as things in which we have no concern: we are dying creatures, and therefore every thing connected with death has an especial and undoubted claim on our attention. Let us stand, then, and gaze for a while on these sad pictures; and, by God's blessing, we shall learn from them lessons of true wisdom. To begin, then, with the sick chamber. Only think what a contrast to the gaiety, the restlessness of the world, is the sadness, the stillness, the solemnity of a sick room! The sick room is a picture of what the whole world really is; and in its occupations we see what ought to be the occupations of all the inhabitants of the world the sick room is a place where there is suffering, and approaching death; so is the world: in the sick room the sufferer is praying, and resigning himself, and thinking of his God, and the attendants are forgetting themselves in the zeal with which they wait on him. They tread lightly and talk gently they do not disturb him nor distract themselves by any worldly talk: patience, kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, are the qualifications for a sick chamber. O that they were equally so for a whole world; that the world in all these respects more resembled a sick chamber! But the illness gains ground: the scene gets more solemn: it will soon be all over: all hope of recovery is at an end. The only wish now is, that the last agonies may be shortened and softened: the attendants are almost worn out: their faces are pale with watching, and their eyes are red with weeping. The sufferer himself is aware that his end is near: he hears the voice that calls him away he can no longer feel pain: he no longer takes any notice. His friends can do no more for him: they press his hand, but he cannot return the pressure: they whisper words of prayer, but he does not heed them: all they can do is to sit round in silent sorrow and resigned anguish, and watch him as he lies, his features gradually changing, and his breath getting weaker and weaker, and harder and harder; and now they think he is gone. But no: it will be some time yet: and so they sit on, and have time to reflect, and to look back to the past, and to think how short a time ago he whom they now see dying was full of health and strength and good spirits, with all the world before him, and every prospect of a long and prosperous life. But God's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts; and he is going we shall see him no more. O God, forgive him his sins, and forgive us ours; and grant that he and we may find mercy of the Lord in that day—that dreadful day! But see! he is going now: the silver cord is at length loosed, and the golden bowl broken. Yes, he is gone! he has breathed his last. Pray no longer for him: he is dead; and nothing now remains but to close his eyes, and to lift up the voice of loud unrestrained weeping and wailing. And now the sad party breaks up, and each returns home, thinking of death as perhaps they had not done ever in their lives before. O, my readers, we are dying creatures, surrounded with death, whose business is first to mourn for others, and then to be mourned for ourselves. But are we aware of this?—are we thus dying daily? Are we not rather cheating ourselves into a belief that we have nothing to do with all this, thinking only of life, caring only for pleasure? But what is worldly pleasure to a death-bed mourner? What is life to an expiring sufferer? O God, teach us better! Strip the veil off our eyes, that we may see our real state, and learn true wisdom over a dying bed. And now comes the last scene of all, the funeral; the consigning of earth to earth, and ashes to ashes, and dust to dust; when the man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. The mournful procession goes slowly on, from the short home to the long home, from the house to the churchyard; and, common though the spectacle be, yet it never fails to strike and to warn and to sober, at least for the moment. The labourer looks up from his work and gazes with sadness at the scene, and then turns again with melancholy thoughts to his task of tilling the ground from whence he was taken, and to which he must return. It meets a gay party on the road, and their gaiety, for the minute at least, is hushed and silenced: even the very children stop their games and stand and look on, partly from curiosity and partly from real sympathy. And now the service is over, and the earth has begun to rattle on the coffin-lid; and all are once more dispersed, and the churchyard is once more empty all is now over: he is dead and buried: his place in society will soon be filled up, and he will be forgotten. But now, would any one wish to drive away the holy sorrow felt on such occasions, and not rather cherish and preserve it, as really useful, as most improving, as opening the way for true religion to come in and take possession of the heart? for religion is indeed the only cure for sorrow: other things, nay, mere time itself may make us forget it, but religion alone can sanctify it and turn it into joy. There is then, confessedly, very little happiness amongst us; very