In all pictures and statues, ST. PAUL is known by bearing a sword, indicative of the manner of his death; and in the convent of La Lisla, near Toledo in Spain, is shewn what is asserted to be the identical sword-blade with which this eminent apostle was decollated; it is thought to be composed of copper, its length is 25 inches, its greatest breadth about 3 inches; on one side are vestiges in Roman capitals of " Paulus-Capitê," and on the other" Mucro."

Of the miraculous conversion of ST. PAUL, several of our ablest writers have treated much at large, deducing from it such powerful arguments in favour of the truth of the Christian Religion, as are irresistibly convincing; and eminently distinguished for soundness of reason, and peculiar gracefulness of composition, ought particularly to be noticed a small Treatise by the elegant and pious lord LYTTELTON.

The festival of ST. PAUL was instituted in the year 813, and he is commemorated by his Conversion, not only from the miraculous circumstances attending that event, indisputably the most extraordinary of his life, and the source of all his subsequent exertions, but on account of the peculiar and extended benefits which ensued from that intervention; for while the other apostles had their particular and distinct charges, his care was extended to the whole of the churches, and he was emphatically styled "The Apostle of the Gentiles:" though it is to be observed, that this

festival was not adopted in the Ritual of the Church of England until the year 1662.

AS ST. PETER suffered on the same day as this eminent apostle, though by a different mode, the anniversaries of both are kept on the 29th of June in the Romish church; but in this country we omit the anniversary of ST. PAUL'S death, and merely celebrate the martyrdom of St PETER on the 29th June.

Septuagesima Sunday.

(26TH JANUARY, 1812,)

Is a Sunday dependent upon Lent, as that season is upon Easter. It is to be considered as the commencement of, or rather the preparation for, the great and solemn fast of Lent; and its observation was instituted by pope GREGORY the Great, insensibly to withdraw the minds of the Christians from the festivities of Christmas, and by degrees to qualify them for the fasting and humiliation enjoined during Lent.

Although Ash Wednesday be actually the beginning of Lent, the Sunday immediately following is called Quadragesima Sunday, or the first

Sunday in Lent*; not that it is exactly, but about the fortieth day before Easter, and thereby expressive of the number of fasting days of which Lent consists. According to the antient canons of the church, the Sundays throughout Lent are exempt from fasting, as indeed were all the other Sundays throughout the year in former ages, and are even at this time, in order that nothing which bore an allusion to mortification or sadness, might intrude upon the celebration of the glorious and happy event of CHRIST'S Resurrection, on a Sunday. Deducting, therefore, the six Sundays, the number of fasting days from Quadragesima Sunday to Lent will be reduced to about thirty-six; to which, if the four preceding days to that Sunday be added, inclusive of Ash Wednesday, the number of forty days will be found complete.

The name of the first Sunday in Lent having been distinguished by the appellation of Quadragesima, and the three weeks preceding having been appropriated to the gradual introduction of the Lent fast; it was consistent with propriety to call the three Sundays of these weeks by

*This fast received its title of Quadragesima, because our SAVIOUR was under the dominion of death about forty hours, (see page 229); and when it was settled to keep the fast as many days as at first hours were appropriated, the name was considered still applicable. Quadragesima, by contraction was called Quaresme, Caresme, and Carèmè, by the latter of which Lent is still expressed in French.

names significant of their situation; and reckoning by Decades, the Sunday preceding Quadragesima received its present title of Quinquagesima, the second Sexagesima, and the third, of which we are now particularly treating, Septuagesima.

King Charles the First,
the Martyr.

(30TH JANUARY.)

THE Various circumstances connected with the tragical death of the monarch, styled in our book of Common Prayer, "KING CHARLES THE MARTYR," are amply detailed by our several historians; and the magnanimity and pious resignation displayed by that unfortunate, yet accomplished prince, from the moment he was in the power of his enemies, to the termination of his earthly career on the scaffold, are universally admired even by those otherwise most hostile to his reputation:-It would therefore be superfluous to enter in detail upon those circumstances; though it may prove interesting to adduce some facts, which are not generally known, nor readily to be collected.

That the death of the king was not originally designed, would seem to be generally admitted, while some of those causes which at least accelerated, if they did not actually determine, his, fate, have been but partially attended to. Hypocritical in the extreme, as the conduct of Cromwell proved him to be, it is not, for a moment, to be imagined, that his ideas at first extended to that vast height to which his ambition at length attained; much less can it be considered that in the outset of his public life he contemplated the murder of the king.The following fact in particular does not appear to have been noticed in the historical account of this prince's reign, though it rests upon unquestionable authority: Lord Broghill, afterwards created Earl of Orrery by Charles the Second, received from Cromwell, when riding with him and Ireton, a direct confession, that the king would not have lost his life, but for his disingenuousness, and that he was surrounded by servants who for interested motives betrayed his confidence: "We had ourselves," said the Usurper," at one time almost come to the resolution of acceding to the terms the king had offered; Ireton was to be lieutenant of Ireland; I commander of the forces: Providence however ordained it otherwise; for while we were considering the matter, one of our party, who belonged to the king's bed-chamber, sent us a letter, assuring us our doom was fixed,