smile, "This is a sharp medicine, but it will cure all diseases." The executioner offered to bind a handkerchief around his eyes, but he refused, saying, "Think you I fear the shadow of the axe, when I fear not the axe itself?" Then laying his head on the block, he stretched out his hands as the fatal signal, and with two strokes his head was severed from his body.

The people were much displeased with the execution of this great and talented man; they justly thought, that it was a base and cruel act first to confine Raleigh for a period of fifteen years, and then to execute on him a sentence which had been pronounced so long before, for the sole purpose of satisfying and conciliating the King of Spain. We will end this sad story, with some affecting lines which Raleigh wrote on the blank leaf of his Bible the night before his death. They will show you that he was a poet as well as a fine prose writer.

Ev'n such is Time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.

And now I must tell you a little about the family of James, and his domestic history. His wife was the Princess Anne of Denmark;

they had several children, but only three lived to grow up. Henry, the eldest, was an amiable, high-spirited prince; he was much be loved by the people, and gave fair promise, by his early talents and acquirements, of one day becoming a great and a good king. But it proved otherwise. Prince Henry died before his father, and thus his younger brother, Charles, became the heir of the English throne. Charles was a mild and gentle boy, meek and timid; and he seemed far more fitted for private life than for the government of a great kingdom. The Princess Elizabeth was married to Frederick, the Count Palatine, and James had been for some time negociating, as I said before, for an alliance between his son Charles and the Infanta of Spain. There was much that was faulty in the manner in which James conducted the education of this young prince. Mild and yielding as Charles was by nature, it was especially necessary, for the formation and strengthening of his character, that he should be guided by wise and good companions, such as might give a right bias to his opinions and dispositions. But his father was not sufficiently careful on this point. The chief friend of the Prince, at this time, was the Duke of Buckingham, a man in no way calculated to improve or benefit him. But Buckingham was a great favourite with

the king, and exercised considerable influence over him, as well as over the Prince of Wales.

Buckingham and Charles formed a scheme. of going over together to Spain, in order to pay a visit to the court of Madrid, and to bring back the young Infanta; and, with some difficulty, they gained the king's leave to undertake the journey. James consented to the plan; then he threw objections and difficulties in the way, and wished to withdraw his permission. But the persuasions and selfwill of Buckingham finally prevailed, and he and the young prince set out accordingly. They travelled through France in disguise, and under feigned names; spent a short time in Paris, where Charles saw the Princess Henrietta, the daughter of the French king, and then proceeded to the Spanish court. This singular expedition, however, ended in a manner very different from that which had been expected. The behaviour of Buckingham gave great offence at Madrid; and he determined, in consequence of the dislike expressed to him there, to do all in his power to break off the proposed match with the Infanta; and such was the influence he had obtained, that this favourite scheme, which James had been planning so long, was actually given up, and proposals of marriage with the Prince of Wales were made to Henrietta of France. This

lady was a Roman Catholic; and the union which took place between her and Charles, soon after his accession to the throne, proved a source of much trouble to the nation in after years.

James did not long survive the rupture with the court of Spain. He died, after a short illness, in the year 1625. In his last words to his son, he exhorted him to be tenderly affectionate to his wife, but to preserve consistency in religion, and protect the interests of the Church of England.

Before we leave James I, I must mention to you an important event, and give you some account of a celebrated person,-both connected with the reign of this king. The event is the publication of the Bible,-the English Bible as it now appears among us in this country. I am sure you will agree with me that such an event was an important one.

From time to time, we have heard of translations of parts or of the whole of the Scriptures, which were, at various periods, undertaken in England. You remember the early labours of the venerable Bede, and of King Alfred; the later efforts of Wickliffe; the remarkable story of Tyndale's Testament; and the subsequent completion of the Bible of Miles Coverdale, under the sanction and approval of Henry VIII. And you will under

stand too, from the occasional specimens you have seen of the English language in different ages, that these fresh translations became necessary as time passed on ;-because, when knowledge and literature extended, new words and expressions were introduced, and old words and expressions grew obsolete, and were no longer clearly understood by the people. By the reign of James I, however, the English language had become very much what it is at present; and we find that the version of the Scriptures which we now read, contains but few words which are not perfectly familiar to modern ears.

If you turn to the Preface of your Bible, you will see that it was at the desire and by the order of James, that this great work of retranslating the Scriptures was undertaken and accomplished. The labour was divided among several learned and able men, in order that each part might have due time and attention. bestowed upon it; the whole was then carefully revised, that it might be rendered as far as possible in accordance with the original Hebrew and Greek; and at last it issued forth, as perfect perhaps as any work can be, in which the hand of man has been concerned. And while those who have leisure and opportunity, still continue to study the word of God in the inspired originals, for their own