little, not only of religious joy, but of joy of any sort. How can it be otherwise? Where is our happiness to come from, when we so seldom go the right way to attain it? Some have poverty to struggle with, and some have pain and sickness which | better if they had tried ever so hard; and are wearing them down; some are regretting that they need not be under any alarm about the past, and some are full of anxiety about the future: much was not given them, and the future; while, with others, the seat of the much, they suppose, will not be required of malady lies deeper: the heart knoweth its them. own bitterness, and I doubt not but there are some who know what it is to feel the weight of sin upon the heart, the misery of a bad conscience, the gloom arising from a misspent life. But the world will not soon give up the matter: efforts are made to show that there is happiness to be found in it, independent of religion. But where?-in the sparkling cup, or the full banquet, or the harlot's house? O no; you know full well it is not there. But where then?-in the hurry of business, in heaping up wealth, in buying and selling and planting and building? O no! But where then? O confess at once that you are wrong: confess, if your pride will allow you, that you have been going the wrong way after it; that you have not found, and never will find it, till you consent to seek it where alone it is to be found, namely, in godly sorrow, in earnest repentance, in a holy life, at the foot of the cross, in the things of the Spirit. Here, here only, the beginnings at least of that happiness may be found, which the world cannot give and cannot take away. But many seem to think that happiness here is out of the question, and that it is in vain to seek for it. They seem disposed to be satisfied with their lot, because it is their lot, and they must have it, and cannot mend it: all they hope for is, that they shall be spared any very great pain, or any very great trouble. And so they go on, day after day, and week after week, and month after month, in their toilsome weary round of labour and rest, labour and rest: the same tasks come round again year after year, and they perform them with the same listless mind and the same careworn spirit that they did the year before: they eat and drink and sleep; and, if they can but have these common necessaries of life, they do not look much beyond them: if any trouble overtakes them, they grieve and are cast down, till their sorrow wears itself out, and is forgotten: if any pleasure comes in their way, they lay hold of it, and make the most of it till it is gone: and they seem to think that if they can thus plod through life, with no very great crimes to alarm them, and no very great troubles to vex them, they are doing very well, and hope, as they have not been very well off in this life, they shall be better off hereafter: and so, with a kind of false confused reasoning of this kind, they enable themselves to fancy that they are getting through life tolerably well; that they could not have done much But O, reader, what a low, false view is this of human life, of the purpose for which it was given, and the improvement of which it is capable! What a weary, dreary, unsatisfying state do you make of it! How completely do you allow yourselves to be defrauded of the best gifts, the choicest comforts, the noblest enjoyments which are yet within your reach, which God intends for all, which can make the lowest state honourable, the most wretched state joyous, the dreariest state most cheerful. You put religion out of sight; or at least you do not let it have that place in your minds, your families, your occupations, that it ought to have, that it claims to have. You want it to make your existence tolerable, to lift up your conditiou from that of a beast of burden to that of an immortal being, an heir of glory: you want it to sanctify your daily employments, to make your downsittings and your uprisings what they ought to be: you are not doing justice either to yourself or to the God who made you, in degrading yourself into a mere machine for cultivating the ground or exercising some trade, for spending a certain amount of money, or consuming a certain quantity of food, and forgetting all the nobler uses for which you were made, and the higher occupations of which you are capable. We might murmur, and complain of our state, if it were only what we make it to be, a short toilsome existence, with many cares and few joys, nothing certain, nothing lasting, and death coming very soon to put an end to it. O! what is this state without religion? It is nothing, nay, it is worse than nothing: it is life without an object, pain without relief, sorrow without comfort, death without hope. Neglect religion, and you have an immortal soul perishing, and utterly unprovided; a mind, capable of lifting itself up to heaven, grovelling in the dust of the earth; and a heart, susceptible of true happiness, pining and languishing in continual disappointment and sorrow. It is this which makes so many gloomy faces, so much murmuring and discontent, so many disconsolate