ishness, but attractive to those who desire to step in the foot-prints of Him who ever relieved human suffering, and who, whether in the privacy of home, the crowded street, the highway, or in solitude, never failed to respond to the wail of sorrow or the language of faith. A blessed consolation for the "broken and contrite heart!" ST. GILES', CRIPPLEGATE. "In the August of 1790, some workmen engaged in repairing the church of St. Giles', Cripplegate, found under the floor of the chancel an old coffin, which, as shown by the sexton's register, had rested there undisturbed for a hundred and sixteen years. For a But the reader will underrate the force of that genial grown person it was a very small one. Its length did current of Christian beneficence, which is so beautifully not exceed five feet ten inches, and it measured only represented as gliding side by side with the purity that sixteen inches across at the broadest part. The body keeps itself "unspotted from the world," if he assumes almost invariably stretches after death, so that the that the kindness of the cripples' friends has found its bodies of females of the middle stature and under relimit in the efforts I have already named. In the large- quire coffins of at least equal length; and the breadth, ness of their hearts, and to meet the necessities of the even outside, did not come fully to the average breadth case, they have attached to the institution "a sick and of shoulder in adults. Whose remains rested in that sea-side fund," by which those in delicate health are wasted old coffin? Those of a man the most truly annually permitted to visit the sea-side, in the hope of masculine in his cast of mind, and the most gigantic deriving invigorated health, to enable them the more in intellect, which Britain, or the world ever prosuccessfully to pursue their daily duties. Visitors and duced-the defender of the rights of the people of residents at Herne Bay this summer must have been England; as a scholar, first among the learned of pleased to see the cheerful groups of poor deformed Europe; as a poet, not only more sublime than any girls enjoying the benefit of that healthy, bracing other uninspired writer, but, as has been justly said, watering place. It may be a question, not so easily more fertile in trae sublimities than all other unindecided, as to which party enjoys the greatest luxury, spired writers put together. The small old coffin dis-the poor pale cripple, introduced to scenes so won- interred from out the chancel of St. Giles' contained derful and new, or the generous friends who have con- the remains of that John Milton who died at his house tributed the funds, and, mingling in the cheerful bustle in Bunhill Fields, in the winter of 1674; the allof preparation, have "seen them off" to their much-powerful controversialist who, in the cause of the desired destination. So true is it we get good in doing people, crushed the learned Salmasius full in the view good. Charity is twice blessed: it blesseth him who of Europe-the poet who produced the Paradise gives and him who takes. Lost.'" For twelve pounds per annum you may place a poor defenceless crippled girl in the "Home," where she will be clothed, fed, taught to earn a comfortable livelihood, and, above all, directed to that Saviour who was specially the friend of the helpless. pay. So writes Hugh Miller in one of his works. The indignity offered to the remains of Milton caused no slight sensation in the public mind at the time. Mr. Lofft, one of his editors, censures the sordid mischief allowed there, and the market made of the eagerness There can scarcely be a second opinion on the ne- with which curiosity or admiration prompted persons cessity and value of an institution of this kind. It is to possess themselves of memorials, supplied from this computed that about two thousand cripples are annually reckless invasion of the tomb. For it seems that the born in England and Wales, a number more than overseers, having caroused upon the discovery, retrebled by accidents in the first year of infant life. In solved to turn it to account. The leaden coffin was what a truly merciful work are those engaged who, opened, and the shroud removed; the teeth were expitying the helplessness of crippled childhood, provide tracted, and the hair cut off; and the less merchantthe maimed, the halt, and the defenceless a Christainable relics handed to the gravediggers, who were perhome, a resting-place, until they have learnt a trade, mitted to exhibit them for money to whoever chose to and are able to earn their "daily bread!" By their efforts many a poor cripple has dropped his crutch, -many a crooked limb has been straightened, and made useful for life,-many a pale and sorrowful face has been lightened by the rosy smile of health. Some are now in respectable situations, esteemed by their employers, and giving evidence in daily life that the sacred truths taught them are "a lamp unto their feet, and a light unto their path;" others have emigrated, under responsible protection, to distant lands, and their grateful letters prove that they have not forgotten the "home" of their youth, nor the loving hand that led them into the path of peace; and some have "died in the Lord." Little Hannah, the poor beggar girl before referred to, through whom, to some extent, this movement originated, was early called away; but the peace of her dying hours, the