ciple, save that of the most despicable selfishness, such views were entertained. It is a matter of rejoicing and heartfelt gratitude to God, that the attempts of these enemies to the dissemination of truth were frustrated; and that there is at the present moment an ecclesiastical establishment in India, closely connected with our own Church; from which the most important results may be expected to spring, with reference to the conversion of the millions of the East. The lamentable state of India, in a religious point of view, at the end of the last century, is thus faithfully, though painfully, depicted. "The inadequate provision made for the maintenance of public worship, even in the capital of our eastern dominions, and the want of chaplains in the subordinate settlements and military cantonments, had produced among the Company's servants in general a total indifference to the grand concerns of a future state, and an apparent disregard of the doctrines received and principles imbibed in early life. In the splendid metropolis of Calcutta, the service of the English Church was confined to an apartment over the gate of the old fort; while the lofty towers of the Portuguese and Armenian churches, rearing their heads in the capital, proclaimed from afar to the zealous Hindoo and Mahometan, the irreligious epicurism of their English sovereigns, who had the wealth of rich and extensive provinces at their command....Through all its extensive territories, a few stations excepted, there was no temple, no priests, no worship. Religion was, of all concerns, the most neglected and forgotten."* Mr. Grant was born in Scotland in 1746; and his father falling at the battle of Culloden, a few hours after his birth, he was placed under the guardianship of an uncle, who anxiously watched over his truest interests, and by whose kindness he received a good education in the town of Elgin. In the year 1767, Mr. Grant proceeded to India in the military service; but, on his arrival there, was taken into the employ of Mr. Becher, a member of the Bengal council. He re-visited Scotland in 1770, and married Jane, daughter of Thomas Frazer, Esq., by whom he had issue, Charles, the present Lord Glenelg; the Right Hon. Sir Robert, governor of Bombay; William-Thomas; Sophia, and another daughter. In 1772, he returned to India, and during the voyage became acquainted with the venerable Swartz. An intimacy, founded on the best principles, and arising from a similarity of views on the most important subjects, speedily arose between them; they corresponded together for many years; and it was chiefly by the recommendation of Mr. Grant, that the East India Company erected a monument in St. Mary's Church, at Fort George, to the memory of the missionary, whose name will be handed down to posterity with reverential admiration, as of one who was willing to leave all for Christ, who "kindled in the south of India a light which has been continually growing brighter and stronger, and is hastening, as we devoutly trust, to a ziore complete and perfect day;' while he is already, to the eye of faith, exalted, among the children of God, above the brightness of all earthly glory, and shall, ere long, shine forth like the sun,' in full and unclouded splendour, in the kingdom of their Father."+ It does not fall within the limits of this memoir to trace Mr. Grant through the various high official situations which he held while resident in India for the space of twenty years; or to enter at any length into his honourable and useful career, while one of the directors or chairman of the India Company; or while he represented the county of Inverness, or the district of Boroughs, which he did from 1802 to 1819,-further than to say, that his conduct fully testified the vitality of that Christian principle which governed all his ac tions; for whether he gave his opinion as a legislator in the great council of the nation, or transacted business at the India House,-it was obvious that the best interests of the human race, and of India in particular, were near to his heart. While resident at Calcutta, he testified his readiness to contribute liberally to the support of religious ordinances. The church, which had been originally constructed at Calcutta for the use of the English residents, had been destroyed by a furious hurricane in October 1737; and, incredible as it may appear, from that period till the erection of the Mission Church in 1770, no Protestant place of worship existed there. Towards the erection of a new church, Mr. Grant was a liberal donor. In 1787, the chapel called Bethtephillah, with the schools and burying-ground, that had been erected by the missionary Kiernander in the year 1770, was placed under sequestration, to answer for the missionary's personal debts. To prevent the sale of the premises, Mr. Grant paid the sum of ten thousand rupees, the amount at which the property was valued; and immediately placed them in trust for sacred and charitable purposes for ever, constituting Mr. William Chambers, the Rev. D. Browne, one of the Company's chaplains, and himself, the first trustees. "With regard to his efforts to serve