before he had intended. The conspirators, not being aware of this change in the king's movements, were unprepared for the accom plishment of their design, and thus the scheme was frustrated. The plot was soon after discovered, and those of the conspirators who had not previously escaped, were arrested, and brought to trial and execution. And Russell and his party, though not concerned in the design for murdering the king, were in danger; for it was believed that they too were engaged in a conspiracy of some kind. A few of them effected their escape, and amongst them was Monmouth; but Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney were taken. They were tried, and condemned to suffer the same punishment as the others, though their offence was of a very different nature. They had indeed been guilty of plotting an insurrection. Russel was too truthful a man to deny that he had done so;-and Sidney even gloried in declaring his sentiments, and was ready to sacrifice his life for them. But neither he, nor Lord Russell, was concerned at this time in forming any design against the king's life, and therefore it was cruel and unjust to condemn and execute them as traitors.

Russell was a man much beloved on account of his amiable disposition, and general character, and a strong effort was made to save his

life. A petition was sent to the king; but Charles was inexorable. Lady Russell, the wife of this unfortunate nobleman, a most excellent woman, and tenderly attached to her husband, used her influence to procure a remission of his sentence, but all in vain. She threw herself at the feet of the king, and besought him, with tears, to remember the former merit and loyalty of the prisoner, and to forgive the errors into which his honest, though perhaps mistaken principles had betrayed him. But her tears and supplications were unavailing; Charles was not to be moved by them to change his purpose. And then this noble-minded lady, instead of giving way to grief, which would have only added to her husband's distress, and prevented her from rendering him any comfort, firmly determined to suppress her own feelings; and summoning all her fortitude, she spent the few remaining days they were permitted to pass together, in endeavouring to prepare his mind for the awful event which was approaching. She well knew how to administer consolation at such a time; for she had learnt herself to find in religion that hope which can alone give support in the prospect of death and eternity. Days passed on, the time of separation came, and the morning of execution arrived. But still Lady Russell's fortitude did not desert her,

she was enabled, by strength not her own, to take leave of her husband with calmness and composure, and having bade the last long farewell, she turned away, and hastened from him to give vent in solitude to those feelings of deep sorrow, which she had so well restrained in his presence. That was a moment more trying to Lord Russell than any other,―far more painful than the prospect of his approaching execution;-and when his affectionate wife had departed, to see him again no more in this world, he exclaimed, "Now, the bitterness of death is past."

Other efforts had been made to prevent Lord Russell's execution. The Duke of Monmouth, who, you remember, had made his escape, sent him a message offering to surrender himself, if by so doing he could save his friend. But the reply of Russell was, that it would be no advantage to him for others to die with him. Lord Cavendish also, an intimate friend of the prisoner, generously proposed to contrive his escape by exchanging clothes with him; and would willingly have risked his own life by remaining in his place. But Russell would not for a moment listen to such a proposal, nor allow another to be endangered on his account. And so all hope was abandoned, and Russell prepared to die. The hour was now come. Just before the officers arrived to

summon him to execution, Russell took out his watch, and wound it up for the last time. Then laying it down, he solemnly said, "I have now done with time, and must think solely of eternity." On the scaffold, he again declared himself to be innocent of any intention against the king's life; and then, without any change of countenance, he laid his head on the block, and submitted to the axe of the executioner. His death was soon followed by that of Algernon Sidney.

The life and reign of Charles were now drawing to a close. It was thought by some persons, that he was beginning to see the evil of his former mode of government, and was about to dismiss his ministers, and throw himself on the affections of his subjects. But whatever his intentions might have been, death prevented their fulfilment. And a melancholy death indeed was that of the once gay and joyous Charles II. His life had been one of irreligion and dissipation; and when sickness came to call him away to another world, he was found utterly unprepared. The Bishops who attended his dying bed, and who endeavoured by their exhortations to lead his mind to sacred things, could obtain from him no word expressive either of repentance, or faith, or hope. He would not even declare his adherence to the Protestant faith, in reply

to their anxious enquiries. Though without any actual religion, he had, in the earlier part of his life, professed himself a Protestant ; but now, when dying, he turned to the Romish Church, in the hope, it might be, of finding consolation in the rites and ceremonies which it offered him. He received absolution from a priest of that community; the consecrated wafer was administered; and when the ceremony was ended, he appeared composed, in the prospect of death. And so his soul passed away into another state of being; but such composure was only the fatal calm of a conscience lulled asleep by vain confidence and superstition, not the solid peace which marks the end of the real Christian,—of the " fect" and "upright man."

“per

James, Duke of York, who succeeded his elder brother Charles on the throne, was, as I before told you, a professed Roman Catholic. He was also as fond of arbitrary power as the preceding sovereigns of the family of Stuart had shown themselves to be. From these two circumstances, it might be supposed that the present reign was not likely to prove a happy one; yet notwithstanding, James was at first received by the people very cordially, for he was considered to be a man of sincerity and honour.

The first thing I shall mention in this reign,