ed the bull of his canonization in 1173. Philip, afterwards surnamed Augustus, son of Lewis VII. of France, being very sick, and despaired of by the physicians, the king his father spent the days and nights in tears, refusing all comfort. He was advertised at length three nights in his sleep by St Thomas, whom he had known, to make a pilgrimage to his shrine at Canterbury. He set out against the advice of his nobility who were appre

which the monks hid it a second time behind the altar of our Lady! yet it soon began to be again resorted to. The feast of the transla. tion of the relicks of St Thomas was kept on the 7th of July, on which day Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, removed them in 1223, with the utmost state and pomp.

A MS. relation in English of two hundred and sixty three miracles, wrought by the intercession of St Thomas of Canterbury, is in the hands of Antony Wright, Esq; in Essex.

. Miracle 263. James, son of Roger earl of Clare, forty days old, by extremity of crying, contracted a rupture so desperate, that all the physicians declared it incurable without an incision, which the parent's would not allow, as too dangerous, considering the great ten-. derness of his age and constitution. All methods used for a cure failing the child died in the second year of his age. The countess his mother took him on her knees, put into his mouth a little particle of the relicks of St Thomas, which she had brought from Canterbury, and prayed for two hours that St Thomas would by his intercession with God restore him to life. Several knights, the countess of Warwick, and others, were present. Her chaplain Mr Lambert, a venerable old man, sharply rebuked her: but she continued to pray, adding a vow that, if he was restored, he should be offered to God, at the shrine of the martyr, and she would make a pilgrimage barefoot to Canterbury. The infant at length opened his eyes, and revived. The mother performed her vow, carried him in her arms to Canterbury, whither she walked barefoot.

The author of this relation was eye-witness to many of the mira cles he records, and the book was abroad in the hands of the public within one hundred and fifty years after the death of St Thomas; for the original copy belonged to Thomas Trilleck bishop of Rochester, whose bull bears date March 6th, 1363; and who received the temporalities of that see Dec 26th, 1364, the thirty-eighth of Edward III. and died about Christmas in 1372.

The relation must be very ancient, because the author mentions bishops giving confirmation to children whilst on horseback, and trials of felons by water-ordeal. St Thomas, he says, always alighted on such occasions, but administered the sacrament in the open air: and at several places where he was known to have alighted for this purpose, crosses were afterward set up, and were famous for miracles.

hensive of dangers: he was met by king Henry at the entrance of his dominions, and conducted by him to the tomb of the martyr. After his prayer he bestowed on the church a gold cup, and several presents on the monks, with great privileges. Upon his return into France he found his son perfectly recovered through the merits of St Thomas, in 1179.

God was pleased to chastise king Henry as he had done - David. His son the young king rebelled, because his father refused the cession of any part of his dominions, to him during his own life. He was supported by the greatest part of the English nobility, and by the king of Scotland, who committed the most unheard-of cruelties in the northern provinces, which he laid waste. The old king in his abandoned condition made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas, walked barefoot three miles before the town over the pebbles and stones, so that his feet were all bloody, and at the tomb his tears and sighs, were the only voice of his contrite and humbled heart before God. He would receive a stroke of a discipline from all the bishops, priests, and canons, and spent there that whole day and the night following without taking any nourishment, and made great presents to the church. The next morning whilst he was hearing mass near the tomb, the king of Scotland, his most cruel enemy, was taken prisoner by a small number of men. Soon after his son threw himself at his feet, and obtained pardon. He indeed revolted again several times but falling sick, by the merits of St Thomas deserved to die a true penitent. He made a public confession of his sins, put on sackloth, and a cord about his neck, and would be dragged by it out of bed as the most unworthy of sinners, and laid on ashes, on which he received the viaticum, and died in the most perfect sentiments of repentance. As to the four murderers, they retired to Cnaresburg, a house belonging to one of them, namely, Hugh of Morvil, in the west of England, were shunned by all men, and distracted with the. remorse of their own conscience, they lived alone without so much as a servant that would attend them. Some time after they travelled into Italy to receive absolution VOL. XII.

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from the pope. His holiness enjoined them a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where three of them shut themselves up in a place called Montenigro, as in a prison of penance, as the pope had ordered them, and lived and died true penitents. They were buried before the gate of the church of Jerusalem with this epitaph: "Here lie the wretches who martyred blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury." The other, who had given the first wound, deferred a little while to commence his penance, and stopping at Cosenza in Calabria, there died of a miserable distemper in which his flesh rotted from his body, and fell to pieces. He never ceased to implore with sighs and tears the intercession of St Thomas, as the bishop of that city, who heard his confession, testified. All the four murderers died within three years after the martyrdom of the saint.

