saw, the branding iron, were put to work. Bastwick's wife received her husband's ears in her lap, and kissed them. Prynne cried out to the man who hacked him, "Cut me, tear me, I fear not thee-I fear the fire of hell, not thee." Burton fainting with heat and pain, cried out, ""Tis too hot to last." It was too hot to last.

Sympathy with the principles of these Puritan sufferers pervaded, to a great extent, the population of London. Side by side with, but in stern contrast to, the gay merry-makings and pageants of the Stuart age, there lay a deep, earnest, religious spirit at work, mingling with political excitement, and strengthening it. The Puritan preachers of a former age had been popular in London. Their sentiments had tended greatly to mould into a corresponding form the opinions, habits, and feelings of a subsequent generation. An anti-papal spirit, a love of evangelical truth, a desire for simplicity in worship, a deep reverence for the Lord's day, and a strict morality, characterized this remarkable race of men. The strange doings of archbishop Laud, the doctrines they heard in some of the parish churches, the profanation of the Sabbath, and the profligacy of the times, filled these worthies with deep dismay, and vexed their righteous souls. Boldly did they testify against such things; and when the Book of Sports came out, the magistrates of London had so much of the Puritan spirit in them, that they decidedly set their faces against the infa

mous injunctions, and went so far as to stop the king's carriage while proceeding through the city during service-time. King James,

enraged at this, swore that "he had thought there had been no kings in England but himself," and sent a warrant to the mayor, commanding that the vehicle should pass; to which his lordship, with great firmness and dignity, replied, "While it was in my power I did my duty, but that being taken away by a higher power, it is my duty to obey." In the reign of Charles, the chief magistrate issued very stringent orders in reference to the sabbath.

The proceedings of the Star Chamber, its barbarous punishments and mutilations, with the accompaniments of fines and captivity, for conscientious adherence to what was considered the path of duty, galled the spirits and roused the indignation of many a Londoner. The citizens went home from the public execution of iniquitous sentences, from the sight of victims pilloried and mangled for their adherence to virtuous principle, with a deep disquietude of soul, which swelled to bursting as they reflected on the tragedies they had witnessed. The avenging hand of Providence on injustice and oppression was about to be manifested, visiting national iniquities with those internal calamities and convulsions which so

long afflicted the land. A significant scene, prophetic of the new order of things, took place in London in the year 1640, just after the opening of the Long Parliament. Prynne,

Burton, and Bastwick, were restored to liberty. Crowds went forth to meet them. "When they came near London," says Clarendon, "multitudes of people of several conditions, some on horseback and others on foot, met them some miles from town, very many having been a day's journey; so they were brought about two o'clock of the afternoon in at Charing Cross, and carried into the city by above ten thousand persons, with boughs, and flowers, and herbs in the way as they passed, making great noise and expressions of joy for their deliverance and return; and in these acclamations mingling loud and virulent exclamations against those who had so cruelly persecuted such godly men." The scarred faces, the mutilated ears of the personages thus honoured, would tell a tale of suffering and heroism, sure to appeal to the popular sympathy, and turn it in a stream of violent indignation against the mad oppressors. What followed we shall see in the next chapter. Meanwhile we may remark, that much of what has now been detailed furnishes a singular historical parallel to the events of our own times, and illustrates the observation of Solomon of old: "Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us," Eccles. i. 10. We have lived in the nineteenth century to witness the revival of superstitious mummeries and popish errors; and taught by the past, the true Christian will earnestly pray that they may be extirpated

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without the recurrence of those awful calamities, of which their introduction in former times proved the precursor. Meanwhile may each reader remember, that an obligation is laid upon him to counteract these deviations from Scriptural truth by maintaining that unceremonial and spiritual religion which Christ taught the woman of Samaria, and by cultivating that vital faith which rests on Him alone for acceptance, while it works by love, purifies the heart, and overcomes the world!

CHAPTER II.

LONDON DURING THE CIVIL WARS.

CHARLES I. unfurled his standard at Nottingham, in the month of August, 1642, and staked his crown and life on the issue of battle; a high wind beat down the flag, an evil omen, as it was deemed by some who saw it, and a symbol, as it proved, of the result of the unnatural conflict. Sadly was England's royal standard stained before the fighting ended. London took part at the beginning with the parliament. Its Puritan tendencies, its awakened indignation at the assaults made by misguided monarchs and their ministers on conscientious, religious, brave-hearted men; its long observation of Strafford's policy, which had roused the displeasure of the citizens, and led to riots; its jealousy of the constitution being violated and imperilled

by the arbitrary proceedings of Charles, especially by his attempt to reign without parliaments; and, added to these, a selfish, but natural resentment at the exorbitant pecuniary fines and forfeitures with which it had been visited in the exercise of royal displeasure, contributed to fix London on the side of those who had taken their stand against the king. One can easily imagine the busy political talk going on at that time in all kinds of dwellings and places of resort-the eager expectancy with which citizens waited for news-the haste with which reports, often exaggerated, passed from lip to lip-the sensation produced by decided acts on either side, as when, for example, Charles went down to the House of Commons, demanding the arrest of five obnoxious members, and when the House declared itself incapable of dissolution save by its own will-the hot and violent controversies that would be waged between citizens of opposite political and religious opinions-the separation of friends the divisions in familiesthe reckless violence with which some plunged into the strife, and the hard and painful moral necessity which impelled others to take their side the mean, low, selfish, or fanatical motives which influenced some, and the high, pure, and patriotic principles which moved the breasts of others the godless zeal of multitudes, and the firm faith and wrestling prayer that sustained not a few. These varied elements, grouped and arranged by the imagination upon the background of the scenery of old London, in the first