NICENE CREED.

Manifold were the disputes of the Fathers of the Church, in its earlier days, as to what portion of the Scriptures were, and what were not, the word of God. Contention at last ran so high, that their flocks began to think for themselves, and to hold similar disputations. The holy fathers, however, foreseeing that shepherds would be nothing without flocks, agreed to end their differences, by setting the matter at rest for ever. This Creed was commenced by the Council of Nice, A. D. 325, and completed by the second General Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, where the heads of the Church had been summoned to meet in Council, in order to settle the knotty question. The result of their labours was, the celebrated Creed, called the Nicene Creed, from the place where the holy disputants had met.

SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, was the originator of Sunday Schools, and spent his life in acts of kindness and compassion; promoting education as a source of happiness to his fellow-beings, and bestowing his exertions and bounty to benefit the helpless. He died 5th April, 1811.

CHARITY SCHOOLS.

The

Charity Schools were first projected towards the close of the seventeenth century. In 1685, there was one founded at Highgate; and another in Zoar Street, Southwark, in 1687. oldest school which appears on the list of the Christian Knowledge Society's Reports, is St. Ann's, Westminster, established in 1688; and that known by the name of St. Margaret's Blue-Coat School, was opened on Lady-day of the same year for fifty boys. The first annual collected assemblage of Charity Schools was in 1704, when 2000 children met together in St. Sepulchre's Church, Snow-hill. Afterwards the anniversary took place in St. Bride's, St. Sepulchre's, and Christ Church, Newgate Street. On the 2nd May, 1782, the schools were for the first time assembled in St. Paul's Cathedral, where an amphitheatre was erected under the dome. Dr. Porteus, bishop of London, preached the sermon. Every year since it has continued to excite a more lively interest to behold it; and surely here is something to gratify the heart that can feel, and something for foreigners to gaze at with admiration.

BELL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.

This national system of education originated with the Rev. Dr. Bell of Madras, from whom it derives its appellation.

LANCASTERIAN SYSTEM.

So called from Joseph Lancaster, one of the Society of Friends. This system differs very little, if any, from the Bell system. The advocates of the latter (Bell) tax the former with piracy; and the former retaliate by saying, that the system, although originating in a measure with Dr. Bell, would have lain dormant if it had not been for Joseph Lancaster.

SPENCEAN SYSTEM.

The Spencean System, so called from one Thomas Spence, a political enthusiast, who devised and published a plan by which the human kind could be provided with sustenance without pauperism. He died October, 1814.

EDICT OF NANTZ.

To reconcile the Protestants to the abjuration of their religion, Henry IV. of France, after his reduction of the league, issued an Edict from Nautz in 1598, tolerating the Protestant religion throughout his kingdom. This was revoked by Louis XIV., in 1685; by this bad policy, 50,000 French Protestants left France and came to England, and there can be little doubt that their representations of the cruelties perpetrated by the king of France, tended to excite the suspicions of the English against their own Roman Catholic Sovereign, and in some degree accelerated the advent of the Revolution of 1688.

BISHOP'S CROSIER.

"As for augu

Voltaire, in his Philosophical Dictionary, says, ries, they perished with the Roman empire. Only the Bishops have retained the original staff, called the Crosier, which was the distinctive mark of the dignity of augur, so that the symbol of falsehood has become the symbol of truth."

Let not institutions vaunt of the sacredness of their insignia, for time and custom alternately defile and hallow all thingsthat which was emblematical of conclusive foresight from the aspect of the entrails of a brute, is now the rod and guiding staff to immortality.-Tempora omnia mutant.

CHANGING OF THE POPE'S NAME.

The custom of altering the names of the Popes after their election to the Popedom, was first introduced in the case of some Cardinal being elected whose proper name meant swine-snout,* which, by general consent, being deemed unseemly for such a dignity, was changed to Servius the Second.

*See Roman Names.

CHRISTIANITY IN BRITAIN.

The early history of the British Church is obscure; and although we learn from Tertullian and Origen, that Christianity had extended thither by the third century, it is not easy to fix the period at which regular churches were formed. It is certain, however, that the British Church in the fourth century was ruled by bishops, who regularly attended their sessions, and subscribed their decrees and canons. Three names, Eborus of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelphius of Caerleon-upon-Usk, with the names of a priest and a deacon, are found appended to the Council of Arles, celebrated in the year 314. So also they were present at Nice in 325, at Sardica in 347, and at Remini in 359. These facts alone are, in themselves, sufficient proofs to establish the validity of the Ancient Church of Britain-the episcopal form of her government-and her entire constitution as a branch of the Church of Christ, at a period of nearly 250 years before the arrival of Augustine, the missionary of Gregory the Great, A.D. 596.

INQUISITION.

