murder, he might, with the assistance of his kindred, within a year, pay the fine for his crime. The fines were fixed by law according to the rank of the person murdered. Even the king's head had a fixed price, as well as that of a baron, a bishop, or a private citizen.

Gangs of robbers greatly disturbed the peace of the country. The practice of perjury in courts of justice had become so preva ́lent, that witnesses had to appear with compurgators, that is, men who knew nothing about the facts, but who would swear that they believed the witnesses spoke the truth. The practice of judieial combat, was also admitted as a remedy against perjury. A man, who had a cause in court, might, if he pleased, challenge a witness, or even the judge, if he suspected his integrity; and the person challenged was obliged to fight. The successful combatant was supposed to be in the right, and the vanquished person in the wrong; for the combat was regarded as a solemn appeal to God for a decision.

In those days of darkness and barbarity, our ancestors adopted various other modes of determining whether an accused or suspected person was guilty, or not guilty. One was the decision by the cross. After an accused person had cleared himself by oath, he then took two pieces of wood, one of which had on it the sign of the cross; these he wrapped up together in wool, and placed them on on altar, or on some celebrated relic. Solemn prayer was then made for the success of Vol. IV. No. 3.

11

the experiment. The priest, or some other person in his stead, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if it happened to be the one marked with the cross, the accused person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty. the

The ordeal was another of barbarous methods adopted at that period. Boiling water or red hot iron was consecrated by prayers, masses, fastings and exorcisms. The accused person must take up a stone, sunk to a certain depth in the boiling water, or carry the hot iron to a certain distance; his hand was then bound up for three days, and the covering sealed. If, at the end of the three days, his hand appeared to be hurt by the fire, he was thought to be guilty; but if he had received no injury, he was pronounced innocent.

Another method of trial was by cold water. The accused person was bound hand and foot, and cast into a river or a pond; in this situation, if he floated, he was deemed guilty, if he sunk, he was declared innocent.

Several other methods were adopted, equally absurd; such as walking blindfold among hot plough shares, and the trial by bread and cheese, consecrated with abundance of ceremonies, and administered with dreadful imprecations.

Let it now be asked, Would not well educated children at this day, of ten years old, readily perceive the folly of such methods of deciding questions of right and wrong, or guilt and innocence? Yet such were the modes and customs of our ancestors, supported by the elergy and the

mag

istrates? Is it a sin to suppose that the people of the present age are more enlightened, and more virtuous, than such ancestors?

In November, A. D. 1002, was the time of the great massacre of the Danish inhabitants of Britain, by the Saxons. On hearing the news, Swein, king of Denmark, vowed revenge. He soon sent an army which spread desolation in England, and finally made a conquest of the country. Canute, a Danish prince, became king of England. The Danes however held the government but about 28 years; it then fell into the hands of Edward the confessor, who was of the Saxon line. In 1066, the Saxon government was again overturned by William, duke of Normány, who has since been called William the conquer

or.

The almost incessant wars in Britain, and the frequent revolutions in the government, had a powerful tendency to render the people ferocious and blood thirsty. With regard to the manners of the Anglo Saxons," says Mr. Hume, 66 we can say little, but that they were in general a rude, uncultivated people; ignorant of letters, unskilled in the mechanic arts, unfamed to submission under law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot and disorder. Their best

quality was their military cour. age, which yet was not supported by discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the prince, or to any trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the history of their later period; and their want of humanity in all their history."

Such were our ancestors generally, but about 750 years ago; and having concisely traced their history from the days of Julius Cesar, to the commencement of the reign of William the conqueror, we must now pause, and request the reader's patience, till he can see the next number of this inquiry. We may however remark, that probably very few readers after this survey, will wish to trace back to an earlier period than the eleventh century, to find a race of ancestors more enlightened, or more virtuous, than the present generation. If it may be truly said of them in general, at that period, that "their best quality was their military courage," they must have been a barbarous race of beings. For so far is military courage from being a Christian virtue, that it is more common to the worst of men than to the best; and there is nothing in it more amiable, or more Christlike, than there is in the intrepid ferocity of the tiger.

THE earliest Christians seem to have been bound together by ties, stronger than any before

known; and to have exhibited a model of union, affection, faith and zeal, which has justly excit

ed the admiration of subsequent ages.

It has been the unadvised practice of too many of the advocates for Christianity, to represent in too humiliating a manner, the circumstances of the first converts, to enhance, as they have imagined, the impediments which existed to the first reception of this divine religion. It appears not to be true, either that all the disciples of our Lord, or that all the first converts of his apostles, were men of illiterate minds or indigent circumstances. Had they been all illiterate, the history of our Savior would not have been written with such unaffected simplicity of language, and in some cases, such purity and elegance. And I think it is clear, that some of the earliest followers of our Lord were by no means dependent on the charity of others.

James and John left their ship and their hired servants, when they began to follow Jesus. Peter had a house at Capernaum, where our Savior sometimes dwelt; and he, with his brother Andrew, said to Jesus, "We have left all and followed thee;" which implies, that he and the other apostles, in whose name they spoke, had something to leave.

