sitions. All will probably remember the story of the soldier who, having lost both his legs at Bull Run, after lying a day and a night undiscovered and unrelieved, finally called attention and assistance to himself by singing, with all the force of the little breath left in him, the Star-Spangled Banner.

In music quite as well as in literature can be traced the development, the character, and distinguishing marks of a whole nation. Witness the earnest, solemn, enthusiastic flow of most German songs. How well they illustrate the German character. Even in their lighter compositions may be traced a certain solidity, sometimes degenerating into sluggishness, which is quite characteristic of that people. Yet in my opinion, in spite of occasional bathos, if this be an allowed musical term, their music is the best, the very best in the world. The Italians alone can claim to be compared to them, and they, in my own judgment again, are more inferior in respect to music than literature even. Mendelssohn is the popular autocrat of music in Germany, as Goethe is of letters. We may find few to agree with us; but if we were called upon to form for ourself a library of music in one volume, and if we were excluded from all but the one chosen, we would give the preference to Mendelssohn's part-songs. These, with few exceptions, will stand the application of the great touchstone of excellence, repetition. We never tire of hearing them, and never listen to them without new and never-failing feelings of delight and admiration.

"IT is an unjust scandal of our adversaries, and a gross error in ourselves," says Sir Thomas Browne, in speaking of the Church of England, "to compute the nativity of our religion from Henry the Eighth, who, though he rejected the Pope, refused not the faith of Rome, and effected no more than what his own predecessors desired and assayed in ages past." The good doctor had too great a confidence in the genuineness of his creed to consent to dating its origin later than the time of the Founder of Christianity. He had too deep a respect for it, to admit the declarations of the enemies of his Church, that its defection from the parent Church deprived its adherents of the right to claim the past as belonging, in the least, to them. To his catholic mind, the mere form of church government was a matter entirely unimportant, when the real merit of a belief was in question. Christianity, as he saw it, lived not in the mighty ecclesiastical machinery of popes, cardinals, bishops, and councils, but in the hearts of true believers, and among those who endeavored to sincerely follow the teachings of the Master. Of these latter he professed to be.

Inasmuch as submission to either sovereign of England or Pope of Rome, as chief authority in clerical affairs, could neither give nor deny the name of Christian, he claimed that his Church, in so far as it was free from heresy and perversion of doctrine, had its nativity, not in its separation from the See of Rome, but in the nativity of the universal Christian Church.

Still, when he considered that the distinctive form of Christian belief, as it existed in the Church of England, was initiated by Henry the Eighth, there was little for him to be proud of.

Had a noble purpose led Henry to founding that Church, his work would have made his name famous as that of a great benefactor. Men would have looked upon him as one especially commissioned to redeem Christianity from the errors that were fast accumulating about it. It would have been esteemed a high and daring undertaking to say that the Church of Rome had, by its abuses and its corruption of the true faith, forfeited all claim to the allegiance of its subjects, and that thereafter England would deny the authority of the Pope as head of the Church. In this an immeasurable good would have been accomplished; for his example, beheld by all Christendom would have had all the influence that attaches to the deeds of those who succeed in instituting a great reform, and give thereby an impulse to progress, whether social or religious.

In Germany had been presented the spectacle of a young friar declaring against Romanism, and persistingly assailing its abuses, though at the risk of martyrdom. Hitherto the religious world appeared to be content with the establishment at Rome, evidently regarding it as founded by Christ, and as therefore all-sufficient and perfect. The appearance, however, of a bold and energetic assailant, animated by unquenchable religious zeal, soon made it patent that many were willing and waiting the opportunity to escape from the "bondage of Babylon." Though Henry appeared not many years afterwards as another enemy of the Court of Rome, we must look in him for none of the motives that impelled Luther to the same course. The king was urged on by not one high incentive. On the contrary, his object was one utterly unworthy the measure he resorted to.

