their eyes open, chose rather poverty, reproach, yea, imprisonment, and in some instances death itself. Precious men! fanatics and fools then; heroes now, upon whose conduct the world looks back with admiration, and every friend of the rights of conscience embalms their memories in his heart.

The learned Dr. BATES was one of the men thus ejected on "Black Bartholomew." In his farewell sermon to his little flock-the whole of which is remarkable for its simple dignity-he says: “You expect I shall say something as to my nonconformity; I shall only say thus much: it is neither fancy, faction, or humour that makes me not to comply; but merely for fear of offending God. And if, after the best means used for my illumination, as prayer to God, discourse, or study, I am not able to be satisfied concerning the lawfulness of what is required, if it be my unhappiness to be in error, surely men will have no reason to be angry with me in this world, and I hope God will pardon me in the next." Brethren," said Mr. LYE, on a similar occasion, "I know they will tell you this is pride or peevishness in us; that we are tender of our reputation, and would fain all be Bishops; but the Lord be witness between them and us in this. I am very sensible of what it is to be reduced to a morsel of bread. Let the God of heaven and earth do what he will with me, if I could have subscribed with a good conscience I would: I would do anything to keep myself in the work of God; but to sin against God, I dare not.' Mr. ATKIN-to quote one more specimen from the sermons of these ejected ministers-says: "Let him never be accounted a sound Christian that does not fear God and honour the King. I beg that you will not interpret our nonconformity to be an act of disloyalty. We will do anything for His Majesty but sin. We will hazard anything for him but our souls. We hope we could die for him, only we dare not be damned for him. We make no question, however we may be accounted of here, we shall be found loyal and obedient subjects at our appearance before God's tribunal."

In many respects these Nonconformists were treated with greater cruelty than had been exercised toward the Popish priests in the reign of Elizabeth, or toward the Episcopal clergy under Cromwell. Some provision was made for the necessities of the former; and for the latter, when dismissed from their livings, a fifth of their former incomes was reserved; while those who were ejected by this act of uniformity were totally uncared for, and many of them (the whole number amounted to about two thousand) were reduced to absolute poverty. Nor was this all. Their personal liberty and their lives were in jeopardy. It was made criminal for them to preach the gospel anywhere; and even to be found praying with a few of their

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old parishioners was a crime for which they might be rudely dragged before a bigoted magistracy and imprisoned. It was enacted,-nor was the act a dead letter,—that if more than five persons were found assembled for the worship of God anywhere save in the established churches, they should be punished by fine or imprisonment; and on a repetition of the offence, they were liable to transportation for seven years. But they met, and prayed, even as Daniel when he knew that the writing was signed; they preached to their little flocks in cellars, in caves, in the forests, and even from the grated windows of their dungeons they proclaimed the unsearchable riches of Christ. Ministers and people continually risked imprisonment and banishment, and, took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance. Their moral heroism astounded their bitterest enemies, and Pepys, a bigoted high churchman, writes in his journal, under date of 1664: "I saw several poor creatures carried by constables for being at a conventícle. They go like lambs, without any resistance; and would to God they would either conform, or be more wise, and not be eatched "

But the next year, 1665, vacant pulpits were plenty throughout the realm; and the persecuted Nonconformists had ample opportunities to preach, unmolested, the word of God. It was the terrible Plague Year; a year of visitation from the Almighty scarcely exceeded, if equalled in severity, since the days of the Pharaohs. In the month of September the weekly average of deaths in the city of London exceeded ten thousand; on one night it is said four thousand died. Suddenly,-in many cases with scarcely any warning at all,the victims were smitten down. Many fell dead in the streets; others had time merely to go home and die. The mass of the population regarded the calamity in the light of a judgment from heaven, and multitudes readily welcomed religious instruction by whomsoever communicated. The pulpits were vacated by many of the established clergy, who sought safety by flight; and opportunities of usefulness were afforded to the ejected Puritans, of which they readily availed themselves.

THOMAS VINCENT, author of a work called, "God's Terrible Voice in the City," was one of the most laborious of this band of worthies. Every day he visited the sick and the dying from house to house; and on every Sabbath he preached to crowded congregations in some parish church. It is said that many persons were awakened by In the volume above referred to he states, with every sermon. admirable simplicity, the reasons by which he and his co-labourers were influenced in thus violating the laws of the land:-"Perceiving

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the churches to be open, and pulpits to be open, we judged that the law of God and nature did now dispense with, yea, command us to preach, though the law of man did forbid." He continues

Surely if there had been a law that none should practise physic but such as were licensed by the College of Physicians, and most of those, when there was the greatest need of them, should in time of the plague have retired into the country, and other physicians, who had as good skill, and no license, should have stayed among the sick, none would have judged it to have been breach of law, to endeavour by their practice to save the lives of those who, by good care and physic, were capable of a cure." He then argues from the less to the greater, and concludes that the duty of ministers, with reference to the souls of the people, was infinitely greater and more imperative than that of physicians toward the body, in the case supposed.