sweet smile that lighted up her pale face, and the precious words of immortal hope uttered by her, furnish additional evidence, that to those who believe in Jesus the grave has no terrors, and death no sting. "Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" There is also an Infant Cripples' Home in Somerset-street, London. who Scandalous as this outrage was, there is good reason for doubting that the body of Milton was the subject of it. Certainly there was a tradition that his remains were laid under the spot where the clerk's desk formerly stood, in the chancel. But the evidence of identity is, in other points, weak, and the conclusion hastily arrived at. Stevens, at the time, declared his disbelief in the attribution; and several persons went to see it, contended that it was a female corpse which was exhibited. The foregoing quotation from Hugh Miller confirms our doubts. From all we have ever read of Milton, our impression is that he was not a man of diminutive stature, as implied by the size of this coffin, and the appearance of its mouldering contents. He is always described as gravely handsome, or, in the epithet of that day, "beautiful;" and the tradition of the famed Italian lady "falling in love with him," when sojourning in that sunny land, appears to confirm this commonly received opinion; which also gathers strength from his effigy and bust in Westminster Abbey, as far as they go in witness of the bodily form. At all events, let us hope that the sacrilege, shameful in respect to any remains of ST. GILES', CRIPPLEGATE. humanity, was not committed upon those of the revered author of the " Paradise Lost." The disgrace will, however, be perpetuated by the following poem of Cowper, the first two stanzas of which are a translation from some of Milton's own Latin lines: "Me, too, perchance, in future days, The sculptured stone shall show, But I, or ere that season's come, Escaped from every care, Who, then, but must conceive disdain, Of wretches who have dared profano Ill fare the hand that heaved the stones O, ill-requited bard! neglect As much affronts the dead." Respect can hardly excuse the offence, in spite of the intent of which, we are more gratified with the hope that the mighty poet's "refuge" in the tomb is as entirely undisturbed as is his wife's in St. Margaret's, Westminster, where she was buried in 1657the great intermediate change in the government of the country explaining the fact of their "sleeping scerely," though in distant and different sepulchres. 711 and ceremonies; nor did he get any higher preferment John Speed, the historiographer, was also interred Our engraving faithfully represents St. Giles', Cripplegate, of whose antiquity the records are very interesting. "I read," says the worthy Stow, "in the history of Edmond, king of the East Angles, But besides the interest attached to the grave of written by Abba Floriacensis, and by Burchard, someEngland's immortal epic bard, there are other memotime secretary to Offa, king of Mercia, but since by ries of much national regard connected with this John Ledgate, monk of Bury, that in the year 1010, church. In it is buried John Fox, the martyrologist, when the Danes spoiled the kingdom of the East Angles, whose warning voice, in darker times, gave his ex- Alwyal, bishop of Elmham in Norfolk, caused the amples great effect on the popular mind. Daniel Neal, body of King Edmond the martyr, to be brought from in his "History of the Puritans," justifies this esti- Bedrisworth (now called Bury St. Edmonds) through mate. In the annals of the year 1587, time of Eliza- the kingdom of the East Saxons, and so to London, beth, he writes, "This year put an end to the life of in at Cripplegate, a place, sayeth mine author, so the famous martyrologist, John Fox, a person of in- called of cripples begging there; at which gate it was defatigable labour and industry, and an exile for resaid the body entering, miracles were wrought, as ligion in Queen Mary's days. He spent all his time some of the lame to go upright, praising God." A abroad in compiling the Acts and Monuments of the little way distant from this miraculously endowed church of England, which were published, first in Gate, and without the wall, stood the ancient church Latin, and afterwards, when he returned to his native of St. Giles, said to have been founded about 1030, country, in English, with enlargements; vast was the or twenty years after the posthumous entrance of the pains he took in searching records, and collecting sainted East Anglian monarch. But Stow proceeds to materials for his work. No book ever gave such a tell "that in the reign of William the Conqueror, and mortal wound to popery as this; it was dedicated to of his son, William Rufus, about which time some few the Queen, and was in such high reputation, that it houses being then builded along east and west, thwart was ordered to be set up in the churches; where it before the said gate, one Alfranc builded for the inraised in the people an invincible horror and detesta-habitants a parish church, which is of Saint Giles, tion of that religion which had shed so much innocent somewhat west from the said gate, and is now on the blood. Mr. Fox was born at Boston, in Lincolnshire, bank of the town ditch." As this was within the 1517, and educated in Brazen Nose College, Oxon. He bounds of the manor of Fensbury (now Finsbury), was afterwards tutor to