nance and his heart; saying, it should be her care to entreat God, who knew how to explain mysteries by the light of his inspiration. With this admonition he dispelled his grief and dismissed his anxiety, conscious of his mother's sanctity, to whom God had vouchsafed many revelations. Her name was Elfgiva, a woman intent on good works, and gifted with such affection and kindness, that she would even secretly discharge the penalties of those culprits whom the sad sentence of the judges had publicly condemned. That costly clothing, which, to many women, is the pander of vice, was to her the means of liberality; as she would give a garment of the most beautiful workmanship to the first poor person she saw. Even malice itself, as there was nothing to carp at, might praise the beauty of her person and the work of her hands. Thoroughly comprehending the presage, she said to her son next morning, "The barking of the whelps while the mother was sleeping, implies, that after your death, those persons who are now living and in power, dying also, miscreants yet unborn will bark against the church of God. And whereas one apple followed the other, so that the voice, 'Well is thee,' seemed to proceed from the dashing of the second against the first, this implies that from you, who are now a tree shading all England, two sons will proceed; the favourers of the second will destroy the first, when the chiefs of the different parties will say to each of the boys, 'Well is thee,' because the dead will reign in heaven, the living on earth, Forasmuch as the greater pitcher could not fill the smaller, this signifies, that the Northern nations, which are more numerous than the English, shall attack England after your death; and, although they may recruit their deficiencies by perpetual supplies of their countrymen, yet they shall never be able to fill this Angle of the world, but instead of that, our Angles, when they seem to be completely subjugated, shall drive them out, and it shall remain under its own and God's governance, even unto the time before appointed by Christ. Amen."
Farther perusal will justify the truth of the presage. The manifest sanctity both of parent and child ought here to be considered; that the one should see a mystery when broad awake without impediment, and that the other should be able to solve the problem by the far-discerning eye of prophecy.
