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LIKE Paul, "A citizen of no mean city," I was born in the city of York; which is one of the oldest cities in Europe, and a series of dissolving views, exhibiting the scenes that have been enacted there, would be as interesting as the pictures of a romance, or one of Walter Scott's novels.

It was founded B.C. 983, by Ebracus, who was contemporary with Solomon. While that monarch was bringing his peace-offerings of oxen to the temple of the Living God, Ebracus was bringing to the Druids his war-offerings of human sacrifices. When Julius Caesar landed in Britain B.C. 55, he described the Druids as forming "images of enormous size, the limbs of which they make of wicker-work, and fill with living men, and setting them on fire, the men are destroyed in the flames."

A few centuries afterwards, the Druidical worship appears to have been supplanted in York by that of their Roman conquerors. A Roman altar has been dug up in one of the principal streets dedicated: "To the great and mighty Jupiter, and to all gods and goddesses, household and peculiar gods." Another has been found dedicated to Hercules, another to the deities of Augustus, another to the departed spirits, and another Roman tablet is inscribed to "the genius or tutelar deity of the city."

In one place, the ruins of a temple have been discovered with a Latin inscription, saying: "This temple, sacred to the god Serapis, was erected solely by Claudius Heronymianus, Lieutenant of the Sixth Conquering Legion."

Serapis was the Egyptian god of medicine, the worship of which the Roman government long proscribed, but which became so popular with the people, that they had at last to tolerate it; and here we see, that in those early days it had obtained footing in York.

If we shift the scene forward a few centuries more, we shall find that the Roman gods have been superseded in turn, and Christianity comes on the stage; but of which we have no monuments till after the country was occupied by the Saxons. Notwithstanding all the laudations to the contrary, I suspect that after the age of miracles had passed away, the early Christians were much like other people. Here, in York, we have abundant evidence of the prevalence of Roman worship, but not a vestige to show that Christianity had been introduced at that time, though at the distance of several centuries into the Christian era.

York was the residence of the Roman emperors when in Britain. The Emperor Severus died in York; his son Caracalla, after killing his brother, succeeded him in York. In A. D. 286 Carausius was proclaimed emperor in York, and was assassinated in York by Alectus, who was killed in turn by the Emperor Constantius, who died in York; and his son, Constantine, who afterwards became the first Christian emperor, was born in York, and proclaimed emperor in York.

The city then must have been famous all over the Roman Empire, and access to it easy, so had there been a little of the Pauline spirit in the church, missionaries would have been there centuries before the days of Paulinus, who is said to have founded the first Christian church in York, in the seventh century.

However, there is reason to believe that there were Jews there before that time. I was born in Walmgate, on the 2d of April, 1799, opposite to the church of St. Denys, or St. Dyonis, remarkable among all the other churches for its peculiar plan and great plainness. It is a church of remote antiquity, and tradition says it was formerly a Jewish synagogue. The lid of a curiously ornamented Saxon coffin has been dug up in the church-yard, so that we know it was a church in the days of the Saxons; and if ever Jewish synagogues existed in the city, and they must have been there to have originated the tradition, they must have been there before the Saxons, and in the time of the Romans. The probability then is, that the Jews came to York in considerable numbers after the destruction of Jerusalem, and before Christian missionaries.

The shifting views of the different religions that have prevailed in York, are exceeded in number by the changing language of the law courts. Had one of Caesar's followers stepped into a Druid court, he would have heard the pleaders and witnesses all speaking Celtic, a language that is regarded as the connecting link between the Sanscrit and the old Egyptian; and which, though once spread all over Europe, has been completely driven into the sea, excepting a few fragments that still cleave to the Welch mountains, the Scotch Highlands, the Irish bogs, and the forests of Brittany.

Three centuries afterwards nothing would have been heard in the courts in York, but the polished Latin, which, as a spoken language, like the Celtic, has passed into oblivion. Three or four centuries more, and Anglo-Saxon would have been heard in the place of Latin, and the Danish would have held a temporary sway, but both to give place to Norman-French. What is now spoken in the courts differs from all, and, though founded on the Anglo-Saxon, were Alfred to rise from the dead, he would not be able to read his own writings in their modern dress.

My father, in the education of his children, acted up to his convictions. He did not believe in teaching religion to very young children, but he believed in teaching them history. From the ancient buildings of our city and its suburbs, he taught me the history of England in our evening walks, long before I could read it in books.

There was the multangular tower, a regular thirteen-sided polygon, at one corner of the old wall of the city, built by the Romans. From that he discoursed to me on the Caesars and the conquests of the Romans in Britain. In the neighborhood of this tower, were the remains of St. Leonard's Hospital, a sort of almshouse, where ninety persons were supported. This was founded A. D. 936, by King Athelstane, so this formed a text for a lecture on the Anglo-Saxons. Near by were the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, the foundation of which was laid by Siward, a Danish prince, and Earl of Northumberland; so that, like a book-mark, served to point to the chapter on the Danish dynasty in England.

On the opposite side of the city is the castle, inclosing a yard, in which forty thousand persons can congregate; and this edifice, having been built by William the Conqueror, it formed a suggestive starting point for a history of the Norman conquest. Clifford's Tower, in ruins, on a mound near the castle, was never passed without calling to mind the fifteen hundred Jews that were massacred in it at the accession of Richard the Crusader, A. D. 1189; and with this was associated the story of the Crusades.