the Duke of Norfolk's children, overgrown with flags and rushes, and redolent of huge who, in the days of Queen Mary, conveyed him pri- laystalls, the situation could not have been very pleavately out of the kingdom. He was a most learned, sant; but Alfranc was a zealous missionary for the pious, and judicions divine, of a catholic spirit, and extension of his church, and the venerated Saint Giles, against all methods of severity in religion. But he abbot and confessor at Athens, about three centuries was shamefully neglected for some years because he was before, had thus his sanctity located in the capital of a non-conformist, and refused to subscribe the canons England, whence it has been translated to many other * How remarkable, if considered as a poet-prophetic utterance places through the country. It was at first (again according to Stow) "a small thing, and stood in placo against the reality of the Cripplegate desecration! ST. GILES', CRIPPLEGATE. where now standeth the vicarage house, but has been In a work entitled, "London Scenes and London People," the author gives an account of a visit last year to the ancient church of St. Giles', Cripplegate. "Being anxious to inspect the restorations as recently made, I visited this ancient structure again, Milton's bust, after a considerable lapse of time. strangely enough, has been removed from the probable locality of the poet's grave to a comparatively The whole of the obscure corner of the south aisle. original monument, as set up by the reverential hands of the late Mr. Whitbread, has been preserved, and a canopy with columns of fancy marble added; but the work, though elegant, is hardly suited to the grandness of the subject. Bacon's bust is extremely lifelike. "The centre arches on both sides now assume something of their early character, the galleries being removed, and the panelling, which has so long obscured them, stripped off. They have also been disencumbered of various tablets and monuments, which are now placed on the side walls, many of them at least ten or twelve feet from the ground, so that reading the inscriptions would be impossible without mounting a ladder. "Most of the window-frames have been filled with painted glass, and the effect is tolerably good; but the pale, faded, nondescript yellow vitreous transparency over the communion table is strangely out of keeping. The arch over the altar, too, is wholly at variance with the pointed style adopted elsewhere. The complete restoration of the church, however, would include the necessary alteration and a Gothic ceiling. "The organ and loft remain untouched; and the outline of the noble western window, which was bricked up after the fire in the reign of Henry VIII., is entirely lost. Lowering the organ, which has been recommended, would be in doubtful taste, unless the tower could be completely renovated; but to crown the work, all the oak pewing, comparatively modern in date, should be swept away, and the area chancel restored. "I could not leave the hallowed precincts without a stroll through the churchyard-not that it is now remarkable for any ancient gravestones-though, no doubt, the surface having been raised several feet, Yet a deeply much precious dust rests beneath. solemn quietude reigns here. Scarcely a dozen steps from the noise and bustle of one of London's busiest districts, profound silence and retirement may be found. Without tree, or shrub, or tuft of grass, painfully bare and desolate-all the memorial stones being levelled into a sort of pavement, and no break left in 713 the straggling dead earth but a long, narrow strip of gravel. I wonder whether the sun ever shines here. To my right, stern and terrible, rose the old tower, dark with the gloom of seven or eight centuries; and to my left, the most massive fragment of the ancient city wall now remaining, with a bastion in marvellous preservation. How many ages, how many reminiscences of the hoary past speak to us from this tumulus of blackened brick!" Hard by Cripplegate there was to be seen till lately another building, of humble aspect, but also with noble associations, Milton's house in the Barbican. The place is now demolished, but we first secured an exact drawing of the venerable house, which a recent writer thus describes:-" To this new mansion,' as Edward Phillips, the poet's nephew, calls it, Milton removed from his 'pretty garden house' in Aldersgate-street, about the time of Naseby fight, in 1645; and hither, after her short sojourn at the house |tains, part are independent tribes, and part subjects of of the widow Webber, the mother of Christopher the Turkish empire. Milton's wife, the poet brought his contumacious spouse, Mary Powell, newly returned to her husband, and during the following summer that stout royalist, Richard Powell, her father, and Anne, his wife, together with a numerous progeny, were charitably housed under this roof by the stern but generous republican. Here, on the 29th of July, 1646, Mistress Milton gave birth to Anne, their first-born; and here, on New Year's day, 1647, Richard Powell died; and also, in the same year, old John Milton, the poet's father, whose remains were borne from this threshold to the parish church of St. Giles', Cripplegate, hard by, which was also to receive, twenty-seven years after, the ashes of his illustrious son. This house was the home of Milton for upwards of two years. Here he received young