The tops of the mountains smoking; the rivers dry; earthquakes in several places; the sea sunk and retired into its deepest channel, and roaring as against some mighty storm. These things will make the day dead and melancholy; but the night scenes will have more of horror in them, when the blazing stars appear like so many furies with their lighted torches, threatening to set all on fire. For I do not doubt but the comets will bear a part in this tragedy, and have something extraordinary in them at that time, either as to number, or bigness, or nearness to the earth. Besides, the air will be full of flaming meteors, of unusual forms and magnitudes; balls of fire rolling in the sky, and pointed lightnings darted against the earth, mixed with claps of thunder and unusual noises from the clouds. The moon and the stars will be confused and irregular both in their light and motions; as if the whole frame of the heavens was out of order, and all the laws of nature were broken or expired.

When all things are in this languishing or dying posture, and the inhabitants of the earth under the fears of their last end, the heavens will open on a sudden, and the glory of God will appear. A glory surpassing the sun in its greatest radiancy which, though we cannot describe, we may suppose it will bear some resemblance or proportion with those representations that are made in Scripture of God upon His throne. This wonder in the heavens, whatsoever its form may be, will presently attract the eyes of all the Christian world. Nothing can more affect than an object so unusual and so illustrious, and probably brings along with it their last destiny, and will put a period to all human affairs.

As it is not possible for us to express or conceive the dread and majesty of His appearance, so neither can we, on the other hand, express the passions and consternations of the people that behold it. These things exceed the measures of human affairs, and of human thoughts; we have neither words nor comparisons to make them known by. The greatest pomp and magnificence of the Emperors of the East, in their armies, in their triumphs, in their inaugurations, is but the sport and entertainment of children, if compared with this solemnity. When God conde

scends to an external glory, with a visible train and equipage; when, from all the provinces of His vast and boundless empire, He summons His nobles, as I may so say-the several orders of angels or archangels-to attend His person, though we cannot tell the form or manner of His appearance, we know there is nothing in our experience, or in the whole history of this world, that can be a just representation of the least part of it. No armies so numerous as the host of heaven; and, instead of the wild noises of the rabble, which makes a great part of our worldly state, this blessed company will breathe their hallelujahs into the open air, and repeated acclamations of salvation to God, which sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb.

Imagine all nature now standing in a silent expectation to receive its last doom! the tutelary and destroying angels to have their instructions; everything to be ready for the fatal hour; and then, after a little silence, all the host of heaven to raise their voice, and sing aloud: "Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered; as smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God." And upon this, as upon a signal given, all the sublunary world breaks into flames, and all the treasures of fire, are opened in heaven and in earth.

Thus the conflagration begins. If one should now go about to represent the world on fire, with all the confusions that necessarily must be in nature and in mankind upon that occasion, it would seem to most men a romantic scene. Yet we are sure there must be such a scene. The heavens will pass away with a noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, and all the works of the earth will be burnt up; and these things cannot come to pass without the greatest disorders imaginable, both in the minds of men and in external nature, and the saddest spectacles that eye can behold. We think it a great matter to see a single person burnt alive; here are millions shrieking in the flames at once. It is frightful to us to look upon a great city in flames, and to see the distractions and misery of the people; here is a universal fire through all the cities of the earth, and a uni

versal massacre of their inhabitants. Whatsoever the prophets foretold of the desolations of Judæa, Jerusalem, or Babylon, in the highest strains, is more than literally accomplished in this last and general calamity; and those only that are spectators of it can make its history.