The body of the martyr was first buried in the lower part of the church: but shortly after taken up and laid in a sumptuous shrine in the east end. So great were

the offerings thereat, that the church all round about it abounded with more than princely riches, the meanest part of which was pure gold, garnished with many precious stones, as William Lambarte (7) and Weever (8) assure us The largest of these was the royal diamond given by Lewis, king of France. The marble stones before the place remain to this day very much worn and hollowed by the knees' of the pilgrims who prayed there. The shrine itself is thus described by John Stow (9) "It was built about a man's height all of stone: then upwards of plain timber, within which was an iron chest containing the bones of Thomas Becket, as also the skull with the wound of his death, and the piece cut out of the skull, laid in the same wound. The timberwork of this shrine on the outside was covered with plates of gold damasked and embossed, garnished with broches, images, angels, chains, precious stones, and great oriental pearls: the spoils of which shrine, in gold and jewels of an inestimable value, filled two great chests,

(7) Lambarte, in his Perambulation of Kent, Anno 1565. (8) Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 202. (9) Stow's Annals in Henry VIII.

one of which six or eight men could do no more than convey out of the church. All which was taken to the king's use, and the bones of St Thomas, by command of lord Cromwell, were there burnt to ashes, in September 1538, of Henry VIII. the thirtieth." His hairshirt is shewn in a reliquary in the English college at Douay a small part in the abbey of Liesse: a bone of his arm in the great church of St Waldetrude at Mons: (10) his chalice in the great nunnery at Bourbourg: his mitre, and linen dipped in his blood at St Bertin's at St Omer: vestments in many other monasteries, &c. in the Low-countries, &c. (e)

Zeal for the glory of God is the first property or rather the spirit and perfection of his holy love, and ought to be the peculiar virtue of every Christian, especially of every pastor of the church. How is God delighted to shower down his heavenly graces on those who are zealous for his honour! How will he glorify them in heaven, as on this account he glorified Phineas even on earth (11). What zeal for his Father's glory did not Christ exert on earth! How did this holy fire burn in the breasts of the apostles and of all the saints! But in the exercise of zeal itself how many snares are to be feared! and how many Christians deceive themselves! Self-love is subtle in seducing those who do not know themselves. Humour, pride, avarice, caprice, and passion, frequently are passed for zeal. But the true conditions of this virtue are, that it be prudent, disinterested and intrepid. Prudent in never being precipitant, in using address, in employing every art to draw sinners from the dangerous paths of vice, and in practising patience in instructing the most stupid, and in bearing with the obstinacy and malice of the impenitent. It is a mistake to place holy zeal in an impetuous ardour of the soul, which can be no other than the result of pasgion. Secondly, it must be disinterested or pure in its

(10) Brasseur, Thes. Reliquiarum Hannoniæ, p. 199.
(11) Numb. xxv.

(e) See Haverden's True Church, part 3. c. 2. p. 314. where he answers the slanders of Lesley.

motive, free from all mixture of avarice, pride, vanity, resentment, or any passion. Thirdly, it must be intrepid. The fear of God makes his servant no longer fear men. John the Baptist feared not the tyrant who persecuted him but Herod stood in awe of the humble preacher (12). The servant of God is not anxious about his own life; but is solicitous that God be honoured. All that he can suffer for this end he looks upon as a recompence. Fatigues, contempt, torments, or death, he embraces with joy... By his constancy and fidelity he conquers and subdues the whole world. In afflictions and disgraces his virtue makes him magnanimous. It accompanies him in all places and in every situation. By this he is great not only in adversity, being through it firm under persecutions and constant in torments; but also in riches, grandeur and prosperity, amidst which it inspires him with humility, moderation, and holy fear, and animates all his actions and designs with religion and divine charity.

ON THE SAME DAY.

St MARCELLUS, Abbot of the Acometes, C. The Order of the Acometes differed from other Basilian monks only by this particular rule, that each monastery was divided into several choirs, which, succeeding one another, continued the divine office day and night without interruption; whence was derived their name, which signifies in Greek, without sleep. This institute was set on foot by a Syrian nobleman, named Alexander, who had bore an honourable command in the army several years; but renouncing the world in 402, built a monastery upon the banks of the Euphrates, in which he assembled four hundred monks. Coming afterwards to Constantinople, he founded a monastery not far from the city, toward the Euxine sea, in which he governed three hundred monks, whom he divided into six choirs, Alexander died in 430. Bollandus gives his life on the 15th of January, and he is honoured with the title of saint when incidently mentioned in the Menæa, but his name seems never to have been commemorated in any (12) Mark vi.