into England from the various spawning beds of sedition on the continent. The system of espionage of the English government was now complete. Young men were sent as students to all the seminaries, and to the principal houses of the Jesuits, and from them regular accounts were transmitted home of all the proceedings in these establishments relative to England.—(Strype, iii. 306-318. Lingard, vol. viii. p. 205.) It was upon this full and exact information that the government, acting upon the humane suggestion and wish of the queen, adopted the expedient of deporting at the public expence to France those of the recusants whom they knew to be listening to the traitorous suggestions of the agents of the conspiracy. It was the same accuracy of knowledge of the movements of the enemy, that enabled them to watch and defeat the infamous conspiracy of Babington to assassinate the queen, for which he and fourteen others underwent the utmost penalty of the law in the course of the following year, Sept., 1586. -(Camden, 518.)

The connection of the Queen of Scots with this most nefarious plot was proved clearly and unanswerably. This had the obvious effect of once more rousing the swoln tide of the public indignation, and the roar of its huge billows gave fearful presage of the vengeance that so soon followed. Elizabeth always wished to save Mary. No one who goes into the history of these times, as they appear in the records of them, can possibly doubt this. It was Elizabeth that saved her for years from the axe of the executioner, against the advice and entreaties of all her councillors and the clamorous importunities of her people of all ranks. Even when the undeniable proofs of Mary's implication in the murderous scheme of Babington were before her and her people, the visible reluctance with which she yielded to that tide of public feeling which she could stem no longer, has been construed into art and duplicity by the enemies of her and her opinions, who are now unhappily almost the only students of this part of our history, and the only expositors of it.

The well-known story of Mary's trial and execution, which took place early in the following year (1587), we only notice to point out the surely unmerited obloquy that has been cast upon the memory of Elizabeth in connexion with it. We ask any impar tial person, is it not just as likely that the occasional half-assents which she gave to the procedure of the trial were wrung from her by importunity, and by the natural fear of assassination which Mary's correspondence with Babington must have forced upon her, as that they were the expression of her real but closely dissimulated

wishes on the subject? Or again, could Elizabeth have given better evidence of the great hesitation with which she consented to sign the warrant of execution, than the strict charge she gave to Davidson not to part with it afterwards without her order, and the extreme severity with which she visited his disobedience in this particular, extending the expression of her high displeasure even to the venerable Burleigh, on whose suggestion Davidson had acted? We grant that throughout the transaction her conduct was womanly, capricious, and even tyrannical. We also grant that the juridical and state proceedings of those days will not at all stand the test of the far wiser and better maxims of government which the experience of three centuries has taught us. But we feel it to be only justice to the memory of one of our greatest monarchs, to vindicate Elizabeth from the charge of duplicity in her expressions of reluctance to proceed against Mary.

The fate of this unhappy queen was precipitated by the reckless violence of her friends. Just at the conclusion of her trial, L'Aubespine, the French ambassador, a fierce partizan of the house of Guise, was detected in an intrigue with an English traitor for the assassination of Elizabeth.-(Camden, 532.) This discovery of course had the effect of fearfully aggravating the headlong fury with which the current of popular feeling set against poor Mary.

The justice of the terrible apprehensions which had so long haunted the people of England, was at length vindicated. The secrecy and mystery in which the proceedings of this foul conspiracy had been veiled hitherto were now deemed no longer needful; and from the very commencement of the year 1587, it became perfectly evident that the bloodthirsty tiger of Spain was rousing himself in his lair, and collecting his energies for the deadly spring. The ministers of the queen perceived the danger, and were not slow to prepare at all points to meet it. Their preparations, indeed, date their commencement many years earlier; for all the efforts of Philip to conceal his designs from them had proved unsuccessful. This foresight had the happy effect of giving the nation time to recover the panic of the first intelligence, and return to its propriety; so that England arose and went forth to this terrible conflict with the dignified and cool composure which so often proves the happy presage of success. The sailing of the Spanish armada, in 1588, fully justified all the fears and precautions of Elizabeth's government. The fortunes of this mighty enterprise, from its first weighing anchor to its utter destruction, are familiar as household words to every educated Englishman. Our beloved

country was wonderfully delivered in that day. There is scarcely in the history of any nation an instance of success so far beyond the means employed to procure it. The whole action is best comprehended in the text which Elizabeth so properly made the motto of the medal she struck to commemorate the defeat of the armada-" Afflavit Deus et dissipantur."

All direct efforts to force the political and spiritual domination of Romanism upon England seem to have ceased from the period of this memorable event. The complotters were too well versed in the progress of events not to perceive the utter folly of continuing these costly exertions, which so evidently would only issue in new disappointments. Their own ends were frustrated, but they served their master well; for the working of their ambitious schemes afforded to the Jesuits the opportunity of inoculating England with false principles, the effects of which we suffer even

now.

