gh we behold
Him as yet but in the first faint discoveries of his perfections, we see
every thing that we can imagine as great, glorious, and amiable. We find
ourselves every where upheld by his goodness and surrounded with an
immensity of love and mercy. In short, we depend upon a Being whose
power qualifies Him to make us happy by an infinity of means, whose
goodness and truth engage Him to make those happy who desire it of Him,
and whose unchangeableness will secure us in this happiness to all
eternity.

Such considerations, which every one should perpetually cherish in his
thoughts, will banish from us all that secret heaviness of heart which
unthinking men are subject to when they lie under no real affliction,
all that anguish which we may feel from any evil that actually oppresses
us, to which I may likewise add those little cracklings of mirth and
folly, that are apter to betray virtue than support it; and establish in
us such an even and cheerful temper, as makes us pleasing to ourselves,
to those with whom we converse, and to Him whom we are made to please.

ADDISON.

* * * * *

STONY CROSS.

[Illustration: Letter T.]

This is the place where King William Rufus was accidentally shot by Sir
Walter Tyrrel. There has been much controversy on the details of this
catastrophe; but the following conclusions, given in the "Pictorial
History of England," appear to be just:--"That the King was shot by an
arrow in the New Forest; that his body was abandoned and then hastily
interred, are facts perfectly well authenticated; but some doubts may be
entertained as to the precise circumstances attending his death,
notwithstanding their being minutely related by writers who were living
at the time, or who flourished in the course of the following century.
Sir Walter Tyrrel afterwards swore, in France, that he did not shoot the
arrow; but he was, probably, anxious to relieve himself from the odium
of killing a King, even by accident. It is quite possible, indeed, that
the event did not arise from chance, and that Tyrrel had no part in it.
The remorseless ambition of Henry might have had recourse to murder, or
the avenging shaft might have been sped by the desperate hand of some
Englishman, tempted by a favourable opportunity and the traditions of
the place. But the most charitable construction is, that the party were
intoxicated with the wine they had drunk at Malwood-Keep, and that,