opinions were full of inconsistencies, however he may be looked up to by his successors in atheism.

PURITANS,

The Puritans in the days of Charles I. were so daring as to make saucy expostulations with God from the pulpit. Mr. Vines, in St. Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, used the following words: "O Lord, thou hast never given us a victory this long while, for all our frequent fasting. What dost thou mean, O Lord, to "fling us in a ditch and there leave us?" And one Robinson, in his prayer at Southampton, Aug. 25, 1642, expressed himself in the following manner: "O God, O God, many are the "hands that are lift up against us; but there is

66

one, God, it is thou thyself, O Father, who "doest us more mischief than they all." They seemed to encourage this sauciness in their public sermons. 66 Gather upon God (says Mr. R. Harris, Fast Sermon before the Commons) and "hold him to it, as Jacob did; press him with "his precepts, with his promises, with his hand, "with his seal, with his oath, till we do dusopein,

the

as some Greek Fathers boldly speak; that is, "if I may speak it reverently enough, put t "Lord out of countenance; put him, as you "would say, to the blush, unless we be masters

"of our requests." Evans, another Puritan, goes still farther. "O God, O God, many are "the hands lift up against us; but there is one

66

God, it is thou thyself, O Father, who doest us "more mischief than they all (this was a favour"ite phrase). O Lord, when wilt thou take a "chair and sit among the house of peers? and "when, O God, when, I say, wilt thou vote 66 among the honourable house of commons. "We know, () Lord, that Abraham made a co"venant, and Moses and David made a cove"nant, and our Saviour made a covenant, but thy parliament's covenant is the greatest of all co"venants. I say this is God's cause, and if our "God hath any cause, this it is; and if this be "not God's cause, then God is no God for me, "but the devil has got up into heaven."

BISHOP BURNETT.

The Town house of this celebrated prelate is still standing in St. John's Square, Clerkenwell; it is the last house on the west side, after entering the square, from St. John's gate; there is before it, a space of ground, with a brick wall which inclose the premises.

A few years since, when strolling about the ruins of the old church of St. James's, Clerken

well, (then pulled down to be rebuilt) I saw an Altar tomb, by the inscription on which, I ascertained that the remains of bishop Burnett had been there interred.

BENEDICT THE ABBOT.

In the first volume of Rymer's Fædera, anno, 674, it is mentioned that "Abbot Benedict," says Venerable Bede, "also brought over ar"tificers skilled in making of glass, which, till "then had been unknown in Britain, wherewith "he glazed windows of the church of Were"mouth, and taught the English the art of "glass-making."

SAINT GENEVIEVE.

St. Genevieve's (the tutelary saint of Paris) bones were esteemed by the people and priests of that city of great efficacy when the weather was too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold; things that will happen to those disordered fancies who judge better than providence. On such, and other great occasions, this old lady's bones were exhibited in procession. On the tenth of May, 1774, because Lewis the Fifteenth, then a reverend old gentleman of sixty-four years of age, was seized with the small pox, these

relics were brought forth from the sanctuary of St. Genevieve, and carried in procession, attended by archbishops, priests, &c. to Notre Dame, singing, "Sancta Genevieva, ora pro nobis." St. G. pray for us: when lo, an express arrived of the king's death. It operated like a clap of thunder, all the clergy flew off in different directions to make the best of their time with those who might be in next.

CLERICAL TASTE.

At Thetford Assizes, in May 1779, a cause was tried, by a special jury, between a young lady plaintiff, and a clergyman defendant. The action was brought for non performance of a marriage contract; when it appeared on the trial he preferred his servant maid, whom he married, although the young lady had a fortune of 70,000 pounds, when a verdict was given for the plaintiff with £800 damages.

RELICS.

At Aix-la-Chapelle they possess the following relics, presented to them by Pope Leo the tenth, and three hundred and sixty-five bishops, when they consecrated the cathedral. The shift worn by the Virgin Mary at the birth of Christ; a piece of cloth that was girt upon the body of

Christ when on the cross, a piece of the cord with which he was bound; some of the blood of St. Stephen, now eighteen hundred years old: a picture of the Virgin and Child, embossed on Jasper by St. Luke; also a golden casket, set with precious stones of inestimable value, containing a bit of earth upon which a drop of blood of St. Stephen fell when he was stoned to death. The Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle also possesses the girdle of the Virgin, a fragment of Aaron's rod, and a morsel of the manna of the desert. Below the altar, and which are only shown once in seven years, are first, a white robe, which was worn by the Virgin Mary, 2nd the clothes of our Saviour, 3rd, the sheet in which he was wrapped while on the cross; 4th, the cloth in which St. John was wrapped after his decapitation. At Cologne, in the Church of St, Ursula, the priests, taking us for ostriches that can digest such things, show the bones of eleven thousand British Virgin Martyrs, (a most memorable thing.) The skulls of some of these holy maidens are in silver cases, and others in skull caps, of cloth of gold and velvet. In the Church of St. Gerion, in the same city, are no less than nine hundred heads of Moorish Cavaliers, of the army of the emperor Constantine, previous to his conversion to christianity, who they say were beheaded for refusing