The world is familiar with the history of Catharine of Aragon, and her treatment: how, after a lapse of seventeen years of wedded life, attended with happiness to both her and her husband, he pronounced their marriage illegal and incestuous, since she was his brother's widow. Upon this point he pretended to be troubled with religious scruples. He had discovered that the Holy Writ forbade a man marrying his brother's widow, and so his conscience, he said, could not support him in further wrong-doing. True, Catharine had proved a model wife, and the worthy consort of a king, but that could not warrant his disobedience any longer to the Mosaic law, as expressed in Leviticus. Consequently a request was made of the

Pope to declare the marriage invalid. Rather than offend so valuable a subject as Henry, the Pope was ready to smother his conscience and accede to the request; but this could not be done without the powerful opposition of the Spanish emperor. So Henry was answered with a refusal.

Then, after councils had been held to consider the case, after discussions upon conflicting texts in the Old Testament, the king made his final appeal, and still meeting with refusal, he renounced his allegiance to the Pope, and declared England out of the See of Rome. This was the first and leading act in the establishment of the Church of England.

There was now needed to the divorce no other sanction than his own will, so it was speedily accomplished. No one can imagine that herein he was acting from a suggestion of duty. Many of the best and most impartial divines of that time, while they admitted the force of the commandment in Leviticus, concurred in saying that, since the Mosaic law, as laid down in Deuteronomy, not merely countenanced but enjoined marriage with a brother's widow who was childless, the king would be far from doing wrong in retaining Catharine as his wife.

It was, however, something stronger than principle that urged him on. The display of principle was only a cloak to his passions. The love which he had shown to his wife for so many years was followed by satiety. She was supplanted in his heart by the young beauty, Anne Boleyn; and the manner in which the latter also, and his other successive wives, were discarded, plainly illustrates how ready he was to sacrifice the highest as well as the lowest to his passions and imperious will. Had the Pope been no obstacle in his path, the divorce of Catharine would have been attended with little ado. In that case it had been accomplished more summarily and without any show of justice.

This infamous wrong against Catharine can never be forgotten. Had there been some weakness in her character, which unfitted her for her station or was imbittering his life, some apology might be made for his conduct. She, on the contrary, was an epitome of all that is noble in woman. She was graced with intellectual accomplishments, with a sweet disposition, and with beauty. Besides, her affection for him could not have been deeper or more enduring. What could he have wished more? Nothing. In fact, their wedded life, happy without interruption until the fresh personal charms of

Anne Boleyn won his heart, is a sufficient testimony to her excellence. The story of her death, when with her dying breath she declared her undying love for her husband, has been told with matchless eloquence by Shakespeare. Celebrated by the historian and the poet, she will be enduringly remembered as one of the noblest consorts that king of England ever had.

Henry had now gained his end, he had discarded his wife and taken a new one, but suffered the penalty of a papal excommunication. He assumed to himself supreme powers as head of the spiritual affairs of England. If we call this a triumph of Protestantism, we are mistaken. It was no opposition to the abuses of Romanism that led to the rupture. Henry had been reared in the Catholic religion, he had imbibed its prejudices, he revered its memories, and in his reply to Luther's attacks upon it, proved how strong was his attachment to it.

Had the Pope been more indulgent, and favored his wishes, no thought would ever have been entertained of establishing a new church. Circumstances, and not religious convictions, led Henry to it, and when he created himself a Pope of England, he seemed disposed to retain the follies and superstitions that Romanism had taught him. None of its abuses did he intend to renounce. If he happened to interfere in the case of exorbitant exactions made by the priests, he was led to it, not from any disapproval of their tyranny, but because it excited his jealousy to see in their hands the exercise of so much power.

For this reason, it is wrong to call the establishment of the Church of England an act of the Reformation. Had Luther given no impulse to that cause, and had the Lollards of England been the only few to protest against the abuses of Rome, a counterpart of the Papacy would likely have been reared in England.

But at the moment of this change in religious dynasties there, Protestantism was on the alert, and gained an advantage there which it speedily improved. It lent its aid to the new church that was building, and to a great extent modified the doctrines and the practices introduced from Rome. Thus, while at first Henry had a deadly hatred of Protestants, he was unconsciously aiding their cause; and when he discovered that opposition to a common foe gave him common interests with them, he was inclined to be conciliatory, though he, nevertheless, guarded his supremacy over his church with a jealous care, which no pope could exceed.