mourners, so many sullen sufferers, so few joyful death-beds. God wishes to make us happy, and we will not let him. Christ comes up, and says, 66 weep not," but we will not stop: we do not heed him, nor accept the consolation he offers: it is, in fact, the last thing almost that enters into our minds, to think of getting happiness from religion. We allow it to be a duty, but how can it be all thus faithful, thus willing to trust God, and to put ourselves into his hands; but till we have done so, all I can say will be as idle tales. I do not say that by following Christ we shall escape sorrows, or gain advantages, or improve our present condition in life; but I do say that without Christ we must always remain with care-worn hearts and sin-burdened consciences; always pining after joys that we shall not find, and labouring under troubles that we cannot relieve; always expecting, and always disappointed; always walking in a vain shadow, with nothing sound, nothing substantial about us; ever, as we get older, feeling our few joys dropping from us, with none to take their place; look ing back on our few past days without pleasure, and not daring to look onward to eternity, because we shall be without any good hope; troubles and infirmities so thickening upon us, that death will be at length actually called for to relieve us of them; and so, like a faded flower, shall we perish, and like a shadow depart; and not till the dreadful day of judgment shall we be aware what happiness we have forfeited, what mercies we have thrown away. How much better it would have been for us never to have been born, than to have lived such a godless life, and died such a hopeless death! an enjoyment? and so we do not give our hearts to it: we are ready to cry out against having too much of it: we come before God as schoolboys to their master, unwillingly, backwardly, counting and grudging the minutes we are to allow him, and glad when it is over, and we can get away and return to the world again. But do you really want him to make you happy? Well, if you do, you must come to him in a very different spirit: you must let him make you so his own way. He will make you happy by first making you holy; as your holiness increases, so will your happiness. Chow strange does this all seem at first !-to be made happy by having to turn our backs on all our old sources of happiness!-by being, in fact, first made unhappy! How unlike this is to anything we have been used to! We are used to have our pleasure first, and, if we have our trouble afterwards, we bear it as well as we can: but God's way is, first to afflict us, and then to console us; first to cast us down, and then to raise up; first to make us mourn for sin, and then to comfort our souls with sweet hopes of forgiveness: thus doth God take us in hand. He bids us trust to him, and follow by the way that he leads us; and presently we find all things turning out quite right, quite pleasant, quite for our good, our peace, our joy, though in a way that we never should have thought of, never dreamed of taking, if we had been left to ourselves. O, what is the state of the child of God, who has thus been led onward in the way of peace? No outward change is visible: he is still in the world, still in the same situation of life; surrounded by the same scenes, within reach of the same pleasures, exposed to the same trials: all is the same; and yet how different! He is in the world, but no longer of it: he sees nothing more than other people, yet is he ever walking with his God, and following his Saviour. He has no greater share of worldly goods than other men; not so large perhaps; yet is he able to be happy when they are miserable, most content when they are finding most fault; sorrowing in-protestants. deed, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet rich, and able to make others so too; having nothing, and yet possessing all things. What menced a subscription for the purchase of a set of is it which makes this change, when all things ducted the rev. T. B. Fuller to the rectory of Thocommunion plate. On the 18th the bishop inoutwardly are the same? It is that now herold, and laid the foundation of Trinity church has given his heart to God, and God is shewing what he can do for him: his life is now hid with Christ in God: he is laying up treasure in heaven: he has trusted to God, aud God is rewarding the confidence he has placed in him he has sought for happiness in God, and God is proving to him that he has not sought in vain. We may be all thus happy, if we will be TORONTO. ON the 16th Aug., the bishop, accompanied by his A bell The ladies of the congregation have richly decorated the communion-table and pulpit, in which they were assisted by a contribution of 51. from the wives of the labourers. They have also com at Chippewa, on the site of the edifice destroyed some time ago by American incendiaries. On the 19th he consecrated St. George's chapel, at the large and flourishing village of Drummondville. This was a baptist chapel, but was put up to sale, and, having been purchased by the rev. F. W. Miller, M.A., and handsomely