happy fields appear like darkness: and into an odour which put out the former perfume, as that had expelled the taint of the pit; a ravishing harmony of jubilant songs was heard; but when Drithelm was in the height of hope that he should enter into this blessedness, his Conductor stopt short, turned round, and.... led him back by the way which they had come.

The return, however, was not so horrible as the journey outward had been, and on the way his Guide explained to him all that he had seen. The souls in the Valley of Frost and Fire were those, he said, which having delayed to confess and amend their lives while it was yet time, had not repented till they were at the point of death. Yet because in that last moment they confessed and were contrite, these should at the day of judgment be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven; and many of them, before that day, would be relieved and delivered by the prayers, alms, fasting, and more especially the masses of the living.* The pit which they had past was the mouth of Hell, and the souls that entered it, must abide there to all eternity. The happy field was the resting place of such

* Celebratio missarum is the simple expression of Bede, which Cressy, (p. 501) translates "celebrating the most holy sacrifice."

as had lived a virtuous life, but whose works had not been of that perfection which could entitle them to immediate admission into Heaven; they must tarry therefore till the day of judgment before they could attain the Beatific Vision and enter into the joys of that Kingdom. The confines of that kingdom he had seen; and they who in their words, works, and thoughts had attained perfection, were admitted there as soon as they left the body. He told him that it depended upon himself to obtain a place there among the blessed; and then the Northumbrian, though grievously reluctant to reenter his fleshly tabernacle, found himself alive in his bed.

This was the story which Drithelm, like St. Fursey, related to those persons only whom he judged to be fit auditors. Alfred the Wise was one, King of Northumbria, who for his learning and virtue is thought to have served as an example to his illustrious namesake. It was by that King's desire that Drithelm was admitted into the monastery at Melrose, and there Alfred used to visit him as often as he went that way. He lived in a retired cell,

• A very interesting account of this excellent person is given in Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons.-Book iii, ch. 9.

apart, as it appears, from the community, yet not wholly either as a recluse or a hermit. And frequently, for the sake of mortifying the flesh, he would go into the river, even when it was necessary first to break the ice, and standing there sometimes up to the waist, sometimes to the neck, recite his prayers, or his psalter, as long as it was possible to endure the cold; and when he came out of the water, he would never change his wet garments. If he were asked at such times how he could bear the extremity of the cold, his answer was, I have seen colder places than this!*

Make all you can of this vision, Sir. There can be no question that it was believed by Alfred of Northumbria, and by the Venerable Bede and I am as little disposed to doubt the intentional veracity of the original relator, as his sincere fanaticism. Take the story as genuine, and for its full weight: to what that amounts, we shall see when we have gone through the other examples of the same class.

The first of these rests upon the authority of the venerable Prelate Pechtelm, (whoever that personage may have been,) from whom Bede received it. It is of a certain chief in the

* Bede, 1. v. c. xiii. p. 127.

service of King Coenred of Mercia, a man of business as well as distinguished valour, and for that reason high in the King's favour, but whom Coenred never could induce to confess and amend his life, that being an affair which he always put off till a more convenient season. At length he was seized with a violent and excruciating disease: the King renewed his religious exhortations more pressingly; but he whose spirit had been steeled by a soldier's habits, made answer with a haughty courage, he would not confess his sins till he should have recovered from this malady, for that his companions should never have to say that he had done that in the fear of death, which in his health and strength he had alway refused to do. Upon Coenred's next visit, as soon as he came into the room, the sick man, who by that time had undergone a woeful change, cried out to him in despair, "Why are you come hither? It is not now in your power to give me any help or comfort!" And he told him that two beautiful youths, in white garments, had entered the chamber a little before, and seated themselves one at his head, the other at his feet. One of them produced a book, very handsome in its appearance, but of the smallest size, and gave it im to read. There was written in it every good

action which in the course of his life he had performed: they were few in number and little in worth; and when he had inspected the sorry account, they took it from him in silence. Forthwith a whole host of malignant spirits approached the house, and surrounded it, and filled it. The one among them who, by seating himself in the highest place, and by the preeminent darkness of his visage, appeared to be the principal Devil of the crew, brought forth, as the good Angels had done, a book; but it was of the ugliest exterior, and of enormous size and weight; and he bade one of the inferior fiends carry it to the dying man that he might look into his account. There he beheld all the evil which he had ever committed in thought, word, or deed, faithfully registered, in letters hideous enough to accord with the outside of that dreadful volume. The chief Devil then said to the two youths in white, Wherefore do ye tarry here, seeing this man is ours? They answered, It is true; take him to fill up the measure of your damnation! With that they. disappeared; and two of the most malicious fiends, approaching him with pitchforks in their hands, struck him, one on the head, the other on the feet: it seems they entered at the wounds which they made; for the miserable man ended