for since every one of the people had been in a certain sense criminals, the king did not think it fair to make them judges also. It would, indeed, have been impossible to follow in all respects the customs which prevail with us, for the crimes with which men are charged in our courts are mere overt acts, as the lawyers call them, that is, acts which regard the outward behaviour; such as the acts of striking, maiming, stealing, and so forth. But in this king's court it was not merely outward sins, but sins of the heart also which were to be punished. Many a crime, therefore, which was never heard of in the court of King's Bench, or at the Old Bailey, and which indeed could not be cognisable by these courts, was here to be brought to light, and was reserved for this great day. Among these were pride and oppression, and envy, and malice, and revenge, and covetousness, and secret vanity of mind, and evil thoughts of all sorts, and all sinful wishes and desires. When covetousness, indeed, put men on committing robbery, or when malice drove them to an act of murder, then the common courts immediately judged the criminal, without waiting for these Great Assizes; nevertheless, since even a thief and murderer would now and then escape in the common courts, for want of evidence, or through some fault or other of the judge or jury, the escape was of little moment to the poor criminal, for he was sure to be tried again by this great king; and even though the man should have been punished in some sense before, yet he had now a farther and more lasting punishment to fear, unless, indeed, he was one of those, who had obtained (by the means I before spoke of) this great king's pardon. The sins of the heart, however, were by far the most numerous sort of sins, which were to come before this great tribunal; and these were to be judged by this great king in person, and by none but himself;

because

because he alone possessed a certain power of getting at all secrets.

I once heard of a certain king of Sicily, who built a whispering gallery in the form of an ear, through which he could hear every word his rebellious subjects uttered, though spoken ever so low. But this secret of the king of Sicily was nothing to what this great king possessed; for He bad the power of knowing every thought which was conceived in the mind, though it never broke out into words, or proceeded to actions.

Now you may be ready to think, perhaps, that these people were worse off than any others, because they were to be examined so closely, and judged so strictly. Far from it; the king was too just to expect bricks without giving them straw; he gave them, therefore, every help that they needed. He gave them a book of directions, as I before observed; and because they were naturally short-sighted, he supplied them with a glass for reading it, and thus the most dim-sighted might see, if they did not wilfully shut their eyes; but though the king invited them to open their eyes, he did not compel them; and many remained stone blind all their lives with the book in their hand, because they would not use the glass, nor take the proper means for reading and understanding all that was written for them. The humble and sincere learned in time to see even that part of the book which was least plainly written; and it was observed that the ability to understand it depended more on the heart than the head; an evil disposition blinded the sight, while humility operated like an eye-salve.

Now it happened that those who had been so lucky as to escape the punishment of the lower courts, took it into their heads that they were all very good sort of people, and of course very safe from any danger at this Great Assize. This grand intended trial, indeed,

bad

had been talked off so much, and put off so long, (for it had seemed long at least to these short-sighted people,) that many persuaded themselves it would never take place at all; and far the greater part were living away therefore without ever thinking about it; they went on just as if nothing at all had been done for their benefit; and as if they had no king to please, no king's son to be thankful to, no book to guide themselves by, and as if the Assizes were never to come about.

But with this king a thousand years were as one day, for he was not slack concerning his promises, as some men count slackness.-So at length the solemn period approached. Still, however, the people did not prepare for the solemnity, or rather, they prepared for it much as some of the people in our provincial towns are apt to prepare for the annual assize times; I mean by balls and feastings, and they saw their own trial come on, with as little concern as is felt by the people in our streets, when they see the judge's procession enter the town; they indeed comfort themselves that it is only those in the prisons who are guilty.

But when at last the day came, and every man found that he was to be judged for himself; and that somehow or other, all his secrets were brought out, and that there was now no escape, not even a short reprieve, things began to take a more serious turn. Some of the worst of the criminals were got together debating in an outer court of the grand hall, and there they passed their time, not in compunction and tears, not in comparing their lives with what was required in that book which had been given them, but they derived a fallacious hope by comparing them

selves with such as had been still more notorious offenders.

One

One who had grown wealthy by rapine and oppression, but had contrived to keep within the letter of the law, insulted a poor fellow as a thief, because he had stolen a loaf of bread. "You were far wick"eder than I was," said a citizen to his apprentice, * for you drank and swore at the alehouse every Sun"day night.""Yes," said the poor fellow, "but "it was your fault that I did so, for you took no "care of my soul, but spent all your sabbaths in "jaunting abroad or in rioting at home; I might "have learnt, but there was no one to teach me; I "might have followed a good example, but I saw "only bad ones. I sinned against less light than you "did." A drunken journeyman, who had spent all his wages on gin, rejoiced that he had not spent a great estate in bribery at elections, as the lord of his manor had done, while a perjured elector boasted that he was no drunkard, like the journeyman; and the member himself took comfort that he had never received the bribes which he had not been ashamed to offer.

I have not room to describe the awful pomp of the court, nor the terrible sounding of the trumpet which attended the judge's entrance, nor the sitting of the judge, nor the opening of the books, nor the crowding of the millions, who stood before him. I shall pass over the multitudes who were tried and condemned to dungeons and chains, and cternal fire, and to perpetual banishment from the presence of the king, which always seemed to be the saddest part of the sentence. I shall only notice further, a few who brought some plea of merit, and claimed a right to be rewarded by the king, and even deceived themselves so far as to think that his own book of laws would be their justification.

A thoughtless spendthrift advanced without any contrition, and said, "that he had lived handsomely, and had hated the covetous whom God abhor

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eth;

·

"eth; that he trusted in that passage of the book "which said, that covetousness was idolatry; and "that he therefore hoped for a favourable sentence." Now it proved that this man had not only avoided covetousness, but that he had even left his wife and children in want through his excessive prodigality. The Judge therefore immediately pointed to that place in the book where it is written, he that provi deth not for his household is worse than an infidel. He that liveth in pleasure is dead while he liveth; "thou," said he, “in thy life time, receivedst thy good things, "and now thou must be tormented.-Then a miser, whom hunger and hoarding had worn to skin and bone, crept forward, and praised the sentence passed on this extravagant youth, "and surely," said he, "since he is condemned, I am the man that may "make some plea to favor-I was never idle or

drunk, I kept my body in subjection. I have 'been so self-denying that I am certainly a saint : "I have loved neither father nor mother, nor wife "nor children to excess, in all this I have obeyed "the book of the law."-Then the judge said, But

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where are thy works of mercy and thy labours of "love? see that family which perished in thy sight last hard winter, while thy barns were overflowing; that poor family were my representatives; yet they were hungry, and thou gavest them no meat.-Go to now, thou rich man, weep and howel for the miseries that are come upon you. Your gold "and your silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your "flesh as it were fire."

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Then came up one with a most self-sufficient air. He walked up boldly, having in one hand the plan of an hospital which he had built, and in the other the drawing of a statue, which was erecting for him in the country that he had just left, and on his forehead

appeared,