religion," says one eminently qualified, from long personal intercourse, to form a correct opinion, and who now occupies the highest ecclesiastical office in British India, "and especially to promote the cause of Christianity among our native subjects in the East-when we consider the extensiveness of the work, and the powerful obstacles by which it was opposed, it is surprising how much he was the means of effecting. The results, indeed, of his labours did not fully appear during his residence in India; and even yet we may trust that they await a further and a progressive development. Humanly speaking, however, he may be said to have laid the foundation of much, if not of all the moral and religious good that has been accomplished in India during the last thirty-five years. As early as the year 1788, he, in concurrence with two or three intimate friends, transmitted to a distinguished senator in this country an application, or memorial, earnestly recommending the adoption of additional means for the diffusion of Christianity among the natives. About the same time he purchased a church at Calcutta, which had been built by one of the Danish missionaries attached to the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and which was thence called the Mission Church. This church still remains a monument of his zeal and piety; and here, before he left India, he had the satisfaction of procuring the establishment of a clerical friend, who was afterwards, through his means, appointed chaplain to the presidency; a person eminently qualified for the ministry of the Gospel, and whose solicitude to promote the glory of God and the best interests of mankind, was altogether congenial with his own. "At an early stage of his Indian career, it pleased God to visit him with a succession of severe domestic afflictions, painfully illustrative of the vanity of human hopes, the precariousness of earthly enjoyments, and the awful nearness of the things which are unseen and eternal. He was in circumstances very unfavourable to religious instruction and improvement; heathenism and false religion prevailing all around; the partial intermixture of Christianity which existed, possessing little of that Divine religion beyond the name; his situation ill allowing of seclusion from worldly occupation and society. Yet that season of heavy calamity was blessed to his mind. It led him to the only true source of felicity. He derived, on this occasion, much useful spiritual counsel from a friend, who afterwards became his near connexion, and who was himself the friend and disciple of the celebrated missionary Swartz. Thus, in a soil prepared by the means of grief and trouble, it pleased God that the good seed should be sown; it was consequently cherished amidst the silence and comparative solitude of one of the remoter stations in our Indian dominions; and it produced blessed fruit to the praise and glory of God. "The deep persuasion of the importance of religion which now possessed itself of his whole soul, did not slacken his attention to his proper duties. On the contrary, he laboured, if possible, only the more abundantly. Let it not, however, be thought that his good deeds formed in any degree the ground of his hopes before God. His reliance was on the meritorious cross and the mediation of Christ. It was indeed a remarkable feature of his character, through his whole life, that, while no man entertained a stronger sense of the obligation of duty as such, or more assiduously strove to discharge with fidelity the trusts reposed in him; none ever avoided more carefully the ascription of merit to his own good works, or watched with more jealousy against the delusions of that self-righteousness to which the human heart is so lamentably prone, and which is apt to mingle with, and tarnish, even the graces of the most confirmed Christian."* After his return from India, Mr. Grant led an active and eminently useful life, both as a director of the East India Company, and its chairman, and also as a member of the House of Commons. His conduct was marked by an inflexible integrity and honest boldness, which gained the commendation even of those who opposed his views. He was a practical man of business, whose opinion was much valued, and whose counsel was eagerly sought; he thus commanded an influence which he brought to bear on the subject ever the dearest to his heart. To all institutions that had a reference to the promotion of the Divine glory, and the good of his fellow-creatures, he was a liberal benefactor. In all their proceedings he took a deep and lively interest, and was active in bringing their claims before others. By such his loss was severcly felt and deplored. Mr. Grant, though retired from what might be termed public life, for he did not continue a member of the House of Commons after 1819, was still actively engaged in many good works- until the night of the 31st of October, 1823, when he was suddenly seized with illness, which very speedily proved fatal. From the sermon already adverted to, many most interesting particulars might be extracted relative to Mr. Grant's character and conduct; but the limits