which I will readily contribute mine, to show my charity, if they can serve to draw you into the true fold of Chris'tianity, and tend to make you a shepherd instead of a hireling.

"If you have no better reasons for combating my undertaking, do not again urge me to follow your worldly prudence; I consider it mere folly before God; it cannot impede my endeavours. Your doubts make me tremble; my assurance makes me firm. When you desire again to persuade me that the words of your mouth are the voice of your conscience and your faithfulness, be more careful, and let the fruitless letter you have sent me be the last of that kind that I shall receive. I

have seen the letter that you wrote to my cousin of Lescar, and which he will answer: it is equally malignant and prejudiced. It is sufficient for me to observe that you would hurl upon the country of Bearn the misery into which you have plunged France. But though you may envy her prosperity, the Arbiter of her destinies will preserve it, notwithstanding your malicious intrigues; and, by his grace, will confirm it. May that grace abound towards you in the pardon of your sins! Yet I almost dread to beseech Him for it, lest He may address to me the reproach which Samuel met with on account of Saul.

"Receive this from one who knows not how to style herself; not being able to call herself a friend, and doubtful of any affinity till the time of repentance and conversion, when she will be,

"Your cousin and friend,
"JEANNE."

After perusing this letter, it will not excite surprise that the fiercest thunders of the Vatican were hurled against this faithful servant of her Divine Lord; or that (according to the accustomed persecuting and blood-thirsty spirit which has ever characterised the papacy, and which the modern supplementary volume to Dens, set forth by the Romanist hierarchy in Ireland, adopts and ratifies as the existing and neverdying law of Rome in regard to Protestant kings and queens and their dominions,) the Pope excommunicated the royal writer, and with that insolent assumption of temporal power which has always accompanied his usurped spiritual authority, declared her crown for

feited, and her subjects absolved from their allegiance; thus encouraging her neighbours to attack her, and her lieges to rebel against her—and this for the glory of God and the behoof of the church; so that on the Bishop of Rome rests no small portion of the guilt of the blood that flowed in torrents during the dreadful civil wars which so long desolated France, and of the atrocities of his too faithful followers in the massacre of August 1572, and the still more frightful dragonades which followed the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685.

The Queen and her Protestant subjects were now exposed to the most cruel and blood-thirsty warfare. The Romanists stirred up a revolt in a portion of her domi nions, which she suppressed; but instead of returning evil for evil, when the vanquished Count de Luxe and his associates knelt before her, she told them that she was led by the mercy of God, who in his overruling providence had protected her, to feel mercy for others, and that she therefore pardoned, and would endeavour to forget, their misdeeds. But such was not the spirit of popery; for the French king, Charles IX., under its fanatical influence, determined with his spiritual advisers to expel or slaughter all the Protestants in his dominions; and the queen of Navarre was marked out for the first victim. He accordingly instigated the pardoned traitor De Luxe to raise another Romanist army, and the war recommenced with increased fury. Jane's subjects supported her with great zeal and liberality; and our good Queen Elizabeth sent her a subsidy of £50,000, and six pieces of cannon. The Prince of Condé also, and the heads of the Protestant cause, united with her; but the overwhelming power of France prevailed; town after town, village

after village, fell into the hands of the Romanists; and those which had made any resistance were subjected to fire and sword, and the most revolting barbarities, in order to intimidate others. The whole country was reduced to a dreadful state of devastation and suffering; Pau, the capital of Bearn, was taken; and the people still point out an elm-tree near the market-house, which marks the spot where the Protestant preachers and the officers were hanged, and their bodies left to be gazed at, till they were cast into the adjoining river. Only the town of Navarreux was able to hold out; which it did during a most fearful siege; till it was relieved by the Queen's faithful general, Montgomery, whose skill and valour, by the blessing of God, turned the tide of war, and in less than ten weeks reconquered the whole kingdom of lower Navarre, and re-established the authority of the legitimate sovereign.