It is said, that John was a relation of Caiaphas, the high priest, and our Savior, when he was on the cross, committed his mother to the care of John, and he took her to his own home. It is hence natural to conclude, that he was able to provide for her. Matthew was called to be a disciple of Jesus, when sitting at the receipt of custom; that is,

as we should say, in the collestor's office. We may well suppose, that this was not entirely unprofitable, as we are told soon afterwards by Luke, that he made a great feast, to which Jesus and his companions were invited, as well as Matthew's acquaintance and his brethren in office. But whatever may be supposed to have been the worldly circumstances of Jesus and his disciples, he did not suffer his little company to forget the poor. They had a stock for these and other purposes; yet to show how little they depended on this for their support, it was committed to the care of Judas, who seems to have been in the habit of purloining from this little treasure of our Savior's beneficence.

common

If we consider the situation of other followers of Jesus, we find that Mary Magdalene was able to minister to him of her substance; and if we may judge from the quantity of spices, which were prepared by his fol lowers to eubalm his dead body, they could not have been in very indigent circumstances.

Mary, the sister of Lazarus, was so profuse in the use of the precious ointment, which she poured on the head of Jesus, just before his death, as to excite the murmurs of bystanders. Joseph of Arimathea, who begged the body of our Lord, was a rich man, and Jesus was buried in his sepulchre. And the invitations, which our Savior received to the tables of the rich pharisees, prove that neither he nor his disciples could have been regarded in a contemptible light,

on account of extreme dependence and want,

We find also that after the first effusion of the Spirit, a prodigious number of converts were made, consisting of Jews from all parts of the world, who had come to Jerusalem to worship. The picture we have of them represents them, as united in affection, and profuse in their liberality. So great was their number, that they probably found it necessary to divide into smaller societies for worship and communion. The apostles, we are told, were in the habit of breaking bread from house to house, that is, as I conceive, the differ ent houses where they met for worship. They are described as united together in the purest affection, and animated by the most unbounded generosity. Though in such a number of converts, there must have been men from all ranks of life, yet we are told, that none of them lacked. For as many as were possessors of houses or lands, sold them; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possess ed was his own; but they had all things common, and distribu-, tion was made to every man according as he had need.

It has been supposed that in this primitive circle of converts at Jerusalem, there was a literal community of goods, and that their whole wealth was thrown into a common stock, and placed at the disposal of the apostles; and that this was not a mere voluntary act, but expected as a thing of course from all the converts on their professing Christianity. If this were the fact,

it is a little extraordinary, that this state of things dtd not longer continue-that we have no traces of it in the subsequent history, and that it was not imitated in some of the other churches, which the apostles afterwards planted. But there are some circumstances in this very history of the Acts, which may lead us perhaps to a different conclusion.

That this community of goods was merely the result of spontaneous and ardent generosity, and not of any law of the society founded by the apostles, is, I think, to be clearly inferred from the story of Ananias. He was one of the new converts, and agreeably to the prevailing example had sold his possessions; but instead of faithfully acknowledging the amount of the money, which he had received, he attempted to deceive the apostles, and to keep back part of the price; and by offering a part for the whole, he hoped to retain his standing as a member of the society of Christians, and to be maintained out of the common stock. The consequence of this prevarication, which is called lying to the Holy Spirit, is well known. The language of Peter on this occasion is worthy of remark-Why hath satan filled thy heart to lie unto the Holy Spirit, to keep back part of the price of the land? Whilst it remained, was it not thy own? And after it was sold, was it not in thy power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thy heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. That is, you have attempted to deceive the Spirit,

with which we are miraculously endowed. This extraordinary story, I think, proves there was no law binding the early converts to give up their estates to the public service, and that Ananias, under the pretence of generosity, had indulged a fraudulent, vain, and perhaps covetous design. His crime was not sacrilege, as some have supposed; he had made no vow to throw his possessions into a common stock, or, in other words, to devote them to God; but it was gross hypoc risy and prevarication. It was a pretence, that he had bestowed upon the church the whole price of his land, when he was conscious that he had detained a part of it. It appears, I think, that the severity of this early miracle was necessary in the infant state of Christianity, to prevent any persons from joining the new community from sinister views and worldly purposes, with the hope of obtaining a share of the distributions, which were made. It is said to have struck terror into them all; it must have satisfied them that all fraud might be instantly detected; that none but the sincere and upright should dare to profess themselves converts to a cause, which appeared to be under the immediate protection of the Searcher of hearts. And it also illustrates in the most singular manner the pure, unaided propagation and success of Christianity, from conviction unfeigned and motives uncorrupted.

But it may be replied-is it not said that the first converts had all things in common? Yes but it would seem that this ex

pression ought to be explained by other clauses. They had all things in common. Why? not because they were under any moral or positive obligation to relinquish their estates; but because "the multitude of them who believed were of one heart and one soul." Neither was there any among them that lacked. Why? because they did not consider that aught of the things which they possessed, was their own. They were animated with a fervor of generosity, and a strong faith in that religion which taught them to look to another world for their recompense. They felt what they had never felt before, that there were ties stronger than those of interest or of consanguinity; in short, they gave an early and a most illustrious example of the disinterested spirit of Christianity. The poor,

whom they had before disregarded and despised, they now considered as heirs of the same hopes with themselves; brethren of the same generous Master, and entitled to all the relief and consolation which their rich fellow Christians could give them.

This spirit continued in an eminent degree in the Christian church. The history of the Acts and Paul's Epistles, furnish many other instances of the characters of the first Christian communities. The whole world seemed to them but one family, and this primitive church of Jesus, which had set the example of Christian generosity, was afterwards indebted to the distant churches for relief, when they themselves were suffering under calamity. From distant provin