of this memoir preclude it. The following quotation, however, powerfully illustrates the opiniou which Bishop Wilson had formed of this most valuable and honoured member of his congregation :- "I am hence led to mention the remarkable spirituality of mind which he maintained amidst a course of severe secular occupation. The apostle has told us what is the real talisman of a Christian's life; For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Our lamented friend felt himself to be a stranger and a pilgrim in this mortal state; he was seeking a better country. His scene of service was on earth; but his heart, like his treasure, was in heaven. It was scarcely possible to be admitted to any intercourse with him, and not to be struck with his heavenly-mindedness. He freely lent himself, as his duties prescribed, to the affairs and the communications of the world; yet it was with a chastised spirit, and under a prevalent recollection of heavenly and everlasting things. And if it be asked, by what means such a frame and temper of mind were preserved in the midst of a life so long and toilsoree? I answer, that it was, under the divine blessing, by the habitual * Christ's Triumph over Death the Motive to unfailing Obedience. A Sermon occasioned by the Death of Charles Grant, Esq By Daniel Wilson, A.M. London, 1824. cultivation of communion with the Father of spirits. He was much in prayer, in devout reading, and in meditation. The Bible was his daily study; and the time allowed to his stated devotional exercises he would never, under the impulse of any exigency, materially abridge. He has been known to press the importance and advantage of these observances with peculiar carnestness on those, who, like himself, were of necessity deeply engaged in a worldly business; observing, that such a practice, instead of hindering the due performance of their proper duties, would, like the pulse given to the Jewish captives, prove the best incitement to exertion, and truest source of success. "Above all, he was attentive to the duty of hallowing the Sabbath. It may be observed, that, by a careful performance of this duty, he had, at an early period of his religious carcer, displeased, and even in some degree alienated, influential persons, in whose esteem he held a high place; but to the end of life he maintained the same honourable singularity. Nor had he, on the whole, reason, even in a worldly view, to repent it. The declaration of the admirable Sir Matthew Hale, who was accustomed to say of himself, that he always found the week prosper in proportion as he had improved the previous Sabbath, was frequently in our departed friend's mouth; and probably he could have verified it from his personal experience. He kept the day holy, not by passing through a mere routine of forms; but by paying a serious attention to its duties both in the closet and in the sanctuary; by not doing his own pleas are upon it, but esteeming it a delight-the holy of the Lord-honourable; by considering it as a season set apart for God's peculiar honour and service." To the latter circumstance, referred to by the preacher, we would especially call the attention of our readers, of whatever class they may be. An habitual sanctification of the Lord's day never fails to carry a blessing with it. Press of business, which must be attended to, is often the excuse for attendance to secular pursuits, by those who are called to fill high places in the legislature; but surely obedience to the authority of God is paramount to every other claim; and will be admitted to be so, not in theory, but in practice, by every man, who, like the subject of this memoir, is a Christian in deed and in truth. T. THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER. THERE were three great festivals among the Jews, at which all the males were required to be present (Exod. xxiv. 23; Deut. xvi. 11-15), in token of their gratitude to God for his manifold mercies vouchsafed to them the feast of the Passover, of Pentecost, and of Tabernacles. Of these, the first and most important was that of the passorer-called also the feast, or the days, of unleavened bread (Exod. xxiii. 15; Mark, xiv. 1; Acts, xii. 3); and which corresponding with the great Christian festival of Easter, when we celebrate the deliverance wrought for us by that Paschal Lamb, sacrificed in our behalf, it may be well to give a brief delineation of the customs which, by God's command, were then observed by his ancient people. 