But nothing dwelt in my mind in childhood of the remarkable events connected with the antiquities related to me, like the story of the conversion of the Saxon king, Edwin, who was born in York, with his priests and followers, from heathenism, and their baptism by Paulinus, a companion of the famous Augustin, in the minster he had built, A. D. 625.

It was a fact that could not be forgotten, and probably had much influence in moulding my mind, and turning my thoughts to heathen lands in after years. The conversion of a nation from idolatry was a great idea in my little mind, and seemed worthy of a monument like the cathedral.

The cathedral which King Edwin built was only of wood—a very different affair from the present Gothic pile which has become so famous. A distinguished architect has written: "Architecture, perhaps, has never produced, nor can imagination easily conceive, a vista of greater magnificence and beauty, than that which is seen from the western entrance of the cathedral."

It is more than five hundred feet long, and here, when a child, I used to walk up and down to look at the stained windows, or the rows of statues of old kings before the choir, or the monuments of the dead, or hear my father explain to me that the clustered arches overhead were supposed to have their origin in an avenue of over-arching trees.

The large proportion of the people who visit the cathedral, are drawn to it as a school of architecture, or as a museum of curiosities, rather than as a place to worship God. If God be there, He is lost in the ornaments of the surroundings that are made for Him—ornamental writing that cannot be read from the abundance of the elegant flourishes.

Worship is maintained there twice every day, with a splendid choir of men and boys to do the singing, all dressed in white robes. I have been present on special occasions, but could not forget that some of the white-robed men were known to be tipplers and scoffers at religion.

Laurence Sterne was one of the prebends, or preachers at York Minster, and, though none of his successors have had his wit, a good many have had his morals. A few years ago, the dean was tried and found guilty of simony, or taking bribes for appointments, but he had interest enough to get the judgment reversed.

In a population of some 18,000 inhabitants, York had 23 parish churches and 3 chapels, and had had 40 churches and 15 chapels. There was a dean and chapter of eight or ten clergymen connected with the cathedral; an archbishop and his chaplains within sound of the minster's bells; nearly forty clergymen of the Church of England, besides Dissenters; and yet, although I was born in York, and lived a dozen years there, never one of all the number attempted to explain to me what constitutes a Christian, or to suggest that any change was necessary for me to become one. I thought King Edwin needed conversion, because he was a heathen, but that I was born a Christian and needed no conversion. Yet tens of thousands of pounds were paid to these men annually for preaching the gospel. Were workingmen to act in a similar way, they would be brought up before the courts for obtaining money under false pretences.

On the printed card notifying the death of my grandfather, Francis Mason, A. D. 1801, he is described as "Founder of the Baptist Society in York;" and the first religious meeting I recollect attending, was with this society, in a large upper room on Peaseholme Green, the poor man's square, in an obscure corner of the city. The pulpit was then supplied by two or three different members of the church, of whom my father was one.

It was the only Baptist congregation in the city, but they were not Calvinistic Baptists. They were Unitarian Baptists of various grades. The church, however, had no creed, and every one was left at liberty to choose articles of faith for himself. It was, therefore, made up of men of very discordant views. My father, Thomas Mason, was the oldest child of my grandfather, find the only son, so his house naturally became the resort of persons wishing to join the church, or to discuss its doctrines. Many a motley group came around our fireside, and there was scarcely an article of faith of all the two hundred sects of Christendom, that did not, at one time or another, find an advocate there. Bigotry is confined to no form of faith, Catholic or Protestant; orthodox or heterodox. There were some members of this church who thought no one could be saved out of their pale, and I have repeatedly heard my father discussing with them the possibility of salvation to those who were ignorant of the faith of Peaseholme Green.

It often happens in England that there are very poor people nearly related to very rich ones. In the congregation, if not in the church, were two maiden ladies, so poor, that my mother hired one of them occasionally to do her washing. By what was called "a freak of fortune," an old rich uncle in the city, who would take no notice of them while he lived, died suddenly. One of these ladies proved to be his heir at law, and she entered into the property quite in the style of a romance.

After she was settled with her sister in her new house, she made a feast, and invited to it all her poor friends, my father and mother and family being among the number. I was a little boy then, but I recollect that a large dining-room was filled with visitors, and the furniture and table set were exceedingly magnificent in my little eyes, far beyond anything I had ever seen before.

It sometimes happens, however, that the rightful heir in such cases is kept out of the property for lack of means to pay the law expenses. My grandfather's grandfather, it is said, owned a small landed estate in Westmoreland or Cumberland—I do not recollect which—worth some two hundred pounds per annum, but he had a large family, and my grandfather's father removed to Yorkshire, where he worked as a farmer, and died young. His mother, being unable to do anything better for him, put her eldest son, my grandfather, apprentice to a shoemaker.

In the later years of his life, news was brought him, that the other heirs having died, he was heir to his grandfather's property, but it was in the hands of another party that could not be dispossessed without an expensive law suit. He discussed the matter with his church, but the members were all opposed to his going to law. Going to law they thought unsuitable for a minister; and while they expressed themselves ready to help him as long as he lived, if he continued to discharge his pastoral duties, they would not help him to go to law. So there the matter dropped.

My father being the next heir, often talked of taking measures to obtain this property, but he never had the money to make a commencement, and before he died, the parties in possession must have had quiet possession more than sixty years, which, according to English law, gives a permanent right. Illustrating again the wise man's saying: "The destruction of the poor is their poverty."