The Inquisition, or Holy Office, as it is impiously termed, may be traced to Pope Lucius, who at the Council of Verona, in 1184, ordered the bishops to procure information of all who were suspected of heresy, and if they could not effect this in person, they were to enjoin it as a duty on their commissioners. In the beginning of the 13th century this order was reinforced, and the poor Albigenses and Waldenses severely felt its fury. Dominic, usually called St. Dominic, reduced this to practice, and was, if not the first Inquisitor, yet the founder of that order to which the management of the Inquisition was committed. In 1251, the Inquisition was established in Italy; in 1255, it was extended to France. The horrors accompanying the practices of this office, soon excited universal disgust in the best disposed Romanists. It was established in Spain about the middle of the 13th century. In 1484, the Supreme General Inquisition was founded at Seville by Queen Isabella, with the aid of Cardinal Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza. In Portugal, it was received about 1536. The gradual progress of knowledge checked the bloodshed of this tribunal; and it rarely, of late years, terrified the world by displaying ranks of heretics led to the stake. The triumph of humanity in the entire abolition of this most cruel depositary of power, terrestrial and spiritual, was a prominent good arising from the evils of the French revolution, but it was for the Spanish Cortes to give the death-blow.

For farther information on the subject of the Inquisition, the reader may refer to Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella; Quart. Rev., vol. iv.; Llorentes' History of the Inquisition.

PARLIAMENTS, MAGNA CHARTA, TRIAL BY JURY, FEUDAL LAWS, PUBLIC COURTS OF THE KINGDOM, ORIGIN OF

TITHES, PUBLIC PLOTS, &c.

PARLIAMENT.

The etymology of the word Parliament is properly a French or Norman word, signifying to speak the mind, and was originally spelt parle â ment. Parium la mentum, id est, a meeting of the Peers to lament and complain to each other of the enormities of the country, and thereon to provide for the same, is a definition frequently to be met with in the old writers; and, according to Lord Coke, it is called Parliament from parler la ment, every member speaking his mind for the general good of the commonwealth. Barrington derives it from a compound of two Celtic words, parly and ment, or mend. The ancient Parlemens of France, were unlike the Parliaments of England. In France, the Parlemens were courts of justice. All their edicts were grounded on the ordinances of the king. When there was any opposition to those ordinances, the king went in person, and held what is called a Lit de justice. He declared before them, that the ordinance before them was his actual will, and ordered the proper officer to register it. There was no mode of objecting to the will of the king after a Lit de justice.

It was common with the kings of France to seize upon the lands of their nobles, and make an ordinance of sequestration, against which there was no remedy. The lands were annexed to the crown.

Had the nobles of France defended their rights as the Barons of England did, France would not have_remained so long a nation of slaves. The first Parliament in England was in 1116.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Although the first Parliament was in 1116, yet the House of Commons, as now constituted, takes its date from the reign of Henry III., May 14th, 1264. Earl Montfort, after defeating the king's troops, called a Parliament at Winchester in the king's name, which is shown by Dr. Brady to be the first wherein two knights for each county and two burgesses for each borough were summoned, and was the original of the House of Commons.

Members obliged to reside in the places they represented, 1413; Francis Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, was the first peer's eldest son who sat in the House of Commons, 1549; that

remarkable for the epoch in which were first formed the parties of court and country, June 16th, 1620; a peer elected, and sat as a member of the House of Commons, 1649; the House of Commons committed a Secretary of State to the Tower, November 18th, 1678; their Speaker refused by the king, 1679; bill passed for triennial parliaments, November, 1694; the first British one met, October 24th, 1707; triennial act repealed, May 1st, 1716; act passed for septennial ones, 1716; their privilege of protection from arrest for debts relinquished, 1770; the lord mayor and an alderman of London committed to the Tower by the House of Commons, 1771; Sir Francis Burdett committed to the Tower by the House of Commons, on the motion of Sir Thomas Lethbridge, April 9th, 1810. The Reform bill passed in the session of 1832.

The first mention of a Speaker of the House of Commons occurs in the Parliament 51 Edward III. His duties are to act entirely as the servant of the House which appoints him. He takes the Chair, which he cannot do unless forty members are present; maintains order; explains and informs on questions of order or practice if he is referred to. He can neither speak nor vote unless in the case of equality of votes, or in Committees of the whole House, where, as soon as the chair is taken, he is reduced to the footing of an ordinary Member.

THE KING'S SPEECH.

The first king's speech, as it is termed, was delivered by Henry I., in the year 1107.

MAGNA CHARTA.

The "Great Charter" was signed by John on the 15th of June, 1215, and confirmed by his successor, Henry III. It is reported to have been chiefly drawn up by the Earl of Pembroke and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. The ground where John, accompanied by the pope's legate and other prelates and followers, met the barons, was between Staines and Windsor, at a place called Runnymede; but better known in modern times as Egham race-course, and which is still held in reverence as the spot where the standard of freedom was first erected in England. There, it is said, the barons appeared with a vast number of knights and warriors, and both sides encamped apart, like open enemies. The barons, in carrying their arms, would admit but of few abatements; and the king's commissioners, as history relates, being for the most part in their interests, few debates ensued. The charter required of him was there signed by the king and his barons, which continues in force to this day, and is the famous bulwark of English liberty, which now goes by the name of Magna Charta,