1. The passover was so called from the angel's passing over the houses of the Israelites, and sparing their first-born, when those of the Egyptians were destroyed. The name was also given to the lamb killed on the first day of the feast. Hence these expressions, eat the passover, to sacrifice the passover;" and hence also St. Paul calls Jesus Christ our "Passover," or to Paschal Lamb. The passover was also named the "feast of unleavened bread," because it was unlawful to eat any other kind of bread during the seven days of the feast. The name passover, however, more particularly belongs to the second day of the feast, the fifteenth of the month Nisan or Abib, the first month in the Jewish or ecclesiastical year. The ceremonics observed may be reduced to three heads. The killing and eating of the paschal lamb; the eating of unleavened bread; the offering to God of the omer, or handful of barley. It may be proper to remark, that the first passover in Egypt materially differed, as to the mode of its celebration, from the observance of it in after times. Many injunctions laid upon the Israelites had an immediate reference to their peculiar circumstances, then about to depart from the land of their oppressors, which could not reasonably apply to them when they were a settled people. The chief things to be observed relative to the paschal lamb were as follows:-It was to be a lamb without blemish;" and for this purpose it was carefully put up for some days before, that any defect might be detected. It was to be a male of the first year, taken from the sheep or from the goats, though the former was preferred. According to the rabbies, it was not to be less than eight days, or more than a year old. person selected to preside, pronounced a benediction: "Blessed be He that created the fruit of the vine." The next point observed was the washing of hands; after which there were placed on the table two cakes of unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and the roasted lamb. To these were added the remains of the peace-offering of the preceding day, and other meats, with the sour sauce, called charoseth, which was thick, and intended to represent the bricks which the Israelites made in Egypt. The person presiding then took a small piece of lettuce, which, before the process of blanching, is extremely bitter, and which he ate, and those with him, blessing God for the fruits of the earth; and afterwards a piece of bread, dipped in the bitter herbs, was eaten. All the dishes were now removed from the table, and the children were instructed in the nature and intention of the solemn feast- the signification of the bitter herbs, unleavened bread,. &c.; and this was generally from Exod. xii. 25, 26, and Deut. xxvi. 5-11, and this explanation was termed the Hagganah. The supper was again set upon the table; then each person lifted up in his hands first the bitter herbs, and then the unleavened bread, and joined in declaring that they ate them in commemoration of the bondage and deliverance of their fathers from the land of Egypt. The 113th and 114th Psalms were then sung, and having blessed the Lord, a second cup was drank. The hands were again washed; and the person who presided took the two unleavened cakes, broke one, and placed that which was broken on the other. He then blessed it, and putting some bread and bitter herbs together, the persons assembled dipped them in the same, and again blessed God. They then gave thanks over the flesh of the peace-offering of the preceding day, and over the lamb, of which they ate. The supper was then lengthened out, each person partaking of what he chose, only being careful to conclude the repast with a small portion of the paschal lamb, as big at least as an olive. The paschal lamb, after the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan, was to be killed in "the place which the Lord should choose to place his name there" (Deut. xvi. 2). This place is by some supposed to have been first at Mizpeh, afterwards at Shiloh ; and when that was destroyed, the ark was moved to several places, until fixed at Jerusalem. It was to be killed, as has been remarked, on the fourteenth day of the month Nisan, and between the ninth hour and about the setting of the sun, that is, about three o'clock, or a little after, the very time that our Lord was crucified. Such as could not, on account of some legal objection, celebrate the feast on the day appointed, were obliged to do so the four-presided said the blessing of the meat over the third teenth of the succeeding month. The lamb might be killed by the person to whom it belonged, or, if he were disqualified, by the Levites in his stead; one of the priests received the blood in a vessel, which was handed on to the priest next to the altar, by whom it was poured out, or sprinkled on the altar, like the blood of the other sacrifices. The sprinkling of the blood upon the door-posts was obviously peculiar to the first passover. The lamb was to be roasted whole, not a bone to be broken. It was not to be eaten raw, or perhaps in a half-roasted state, 66 nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire" (Exod. xii. 9), which appears to have been ordered, that there might be a wide distinction between this sacrifice and the abominable heathen rites, where portions of the victim were often devoured raw. The paschal supper was thus conducted:* It commenced with the presentation of a cup of wine and water to each guest assembled (for it often happened that the members of more than one family were present), over which the master of the family, or the See Lightfoot, Witsius, &e. They again washed their hands; and the person who cup of wine, which they then drank, and which was called the cup of blessing. (See 1 Cor. x. 16.) A fourth cup of wine was mingled, over which