CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXI. The Rightful Heir; The New England Tragedies; The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen; Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher; Moral Uses of Dark Things; Problems of the Age; The Life of George Stephenson and his Son Robert Stephenson; Jesus Christ, his Times, Life, and Work; Jesus of Nazareth, his Life and Teachings; The Life of John Carter; The Human Intellect; Adventures in the Apache Country: Greater Britain; Theatrical Management, in the West and South for Thirty Years; The Tragedian; Religion, and the Reign of Terror; The Bird, by Jules Michelet; The Conscript; The Child Wife; Gleanings among the Sheaves; The Un- noticed Things of Scripture; The Parables of our Lord explained and applied; The Garden of Sorrows; The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut; A Treatise on Physiology and Hygiene; Tobacco and its Effects; Wild Life under the Equator; American Edition of William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible; The Old World in its Graffiti d'Italia; China and the Chinese; Her Majesty's Tower; Travel and Adven- I. THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. No. II. II. THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY IN AMERICA III. SCHOLASTIC TRIDENTINE SOTERIOLOGY IV. THE LIFE AND EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL My Recollections of Lord Byron, and those of Eye-witnesses of his Life; Woman's Suffrage, the Reform against Nature; History of European Morals from Augustus to St. Paul, by Ernest Renan; The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, by J. P. Lange, D.D.; American Edition of Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible; The Com- mon Prayer with Ritual Song; The Malay Archipelago; The Villa on the Rhine; Thackeray's Novels; The Pictorial Field-book of the War of 1812; Novels by George Eliot; Thunder and Lightning; Theoklesia; Church Doctrine, Bible Truth; The American Convent as a School for Protestant Children; Man in Genesis and in Geology; The Polar World; Arms and Armor; The Intelligence of Animals; Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson; New York Illustrated; Diomede; Adventures on the Great Hunting-grounds of the World; Dame Nature and her Three Daughters; The Philosophy of Teaching; Greek, German, and English Grammars; Protestant Gems of the Prayer-book; Aspects of Humanity; Morning Light; The Book of Common Praise; The Promise of Shiloh; Hymns, Ancient and Modern; An Essay upon Force Roper's and Cresacre More's Lives. More's English Works. 1557. Erasmi Epistolæ. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography. State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Froude, Anderson, Jortin, Strype, Sir Jas. Mackintosh, Campbell, Ir is a truth full of comfort in dark days, that Christ hath never left his Church. The Word, the Holy Spirit, the Sacraments, and ordinances, each in that way which Christ hath appointed, have never ceased their work of regenerating and sanctifying the fallen sons of Adam. And holy men, new-born in Christ and using diligently the grace given to them, have ever been "perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord," even when, to the worldly eye, the Church of Christ presented a scene of confusion and strife, false teaching, and unholy living. Such a man at such a time was Sir Thomas More. Some things there are, indeed, concerning which we may now begin to judge impartially, which have cast a stain upon a name otherwise so spotless, and so exalted. It is not the writer's wish to disguise these. But, in sketching a life so attractive, a character so winning, he thinks that an unprejudiced view, at this distance of time, and removed as we are from that question of the royal supremacy which so perplexed good men, may now be gained. And he is convinced that such a view will lead to the conclusion, that the very principles by which Sir Thomas More lived, and by which he died, would, had he lived fifty years later, have made him one of the most earnest, as well as the ablest and holiest advocates of a REFORMED CHURCH, as well as a Catholic Faith. For our justification in asserting what differs somewhat from the popular tradition concerning Sir Thomas More, we propose to give a somewhat extended sketch of a life full of interest, and hope to make no assertions which we cannot justify by the best authorities. Have we not, when standing upon the ocean beach, observed some poor waif of the sea, a worthless keg, or the fragment of a plank, elevated upon the crest of a huge wave? It might seem, in fancy's vision, to be priding itself on its exaltation. It might seem to be fancying that it had lifted itself up so high, and, poor, worthless thing, to be scorning the great heaving ocean beneath it, as if the wave was made only for it to ride. But the majestic billow grew darker, and swept resistlessly on, till it thundered on the beach, with its deep roar and breaking crash, and then swiftly glided back with soft liquid whispers into the awful depths out of which it came. And then that chip remained stranded on the beach, too mean for a moment's notice. So is it with some who have lived for popularity and a name, and for this have sacrificed principle, duty, and a good conscience. They seemed to ride on the topmost waves of Fortune. But the heaving billows never rest, and a day has come, when these heroes of an hour have been judged by a true standard, and, deserted by popular applause, have been stranded on the sands of Time. Let us then reverently admire and love, rather, one who, having gained a clear insight into eternal truth and duty, grasps firmly unchanging principles, and, for the sake of that truth, and clinging to those principles, dares, if need be, to live and to die alone. Such a man keeps tight hold of the rock, amidst the shifting sands of expediency, and the breaking billows of popular opinion. The great waves may come, dashing over his head, or they may seem to play kindly around his feet; or they may go back and leave him alone till another tide come again to overwhelm him. It is the same -such a man is a true hero, though he may never have fought a battle, and mounted to Fame's temple over the mangled bodies of thousands of his countrymen. He may never have ridden triumphantly up to the Capitol with shouts of the crowd, and laurels and flowers strewing his way. But his name, written down by angels' pens, will be a watchword inspiring strength to the doubting, fearing heart. And the recollection of such a man may help to brace heart and arm to strike manfully a new blow in the everlasting contest between Truth and Error, between unchanging principle and the fluctuating calculations of selfish expediency. A man of this mould is no self-conceited fanatic, such as the history of modern days has sometimes shown, puffed up with pride in his fancied election, to be greater, wiser, and better than his fathers, or than the humbly contented wayfarers who journey in the old paths, and who raised high, looks down on his deluded and blinded. fellow-creatures. Then when his bubble bursts, he falls so abjectly that one hardly knows whether laughter or weeping better suit the occasion. We introduce More with this preface, in order to show more plainly what he was by first intimating what he was not. Home is the centre of a true man's life. And to know Sir Thomas More, we must see him at home. We will select, for the epoch, the year of our Lord 1532, a period of brief rest for him, in his fifty-second year. The centre and head of a large family, he is a man not conspicuous in size or feature. You must see the blended intellect and simplicity, the wit and kindness of that clear, sparkling gray eye. You must observe that mouth, as ready for a playful jest as for serious words of judicious counsel, and passing with simple and natural grace from one to the other, before you can know even the exterior of the man. Time is beginning to wear upon him. A constitution not naturally strong has never been prematurely weakened by exhausting dissipations; his mode of living has ever been of the simplest and purest; the wine-cup has rarely gone to his lips except for courteous greeting of his many friends; but he has lived for others with untiring devotion. Burdened with the cares of an empire, for example, when he was the second man in it, he found time to write long and powerfully for what he thought a good cause. But Time traces no wrinkle on his heart. It is a large household within these hospitable doors, to |