We have the testimony of RICHARD BAXTER as to the extent and the success of these labours of love. He says: "Abundance were converted from their carelessness, impenitency, and youthful lusts and vanities; and religion took such a hold on many hearts as could never afterward be loosed." Many instances are recorded of the wonderful preservation of those who thus fearlessly ministered the word of life in those terrible days, when the pestilence walked in darkness, and destruction wasted at noonday. Literally, at the side of Vincent, and Clarkson, and Cradock, and Terry, a thousand fell, and ten thousand at their right hand; but it came not nigh them. They were faithful, and God took care of them.

But the destroying angel was stayed in his career. The plague ceased, and men returned to their wonted employments. The beneficed clergy reascended their pulpits, and for a little season the Puritans were unmolested. The king even issued licenses for houses in which they might worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. But the calm was of short duration. Charles, urged on by the bishops, recalled the licenses, and appeared determined to follow the hint thrown out by a high churchman in his sermon before the House of Commons. The Nonconformists, said he, can be cured only by vengeance; and the best way is to set fire to the fagot, and teach these obstinate people by scourges or scorpions, and open their eyes with gall. Immense tribes of spies and informers were employed by the court to ferret them out. The estates of the rich were seized, the persons of the ministers were incarcerated, confiscation, scourging, imprisonment, and death on the gibbet, and at the stake, were again the order of the day. Jeremy White's list of Dissenting Sufferers contained the names of sixty thousand persons, five thousand

of whom died in prison.* Memorable instances of zeal and heroic endurance, male and female, are recorded in the volume before us, to which we refer our readers, in the confidence that a perusal of its pages cannot fail to increase their admiration for the character of these SPIRITUAL HEROES, and to strengthen their faith in the GOD OF THE PURITANS.

ART. VI.-THE PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF LANGUAGE.† Les langues sont le miroir de l'entendement; et les nations qui cherchent à cultiver leur entendement, s'appliquent en même temps à la perfection de leur langue.

LEIBNITZ.

THE theme proposed in our title bears, especially in English literature, the reputation of being anything but inviting to popular attention. Does the cause pertain to the nature of the study itself, or to the ordinary and English manner of treating it?

There is an inveterate assumption, more or less common, indeed, to all countries, that to treat any subject whatever philosophically, is to place it beyond the interest or comprehension of the many. This we think to be a prejudice, shallow and supercilious, inherited from those pedantic times when memory passed for intellect, and erudition for philosophy, and the people, without the means of exercising the one or acquiring the other, were deemed incapable of all rational, or at least of systematical, thought. But they too are at length arrived at an age when, if a new mythology were possible, Reason, rather than Memory, would be made the mother of the Muses. The truth is, that System has (and from very adequate causes) a particular attraction for the undisciplined understanding. Where arrangement is defective or entirely wanting, the trained intellect may supply, from its own resources, the bond of unity which is indispensable to every act of comprehension. Whereas the mind which is itself unfurnished with general principles, can receive but passively whatever is offered *Neale, iv, 554.

[† It will be remembered that the scope of our journal, as stated in the number for October, 1848, embraces the subject of Philology. We now present the first of three papers on that topic, and assure our readers that they will find it treated with great ability and originality in these articles. We differ entirely from the writer in many of his views, and do not deem his style the best possible for popular reading: but his speculations deserve attention, notwithstanding, from all who are interested not merely in questions of philology, but of the human mind in general. With respect to his style, too, we may add, that his deviations from common usage are introduced deliberately, and as part of his system.-ED.]

to it in a crude, unorganized condition-rejecting it, if the matter be solid, with a consequent loathing for all food of the like nutritious description; or, if of the sort called "light reading," passing it off undigested, with a voracity at once insatiable and emaciating.

Arrangement then, or Theory, has always been the real want, and even the latent wish, of the popular intellect.-It requires co-ordination; it desires simplicity among its body of facts, whether large or small. But this is what we conceive to be the very nature and end of philosophy. And, paradoxical though it seem, perhaps philosophers fail of this end less frequently, by being (according to the vulgar censure) too theoretical, too general, than by not being general enough; that is to say, by not bringing their principles into sufficiently explicit relation with the common sentiments and notions of the people,-sentiments and notions which in reality form the most general, and therefore the fundamental, elements of all human knowledge and science, however elevated or abstract. For whatever philosophy can teach us, that is sound and useful, rests at bottom upon facts no less familiar to the multitude than to the sage. Their principles are, and must be, substantially the same: their spheres of knowledge are necessarily concentric; all the radii possible are consequently common to both; the difference lies merely in the relative amplitude of the area.

Were the elucidation of this great central and light-giving truth the sole fruit of the following pages-instead of merely resulting, among several others, incidentally, from the course of remark-our humble labours would be deemed amply recompensed. We mention it here, however, to evince that language, in this its philosophic quality of living record or representation of whatsoever our species have felt and thought in common, ought to be, of all subjects, the best fitted to interest the popular reader-if only treated with a sound and suitable method. That it has not been so treated is, therefore, a very warrantable inference from the prevalence of the prejudice we combat. To establish this inference positively, to expose the error or insufficiency of the prevailing modes of philological research, and then to supply the conditions of a method truly scientific-such are the leading objects of the proposed dissertation.

It will be divided into three numbers, of nearly equal compass; of which the first will treat of the misapprehension, both general and local, respecting the nature and importance of the subject. After characterizing the science in its principles, it will be expedient to note some of the philosophical applications of which it is capable in almost every department of human interest or inquiry: omitting however, those arts, such as Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, in respect