fitted up by him, is now a chapel of ease to the parish churches of Chippewa and Stamford, Mr. Miller, the proprietor, will be the officiating minister. On the 20th the bishop proceeded to Jordan, in the township of Louth, and laid the foundation of St. John's church. Immediately after the ceremony of laying the foundation-stone, gratifying proofs of the effect produced upon the spectators and assemblage were manifested in the contribution of several additional subscriptions. This exhibition of good feeling towards our church is the more precious and worthy of notice from the circumstance that the rev. G. M. Armstrong, the excellent clergyman in Louth, has had to contend against many difficulties since his arrival in that township about nine months ago. In that part of the country our church was but little known, or known chiefly through the reports of our enemies. This state of things is now passing away. Mr. Armstrong, indefatigable in his labours, and combining with his zeal a judicious adaptation of conduct to the circumstances of a new country, is gradu- | ally winning respect, attachment, and influence. No better proof of this can be given than that he has already commenced two substantial stone churches in the township of Louth, of which that just commenced at Jordan is one. The bishop, in a letter dated Toronto, Aug. 9, 1841, has offered, on behalf of the clergyman and congregation at Dundas, their grateful acknowledgments for the society's grant of 100l. towards building the church at that place. He has inclosed memorials from the parishes of Niagara and Bytown, respectively soliciting aid. The following is an extract from the letter:-"Several of the clergy, where congregations have built and are building churches, have requested me to solicit the venerable society for sets of books for the desk and communion-table. Such a present is highly valued by the people, as well as their clergy. Permit me to request you to bring this matter before the board perhaps a dozen of sets will be placed at my disposal; if so, I shall give a faithful account of their distribution." Twelve sets of books, for the performance of divine service in the new churches and chapels, were placed at his lordship's discretion accordingly. ANSELM, DURING THE REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUS. ANSELM was born of a good family at Aosta, a town at the foot of the Alps, about A.D. 1034. Being of a religious turn of mind, when only fifteen he wished to seclude himself from the world, and expressed his desire to enter a monastery, but was not permitted, through fear of his father. The disappointment led him to enter into the vices of a most corrupt age, which through life was to him a source of deep heartfelt sorrow. After having finished his studies, and travelled in Burgundy and France, he became a monk of the abbey of Bec, in Normandy, of which Lanfranc was prior, at whose promotion to the abbacy of Caen, in 1062, he succeeded to the priory of Bec; and, when Herliun, the abbot died, he was promoted to the vacant office. By invitation of Hugh, earl of Chester, who desired his spiritual instructions, he came to England, A.D., 1092. The see of Canterbury had remained vacant since A.D., 1089, when Lanfranc died. "Throughout Christendom," says Dr. Southey, "the church had been so liberally endowed, that its wealth at once endangered and corrupted it. Monasteries and cathedrals were frequently despoiled of their lands. Lanfranc had successfully resisted an usurpation of this kind; and Hildebrand boldly began by threatening the king of France with ecclesiastical censures, if such injustice were not redressed in that kingdom. Sees were kept vacant, that kings might enjoy their revenues; they were disposed of by purchase so commonly, that simony became the characteristic sin of the age. The struggle be tween the spiritual and temporal authorities did not extend to England during the life of William the Conqueror. Hildebrand was wholly occupied in his contest with the emperor; and Lanfranc best promoted the interests of the church, by avoiding all disputes with a king of his decided temper. The same conciliating prudence enabled him to live upon fair terms with William Rufus, and even to exercise a controlling influence over his irregular mind. But upon Lanfranc's death, the red king' restrained himself no longer: to supply the expenditure of his excesses, as abbacies and prelacies fell, he kept them vacant, and, by a system like that of rack-rent, drew from the helpless tenants all that it was possible to extort. The ample revenues of Canterbury were thus perverted for nearly five years; nor would the repeated entreaties of the clergy then have prevailed upon him to nominate a primate, if a dangerous illness had not awakened in him some fear of what might follow death." It may be observed, however, that the king was not the only aggressor; that many of the Norman chiefs and bishops were as rapacious as Rufus himself. Jean de Ville, bishop of Wells, formerly a physician at Tours, pulled down the houses of the canons of his church, to build from the materials a palace