condemnation, will be gross and feculent. Whether it arose from this superstition, or from that love for the land of their fathers which in the Jews is connected with the strongest feelings of faith and hope, certain it is, that many have directed their remains to be sent there. "We were fraughted with wool," says an old traveller, "from Constantinople to Sidon, in which sacks, as most certainly was told to me, were many Jews' bones put into little chests, but "unknown to any of the ship. The Jews, our "merchants, told me of them at my return from "Jerusalem to Saphet, but earnestly intreated

me not to tell it, for fear of preventing them "another time." Sometimes a wealthy Jew has been known to import earth from Jerusalem wherewith to line his grave. This is a point of feeling not of superstition: but superstition has made the Italians, in old times, import earth from the same country for whole churchyards.

CARDINAL DU PRAT.

Melancthon, the reformer, relates the following story: "The King, Francis I. of "France, having received some letters from "Rome, spread a report that Pope Paul was "dead. He sent for his Chancellor, Cardinal "du Prat, whom he knew to be an ambitious

That's

"man, and very desirous to be made Pope, and "told him that piece of false news. The Cardi"nal represented to the King how much it con"cerned him and his kingdom that the next Pope "should be a good friend to him. 'Tis certainly "so, replied the king; what if we should make "you Pope? The Cardinal approved the mo"tion. This cannot be done without money, "said the King, and I have not the necessary "sums to carry on such a project. The Cardinal "offered him two tons of gold, (in another ac"count four hundred thousand crowns). "enough, said the King, I'll add to it something "of my own. The next letters that came from "Rome, brought advice that the Pope was still "living, and had not been sick. The Cardinal, "told the King of it, and demanded his money. "The King's answer was, I'll chide my ambassa"dor for writing to me false news: as for the "money, he said, if the Pope be not dead, he will "die." It may be as well to add, that this French Wolsey died a miserable death. Mezerai says, that he was cruelly tormented by the remorses of conscience. He had been a great persecutor of the Protestants. He was the first who thought fit that the parliament should take cognizance of heresies, because he said they were attended with blasphemy. It was he likewise

who gave the first commissions to put to death those who opposed the church of Rome. He was devoured in his last moments with vexation on seeing his trunks sealed up, so that he said, "See what it is to serve a King with body and "soul;" and lastly, we are told by Henry Stephens, that his stomach was devoured with worms, and he died uttering blasphemies against God.

MICHAEL STIFELIUS.

Michael Stifelius, a Lutheran divine, in an arithmetical sermon, predicted the end of the world in 1532. At length the day arrived, and while he was preaching, and they, the inhabitants hearing and expecting the completion of his prophecy, a violent storm arose, with thunder and lightning: the end of the world was certainly now come: at length all ceased, the sky became serene; but hot so the people, who lugged the prophet from the pulpit, and beat him so sorely as nearly to have realized his prophecy, as far as himself was concerned.

MORAVIANS.

Bishop Lavington quotes "a sacred Lillipu"tian hymn, composed by Count Zinzendorf, the "Moravian's infallible bishop:

Chicken blessed

And caressed,

Little bee on Jesus' breast,

From the hurry

And the flurry

Of the earth, thou'rt now at rest.”

This ridiculous composition is travestied by Anstey, in his Bath Guide. We find the following query put to the Moravians by a Methodist, in a pamphlet printed in 1750, called “ The Con"tents of a Folio History of the Moravians.” "Is not its energy dull, flat, and insipid? Does "it not come from a floating imagination, and "does it reach any further than the imagination? "Is not its chief aim to fill the mind with ideas "of the lamb's heart? of the wound holes? of "rivers and seas of blood? of soaking and melt"ing in blood? of playing and creeping into the "side-hole, of pretty happy sinnership? of "beating the little sinner on the bill when he has "been naughty, and a thousand such strange "unheard of sounds and absurdities?"

LUCILIO VANINI.

Lucilio Vanini, a Neapolitan, was a professed atheist. He was first a preacher, but relapsed. According to Father Mersenne, he confessed that at Naples he had agreed with thirteen of his

friends to go through the world to sow the doctrine of atheism, and that France had fallen to his lot. He wrote a book called "The Amphitheatre," and some "Dialogues," in which he takes no pains to disguise his irreligion, and concludes it with declaring that all the time is lost that is not spent in love! We are informed by Guy Patin, that Vanini finding himself shunned by every body, and reduced to the lowest poverty, wrote to the Pope that if he had not a good benefice bestowed upon him, he would in three months' time overturn the whole Christian religion. Having been detected in infusing his impious opinions into the minds of his scholars, he was seized at Toulouse, tried, and condemned to be burnt to death, which was executed Feb. 19, 1619: a shocking way, it must be owned, of curing atheism. It is said in the Mercure Francoise that he died undauntedly, and that when he was advised to call on God for mercy, he spoke these words in the presence of a thousand spectators: There is neither God nor Devil; for if there were a God, I would entréat him to destroy the Parliament with his thunder, as being altogether unjust and wicked; and if there were a devil, I would also pray him to swallow it up in some subterraneous place. But since there is neither the one nor the other, I cannot do it. His life and