often practised in foreign Churches; why should it not be in our own?

"But how is this to be done?" asked the Colonel. "If we are quite unequal now to the re-establishment of the monastick system, what does it advantage us to dwell on its beauties? If we are equal to it; how comes it to pass that it has never been tried? And why do we not find it alluded to with approbation in the works of our standard divines ?"

"Its re-establishment," replied Sir John, "is far too long a subject for us to consider when just at our ride's end. But it has been partially tried: I of course refer to the Little Gidding establishment under Nicholas Ferrar. And commended it has been by such writers as Thorndike, Bramhall, and Jeremy Taylor. Nay, do you not know that Burnet (whom I would only quote to the opposers of the system, as an argumentum ad hominem) speaks of the re-establishment of nunneries as a work that Would ADD HONOUR TO A QUEEN'S REIGN? And does not Bishop Andrewes express in the strongest manner his approval of the system, when he blesses GOD for the holiness of monks, and asceticks, and the beauty of virgins?"

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'If, however," returned Col. Abberley, monasteries were of such benefit as you appear to think, it does seem to me incomprehensible that their dissolution should have been submitted to so tamely, and that so few voices should have been raised in their defence."

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Why," answered Sir John,

"there were many reasons for this; but the two principal causes are to be looked for in the corruptions-not of the practice, but of the principles of the system. No one will now deny, for even Romanists, by their present acts, confess it, that religious houses must be under the controul of the bishop, in whose diocese they are situated. The heart-burnings and jealousies of which the contrary practice had been the source, had alienated the minds of the bishops from those whom, not without cause, they regarded as rivals. The mitred abbat of such a house as S. Alban's in exterior splendour and deportment was quite the equal of a prelate he gave the blessing in the same way; he wore the same mitre, ring, gloves, and sandals : he carried the same pastoral staff; the only difference being that its crook was turned inwards instead of outwards, to denote that his jurisdiction related only to the internal management of his own house. It was really preposterous that the Easter offerings of the county of Hertford should be made at S. Alban's instead of at Lincoln. And not only does this system of rivalry render the regular clergy objects of jealousy to the bishops; but the means by which this rivalry was supported with success; namely, constant appeals to, and constant dependence on, Rome; rendered them objects of dislike to the people when the corruptions of Rome became too flagrant any longer to be hidden. Of it is only human nature that a slight fault

course,

should, in popular estimation, far outweigh the greatest benefit. So the abbeys were, in a certain sense, isolated from the rest of the Church, and accordingly the rest of the Church (partly, perhaps, induced thereto by a promise of eighteen new bishopricks) were quiet spectators of their ruin. Another reason which helped their downfall was, the length to which the system of appropriation had gone among them. The abbey became, so to speak, rector: an ill paid vicar was set over the parish; and he, naturally enough, preferred the life of the religious house to the solitude and poverty of his village home. However, this was not the case everywhere, and some abbeys set a very different example. Witness that of Glastonbury. Many of the most magnificent churches of the west owe their foundation to the liberality and skill of this house: and the parsonages, which, in many instances (though with some mutilations), still remain, shew that the clergy presented to these cures were not non-residents. And the same thing may perhaps be said of S. Edmund's Bury. I know nothing more affecting than the petitions of some of the smaller houses against their dissolution: we have a notable example extant in that of Leyborn', in Leicestershire."

1 It may be seen in Ellis's Collection of Letters, vol. ii. It is addressed by the prioress of this little house to the founder, that is the patron, or lineal descendant of the founder; for the nunnery was removed to Leyborn from Harrington, as early as 1150. Thus it runs: "Right Honourable, our most singular good Master and Founder, our duty in the humblest

"You have spoken much, and from my heart I fear in some respects most truly, of the curse attend

wise presupposed, with daily prayer of your perpetual and religious bead women. Please it your goodness to understand that whereas Almighty God hath indued you with the just title of Founder of the Priory of Leyborn, to the great comfort of me and all my sisters, we do and always shall submit ourselves to your most righteous commandment and order, only putting our comfort in your goodness for all causes concerning your poor Priory of Leyborn. And whereas we do hear that a great number of Abbeys shall be punished for misliving, and that all Abbeys and Priories under the value of cc pounds be at our most noble Prince's pleasure to suppress, and put down ; yet, if it may please your goodness, we trust in God, ye shall hear no complaint against us, neither in our living, nor in our hospitality. In consideration whereof [if] it may please your goodness in our great necessity to be a mean and suiter for your own poor Priory, that it may be preserved and stand, you shall be a more higher Founder to us than he that founded our house. We have none other comfort nor refuge, but only in your goodness, and we wholly submit ourselves to the pleasure of GOD, to the pleasure of our Prince, and to the pleasure of you our Founder, and howsoever it shall please GOD that we shall be ordered, we shall continue your faithful and true bead women. As knoweth the LORD, Who ever preserve you to your heart's content.

Your own daily bead women,

JANE MESSYNDYNE, Prioress,

and sisters of the Priory of Leyborne.

It appears that Cromwell's agents were sometimes touched with some compunction in the midst of their villany. The four visitors of Catesby Nunnery thus remonstrate :-"Which house of Catesby we found in very perfect order; the prioress a sure, wise, discrete, and very religious woman, with ix

ing private possessions of abbey lands. Now is it not an undeniable fact, that our country, as a country, has never flourished so much as it has done since the dissolution? And taking your own grounds of argument; does not this prove much against your assertion of the sin of that measure?"

"I am by no means prepared to admit," replied Sir John Morley, "that national prosperity is any criterion of GoD's favour to a nation. It is of course easy to collect a large quantity of passages from the Old Testament which seem to prove that it is. But these, (and it is important to remember it,) were specially addressed to a people living under an immediate Theocracy: and in which worldly prosperity was one of the chief blessings attached by GOD'S covenant as well to national, as to private, religion. Still, we have traces of an occasionally different method of procedure on the part of the Ruler of all nunnes under her obedience, as religious and devoute, and with as good obedience as we have in time past seen, or belike shall see. The said house standeth in such a quarter much to the relief of the King's people, and his Grace's subjects are there likewise much relieved. Wherefore," they continue, "if it should please the King to have any remorse, we think that his Grace cannot appoint any more deserving house to remain."

The orators of the Protestant Association, and others of the same "persuasion," might do well to read this, and other testimonies of a similar kind, to be found in class Cleopatra in the Harleian MSS. Even they must allow the cruelty and injustice done to these defenceless women, though they may slight the insult offered to God.