they continued the Hallel (or hymn of five psalms), beginning where they left off, at the 15th, to the 118th psalm, and finished with prayer. The guests leaned on their left arm around the table, as was the custom among the people of the East, and which explains the declaration that John leaned on the bosom of Jesus as they sat at meat. This was the ceremonial observance at the paschal supper; and the brief outline here given explains many of the circumstances referred to at the institution of that sacrament which our Lord commanded should be observed for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of his death. It is needless to observe, that He was the true Paschal Lamb-the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, typitied in these ceremonial observances; and the true believer, while he adores the mercy and goodness of Jehovah in providing an allsufficient remedy for man's spiritual diseases, and an all-sufficient atonement for man's innumerable transgressions, will not fail to admire the wisdom, which, for generations before, typified the sacrifice of the very Paschal Lamb-the Son of his love. It has been a matter of dispute, whether our blessed Lord actually partook of the Jewish passover immediately before his death, or whether he did not eat a paschal supper of his own appointing, when he instituted the sacrament of his most precious body and blood. 2. At this season also was observed the feast of unleavened bread, which lasted seven days, by which name the passover was sometimes designated (Luke, xxii. 1). During this period the Jews might not eat any leavened bread, or even have it in their houses (Exod. xii. 15-19). Concerning this the modern Jews are scrupulous to the very last degree. The master of the family makes a diligent search into every corner and crevice of the house, lest any crumbs of leavened bread should remain. Prayer is devoutly offered, that if any should have escaped this diligent search, it may become as the dust. The heaviest punishments were denounced against those who partook of leavened bread at this season; some even supposing that the proper punishment inflicted should be death. The spiritual inference which is drawn by St. Paul from the observance of this command of God, is most important. The abstaining from eating leavened bread was designed to teach the necessity of moral purity; and it is with this notion that the apostle thus exhorts the Corinthians (1 Cor. v. 7, 8), "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." 3. The first-fruits of the harvest were also offered to God at this feast, on the sixteenth of Nisan. The sheaf of barley designed for this offering was gathered and prepared with great ceremony. The Sanhedrim deputed a number of priests to go into the fields and reap a handful of the first ripe corn; and these, attended by great crowds of people, went out of one of the gates of Jerusalem into the neighbouring cornfields. The first-fruits thus reaped were carried, with great pomp and rejoicing, through the streets to the temple. The Jewish writers say that an ox preceded them, with gilded horns and an olive crown upon his head, and that a pipe played before them until they approached the city. On entering it, they crowned the first-fruits, that is, exposed them to sight with as much pomp as they could; and the chief officers of the temple went out to meet them (see Lev. xxiii. 9-14). This was to testify their acknowledgment, that the fruits of the earth were the gracious boon of that Jehovah who gives rain, both the former and the latter rain, in its season, and reserves to men pointed weeks of harvest" that he had a right over those blessings which he so freely bestowed: for, to use the language of St. James, "every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." "the ap It was with reference to this custom that our Lord is spoken of as the first-fruits of them that slept,-the first-fruits of that harvest to be gathered into the garner of the Lord at the end of the world. The custom was doubtless intended to typify this great event. That which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption. To this great and momentous event, then--the resurrection of the body at the last great day-it is the Christian's duty to look forward; to bear in mind, that on that day the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and an eternal separation shall be made between the wheat and the tares, between the good and the bad seed. Let him live under the habitual conviction that he must himself see the Redeemer, who died and rose again, face to face; and as the first-fruits were offered to Jehovah the Lord of the harvest, so let him obey the earnest injunction of the apostle," I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." 