for himself. Renouf Flambard, bishop of Lincoln, once a footman in the service of the Duke of Normandy, plundered the inhabitants of his diocese to the utmost extent. One of the bishops had a repast served up to some monks in the hall of their convent, at which they were compelled to eat of forbidden meats, their attendants being females not dressed in the most modest attire. What must have been the state of religion, or rather the extent of irreligion, when the highest ecclesiastics ran to such an excess of riot! In the hour of sickness, William, as has been stated, nominated Anselm, then resident near Gloucester, to the see of Canterbury. The appointment was far from the wish of Anselm, who on his knees entreated the king with tears to change his purpose. The bishops, however, affirmed this refusal to be a desertion of duty. The king asked him, "Why he endeavoured to ruin him in the other world, which would infallibly happen if he died before the archbishopric was filled up?" His scruples were with difficulty removed; and, when the pastoral staff and ring were forced on him in the royal presence, he kept his fist so fast clenched, that it required some violence on the part of his friends to open it to receive the ensigns of office. This was indeed a very striking instance of the "Nolo episcopari." Previous to consecration, he obtained a promise from the king of the restitution of the lands and revenues the see formerly possessed; and, having thus secured the temporalities of the archbishopric, and done homage, he was consecrated with great solemnity, 4th Dec., 1093. Shortly after Anselm had a dispute with the bishop of London, as to the right of consecrating churches beyond his own diocese. The controversy, referred to Wulstan, bishop of Worcester, the only Saxon prelate living, was decided in favour of the archbishop; in consequence of which, Anselm consecrated churches and executed other parts of his functions in any of the towns belonging to the see of London, without the consent of the diocesan. The reputation for piety which Anselm had acquired, greatly increased, from the zeal with which he preached against abuses of all kinds, especially those in dress and ornament. The fashion prevalent throughout Europe, both among men and women, was to give an enormous length to their shoes; to draw the toe to a sharp point, terminating with the figure of a bird's bill, or some such device, turned upwards, and usually fastened to the knee by chains of gold or silver. The clergy affirmed that this was an attempt to belie the scriptures, which state that no man can add a cubit to his stature. What must have been the progress of education among them, when such an absurd assertion could be made? The pulpits denounced it with zealous indignation, and synods were assembled who absolutely condemned it. "Yet such," says Hume, is the strange perversity of human nature, that the eloquence which could overturn thrones, and march armies of crusaders into the deserts of Asia, could never prevail against the long-pointed shoes*! Another extravagance peculiar to the age, was the long hair and curled locks worn by the courtiers. The eloquence of the archbishop was more successful in decrying this fashion. He refused the ashes on AshWednesday to those who wore their hair in this fashion. The young men universally abandoned their ringlets; a strong proof of the superstitious reverence paid to some of the unmeaning and unscriptural ceremonies introduced and insisted upon by the papal see, and of the ignorance of men of the spiritual character of the great and saving doctrines of the word of God. permission to go abroad till the matter could be settled. The king, however, would only consent to a kind of suspension of the affair from March till Whitsuntide; but long before the expiration of it he broke the engagement, banished several clergymen who were on Anselm's side, and harassed the tenants of his see. His intention was to depose Anselm; but his suffragans declared that, without the papal authority, they could not do so. Anselm was exceedingly mortified with the prelates, and the treatment he had received; but he would not yield. Three ecclesiasties had meanwhile been privately sent to Rome to inquire into the late election, and examine which of the two pretenders was canonically chosen. Finding that Urban was so, William transferred his allegiance to him; and now hoped the pope's legate would procure the deposition of Anselm. He was disappointed; but he had gone too far to retreat. He resolved, therefore, to make the best of the matter, and if possible effect a reconciliation. By the advice of the barons, who had not followed the example of the suffragans in disclaiming their archbishops, Anselm was restored to favour on his own terms, still refusing however to receive the pall from the king's hands. It was at last agreed that the pope's nuncio, who had brought it to England, should lay it on the altar of the cathedral of Canterbury, from whence Anselm was to receive it as if put into his hands by St. Peter. This was accordingly done with great pomp and solemnity, in