. Not only so, but he disarmed them, and sent them back with their errand unperformed, with their strict orders unexecuted, and confessing to the authorities their inability to apprehend a man wh spake" as he did. To understand the nature of this achievement just imagine a body of the police of London sent from head-quarters to apprehend any person of whatever distinction or genius, who was thought to be exerting a pernicious influence upon the multitude, returning to Scotland-yard and telling the chief commissioners there that they found themselves unable to take into custody any one who possessed gifts of speech so remarkable. In 1851 Louis Napoleon sent armed bands of officers at dead of night to apprehend severa scores of the most eloquent statesmen in France at the cov d'état, Was there one of them who was capable of arresting this seizure, or of sending the officers away with a story of their incapacity to capture so remarkable an orator? But Jesus did thisdid it in open day, in a crowded court, when all around might ridcule the idea of a civil force being talked over by the criminal or seditious impostor whom they were sent to carry off into captivity. This was a wonderful stroke of power exerted upon men the least likely to be wrought upon by sentimental influences. The effect was produced by nothing of that which is commonly understood a"eloquence." It was no burst of oratory, such as once might hav been uttered by Demosthenes or Cicero, which accomplished th miracle. It was by these words only: "Yet a little time I am wil you, and then I go to Him that sent me. And where I am, thither ye cannot come.” You wonder, as you read the words, as in otta instances of recorded spiritual speech, what it was that produced the extraordinary result-words which, when read, seem to more little emotion, but when spoken set multitudes on fire, as when the |