and th

sovereign, whose nod the Parliament of course obeyed, England much reason to remember with the deepest gratitude the history her Reformation. It is the most memorable portion of her anna It abounds in varied and stirring scenes, and is replete with lesso of profound instruction. It discovers much of human wickednes but at every step it also discloses the singular interposition of beneficent Providence, and nowhere do we meet with bright examples of Christian heroism than in the English martyrs. F no kingdom has the Reformation done more than for England; a after having reaped its blessings for three centuries, is she now fo getting all the lessons of the past, to fall back into popish superstiti and idolatry, from which, by a train of such marvellous events, sl was emancipated-is she again to exhibit herself, as before t Reformation, squatting blindfolded, ragged, and squalid, amidst th accumulated offal of the middle ages? A party within the pale her Established Church would gladly see this consummation; Vatican, which, since the time it lost England, has never ceased t look upon her with a covetous eye, has of late been strongly cherish ing the hope of seeing her, within the course of a few years, abando the Reformation, and return to the bosom of the infallible church Into this belief the papal court has been led by the progress of Ox ford Tractarianism in England, and by the representations of th Oxford converts to Popery. But we will not believe that a nation which has so long shone transcendent above all the nations of the earth for its love of liberty, civil and religious, will submit to be again enthralled by the papal supremacy, the most terrible despotism-no to speak of the character of the papacy as a system of religion—which the world ever saw. Notwithstanding the treachery of some in the Protestant Established Church of England, and notwithstanding the aggressive efforts hitherto made and still making by the papacy, we will not despair of the cause of Protestantism in this enlightened and free country. We will cherish the hope expressed by one of the noblest of its martyrs, even when the night of darkness and desolation was at its blackest: "Be of good courage, Mr. Ridley, and play the

man," said the venerable and intrepid Latimer, when both were bound to the stake, and about to be consumed to ashes, in the reign of the bloody Mary, "we shall this day, by God's grace, light such a ale in England as, I trust, shall never be put out."

NNE OF BOHEMIA, queen of Richard II., flourished in the age of Wickliffe. Her life, therefore, does not belong to the history of the Reformation proper, which only began early in the sixteenth century; but though the field embraced in these biographies is mainly confined to the period of the Reformation, yet, as this excellent queen lived at an era when great preparations were making for that memorable

revolution, and as she was known to have been the friend and protector of Wickliffe and his followers, who were harbingers in England, as well as in other countries, it may not

с

be out of place to collect together the brief notices of her relig and ecclesiastical history. "To Anne of Bohemia," says an ele biographer, "is attributed the honour of being the first of illustrious band of princesses who were the nursing-mothers of Reformation. The Protestant Church inscribes her name at commencement of the illustrious list, in which are seen those of A Boleyn, Katharine Parr, Lady Jane Grey, and Queen Elizabeth.

ANNE OF BOHEMIA was the eldest daughter of the Emp Charles IV., of the house of Luxembourg, by his fourth wife El beth, daughter of Boleslaus, Duke of Pomerania, and grand-daug to Cassimir the Great, King of Poland. She was sister to W ceslaus, King of Bohemia and Emperor of Germany. She was b at Prague, in Bohemia, about the year 1367.

Anne is believed to have been imbued with piety, and to have more enlightened views of Christian truth than was common in t age, before her coming to England. This may be accounted for from state of religion in Bohemia at that period. There were especially th Reformers who flourished in Bohemia during the childhood and you of this princess; and from their celebrity, as well as from the cl connection of one of them with her own family, she must have be familiar with their names and their opinions. These Reformers we John Melice, Conrad Strickna, and Matthias Janovius. Melice w a native of Prague, and of noble descent. He was a popular preach and by his addresses made a powerful impression on the multitud who flocked to hear him. He vindicated the communion in bo kinds, and loudly complained of the spiritual death and desolatic the glaring abuses and corruptions, which everywhere prevaile He died in 1374. Strickna, a man of acknowledged erudition a eloquence, had been his coadjutor, but died five years before hi Janovius, also a native of Prague, maintained the cause of Divin truth with still greater effect. He was confessor to Charles IV Anne's father. In the ardour of their zeal, he and some other learne

Miss Strickland's Queens of England, vol. ii., p. 371.