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Sunday, the 22nd of May, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the thirty-first of his reign, he expired. A wild wail of grief arose from the army and the people, on hearing that Constantine was dead. The body was laid out in a coffin of gold, and carried by a procession of the whole army, headed by his son Constans, to Constantinople. For three months it lay there in state in the palace, lights burning round, and guards watching. During all this time the Empire was without a head. All went on as though he were yet alive. One dark shadow from the great tragedy of his life reached to his last end, and beyond it. It is said that the Bishop of Nicomedia, to whom the Emperor's will had been confided by Eustochius, alarmed at its contents, immediately placed it for security in the dead man's hand, wrapped in the vestments of death. There it lay till Constantius arrived, and read his father's dying request. It was believed to express the Emperor's dying conviction that he had been poisoned by his brothers and their children, and to call on Constantius to avenge his death. That bequest was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the surviving princes of the imperial family. Two alone escaped. With such a mingling of light and darkness did Constantine close his career.

When the tidings reached Rome, the old metropolis steadily ignored the revolution that had passed over the world in the person of the deceased Emperor. He was regarded but as one in the series of the Cæsars. He was enrolled, like his predecessors, as a matter of course, amongst the gods of the heathen Clympus. Incense was offered before his statue. A picture of his apotheosis was prepared. Festivals were celebrated in his honour.

But in his own Christian city of Constantinople he had himself arranged the altered celebration of his death. Not amongst the gods and heroes of heathenism, but amongst those who now seemed to him the nearest approach to them, the Christian Apostles, his lot was to be cast. He had prepared for his mausoleum a church,-sometimes, like that which he had founded at Rome, called the "Church of St. Peter," but more usually the "Church of the Apostles."

Thither the body was borne. Constantius was now present; and as it reached the church the prince (for he too was still an unbaptised catechumen) withdrew with the Pagan guards, and left the Imperial corpse alone, as it lay aloft in the centre of the church in its sarcophagus of porphyry. Prayers were offered for his soul; he was placed amongst the Apostles; and

he formally received the names which he had borne in life, and which then became so purely personal that they descended to his sons, "Victor, Maximus, Augustus."

So passionate was the attachment of the people of Constantinople to the tomb of their founder, that the attempt to remove it for safety to another church whilst its own was being prepared, provoked a sanguinary riot. The church became the royal burial-place of the Byzantine emperors. There they all lay in imperial state till in the fourth crusade the coffins were rifled and the bodies cast out.

NOTES. Constantine. - Was born in February, 272, in Dardania, now part of Southern Austria. Philip.-King of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; born, 359 B.C.; murdered, 336 B.C., at the age of thirty-three. Alexander.- His son, was born in the year 355 B.C.; died, 323 B.C., at the age of thirty-two, having conquered the world. Augustus.-Octavianus Cæsar, nephew of Julius Cæsar, and his successor in power. The first Roman Emperor. Born, 63 B.C.; made Emperor, 43 B.C.; died, A.D. 14, after a reign of fifty-seven years. Cæsar. Julius Cæsar, born, 100 B.C.; murdered in the Senate House at Rome, 43 B.C.; made himself supreme in Rome, and paved the way for the Empire. Charlemagne.-Charles the Great, King of the Franks, and founder of the German Empire; born in Bavaria, A.D. 742; died at Aix-la-Chapelle, where his skull is yet shown, A.D. 814. Elizabeth.--Daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn; born, 1533; died, 1603; after a reign of forty-five years, having ascended the throne in 1558. Cromwell. -Oliver, Lord Protector of England; born at Huntingdon, 1599, son of a private gentleman; died, 1658. Luther.Martin, the great German Reformer, son of a poor miner; born at Eisleben, Saxony, 1483; died, 1546. Prætorium.Properly a general's tent, but used for the residence of the governor of a province, or for any large house or palace. Here, of the head-quarters, at the military post of York. Suppression of the monasteries.-Took place in 1535 and 1539, under Henry VIII. His mother's name, Helena. - From which we have St. Helen's. His father.-Constantius Chlorus, or "The Pale;" born about A.D. 250; died at York, July 25th, 306. Nicaa.-A town of Bithynia, Asia Minor. The great council which adopted the Nicene Creed met there in A.D. 325. Eusebius.-Bishop of Cæsarea and Ecclesiastical Historian; born in Palestine, about 270; died 338. Trachala.-"Thick neck." Hadrian.-Born, A.D. 76; died 139. Cynical.-Sneering, from the sect of the Cynics, founded by Diogenes, who died 323 B.C. The name was given them from

