stition ill qualified to make any favourable impression on the minds of their invaders, or induce them to change their modes of worship for others if possible still more vicious and corrupt.

We sometimes wonder that idolatry could ever have taken such deep hold on the great mass, and identified itself with the habits and feelings of mankind. So absurd and ridiculous a belief, we are led to suppose, could hardly have assumed even a transient supremacy amongst any but the most senseless or the most barbarous of the human race. And yet,

a little reflection will tend to solve this apparent deviation. Craft and selfishness, in some instances, may have exercised as powerful an engine over the bulk of mankind; but, that all-pervading principle and habit of our fallen nature, hatred of a just, holy, and heart-searching God, is the main spring, the source of all this apparent inconsistency and. delusion. A desire to have their god like unto themselves, while shrinking from, and hating,. an omniscient and perfect Creator; an aversion to all authority, where that authority requires purity and uprightness of heart, is the true source both of idolatry and atheism. When men cannot shake off the belief of a superintending and controlling Providence, they would fain make the deity they fear and worship, of like passions with themselves. A little more knowledge, a deeper taint of stubbornness and pride, and they deny his very existence. Both systems have one common origin—the pride and perverseness of the human heart; and both are equally puerile and senseless, opposed to the common dictates of our nature, and the unsearchable wonders of that creation by which we are every where surrounded. But the idolater has greatly the advan

tage, both in point of wisdom and rationality, over the boasted light and reason of the professed unbeliever. The pagan worshipper has some sort of moral control over him, some dread of punishment and hope of reward, to stimulate his virtue and restrain his passions; the infidel has none. He sees vice triumphant, and virtue oppressed. He sees mankind walking in a vain show, and every earthly object with vanity inscribed over all. The most flagrant injustice perpetrated; and moral rectitude, apparently, no certain guide to happiness. He beholds crime unpunished, and injuries unredressed; while, on every hand, the world seems maddening with misery, desolation, and discontent. And what hold has this state of things on his moral and rational feelings? what morality shall curb his lust, or restrain his appetite? "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," can be the only reasonable principle that must guide his actions, if those principles be genuine and his unbelief sincere. But to return to our narrative.

The passenger who first stepped ashore from this little bark, wore the habit of a pilgrim, to wit, the sclavina, a long gown of coarse woollen. His staff was mounted with two knobs at the summit, for the purpose of carrying relics, and the like. His hat was turned up in front, very similar to the petasus which occurs on figures of Mercury; in fact, the covering most commonly worn by Roman travellers. A scarf or leathern thong was girdled round his loins, and a scrip, for provisions and other necessaries, completed the simple but expressive costume of this new-comer. Forty individuals attired in a similar garb followed him from the ship, but it was impossible to mistake the individual who was in fact their leader, and to whom they all paid implicit deference and respect. His

hair was almost white with age. His cheek pale, and unnaturally hollow. His eyes grey, and full of almost startling vivacity. It seemed as though years had only heightened the fervour of his spirit, and that whatever bodily infirmities he might sustain, the soul grew more ardent as she grew nearer to the termination of her pilgrimage, and her zeal shone brighter through the crevices of decay. The holy man was tall of stature, and his frame greatly attenuated, whether with penance and privation we know not, but the horse-hair shirt, which was just visible, spoke of mortification and self-abasement. As he stepped out, and for the first time on British soil, he spread forth his hands toward the east, and his followers knelt silently on the ground. A few minutes were thus spent. The mariners, too, who accompanied them from the French coast, bowed themselves in strange contrast with the uncivilized and wondering groups who gathered about them on their landing.

Ebb's Fleet was, at that time, a sea-port, though now considerably inland, from the sands having choked up the passage of a little river called the Wantsume. When, subsequently, the tide began to leave the marshes dry at low water, a wall, called the Abbot's, was built by an abbot of St. Augustine's monastery at Canterbury, long after the date of our era, to shut out the sea. Many acres also, between the Abbot's wall and the mouth of the river Stour,

have been since embanked: pier and harbour have thus disappeared, and Ebb's Fleet has no other renown than its history and its name.

"Laurentius," said the holy father, for it was St. Augustine who spoke, "the day is too far spent, nor would it be prudent, now that we travel on to

Canterbury; but send thee trusty messengers to the King, say that we seek his presence, if he so wills it, on the morrow, and that the holy Pontiff and his cousin Chilperic, send greeting at our hands."

"What messengers, brother, can we lay hold of? These poor heathens do verily seem gifted with less understanding than their herds yonder, trooping homeward to the sound of the bell. Had we not best tarry here to-night and away to Canterbury on the morrow?"

"Nay," replied the other, "it were not wise to wander far from our vessel, ere we are assured of the King's protection.-Let us keep nigh to the ship until we know his pleasure."

"Thou sayest well," said Laurentius, "but it were better that we sent one of our number on the morrow; he will declare the truth unto us, and what" peradventure shall be the manner of our reception."

"To the Queen rather," said Augustine, "if one from our own body be the envoy. There are letters, thou knowest, unto her from that son in the faith, her uncle, with which we will send Paulinus on the morrow."

"Nay, I beseech thee, let that duty be entrusted unto me," said Laurentius. "It may be that I shall find favour in the eyes of the Queen and her household, and bring thee glad tidings from their lips."

"Thou sayest well, and now for our present sojourn. Let us seek out some lodging for the night, and so to vespers before supper."

Then did this self-denying band of pilgrims take their way to the first house of public resort, being a tavern or Eala-hus; but their inquiry was for the granary or barn, which, being cheerfully granted them by the owner, Augustine and his companions

were well supplied with provisions from the house. A great bowl was brought containing a piece of boiled pork, and a soup sodden with barley. Baked loaves of this grain, hot from the oven, were laid on the board, and a huge flagon of earthenware, full of mead, was gratuitously provided for the guests; a certain allowance being granted by the King for the entertainment of strangers. Lac acidum and Lac dulce, buttermilk and sweet, were served up in porringers, of which most of the company partook ere retiring to their bed of straw, which was amply strewn for their rest.”

Early on the morrow did Laurentius, with staff and scrip, address himself to his journey. The sun was hardly risen, but the glowing ocean betokened his approach, as the missionary, through deep and dusty pathways, approached the royal city, an assemblage of rude huts clustered round the embattled fortress of their sovereign. Ramparts of earth, and a dry ditch, enclosed the whole; and, in order that the circumvallation might contain a greater number of inhabitants, their dwellings were crowded together in such wise, that convenience, in most instances, gave way to public safety.

The sun was risen when Laurentius arrived at the eastern gate, which was built of stout timber, and well fortified with knobs and bands of iron. As he passed the opening, a soldier on guard eyeing, him attentively, asked, in a broad Saxon dialect, which the good father with some difficulty understood, his name and business. He replied by requesting his interrogator would procure him an audience with the Queen; which request seemed not to find favour in the eyes of the surly Saxon.

"Another outlandish thing from France, I reckon,