remarks: "Fra Angelico's use of the Oxalis acetosella is as faithful in representation as touching in feeling. The triple leaf of this plant and white flower, stained purple, probably gave it strange typical interest among the Christian painters.' Some persons believe that this was the Shamrock, the plant chosen by St. Patrick to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity.

99

He was Professor of Theology in Oxford, and Rector of Lutterworth in Leicestershire; but most generally known as "The Morning Star of the Reformation."

The last period of his life he spent at Lutterworth A portion of each morning, it is said, he regularly devoted to the relief of the necessitous, to the consolation of the afflicted, and to the discharge of every pious office, by the bed of sickness and death. Everything which is actually known respecting Wicklif combines to render this account entirely credible.

The duties of the Christian ministry form the subject of a considerable portion of his writings. To the faithfulness and assiduity with which he discharged one very essential portion of those duties, the extant manuscripts of his parochial discourses bear ample and honourable testimony. "Good priests," he himself tells us, "who live well, in purity of thought, and speech, and deed, and in good example to the people, who teach the law of God, up to their knowledge, and labour fast, (i. e. much,) day and night, to learn it better, and teach it openly and constantly, these are very prophets of God, and holy angels of God, and the spiritual lights of the world! Thus said God by his prophets, and Jesus Christ in his Gospel ; and saints declare it well by authority and reason."

It is surely delightful to believe that the people of Lutterworth had before their eyes the living and breathing form of that holy benevolence which is here portrayed with so much admirable simplicity and beauty.

We now proceed to describe the concluding scenes of his life. The man who for more than twenty years had made the kingdom echo with his testimony against the corruptions of the Church of Rome, was nevertheless preserved to close his immortal labours by a peaceful death.* After his settlement at Lutterworth, his infirmities compelled him to ease the burden

* "Admirable," says Fuller," that a hare so often hunted, with so many packs of dogs, should die at last quietly sitting in his form."-Church Hist. p.42.

of his parochial duties by the assistance of a curate. To the last, however, he did not wholly discontinue his personal administrations, and it was his happiness to finish his course in the public execution of his holy office. On the twenty-ninth of December 1384, he was mortally seized with paralysis in his church. The attack was so severe as to deprive him of speech, and to render him utterly helpless. In this condition he lingered two days, and was finally taken to his rest on the last day of the year.

In 1415 an order was issued, according to which the remains of Wicklif were afterwards disinterred, and burned, and the ashes cast into the adjoining brook called the Swift. "But though they digged up his body, burned his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the Word of God and truth of his doctrine, with the truth and success thereof, they could not burn, which yet to this day, for the most part of his articles, do remain." "The brook," says Fuller, "did convey his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wicklif are the emblems of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."

In his work named "The Poor Caitiff," Dr. John Wicklif thus writes on the Resurrection :-" All mankind shall rise at the day of doom, from death to life, in body and soul together, each in his own kind, and in his own body, incorruptible and immortal. And though the body were burned with fire, and the powder thereof thrown into the four seas that go about the world, yet the soul and it shall come together again, and rise from death to life at the dreadful doom, and from that day forward never after depart. And they that have evil lived, and ended in deadly sin, shall go in body and soul to pain for evermore; and they that have lived well and kept the commands of God, and fulfilled the deeds of mercy after their power, and ended in charity to God and man, shall go, body and soul together, to bliss for evermore.'

THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS.

AND is there care in heaven? And is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is: else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O! th' exceeding grace
Of Highest God, that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,

To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant
Against foul fiends to aid us militant!

They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love and nothing for reward:

O, why should Heavenly God to men have such regard !

SPENSER.

In certain states of the atmosphere, chiefly occurring in Polar regions, the sun and moon are surrounded with circles and parts of circles of various sizes and forms, producing the most singular and remarkable effects. All these appearances are called halos. The small halo seen round the sun and moon in fine weather, when the sky is partially covered with light fleecy clouds, are also called corona. Sometimes the image of the sun or moon is repeated several times, producing what are called parhelia or mock-suns, and paraselene or mock-moons. Small halos surrounding the planet Venus have been observed near the Equator. The colours of the solar halo are similar to those of the rainbow, but not so bright, and they do not always occur in the same order. In the halo the red is generally nearest the sun, the exterior of the band being a pale indigo or violet, and in some cases white. Occasionally the inner edge is white, and beyond this are green, yellow, and a pale red. The lunar halo is usually white, but occasionally shows tints of pale green or red. Both the solar and the lunar halo often appear double, consisting of two concentric circular bands; the outer one being broader than the other, its colours fainter, and its distance from the sun or moon twice as great as that of the inner band. The sky within the halos is sometimes of a deep blue colour; but it is frequently gray, on account of a thin veil of clouds covering it.

