been baptised when he was on a visit to King Eadbald in Kent; but on his return to his own kingdom he fell away from the faith, endeavouring to practise at once both the new religion he had learnt and his old idolatry; for in the same building he raised an altar for the holy sacrifice, and a little shrine whereon to offer sacrifices to his false gods. His son, however, after his death, by frequent discourses with Edwin, was convinced of the truth of the Christian doctrine, and was baptised; but being soon after slain by treachery,-few princes in those wild times seem to have died a natural death,-his kingdom relapsed into idolatry, from which it was just beginning to rise again, when three years after his death his brother Sigbert came over from France, where he had been living during his brother's life, and took the crown. Sigbert had been baptised, and thoroughly well-instructed in the faith, while in France; and brought with him a Bishop named Felix; who, having presented himself to the Archbishop of Canterbury, received from him permission to preach the Gospel to the nation of the East Angles. He received his episcopal see at a place called Dunwick; and during an episcopate of seventeen years succeeded in converting the whole province.

It was from Northumberland too that the faith spread into Mercia, one of the largest of the Saxon kingdoms, comprising what we now call the Midland counties. Penda, its king, was the fierce warrior, of whom we have already heard, who, joining with Cadwalla the king of the Britons, attacked and slew Edwin the king of Northumberland, and was the terror of all the neighbouring kingdoms. He had a son named Peada, a youth of great valour and excellent dispositions, to whom he gave up a part of his kingdom, called the Mid-Angles. This young prince paid a visit to the court of Northumberland, and asked in marriage the daughter of King Oswy, the successor of King Oswald, who was then reigning; but Oswy refused to give her to a pagan. This led Peada to consider the subject, and to listen to the preaching of the Bishop; and the result was, that he was soon converted and baptised; declaring that, even if he were still refused the princess, he would yet be a Christian. He soon afterwards returned to his kingdom, taking with

him four priests. The old King Penda did not in any way oppose the preaching of the Gospel in his dominions any more than in those of his son; nor did he discourage any from becoming Christians, if only they lived consistently with their profession; for he declared that he hated and despised those who would not obey a God in whom they professed to believe.

In spite, however, of his son's connexion with Northumberland, he was perpetually making inroads into that kingdom; until at last Oswy, who had often tried in vain to appease him by presents, was roused to resistance; and having committed his cause to God, raised such an army as he could hastily gather, marched against his fierce enemy, defeated and slew him, and took possession of his kingdom; though, in consideration of his alliance with Peada, he gave him up a large portion of the province. From this time Mercia was Christian; and though Peada was soon after slain, and the nobles of Mercia shook off the yoke of Northumberland, and placed a young son of old King Penda on his father's throne, yet the faith had taken firm root, and was not shaken by these revolutions.

We have not space to enter into any details respecting the two remaining kingdoms of the Heptarchy, those of the West and South Saxons. The former kingdom was converted by a new mission from Rome, destined to preach in the heart of the country; but Berinus, such was the name of the missionary Bishop, happening to land on the south-western coast, and finding the people there altogether pagan, went no further; and succeeded, after no great length of time, in converting the king of the country, who also was on terms of intimate friendship with Oswald, the good king of Northumberland.

The South Saxons were converted by St. Wilfrid, a holy Bishop, very famous in the history of those times; of whom we must say more on another occasion; and so at last the work of evangelising England was completed. Alas, that such a glorious work should, after a space of nearly a thousand years, have been so miserably frustrated! Can we hope that such a one will ever be wrought among us again?

Library of Christian Doctrine.

10.

THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.

II.

THE SACRIFICE OF THE ALTAR ONE AND THE SAME WITH THE SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

II. THE SACRIFICE OF THE ALTAR ONE AND THE SAME WITH THE SACRIFICE OF THE CROSS.

FROM the creation of the world sacrifice had formed the chief feature of that religion which God gave to man; the religion of the old world before the Flood, the religion of Noah and his sons, of Melchisedech and Job and Abraham, before God chose this last to be the father of a peculiar people. Sacrifice was no distinctive mark of the Mosaic law; it was universally practised among all the nations of the earth. It was emphatically the worship of God, the worship which God ordained to be rendered to Himself alone. Sacrifice and religion, sacrifice and divine worship, were in effect one and the same thing. Had sacrifice been abolished, the solemn worship of God would have ceased throughout the world; God would no longer have received the honour due unto His name. Hence, when the Prophets describe the persecution of the Church and the extinction of religion, they speak of the people of God "sitting without sacrifice or altar" (Osee iii. 4); and of the "continual sacrifice" being "taken away" (Dan. xii. 11; compare Matt. χχίν. 15).

Sacrifice was never to cease. Carnal sacrifices indeed, the sacrifices of bulls and goats, were to be done away, but another and a better sacrifice was to come in their stead.

This the Prophets foretold in various ways. There was to be a sacrifice essentially pure and holy, which was to supersede all the carnal sacrifices that heretofore had been offered. It was to be celebrated every where, all over the world, among all nations; it was to go on continually, and was never to cease as long as the sun and moon should stand.

All this I shewed you in my last Number; and at the

same time I begged you to observe that Protestants had no such sacrifice; that the very thing had happened to them which the Prophets had mourned over as the destruction of true religion. They had abolished the "continual sacrifice;" they had profaned and desolated God's sanctuary, and now they "sat without sacrifice and altar." Three hundred years ago, the people of this country were in the happy enjoyment of God's promises: they had the pure offering, the clean oblation, which Malachi (i. 11) had foretold; they possessed that blessed reality, which the ancient sacrifices could only foreshadow. But their rulers departed from God; they despised the riches of His grace; they disbelieved His word; they lost the light of faith, and did their utmost to rob others of it; they corrupted and deceived the people; they abjured and protested against the very privileges which formed their Christian birthright. Their glory was, not in believing, but in protesting. This was their boast, that they denied what all Catholic Christendom maintained. They declared that they had no sacrifice; that they would have no sacrifice; that there was none to have. Hard pressed by the arguments of the champions of the ancient faith, they were obliged, in self-defence, to look about for something to say in support of their new opinions;* and so they pretended that the Catholic Church taught what it did not teach, and that Scripture meant what it did not mean. This it became easier to do as time went on, and generations grew up which had never been instructed in the Catholic religion; the very teachers became themselves deceived through the blind following of their fathers. However, first to misstate the Catholic doctrine, and then to prove it contrary to Scripture, was, as you must allow, easy enough; and as Scrip

*Martin Luther, who may be called the founder of Protestantism, actually declares that it was the devil who induced him to give up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He says, in one of his own books, De Missa Privata, that Satan appeared to him at midnight, and plied him with such strong arguments, that he became convinced that the Catholic doctrine was false, and the worship of the Mass idolatry. Zwingle also, another head Reformer, professes to have learnt his main argument against the Mass from some spirit, whether black or white he could not say, which visited him by night.