0. THE INQUISITION. No. I. Its Establishment. In an essay which appeared in a former Number of this Magazine, the privileges which we enjoy as Protestants were briefly enumerated. Among these, that of religious liberty was adduced as not the least important; and truly, when we consider the atrocious acts of cruelty and oppression committed upon those who conscientiously protested against the idolatries of the Romish Church, we may well thank God that the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places; and that no man in our favoured land can suffer on account of his religious principles. The horrors of the Inquisition are not unknown to many of our readers, who may have wept over the cruelties of that iniquitous tribunal; cruelties which could not be surpassed by the most implacable tyrants of ancient Rome, and which, by their very commission, must convince every unprejudiced mind, that the system of religious delusion, which it was their object to uphold, is diametrically opposed to the truth and spirit of the Gospel. It is proposed, nevertheless, to give a brief account of its rise and progress. We are too apt to forget the spiritual, no less than the temporal, blessings we enjoy. Too many, even of sound Protestants, begin to view Popery with less repulsive horror-to regard the representations of its bloody deeds as grossly exaggerated. Let the records of the Inquisition bear testimony, that no pen can depict in too strong language the tyranny and the atrocity of the papacy. Let the oceans of blood which it has caused to flow-the flames which it has kindled for the destruction of its victims-the tortures which it has exercised, be called to mind, and then surely no man will refuse to affirm, that the wrath of God must rest on all who would seek even to palliate, much less to uphold, such a system as that of popery ; -a system the tendency of which is to undermine the whole scheme of man's redemption; to arrogate to the creature that power and authority which belong to the Creator alone; and to eradicate some of the most benevolent affections of the human heart,-while it opens a wide door to laxity of morals, and perversion of right principle. The strongest proof of that profound ignorance and servitude in which the human mind was sunk during the middle ages, is the blind and undiminished veneration of all Europe for the holy see, in defiance of the crimes with which it was disgraced and dishonoured. The certainty of impunity, and a perfect knowledge of the state of darkness and barbarism, which precluded any rational attempts at emancipation, seems to have induced the sovereign pontiffs to throw off every restraint imposed upon their passions. The college of cardinals betrayed no less disregard to every consideration of their own character, and to the sanctity of the supreme dignity of the Christian Church, in the choice of persons to fill the chair of St. Peter.* It cannot be wondered at, therefore, that, as a body, the Romish clergy were extremely dissolute; and that while they exalted the pope even to the rank of a divinity, and made religion to consist in mere acts of external worship-and of those many truly ridiculous -there should be among themselves, as well as their adherents, a fearful departure from the purity of the Gospel. The pages of this work need not be polluted by an enumeration of the vices brought to the charge of the pontiffs themselves. At the period of the Reformation in our country the monasteries were too often the seats of the most extreme licentiousness, as well as ignorance; and they who ought to have been guides and examples, by their sensuality and profligacy brought disgrace upon the Christian profession. Amidst the gross darkness, however, there were a few spots illumined by the rays of Divine truth. had still a people in various quarters, who worshipped him in spirit, and whom no bribes or threats could induce to bow to the Romish see-men who counted all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord, and who were willing to make any sacrifice, undergo any hardship, and lay down life itself, rather than take a part in the idolatrous worship of popery. God "It has been my good fortune," says Dr. Gilly, "to have had opportunities of examining treasures of ecclesiastical history, in libraries rich in such stores; and the more I have read, the more I am convinced, that the secluded glens of Piedmont are not the only retreats where the descendants of primitive Christians may be found. Under this term I mean to speak of persons who have inherited a Christianity which the Church of Rome has not transmitted to them, and who, from father to son, have essentially preserved the mode of faith, and the form of discipline, which were received when the Gospel was first planted in their land. I have discovered ample reason to believe, that there is scarcely a mountain region in our quarter of the globe, which is poor and uninviting, and difficult of access, where the primitive faith, as it was preached by the earliest messengers of the truth, did not linger for many ages after the Romish hierarchy had established itself in the richest countries and in the plains; and, moreover, that there are still many mountain districts, where the population have continued Christian from generation to generation to the present hour; Christian, in non-conformity with the Church usurping the appellation Catholic; .... and the light which modern researches are casting every year upon the history of nations, helps us to perceive, that the chain which connects the primitive and the Protestant Churches is unbroken in various places where it was supposed to have been dissevered."