-

The regicidal principle was too rank a poison to do extensive mischief in a country where so sound a tone of moral feeling prevails as in England. It was soon afterwards wrought to an imposthume and discharged, in the terrible gunpowder plot of 1605. The far subtler infusion of false doctrine, the lessons of the insufficiency of Scripture, and the necessity of tradition to its right comprehension, had mingled with the heart's blood, and taints to this day the very sources of thought among us. The sad history of the working of this venomous infection in the Church, and the powerful aids afforded to its operation by the concealed agents of the order of the Jesuits, are the subjects which next demand our

attention

THE FOUR PROPHETIC EMPIRES, AND THE KINGDOM OF MESSIAH: an Exposition of Daniel ii. and vii. By the Rev. T. R. BIRKS, M.A. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Seeleys, 1844.

HORE APOCALYPTICE. By the Rev. E. B. ELLIOTT, M.A. Part IV. The Beast and the Image of the Beast. (Second Notice.)

VERY remarkable, and worthy of especial notice, have been the ebbs and flows, the changes and fluctuations, which have attended the study of prophecy in this country during the last twenty years. And the mind very naturally reverts to these variations, when remarking the apparent commencement, at the present moment, of a new period of popular favour.

It is now little more than a quarter of a century, since a season of much excitement concerning this question occurred. The writings of Messrs. Faber, Frere, and Cuninghame, gradually gained influence with the public mind, till about 1827 or 1828, Mr. Irving, then in the zenith of his popularity, and the Morning Watch, conducted by some writers of talent and learning, raised the subject perhaps to an unhealthy pre-eminence, at least in "the religious world."

But the decline was more rapid than the rise. The Morning Watch admitted much absurdity into its columns, and Mr. Irving fell into positive heresy. The party was soon scattered and broken up: some remained Irvingites, others became " Plymouth brethren," and not a few went over to "Puseyism." The faults of the representatives of the "students of prophecy" were visited upon the study itself, and a period followed, in which men were ashamed to be even suspected of such a propensity.

The reaction which naturally followed, was aided, we cannot help thinking, by suggestions and temptations from Him who is never better pleased than when he can lead men away from the study of any part of God's word. Accordingly, while, on the one hand, simple-minded and sincere men were appalled and rendered fearful by the fall of Irving and the follies of the Morning Watch, various writers came forward on the other, with divers speculations all tending to one point-the non-application of the prophecies of scripture to the history of the Church in modern times.

Thus a few, like Professor Lee, maintained that the Apocalypse was fulfilled in the primitive ages, and, of course, had no bearing on the fortunes of the Church, either in the middle ages or in

our own days. But a more numerous and powerful class of writers, the Burghs, and Maitlands, and Todds, adopted a very opposite hypothesis, and maintained that the most important parts of the prophecies of Daniel and St. John must relate to a state of things yet future,-a state of things of which scarcely the germs were yet visible. Evidently, however, both of these classes of writers agreed in one conclusion,--that these portions of scripture had little or no reference to modern times; and could not, therefore, be to us as "a light that shineth in a dark place."

These nullifiers of prophecy, especially the latter class, the futurists, have unquestionably enjoyed an ascendancy in the Church for the last ten or twelve years. They have scarcely been adequately met. Only one or two writers, such as Mr. Bickersteth and Mr. Brooks, have kept the field against them, and these with very little of controversial zeal; so that both in numbers and in activity, they have had every advantage. And the result was, that among the younger clergy a sort of impression had become very general, that the old Protestant interpretations of Mede and the two Newtons had been exploded and put down ;—that it was no longer tenable to imagine Rome to be Babylon, or the pope to be Antichrist or the Man of Sin; but that most of the prophecies, formerly considered to be fulfilled in the papacy, were to be referred to some yet future infidel Antichrist, who was to slay the witnesses, rule over ten subject-sovereigns, and erect his throne in the city of Jerusalem.

All this chaos of absurdity, we repeat, has enjoyed an unaccountable popularity for the last ten years. We believe that its reign is over. And, without forgetting our obligations to those few faithful men, who, in days of gloom and doubtfulness, have steadily maintained the truth,-we must award a large share of the merit of the onward movement which is now taking place, to the labours of the two writers whose names we have placed at the head of this article. We know, indeed, that in the ordinary sense of the term, both of them would shrink from the ascription of "merit." And, in fact, no one can read, with care and attention, the works which they have produced, without recognizing the presence of that Spirit which is "first pure, then peaceable;" and which both conducts to victory, and teaches love amidst triumph; -but still, such honour as belongs to the "good soldiers of Christ," may justly be awarded to them.

That we are not consulting private feeling, or yielding to exaggeration in our estimate, we are, happily, in a situation to prove. Of the value of Mr. Birks's former volume an unusual and most emphatic attestation has been given, we believe, by his own dio