come to us as in the crowd. Let a Prince labour without ceasing to procure the welfare of his people, by his laws, by an exact administration of justice, by maintaining peace and plenty in his own dominions, and by defending them against all enemies from without; each individual who enjoys the favourable influences of so happy a government, owes it to the Governor to acknowledge his cares, to love him, and to pray for his prosperity. But if this same Prince notices some one of his subjects in particular, informs himself of his condition, enters into the detail of his wants with even parental solicitude, and provides for their supply; what effect ought not this distinction, this goodness so specially directed, to produce on a subject so favoured? Ought he not to feel it in the very depths of his heart, and to be penetrated with gratitude and love for a master so affectionate and beneficent? But see the extent of the love of God in regard to the Israelites. You might almost say, my brethren, that he had forgotten the rest of his creatures, only to think of them. We We see not only the general exercise of his gracious providence. He charges himself with their guidance, he puts himself at their head, he watches over them to defend them, he provides for the supply of all their need. It is, so to speak, the conduct of a father, who, mindful of the necessities of his children, makes it his great concern to allow them to want nothing,-raiment, food, everything, even to the shoes of their feet, he provides for all, enters into the minutest details, and whatever tends to the relief and solace of his people, becomes the object of his own care. What tenderness! What condescension! It is so great, my brethren, so extraordinary, that unbelievers have made this very circumstance a pretext for rejecting the fact, as altogether improbable. According to them, the Jews, to do honour to their own nation, have taken no care of the honour of God. They have represented him as a partial Being, and have attributed to him the notice of things unworthy of his greatness. But it is they themselves who reason ill. It is with injustice that they thus describe the conduct of God as partial. Is he not the master of his own gifts. He owes us nothing even considered as creatures, much less as sinners. Has he not the right to communicate more of his gifts to some than to others? The cares of his kind and watchful providence extend to all, without distinction. But blind man grovels amidst second causes, and will not look to the First Cause, which is the source of all good. Shall it be thought wrong, then, to awaken him from this unjust forgetfulness, and to teach him whose hand it is from which all his blessings come, that God should distribute his favours particularly, to certain individuals, immediately, without the intervention of second causes? Nay, does not this very attention which he thus condescends to pay to these particular wants, honour his goodness, without lowering his greatness? He did not judge it unworthy of himself to create them, nor is it unworthy of himself to preserve them. The care that he takes of small things implies no forgetfulness of greater things. His knowledge, his power, his providence, embraced all; and, at the very time that his eye seemed fixed on Israel alone, he ceased not to watch over the entire universe. The objections of incredulity are, then, vain. Meanwhile they serve to show us that this condescension of God for his people was so extraordinary, that our feeble reason can scarcely receive it the Israelites themselves, then, could scarcely avoid being moved by it; and after having experienced, in so remarkable a manner, the fatherly and careful protection of God, refuse that which he demanded from them by thus recalling the whole to their remembrance,—that is to say, their gratitude and love. (To be concluded in our next.) CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS OF NORWAY. [THE extract we furnish this month will show something of the public state of society in those days. Trade, commerce, and agriculture could never flourish where rulers and people were all a set of marauders together.] OTTAR was the name of King Egil's son who succeeded to the domains and kingdom after him. He did not continue friendly with King Frode, and therefore King Frode sent messengers to King Ottar to demand the scatt which Egil had promised him. Ottar replied, that the Swedes had never paid scatt to the Danes, neither would he; and the messengers had to depart with this answer. Frode was a great warrior; and he came one summer with his army to Sweden, and landed, and ravaged the country. He killed many people, took some prisoners, burned all around in the inhabited parts, made a great booty, and made great devastation. The next summer King Frode made an expedition to the eastward; and when King Ottar heard that Frode was not at home in his own country, he went on board his own ships, sailed over to Denmark, and ravaged there without opposition. As he heard that a great many people were collected at Sealand, he proceeds westward to the Sound, and sails north about to Jutland; lands at Lymfiord; plunders the Vend district; burns, and lays waste, and makes desolate the country he goes over with his