† The Albigenses and Waldenses were among the number of those who excited the jealousy of the papal see. They were the descendants of men who for ages had witnessed a good confession. "The Waldenses, or members of the mountain Churches, whether of Spain, Italy, or France (for the term Waldenses means nothing more than natives of mountain valleys), were not sects; they were true component parts of the body of Christ, and faithful asserters of the truth as it is in Jesus, when others declined from it." They had long been viewed with suspicion; and their growing importance induced Innocent III., at the commencement of the thirteenth century, to endeavour to root them out by the sword. This cruel, avaricious, and haughty pontiff was not destitute of learning; but he * Sir N. W. Wraxall's History of France. Dr. Gilly. was of unbounded ambition, and was not content with the despotic government of the Church, but aimed at being the disposer of the kingdoms of this world. Finding that the violent measures hitherto adopted for the extirpation of heresy were feebly seconded by the barons of Provence, he proclaimed a crusade against the heretics, very similar to that which was sent to the Holy Land. He issued a sentence of excommunication against both superiors and vassals, and carried on a war of extermination in the south of France during a period of twenty years. Preachers were sent to all quarters to stir up the minds of the people to this work of blood. Promises of full pardon for all their sins were made to those who should betake themselves to it: even paradise was secured to those who should join it for forty days. Earl Simon de Montfort,* a monster of cruelty, was the chief general, and was styled by Innocent" the active and dexterous soldier of Jesus Christ, and the invincible defender of the Catholic faith:" and the carnage may be conceived from the circumstance that 300,000 perished of those who fought for Popery. There were two orders of mendicants founded about this period, which for three centuries governed with unbounded sway the affairs both of Church and State-the Dominicans and Franciscans. The former, called also preaching friars, because public instruction was their chief office, owed their origin to Dominic, a Spaniard of high family, born at Calaroga in 1170, and Canon of Osma; a man of warm temperament, boundless pride, and infuriated against all who would not submit to the Romish see. The latter, or minor friars, as they were sometimes denominated, were founded in 1209, by Francis, the son of a merchant of Assisi, in the province of Umbria, who, having spent his youth in profligacy, injured his constitution, and was apparently on the brink of the grave; but having been restored to health, he resolved to dedicate all that he possessed to the service of God. The rules of both these fraternities were peculiarly severe. The most abject poverty was inculcated by their founders, and oaths taken by them most scrupulously to observe it, although these were soon disregarded. Dominic left his own country for the purpose of checking heresy; and going to Italy, was instantly received by the pope with many marks of kindness. He was sent to Toulouse, and took up his residence at the house of a nobleman, who had been inclined to heresy, but who, by Dominic's persuasion, relapsed into Popery, devoting his house and family to Dominic's order. Doubts, however, have arisen whether Dominic was an inquisitor in the strictest sense of the word. That he eagerly bent his mind to the extirpation of heresy, there can be no doubt, and that he was actively engaged in endeavouring to effect this object with a commission from the pope. But the inquisition was not duly constituted until some years after his death, which took place in 1221. "Historians," says Dr. M'Crie, "are divided in opinion as to the exact time at which the inquisition This wretch, as a reward for his atrocities, was declared by the legate in a council at Montpelier, in 1214, prince of all the countries which he had conquered and should conquer, which was confirmed at the council of Lateran the following year. He went to the king of France to receive investiture, and was met in every town and village by the clergy and people, who sought to touch the hem of his garment, while they exclaimed, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!!!" He was killed at the siege of Toulouse, June 25, 1218, by a stone thrown by a woman, which severed his head from his body. Just before his death, Dominic sent Gilbert de Fresney, with twelve of the brethren, to England, where they founded their first monastery at Oxford, and soon after another at London. In 1276, the lord mayor and aldermen gave thein two whole streets by the river Thames, hence called Blackfriars, the name by which they were known in England. The Franciscans, or grey friars, are supposed to have come to England in the reign of Henry III., and to have had their first house at Canterbury, and their second at London. |