Coronæ are much smaller than halos. A corona sometimes appears in company with a halo, but such is not often the case. The solar corona

commonly consists of three concentric bands, variously coloured: in one observed by Sir Isaac Newton, by reflection in a vessel of standing water, the colours of the three bands proceeding from the sun outwards were blue, white, and red; purple, blue, green, and pale red; pale blue

and red.

Circle. Their usual appearance has been thus described :-" When the sun is not far from the horizon, one or more luminous circles or halos surround it at a considerable distance; two beams of light go across the innermost circle, passing through the centre of the sun, the one horizontally, the other perpendicularly, so as to form a cross; where these beams touch the circle, the light is, as it were, concentrated in a bright spot, sometimes scarcely inferior in brilliance to the sun itself; at the corresponding points in the outermost circle, segments of other circles, wholly external, come into contact with it."

A beautiful exhibition of parhelia, which occurred in the northern parts of America, has been thus described:-The atmosphere had been very hazy, but as the haziness cleared off, the first appearance was a brilliant. parhelion. "Its form at first was nearly circular, and its apparent diameter a little greater than that of the true sun. Its light, which was of a brilliant white, was so intense as to pain the eyes. In a few moments, another parhelion, of equal brightness, appeared at the same distance on the east side of the sun, and at the same altitude. When first seen it appeared a little elongated vertically, and slightly coloured. Both these parhelia retained their size and appearance for a few moments, and then began to lengthen in a vertical direction, and show the prismatic colours with considerable brilliancy. Directly above the sun appeared, at the same time with the parhelia, a coloured arc, having its centre in the zenith, and its convexity towards the sun. The exterior was red; the other colours were merged into each other, but the blue and green were predominant, though faint.

Paraselenæ are frequently seen in the Polar regions. Captain Parry noticed several of them during the long winter nights of those dreary abodes. On the 1st December, 1819, he remarked one close to the horizon, another perpendicularly above it, and two others on a line parallel to the horizon. "Their shape was like that of a comet, the tail being from the moon. The side towards the moon was of light orange-colour. During the existence of these Mock-moons, a halo or luminous ring appeared round the moon, and passed through all the mock-moons, at which instant two yellowish-coloured lines joined the opposite mock-moons, and formed four quadrants, bisecting each other at the centre of the circle. These appearances varied in brightness, and continued above an hour." On another occasion a circular halo surrounded the moon: part of a well-defined circle of white light passed through the moon, extended for several degrees on each side of her, and in points where this circle intersected the halo were paraselenæ. In the part of the halo immediately over the moon was another much brighter, and opposite to it in the lower part of the circle another similar but much more faint. About the same time on the following evening two concentric circles were observed round the moon, upon the inner of which were four paraselenæ, exhibiting the colours of the rainbow. On another evening he saw a halo, which had in it three paraselenæ, very luminous, but not tinged with prismatic colours; and on the following day the same phenomena occurred with the addition of a vertical stripe of white light proceeding from the upper and lower limbs of the moon, and forming, with a part of the horizontal circle seen before, the appearance of a cross. There was also at times an arc of another circle touching the halo, which sometimes almost reached to the zenith, changing the intensity of its light, very frequently not unlike the Aurora Borealis.

THE

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Of the mounds which appear to be identified with ancient Nineveh, the principal are Kouyunjik, and Nebbi-Yunus, or the so-called Tomb of Jonah, on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite Mosul; Nimroud, about eighteen miles lower down the river, near the junction of the Greater Zab; Karasules, about twelve miles north of Nimroud; and Khorsabad, nearly the same distance north of Kouyunjik. These points form the four corners of a rhomboid, the circumference of which is sixty miles, the

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