army. Vätte and Faste were the names of the Earls whom Frode had appointed to defend the country in Denmark while he was abroad. When the Earls heard that the Swedish King was laying waste Denmark, they collected an army, hastened on board their ships, and sailed by the south side to Lymfiord. They came unexpectedly upon Ottar, and the battle began immediately. The Swedes gave them a good reception, and many people fell on both sides; but as soon as men fell in the Danish army, other men hastened from the country to fill their places, and also all the vessels in the neighbourhood joined them. The battle ended with the fall of Ottar and the greater part of his people. The Danes took his body, carried it to the land, laid it upon a mound of earth, and let the wild beasts and ravens tear it to pieces. Thereafter they made a figure of a crow out of wood, sent it to Sweden, and sent word with it that their King, Ottar, was no better than it; and from this he was called Ottar Vendelcrow. Thiodolf tells so of it : "By Danish arms the hero bold, Ottar the Brave, lies stiff and cold. To Vendel's plain the corpse was borne ; The wild bird's prey, the wild wolf's meat. In their own homes, by Swedish hand." Adils was the name of King Ottar's son and successor. He was a long time King, became very rich, and went also for several summers on viking expeditions. On one of these he came to Saxonland with his troops. There a King was reigning called Geirthiof, and his wife was called Alof the Great; but nothing is told of their children. The King was not at home, and Adils and his men ran up to the King's house, and plundered it, while others drove a herd of cattle down tr the strand. The herd was attended by slave-people, carls and girls, and they took all of them together. Among them was a remarkably beautiful girl called Yrsa. Adils returned home with this plunder. Yrsa was not one of the slave-girls, and it was soon observed that she was intelligent, spoke well, and in all respects was well behaved. All people thought well of her, and particularly the King; and at last it came to so far that the King celebrated his wedding with her, and Yrsa became Queen of Sweden, and was considered an excellent woman. CONVENTUAL LIFE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. EXTRACT V. [OUR next two extracts will be found to illustrate the position of the old Lords Abbots. If they were spiritual * The ordinary way, with the vikings, of victualling their ships, was driving cattle down to the strand and killing them, without regard to the property of friends or enemies; and this was so established a practice that it was expressed in a single word, "strandhug." King Harald Haarfager had prohibited the strandhug being committed in his own dominions by his own subjects on their viking cruises; and Rolf Ganger, the son of the Earl of Möre, having, notwithstanding, landed and made a strandhug in the south of Norway, where the King happened to be, was outlawed; and he in consequence set out on an expedition, in which he conquered and settled in Normandy. Lords, they had great secular power. Occasionally, no doubt, men were found who endeavoured, according to their light, to apply the wealth which they had at their command to what they believed to be right purposes; but, for the most part, the usual temptations of wealth produced their natural effect, and these monasteries were only different from the baronial halls, in that to the good cheer which was to be had there, the forms of religion were at other times added. That now and then a truly spiritual man (though very obscure and confused as to the nature of religious doctrine) might arise, we are not disposed to doubt; but ordinarily the world was as truly in the Convent, as the Convent was in the world. Abbot Sampson appears to have been an upright man, of much shrewdness, and great firmness. Sensual indulgence does not appear to have been his besetting sin. But withal he was thoroughly superstitious; and of the true character of religion, even as described by Bernard, he knew little, if anything. We can conceive of him as sitting in judgment on a heretic, and joining in his condemnation to the flames; but if he had found among his Monks one who was labouring, like Luther, under deep convictions, he would not have been able to comfort him, as an old brother-Monk did Luther, by teaching him the doctrine of free pardon through faith in Christ. But we shall see more of the religion of these monasteries in some subsequent extract.] WHILE these things were taking place, I became the Prior's Chaplain, and within four months was made the Abbot's Chaplain, noting many things, and committing them to memory. On the morrow of his feast, the Abbot called to him the Prior and some few others, as if seeking advice from them, for he himself knew what he would do. He said, that a new seal should be made, with a mitre graven thereon, although his predecessors had nothing of the sort; but for a time we used the seal of our Prior, subscribing at the termination of all our letters, that he had no seal of his own, and therefore it behoved him to use that of the Prior. Afterwards, setting his household in order, he appointed divers servants to various duties, saying, that he had thought he had |