The Gospel Echo: Volume 17 (1901)

GOD has promised in His Word to one day make all things new. All old things will pass away; all sin, all sorrow, all pain; and new things will take their place for ever.

There is a very beautiful sense in which God is even now continually making all things new. Each morning the dewdrops are new ones. Our food is new, our health, our strength, our daily mercies. “They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.” Each week brings a new day of rest, fresh and sweet. Each returning springtime sees a renewal of the face of the earth; and as we advance in life, we cannot help the feeling that each spring is sweeter than any that went before.

It is usual for those who write for others to refer at this season of the year to the fact that it is a new year that is dawning upon us. This year, however, has a special feature. It is the commencement of a new century. I suppose that no person, certainly not more than one or two, will be likely to read this page who was living when the nineteenth century dawned; and it is less likely that any who read this will be living upon earth when the next century shall open.

It is quite right, and very profitable, for us to mark the lapse of time; and there are reasons when it is especially timely to do so. In that touching psalm written by Moses, the ninetieth, the writer refers to many divisions of time in a striking manner. He names a thousand years, generations, eighty years, seventy years, single years, days, nights, yesterdays, mornings, evenings; and very beautifully addresses the Lord as the dwelling-place of His people at all times and seasons. It is indeed a great favor to realize that, though all things change, and fade away, and die, we have a Friend who never changes, and who never fails those who trust in Him.

We may therefore profitably, at the opening of a new century, think of some new things that are spoken of in the Word of God. Most persons, even young ones, like new things. We remember some of the new garments made for us when young. We have not forgotten new school-terms, new copybooks without blots, or new grammars unexplored. We think at times of that new situation, when the world looked very fair; and we love to remember taking the loved one to a new home, and the joy caused by newborn babes. Nor may we forget the mingling of new griefs and sorrows, new temptations and trials, very bitter and very painful. But if these black clouds had never formed, we should not have seen such beautiful rainbows. It is a comforting thought that each rainbow that God makes is a new one.

One new thing that God creates is a new heart. And this is indeed an entirely new creation. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I could not desire for my readers a greater favor than this. Everything in this new creation is new; and “all things are of God.” The subject of it finds new principles at work within him; new powers are moving in his soul. He has new hopes, new desires, new longings, never possessed or felt before. He even chooses new companions; and no longer desires to be with his old ones. I have even heard persons say that, when this great change took place within them, they felt they were in a new world. This was exactly my own feeling, one bright spring morning. The very trees, and fields, and flowers seemed to share my joy, as if they were trying to help me praise the Lord, the God of grace.

A man who finds himself the subject of this new creation finds new pursuits. He forsakes his sins, and enjoys a sacred holy pleasure in serving God. His new friends are more pleasant to him than his old ones; and the new songs he sings are far sweeter than any old ones could ever have been. He is, in fact, a new creation, a marvel of mercy, a wonder of rich and free grace.

I could not frame a better wish for my readers than that they might be made partakers, by the grace of God, of the new things I have named, and thus become “new creatures.” That is the great blessing of all blessings, and to enjoy this is to be rich and happy indeed.

We may expect, if spared to see some years of the present century, to witness many important events. Science will doubtless reveal to us more of the wonderful works of our Creator’s hand, and make them more useful to us. We may also expect to see the declarations of the Word of God verified. “Perilous times” will come, and men will follow sin and vanity, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. But those who, love God will have the sweetest pleasures; and they will escape the evils that will come upon the earth. Whatever shaking of nations, wars, tumults, and other calamities, they are safely hidden in their “dwelling-place”; and no evil shall ever hurt or destroy them.

And the best for them is all to come. They will have all their sorrow in this life. And when all the centuries shall have passed away into eternity, they will enter a state whose duration will not, be measured by years or centuries; for it will be eternal. O may the reader seek to possess and enjoy these new things, real things, gospel things, eternal things; for the promise to all real seekers is that they shall surely find.

W.W.

The Rescue

THERE had been a terrible accident in the pit, caused by carelessness on the part of two lads. Much destruction of property was the result; and several of the men were hurried into eternity. How sad it is when any can play recklessly with human life, especially in a mine, where there is so much danger and therefore so much need caution.

After the earliest confusion had subsided, it was found that a young miner was missing. He was not among the dead; nor had he been discovered among the living. A mate therefore, not much older than himself, ventured down the shaft to search for him; and had the joy to find him, still warm, though badly injured, and unconscious. He was brought to the surface as quickly as possible, and warmly welcomed by one of the owners of the pit, the manager, and his anxious sister. He was then carried home; and after weeks of careful nursing, he was able to return to his employment. He never forgot his rescue.

All mankind are in a lost condition, and by nature are under the wrath of God. But there are those who can testify to the fact that they have been rescued from their lost condition, and saved by rich abounding grace.

The purpose of this page, dear reader and fellow-sinner, is to ask you if you have ever been made sensible of your ruin as a sinner before God, and been led to cry for mercy to Him as a lost sinner? You cannot be rescued without feeling your danger, or saved without knowing yourself to be lost. I therefore press the inquiry, Have you been rescued?

The grace of God comes right down to where the lost sinner is. No sinner can rescue himself, or raise himself from death; and therefore the grace of God brings salvation. No matter how deep the pit in which he lies, or how deep the grave in which he is buried, grace can bring him to the light. The Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” Have you, my friend, heard that voice?

The grace of God rescues the sinner who hears this living voice from the service and power of Satan, and brings him into the kingdom of life and light. It rescues him from eternal death, and puts him into possession of eternal life. He shall be rescued from every danger, every snare, every enemy; and shall be brought safely home at last to sing the praises of his Almighty Rescuer.

The Lord Knows Best

By the Late Dr. Doudney.

