CATECHISM COMPLETED.

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The Church Catechism was completed in this reign, by the addition of that part relating to the Sacraments. Many other improvements of a more worldly character took place in the reign of James the first. Instead of encouraging war, as many preceding sovereigns had done, he studied to promote peace, and encouraged his subjects to make voyages of discovery to other lands. Thus trade was greatly increased, and a way opened in "the dark places of the earth," lying in heathenism and deadly ignorance, for the feet of those who afterwards went forth, armed with the Word of God, to carry to them the blessed tidings of salvation. James, very sensibly, discouraged the country gentlemen from coming to pass their time hanging about the court. They were thus induced to live on their estates, and promote the comfort, instruction, and welfare of their tenants and the surrounding poor; and as none ever do good without, in some way or other, reaping good in return, there is perhaps no character or station in the world more honoured, or more highly privileged, than that of an English country gentleman.

"The stately homes of England,

How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall, ancestral trees,

O'er all the pleasant land.

The deer across their greensward bound,
Through shade and sunny gleam,

And the swan glides past them with the sound
Of some rejoicing stream.

The free, fair homes of England!
Long, long in hut and hall,
May hearts of native proof be rear'd
To guard each hallow'd wall!
And green for ever be the groves,

And bright the flowery sod,

Where first the child's glad spirit loves

Its country and its God!"-MRS. HEMANS.

Many great and celebrated men lived in this reign. Shakspeare was still living; Ben Jonson wrote; Camden, the antiquary, lived; and the lord chancellor Bacon, one of the greatest philosophers this country has ever produced. Sir Edward Coke, lord chiefjustice of England, one of our best lawyers, also lived in the reign of James. And there was a great merchant, named Thomas Sutton, who was so immensely rich that James offered to make him a peer, on condition of his bequeathing his wealth to the prince of Wales, afterwards Charles the first. But the merchant knew the true use of riches, and determined on applying his to the glory of God. He established

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the Charter House, and thus became a blessing to thousands then unborn.

The circulation of the blood was discovered in this reign by Dr. Harvey; and it sounds strangely to us, now that the truth of the theory is so universally known, that at the time Dr. Harvey was everywhere laughed at for his opinions, and called "the Circulator," in ridicule. Telescopes were invented in James's time, and mulberry-trees first planted in England. Baronets also were first created. This period of our history is marked by the establishment of colonies in North America, and by the increased importance of the English settlements in India.

Much as James loved peace, in the latter part of his reign he was drawn into a war on behalf of his sonin-law, the king of Bohemia, against Spain and Austria but a pestilence broke out among the soldiers, and so many of them died, that there were not enough left to fulfil the purposes of the expedition, and James was so grieved at the calamity, that he was seized with a tertian ague, and died March 27, 1625, in the fifty-ninth year of his age and the twenty-second of his reign.

It is a very difficult thing to do justice to the character of James the first, from its mingled goodness

and great weakness. The execution of sir Walter Raleigh, his too great exertion of the royal prerogative (privilege), independently of the consent of parliament, and his weak attachment to unworthy favourites, are decidedly faults of magnitude; but, on the other hand, his love of peace, encouragement of learning, attention to the increase of commerce, and freedom from religious persecution, were virtues even in advance of the age he lived in; and indeed, for Aunt Anne's part, when people talk of James as a foolish king, she is very much inclined to hold up his beautiful translation of the Bible before her eyes, and say she cannot see his folly with such a blessing to hide it.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHARLES THE FIRST-FROM 1625 TO 1649.

BEFORE we enter upon the reign of Charles the first, it will be well to look back a little, and trace the gradual increase of the evils which brought at length such terrible judgments upon our country. My young friends will remember that England is governed by what is called a free constitution; that is, every class and order in the country is represented in parliament, and no law can be made without the consent of the reigning monarch and the houses of lords and commons. The lords are the aristocracy, or hereditary nobility, with the bishops, or spiritual peers, as they are called; and the commons are the representatives of the people, all of whom, who rent a house of the value of ten pounds per annum, have a right to vote for a member of this house. If a measure originate, as it most frequently does, in the House of Commons, and, on putting it to the vote, it is found that the majority, or greater part of the members, are in its favour, then it passes on to the House of Lords, and is