gentlemen to educate upon the magnificent plan set forth in his tractate, published the year before his removal hither. Here, too, it is probable Here, too, it is probable he wrote some part of his 'Tetrachordon' and Colasterion; and the sonnet On the religious memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, my Christian friend, deceased 16th December, 1646:'— When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, Of death called life, which us from Life doth sever. And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes THE NESTORIANS. CHAPTER I. THE Nestorians, or "Protestants of the East," as they have been called, are a remarkable people, but little known to the churches of the West, until a comparatively recent date. Attention in this country has been directed to them of late by the visits, first of two accredited ecclesiastics, craving the sympathy and help of British Christians, and then by four representative laymen, seeking the good offices of the British government with the courts of Turkey and Persia, in the hopo of thus obtaining some relief from the oppression under which their countrymen groan. These Nestorian Christians are found in the north of Persia, and in the adjacent mountains of Kurdistan, regions but seldom visited by the European traveller. Their entire number is probably under a hundred and fifty thousand, but the interest that attaches to them must be estimated, not by their number or political importance, but by their ancient history, their long and heavy persecutions, their present oppression, and their prospective influence on the civilization and Christianity of the East. About forty or fifty thousand of them, dwelling in the valley, are subject to Persian rule, and of the remainder, scattered among the moun * "In 1647, Milton removed to a smaller house in Holborn, opening into Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, where, in 1649, he received the visit of Sir Henry Vane and others, sent by the Council of State to enquire of Mr. Milton whether he would be employed as Secretary for Forreigue Tongues." The plain on which the Persian Nestorians dwell, has been thus described: "The mountains of Kurdistan sweep down to the shores of a glassy lake, and the vale is covered all over with such richness and variety of verdure as is rarely to be seen in those parts of the world most celebrated by the visitor in search of the picturesque. Standing on an eminence on the eastern side of this valley, the spectator sees a plain fifty miles long and twenty broad, with more than three hundred villages scattered upon its surface in the midst of vineyards, orchards, and cultivated fields.” Equally glowing is the description which Dr. Perkins, the devoted American missionary to the Nestorians, gives. "Verily," says he, "as I gaze with unwearying admiration from my study window on Mount Seir, in an atmosphere so clear that the satellites of Jupiter are visible to the naked eye, my vision roaming northward and eastward, over city, plain, lake, plains beyond, and snow-capped mountains beyond those plains, and lighting distinctly on villages a hundred miles away, at the base of those distant mountains, I feel the full force of Heber's lines Along the border of this plain extends the lake Oroomiah, or Urumijah, which is about ninety miles long from north to south, thirty broad, and 4,300 feet above sea level. The water of this lake is said to be so salt that no fish can live in it. Ten miles west of the lake, and two or three from the mountains, is the city known by the same name as the lake, claiming to be the birthplace of Zoroaster. Not far from it is a mound, still shown as the spot where he and his disciples are said to have kindled their perpetual fires, and to have worshipped the hosts of heaven. The city is surrounded by a high mud wall, and a deep moat, which, being generally filled with stagnant water, makes the site unhealthy. It contains a number of extensive gardens and handsome houses, and has a population of from twenty to twenty-five thou sand, of which, however, only six or seven hundred are Nestorians, although they abound in the villages, and altogether number on the plain, as stated above, forty or fifty thousand, most of whom are engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The Nestoriaus of the plain are very industrious, and partake largely, in their manners, of the suavity and urbanity of the Persian character. The mountain districts, where the great bulk of the Nestorians are found, are exceedingly wild and rugged, and in some cases, almost inaccessible, even to the mules, their ordinary beasts of burden. They are the highest portions of the mountains of old Assyria, stretching from Mount Ararat in Armenia southward, far toward the Persian Gulf. Dr. Grant, a medical missionary, who devoted his life to the welfare of this interesting people, and traced in them, as he believed, "the remnant of Israel which is left from Assyria," thus speaks of his first visit to them:-" After a toilsome ascent, I found myself at the summit of the mountain, where a scene indescribably grand was spread out before me. The my enraptured vision like a vast amphitheatre of wild, country of the independent Nestorians opened before precipitous mountains, broken with deep, dark-looking defiles and narrow glens, into few of which the eye could penetrate so far as to gain a distinct view of the |