During these afflicting proceedings the Queen gained the affectionate confidence of her subjects, by her wisdom and piety, her intrepidity and perseverance. She harangued her troops with devout eloquence; and would deserve the name of a heroine, were not so heathenish a title eclipsed by her higher character as a nursing mother" in the Church of Christ. Her first effort, after her own restoration, was to restore the pure worship of God. She was far from being a woman of intolerant temper; but, like her royal contemporary, Queen Elizabeth, she had been taught by experience that popery never failed to make use of religious toleration to gain temporal and political ascendancy, and, if possible, to dethrone Protestant monarchs, as required by the injunctions of the Bishop of Rome. She therefore issued a

proclamation forbidding public popish worship; but allowing all priests, monks, and other Romish ecclesiastics, to remain in the country by licence, provided they conducted themselves as men who feared God, and obeyed the queen. Our readers may not be displeased to glance over the heads of this royal ordinance. Some of its regulations, with regard to private conduct and external acts of religious observance, go beyond the legitimate province of civil government; but three centuries ago there was no question throughout Christendom that a Christian government, regarding the nation as a branch of the Church of Christ, and considering itself bound to uphold spiritual discipline, was called upon to specify the public religious duties which its subjects were required to perform as members of a commonweal professing to be regulated by the word of God. It should however be remembered, that though the proclamation was issued by authority of the Queen, its spiritual regulations were sanctioned, and were probably set forth, by the Church, and that the exercise of discipline was committed to the consistory. We know that on a subsequent occasion the Queen applied to the Synod of Rochelle, respecting drawing up an exposition of the reformed faith; which was embodied in a decree, entitled: "Ecclesiastical ordinances of Jane, by the grace of God Queen of Navarre, upon the reestablishment of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in her sovereign realm of Bearn." The details, we admit, were carried too far; but we will not shrink, in these days of rebuke and blasphemy, from asserting the principle; for every ruler is bound to establish, or, where necessary, re-establish, "the kingdom of Jesus Christ" in his dominions.

We will now insert the proclamation; only premising that the lingering relics of popish notions respecting the Lord's Day, are seen in the twelfth article, which, while providing for its better observance, confines its restrictions in part to only a portion of the sacred hours.

"1. The queen, desiring that the word shall be announced only by those, who, being called by God, have a legitimate vocation, her majesty, for that purpose, annuls, repeals, banishes, and proscribes all exercise of the Roman religion, without any exception; such as masses, vespers, processions, litanies, vigils, feasts, painted or carved images, luminaries, offerings, and, especially those usually made at funerals, as customary in the Romish church.

"2. [Orders the removal of all altars and altar-pieces from churches.]

"3. All the inhabitants of the country, of whatsoever rank, are enjoined to attend the preachings, instructions, and prayers offered by the ministers of the gospel according to the word of God, her majesty desiring that the inhabitants of all places, wherein such worship is established, shall duly attend at each service, and those who are distant, at least every Sunday; and the jurats of every district are required to enforce the execution of this order, each one observing the conduct of those under them, and making a faithful report of those who refuse obedience.

"4. [Subjects the inhabitants of each district to the controul of its consistory, which is empowered to summon individuals to account for their conduct, and to reprimand and correct.]

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"5. Seeing that the reformed church recognizes baptism as being one of the sacraments established for receiving the signs of the remission of sins, whence it imposes on parents the duty of presenting their children to the church to be baptized, yet, as a great many persons refuse to perform this duty, pretending to fulfil it by administering that sacrament themselves, the queen interdicts all parents, godfathers, &c. from baptizing, under such penalties as she shall further decree.

"6. [Recognizes the validity of Romish baptism, performed while that worship was permitted, but ordains that those who have been baptized by Romish priests, subsequent to the prohibition of that worship, shall be re

baptized by the reformed pastors, under penalty of punishment as rebels.] "7. [Prohibits the re-baptizing by Romish priests.]

8. It is forbidden to announce or publish the days of the papal festivals, and thus to keep people in superstition and idleness, against the law of God which prohibits both; for which reason it is enjoined on all to work six days of the week, and to inform against those who do contrary.

"9. Marriage, not being such, unless sanctioned by the benediction of the church, all persons are required to give public notice of their intended union, that it may be ratified and blessed in the face of the reformed church, on pain of subjection to the laws against concubinage.