The disorders in nature and the inanimate world will be no less, nor less strange and unaccountable, than those in mankind. Every element, and every region, so far as the bounds of this fire extend, will be in a tumult and a fury, and the whole habitable world running into confusion. A world is sooner destroyed than made; and nature lapses hastily into that chaos state out of which she came by slow and leisurely motions: as an army advances into the field by just and regular marches; but, when it is broken and routed, it flies with precipitation, and one cannot describe its posture. Fire is a barbarous enemy; it gives no mercy; there is nothing but fury, and rage, and ruin, and destruction wheresoever it prevails, as storm, or hurricane, though it be but the force of air, makes a strange havoc where it comes; but devouring flames, or exhalations set on fire, have still a far greater violence, and carry more terror along with them. Thunder and earthquakes are the sons of fire; and we know nothing in nature more impetuous or more irresistibly destructive than these two. And, accordingly, in this last war of the elements, we may be sure they will bear their parts, and do great execution in the several regions of the world. Earthquakes and subterraneous eruptions will tear the body and bowels of the earth; and thunders and convulsive motions of the air rend the skies. The waters of the sea will boil and struggle with streams of sulphur that run into them; which will make them fume, and smoke, and roar, beyond all storms and tempests; and these noises of the sea will be answered again from the land by falling rocks and mountains. This is a small part of the disorders of that day.

But if we suppose the storm over, and that the fire hath got an entire victory over all other bodies, and hath subdued everything to itself, the conflagration will end in a deluge of fire, or in a sea of fire, covering the whole globe of the earth; for when the ex

terior region of the earth is melted into a fluor, like molten glass or running metal; it will, according to the nature of other fluids, fill all vacuities and depressions, and fall into a regular surface, at an equal distance everywhere from its centre. This sea of fire,

like the first abyss, will cover the face of the whole earth, make a kind of second chaos, and leave a capacity for another world to rise from it. But that is not our present business. Let us only, if you please to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion, on the vanity and transient glory of all this habitable world; how, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours of men, are reduced to nothing; all that we admired and adored before as great and magnificent is obliterated or banished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? Their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? Show me where they stood; read the inscription; tell me the victor's name! What remains, what impressions, what difference or distinction do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous; she glorified herself and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen and shall see no sorrow. But her hour is come, she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in perpetual oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills and mountains and rocks of the earth are melted as wax before the sun; and their place is nowhere found. Here stood the Alps, a prodigious range of stones, the load of the earth, that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stones is softened and dissolved, as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds. There was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of

Asia. And yonder, towards the north, stood the Riphæan Hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropped away as the snow upon their heads, and swallowed up in a red sea of fire. Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty! just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! Hallelujah.

[SIR THOMAS MORE is one of those few statesmen who have won the affection of the readers of history. In him we see no intrigue and double-dealing, the orator is yet "friend to truth." Erasmus has described the beautiful domestic life of this lord chancellor: "With him you might imagine yourself in the academy of Plato. But I should do injustice to his house by comparing it to the academy of Plato, where numbers and geometrical figures, and sometimes moral virtues, were the subjects of discussion: it would be more just to call it a school and an exercise of the Christian religion. All its inhabitants, male and female, applied their leisure to liberal studies and profitable reading, although piety was their first care. No wrangling, no angry word, was heard in it; no one was idle; every one did his duty with alacrity, and not without a temperate cheerfulness."

Thomas More, the son of Sir John More, one of the justices of the Court of King's Bench, was born in 1480; was first taught at St Anthony's School in Threadneedle Street; and finished his education at Oxford. He attained to the highest reputation at the bar; was employed by Henry VIII. in various public affairs; and was made chancellor in 1529, on the downfall of Wolsey. More's conscientious scruples as to the divorce of Henry, and as to his ecclesiastical supremacy, brought him to the block on the absurd charge of high treason. He was beheaded on the 6th of July 1535. His "Utopia," written in Latin, was published in 1516. The extract which we give is from the old translation by Robinson, published in 1551. This philosophical romance contains many just maxims on morals and government, mixed with some theories which More's judgment must have shown him to be impracticable.]

Husbandry is a science common to them all in general, both men and women, wherein they be all expert and cunning. In this they be all instructed even from their youth: partly in their schools with traditions and precepts, and partly in the country nigh the city, brought up as it were in laying, not only beholding