June, A.D., 1095. Matters thus adjusted, it was generally hoped that all occasion of difference would cease. It was obvious, however, that the reconciliation was not cordial. William had undertaken an expedition against Wales, and required the archbishop to furnish his quota of troops. Anselm, viewing the demand as oppressive to the church, though he durst not refuse to comply, sent his detachment so miserably accoutred, that the The cordiality between Anselm and William was short. The king, intending to wrest from his elder brother Robert the Duchy of Normandy, was endeavouring to raise all the money he could: Anselm offered five hundred pounds, which was refused as too trifling, the king in an angry tone dismissing both the gift and the giver. The severity of the archbishop's harangues against the fashions of the court was extremely obnoxious. William's recovery from illness left no beneficial impression on his mind, as is, alas! too often the case; and, when Anselm waited on him for permission to convene a national synod to check the disorders of the church and state, as well as the general licentiousness of the people-a licentiousness almost surpassing belief-the king refused, and so treated him as compelled him and his retinue to withdraw from court. Fearing the royal displeasure might im-king threatened to have him publicly tried for a mispair his usefulness, the bishops entreated William to receive him again into favour, suggesting at the same time to Anselm, that an offer of five hundred pounds, with a promise of as much more as soon as it could be raised, might restore him to the favour of the king. This proposal however he indignantly rejected. The king declared "he would never again look upon Anselm as his spiritual adviser; that he hated his prayers and benedictions; and therefore he might go where he wished." The grand cause of discontent between William and the archbishop, however, arose from the disputed succession to the popedom. A schism now existed in the church between Urban II. and Clement III., both pretenders to the papacy; and Anselm, who, as abbot of Bec, had already acknowledged the former, resolved to introduce his authority into England without the king's consent, who had refused to acknowledge him. He even begged permission to go to Rome, and receive the pall at the hands of Urban. These proceedings exasperated the king, and occasioned very warm disputes; to end which a convention was held at Rockingham castle. Anselm at once reminded the assembly that with reluctance he had accepted the archbishopric, and that he had made an express reserve of obedience to Urban. The bishops said there was a general complaint against him for intrenching on the king's prerogative, and they thought he was bound to submit. The bishop of Durham, on the part of the court, insisted that the nomination of the pope to the subject was the principal jewel of the crown; by which the kings of England were distinguished from the other princes of Christendom. The issue was, that a majority of the prelates, though in violation of their canonical obedience, renounced Anselm for their archbishop. The primate requested See Hume's England. demeanour. Anselm did not reply, but demanded positively that the revenues of his see should be restored, and appealed to Rome against the king. Intending to consult the pope personally, he begged permission to leave the kingdom, which the king refused, saying, "that he could not imagine the archbishop had been guilty of any crime that needed the pope's absolution; and as for consultation, he had so good an opinion of his judgment, that he considered him every jot as well qualified to give advice to the Romish pontiff as to receive it." He then applied to the bishops to intercede for him, but with no better success. Anselm still resolved to go; and, after taking a ceremonious leave of the court, embarked at Dover, whence he got to Rome, and was received by the pope with all the honours due to a confessor in the church's cause. Urban lodged him in his own palace, and ordered that the English who came to the city should kiss his toe. The king, hearing he had crossed the channel, seized on his temporalities, and made void every thing he had done. During his short stay in Rome, Anselm accompanied Urban to a countryseat near Capua, whither he retired to avoid the unhealthiness of the town. Here he wrote a book on the Saviour's incarnation, and preached so effectually in different parts of Italy, that he offered to resign his see, that he might be more serviceable to religion in a private station. The pope, however, charged him on his obedience never to quit his title, or abandon his office. Urban considered him a martyr in the cause of truth, and threatened to excommunicate William. He wrote to the king in a strain of authority, requiring him to reinstate Anselm in all the profits and pri vileges of his see; while William endeavoured to get the primate discountenanced abroad, and for that purpose corresponded with Roger, duke of Apulia, and others. This did not diminish bis popularity at the court of Rome. His assistance was of |