"10. The priests, monks, and other ecclesiastics of the Romish church, are forbidden to remain in the country except by licence of the queen; but all who fear God, and respect the orders of government, will be so licensed.

11. The effects of proper education being of the greatest importance, none will be permitted to act as a schoolmaster, unless of the reformed religion; and every one who would act in such capacity, must be examined by a minister, who will judge of his ability and other qualifications for the due performance of his functions.

"12. All matters and business of justice shall cease on the Sabbath-day, unless in cases of necessity: the shops and public-houses shall be closed during the time of divine service, at which all persons ought to attend. All sports, usually lawful, are interdicted during the same period.

"13. [The first part regulates the period of preaching at other times than on the Sabbath.] There shall be a cessation from labour during the preaching, and not at other times, in order that superstition may not be revived by the observance of days.

"14. [Regulation of interments of the dead.]

"15. And as, by the instigation of the evil spirit, many have withdrawn from the church after having embraced its doctrines, and others have been cut off from it on account of their improper conduct, without either of these parties having manifested a desire to return; it is hereby ordered that both those who have been excommunicated by the church, as well as those who have voluntarily separated from it, shall be chastized and punished by the magistracy, as scandalous livers, rebels, and disturbers of the church, if, during the space of a year, they shall not

return to their duty, and give signs of repentance.

16. [Regulates payment of tythes

and church dues.]

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Lastly. In order that no one may have opportunities of wasting time in evil ways, all illegal games, dances, masquerades, impure songs, and such like disorderly proceedings, are hereby prohibited."

Shortly after peace had been restored, the Queen of Navarre went to Paris, to be present at the marriage of her son to Margaret of Valois, the king's sister, to which union she felt great repugnance, Margaret being a Romanist; but she was induced to withdraw her opposition, by the hopes held out that family and national animosity would thus cease, and Protestantism be less

exposed to jeopardy. She little suspected the intrigues and plots which were already rife, and which speedily exploded in that blackest deed even of French history, the Bartholomew massacre; and least of all, that her own son would become a Papist, and a persecutor; but the event proved the short-sightedness of the policy which induced so excellent a woman to allow of evil that good might come. But she did not live to see the issue ; she was rescued before the storm burst upon her friends and country; and was spared witnessing the bloody subversion of Protestantism, and the restoration of the Papal dominion. She arrived in Paris on the 4th of June, 1572, and expired on the 9th, at the early age of forty-four. Protestant historians have generally attributed her death to poison, administered at the instigation of that bigoted and cruel woman, the Queen-mother; but Mr. Jameson charitably relies upon the official proces-verbal which ascribed it to an abscess in her side, which was discovered upon opening her body. He also

quotes a manuscript by the Bishop of Oleron, which attributes it to

pleurisy, occasioned by her journey: whereas other Romanist historians say, that it was occasioned by anger at being forced to hang out tapestry from the windows of her hotel on the day of the superstitious procession of the Fête Dieu; the very rite which ration of the Bourbons) being a few years since (after the restoforced upon the Protestants, gave

rise to much disturbance. We are very far, however, from being convinced that she was not poisoned. The Queen-mother, who feared and hated her, well knew that the Romanist party could not work upon the flexibility of the young prince Henry, influence of his pious parent; so long as he was under the and as to any feeling of remorse

or conscience, the assassination of Coligni, and the wholesale slaughter in cold blood of the Protestants, which took place only a few weeks after Jane's death, shew that such scruples would create no impediment. But whether she died by the effects of poison, or by distress of mind occasioned by being forced to comply with an observance which was, in the public eye, an act of homage to popery; or whether she was worn out by the longcontinued fatigues, privations, and distresses to, which she had been so long subjected in the

cause of her God and Saviour

against the Antichrist of Rome; to pronounce her to have been a in any case, we do not hesitate faithful martyr of Jesus Christ.

Mr. Jameson has comprised the account of the Queen's dying hours in the few following lines.

"Jeanne d'Albret, when she found the end of her days was approaching, drew round her the most spiritual ministers of her creed, deriving much consolation from the fervent prayers