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their alleged want of modesty, and contempt of the feelings, ways, and aims of men. It means doglike, snarling, surly, &c. Disregard of human life, &c. -Constantine, in his later years, put to death his eldest son and Socinius, his nephew, A.D. 324. Grecian Alexander. -Alexander put to death Parmenion, a faithful general, and his son, in 330 B.C.; killed his friend Cleitus, in 329, and put to death a number of persons for "conspiracy," in 327. He died, 323, B.C. Henry VIII.-In his later years it was, sooner or later, death to almost any one to be high in his service. Teutonic or Sclavonic kingdoms.-Kingdoms of the race of the Teutons (Germans), or Slaves (Russians, Poles, &c). The Middle Age kingdoms. Diocletian. Roman Emperor, born in Dalmatia, of very humble parents, A.D. 245. A great persecutor of the Christians. Abdicated, A.D. 305; died, 313. Maxentius.-Emperor, 306-312; defeated by Constantius, and drowned in the Tiber by the weight of his armour; a hateful tyrant. Julian. Called the Apostate, but unjustly. Born 331; was Emperor 361-363, when he fell on the battlefield near Maronga, fighting against the Persians. Nephew of Constantine the Great; a man of high genius, of pure life, just, and great-minded. sought to revive Paganism as better than the corrupt Christianity amidst which he had been brought up. The Antonines.-Antoninus Pius, who succeeded Hadrian; he died, A.D. 161, aged seventy-five years, and was succeeded by his adopted son, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; born at Rome, in the year 121; died, 180, aged fifty-nine. Both, in many respects, most excellent men. Niebuhr.-A great Roman historian ; born at Copenhagen, 1776; died, 1831. Church of the Holy Sepulchre.At Jerusalem. Stood erect.-In the early Church the congregation always stood. They were not, indeed, allowed to sit down in church, nor would they have wished to do it, sitting appearing too irreverent. The preacher, however, sat, in accordance with Jewish custom. It

He

was also usual for the audience to express their approval of the preacher's language by loud applause, as we do now at public meetings. Greek.-Greek was spoken in Constantinople. Easter.-A feast in remembrance of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Helenopolis.-A cit, in Bithynia, Asia Minor, called, with several others, after Constantine's mother. Catechumen.-In the early Church, one taught only the principles of religion, but not baptised; or, if baptised, not yet admitted to the communion. Nicomedia.-A city of Bithynia. Constans.-Fourth son of Čonstantine. Eustochius.-The court physician. Constantius.-Afterwards Emperor, ConCOMPOSITION.-Write an abstract

stantine.

stantine's third son. He murdered all his father's relatives, and two of his own brothers. It was under him that the Emperor Julian was brought up, in s rict confinement. He claimed to be a Christian. Olympus.-The heaven of the ancients-from Mount Olympus, in Thessaly, on whose peak, which was thought to reach up into heaven, the gods were believed to hold their court. Apotheosis. The raising to divine honours. Victor.-The conqueror. Maximus. -The greatest. Augustus.-The_august. Byzantine.-Of Byzantium, or Constantinople. Fourth Crusade.-A.D. 1195, under Henry VI., Emperor of Germany.

of the facts told respecting Con

AN ENGLISH PEASANT.-Crabbe.

66

The Rev. George Crabbe, Rector of Trowbridge, Wilts, was born at Aldborough, Suffolk, in 1754. He was of humble origin, and owed his position in the Church to Burke, who saw his genius and assisted him. His principal poems are "The Library," The Village," and "The Tales of the Hall." His style is marked by its minute fidelity to life and nature, which are painted with great force, pathos, and originality. His poems were the last book, except the Bible, read to Sir Walter Scott. He died in 1832. The following extract is from "The Parish Register."

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And with the firmest had the fondest mind:
Were others joyful, he looked smiling on,
And gave allowance where he needed none;
Good he refused with future ill to buy,
Nor knew a joy that caused reflection's sigh;
A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast
No envy stung, no jealousy distressed;

(Bane of the poor! it wounds their weaker mind,
To miss one favour, which their neighbours find.)
Yet far was he from Stoic pride removed;
He felt humanely, and he warmly loved :
I marked his action, when his infant died,
And his old neighbour for offence was tried;
The still tears, stealing down that furrowed cheek,
Spoke pity, plainer than the tongue can speak.
If pride was his, 'twas not their vulgar pride,
Who, in their base contempt, the great deride;
Nor pride in learning,-though my Clerk agreed,
If fate should call him, Ashford might succeed;
Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew
None his superior, and his equals few :-
But if that spirit in his soul had place,
It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained,
In sturdy boys to virtuous labours trained;

Pride in the power that guards his country's coast,
And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
Pride in a life that slander's tongue defied,-
In fact, a noble passion, misnamed Pride.
I feel his absence in the hours of prayer,
And view his seat, and sigh for Isaac there;
I see no more those white locks thinly spread
Round the bald polish of that honoured head;
No more that awful glance on playful wight,
Compelled to kneel and tremble at the sight,
To fold his fingers, all in dread the while,
Till Mister Ashford softened to a smile;
No more that meek and suppliant look in prayer,
Nor the pure faith (to give it force), are there ;—
But he is blest, and I lament no more,

A wise good man contented to be poor.

COMPOSITION.-Write the character of Isaac Ashford, in prose.

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MAHOMET.-E. Gibbon, and T. Carlyle.

Edward Gibbon, author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," a book of immense learning, and of great brilliancy of style, was born at Putney, in 1737, and died in London, in 1794. His History occupied him from October,

1764, to June, 1787, twentythree years.

It is marred

by his covert hostility to Christianity. -For notice

of

Carlyle, see" Fifth
Reader," p. 115.

THE son of Abdallah was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of Arabia; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With these powers of eloquence Mahomet was an illiterate barbarian; his youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing; the common ignorance exempted him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors which reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes. Yet the book of nature and of man was open to his view; and some fancy has been indulged

in the political and philoso-
phical observations which are

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