demanded his attention, he told the messenger that "he was then employed about God's business, which as soon as he had done he would attend upon his majesty;" and then, returning to his place, proceeded with his sermon. Afterwards, when he arrived at Whitehall, the king was engaged with other advisers; but in the evening he had a conference with his royal master, and (as he solemnly assured Dr. Parr) declared his opinion," that if his majesty was satisfied by what he had heard at the trial that the earl was not guilty of treason, he ought not in conscience to consent to his condemnation." And when the king yielded to the popular demand, and gave to the bill that sanction which weighed upon his spirits during the remainder of his days, the archbishop expressed his feelings with tears in his eyes, "Oh, sire, what have you done? I fear that this act may prove a great trouble upon your conscience; and pray God that your majesty may never suffer for signing this bill!”

It is related that lord Strafford, when viceroy of Ireland, had looked upon archbishop Usher with no very friendly feeling, and therefore it is the more delightful to observe, that he made choice of the primate for his spiritual adviser now that his days were numbered. The good archbishop had many interviews with him, and on the last evening of his mortal existence assisted him in his prayers to that court where, as the earl remarked, "neither partiality can be expected nor error found." Next morning he attended lord Strafford to the scaffold; kneeled down and prayed by his side; observed with comfort that the departing nobleman was engaged in silent devotion; was personally addressed in that courageous and eloquent speech which he delivered before disrobing for execution; and then, having received his last farewell, hastened from the touching scene, and bore

to the king the tidings that all was over, adding the only consolation which the case admitted, that he had seen reason to believe that the earl was well prepared for that change, and that his last gloomy hours were brightened by the hope of eternal glory.

In the same year, 1641, archbishop Usher and bishop Hall were engaged in writing in defence of the church; and if they had been calmly and dispassionately attended to the Church would have been saved the fiery trial which befel it. Usher's opponent was no less a person thanMilton, and episcopacy was the subject of their controversy. The palm of victory has been assigned to each; but, as Dr. Symmons remarks, in his Life of Milton, "if argument and reason could have prevailed, the result [to the church] would probably have been different. The learning of Usher and the wit of Hall certainly preponderated in the contest, and they seem to have been felt not only by the Smectymnuan* divines, but by Milton himself. The affected contempt with which he speaks of the dust and pudder in antiquity' of his respected friends, lying at the mercy of a coy and flirting style,' of their 'antagonist vapouring them out with quips and snapping adages, and employing weak arguments headed with sharp taunts,' sufficiently betrays the weak points of his friends and the strong ones of his opponents. If the church, indeed, at this time, could have been upheld by the abilities of its sons, it would have been supported by these admirable prelates; but numbers, exasperation, and enthusiasm, were against them.... The tone of this debate was far from mild, and all the combatants, with the exception of Usher, seem to have been careless of

* The word Smectymnuus is composed of the initial letters of the names of five divines, who united their powers in writing down episcopacy under the above title.

manners, and not less intent on giving pain to their adversaries than on the discovery or the establishment of truth."

In the latter part of the same year, intelligence arrived in England that a murderous rebellion had broken out in Ireland, and the archbishop learned that he had been made to suffer by the general spoliation and ruin; but he was grateful for the personal safety of himself and family.

In the preceding March or April, the Irish had formed the project of casting off the British yoke, and their plan was to massacre all the English and protestants in the island; and, as persons of great influence amongst the natives were engaged in the conspiracy, and they had the assistance of some thousands of disbanded soldiers, they confidently expected success in their horrid undertaking.

The 23d of October was the day appointed for the general rising of the native population, and nothing can be more shocking than the account which Hume and other historians give of this savage insurrection: "When rapacity and vengeance had been fully exerted upon the property of the English inhabitants, cruelty, the most barbarous that ever in any nation was known or heard of, began its operations. No age, no sex, no condition, was spared; without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, living in profound peace and full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long maintained a continual intercourse of kindness and good offices.

"But death was the slightest of the punishments inflicted by the rebels. All the tortures which wanton ferocity could devise, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock

the least delicate. Such enormities, though attested by undoubted evidence, appear almost incredible. Nor were these barbarities perpetrated without a pretence of religion, and the countenance of its ministers. The English, as heretics, were marked out by the priests for slaughter, and it was pronounced meritorious to rid the world of these enemies to catholic faith and piety."

According to Burnet, in his Life of Bishop Bedell, a popish writer boasted that upwards of two hundred thousand thus miserably perished; the lowest computation is that of Hume, who estimates the number of the victims at somewhat less than forty thousand.

From such terrors and miseries the primate of Ireland was preserved by his absence from that kingdom: for there can be no doubt that the infuriate people would not have spared him if he had been at home, since they even seized bishop Bedell, and confined him in a damp and dreary prison, although they were not insensible to his exemplary conversation among them, his tenderness and charity, and told him that they loved and honoured him beyond all the English that ever came into Ireland, and that he should be the last to be driven out of that kingdom.

With the exception of the archbishop's house, furniture, and library, at Drogheda, which place held out against the rebels through a long siege, his whole property fell a sacrifice to these merciless plunderers; and he was reduced to the necessity of selling whatever plate and other valuables he had brought over, in order to supply the present wants of his family.

By one who had completed more than sixty years without having experienced privation, who was fond of quietude, and whose habits were studious, such a reverse as that which now befel him, must have been

severely felt. But he knew where to look for support. The Bible," the Book of books," as he termed it,taught him, in whatsoever condition he might be, therewith to be content; and, remembering the examples set before him of the patient endurance of affliction, he was satisfied to take up his cross, and follow the steps of his blessed Saviour.

We are told that at an early period of his life he had adopted, from some books which he read, a notion that affliction was a necessary mark of being a child of God, and earnestly prayed that he might be dealt with accordingly. And, although he was afterwards convinced of his error, and ceased to pray for chastisements, he considered that from the time of those prayers he was never altogether free from affliction of some sort. His advice therefore was, that no christian should tempt God to show such a sign for a mark of his paternal love, but wait and be prepared for them, bear them with patience, and turn them to good account by considering the purposes for which they were sent. And he added,

that "we should by no means judge of a man's spiritual state by his portion of sorrow; but that we should judge ourselves by the fruits of a real sincere conversion and internal holiness, which are the only true evidences of a state of salvation."

His present affliction was much alleviated by the immediate opening of various channels through which the means of adequate subsistence might flow to him. The University of Leyden, when they heard that there was little prospect of his return to Ireland, sent to offer him a professorship, the stipend of which they were willing to increase if he should accept it. Even a papist, Cardinal Richelieu, promised him a kind reception in France, an ample pension, and freedom to exercise his own religion. But