IN my last I sought to urge upon you the desirableness of seeking to be content with such things as we have, inasmuch as “the bounds of our habitation are fixed by Him who cannot err.” In our extreme shortsightedness and folly, we may imagine that this or that position were more desirable than that we at present occupy; but, rely upon it, we should soon discover our mistake, provided that the Most High were to yield to our dictating to Him. Well has this subject been treated by some hymn-writer

“‘Not so, my Father,’ oft we cry,

‘This cross—this pain—remove;’

Too blind to fathom Wisdom’s way,

Or see ‘tis sent in love.”

Well do I remember the case of one who, although a man of large wealth, and living in the midst of luxury, suffered from almost entire sleeplessness. He had scarcely known for twenty years what a thorough night’s sleep was, although he had consulted many physicians, and had resorted to numberless expedients, in order to obtain sleep. But, upon one occasion when speaking to me of this distressing ailment, he said “he was afraid to ask God to take it away, lest He should find it necessary to replace it with even some more severe trial.”

Now, dear aged friends, this was the right state of mind to seek to possess and to cultivate. We are poor shortsighted creatures, and know not what is good for us. “It is not in man that walketh to direct, his steps.” In our ignorance, we might be disposed to imagine this or that one occupied a more desirable position than ourselves, whereas, were we to exchange places, we should soon discover our mistake, and be most anxious to return to the previous state of things. Depend upon it, dear aged friends, that Scripture, as well as all other portions of the sacred Word, is true: “The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.”

In proof that the all-wise and unerring God knows what is best for us, and how and by what means to instruct us, I remember, many years since, meeting a friend who, at the time, was suffering from a very painful bereavement, even the death of his beloved and most devoted wife. He felt it acutely. Some ten years or more passed away before I saw him again; when, as we met in one of the crowded thoroughfares of London, I told him I had never forgotten the anguish of mind under which he was suffering when we last saw each other. “Ah!” said he, “I have a much heavier trial now.” Thought I, “What trial can exceed that under which you were then laboring?” Upon inquiry, I found that, after a time, my friend had married again, and that the mind of his second wife having given way, she had been for years an inmate of a lunatic asylum. She has passed away since, but not until little short of twenty years had been spent in that institution.

This simple fact, my dear aged friends, has helped, among many others of a varied and greatly diversified character, to convince me that the Lord knows infinitely better than ourselves can ever know exactly where to place us.

Moreover, the longer I live, the more reason I see to be “contented with such things as we have.”

Furthermore, I may state that, in looking back upon one’s little and somewhat eventful life, I am brought to this sober conclusion—that every trial I have had has been absolutely necessary. Humanly speaking, I could not, without such trials and afflictions, have been kept in my proper place—that is, as a poor and helpless creature, requiring wisdom and strength from above, day by day and moment by moment.

Gracey, the Schoolmistress

“A woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”

Prov. 31:30.

ABOUT the period of which I am writing, two benevolent Christians passed through Barnstaple, one of whom was the secretary of the Tract Society, and the other was, I believe, active in the formation of the Home Missionary Society, which had its commencement soon after. Their object in this journey was to make inquiry concerning the spiritual destitution of some of the dark parts of that locality, about which I had some conversation with them. Their first stage from Barnstaple lay over a wretched road, through a wild and barren country, which may account for the breaking down of their carriage. This providentially occurred near Paracombe, a small village, surrounded by moors and commons. They found there no public accommodation for travelers in which to tarry the night; but they were hospitably entertained at a farmhouse near the village, when they soon inquired if there was a Sunday-school in or near the place. It is probable, however, that even the name of a Sunday-school had never been heard there until this time; but the farmer’s wife observed that the village schoolmistress, Grace Jones, was very fond of children, and would probably like to keep one; and at the request of the strangers she was sent for. It being rather late, Gracey—the name by which she was generally known—was in bed; but she joyfully responded to the summons, and soon arose and came to see the travelers, who intended if possible, to leave early the next morning. They were much interested with her appearance and manner; and she was told, to her great joy, that books of different kinds would soon be sent from London to enable her to begirt the Sunday-school. On the next day, the news spread rapidly through the village, that two gentlemen were going to send Gracey a box of books from London, when all who desired it might send their children to the Sunday-school. Few, however, believed this. The general opinion of the ignorant villagers was that Gracey would be disappointed, and the gentlemen had made a fool of her. And for a time it seemed as though they had judged rightly; for the books were long expected in vain. But after much delay, it was found on inquiry that the vessel by which they had been forwarded had been wrecked during her voyage. A fresh box, however, was soon sent, and the school commenced.

Gracey was remarkably gifted by the Lord for this instruction of the young. Her manner was so kind and winning that she always secured their love; while her method of communicating knowledge was peculiarly her own, and excited interest and attention. A word or even a look, was sufficient to ensure the most perfect discipline; so that in a school of about twenty children, the utmost order was always seen. When she sometimes visited me during the vacation, she always gained the affections of my own dear children. I have reason to believe that she was not herself converted when she began the Sunday-school; but she was gradually led into the truth, while seeking to make it known to others. Her whole heart was in the work. When the village was visited by a flood, her only anxiety during the night was about the box containing the Bible and hymnbooks, lest they should be injured; which, as she lived at the bottom of the village, and close to the mill, happened to be the case; but on this and many other occasions, the Lord raised up willing helpers to supply what was needful for the furtherance of her useful labors.

A small book was published two years ago entitled “Christ in the Cottage, and Christ in the Mansion.” It was written by a minister who called on me at Barnstaple, after having in a very accidental way gone to the village where Gracey resided, which was a few miles from Lynton, a favorite watering place on the sea coast. His account of a visit to her school is very interesting, and a few extracts will I am sure be acceptable, and tend to confirm my judgment respecting this poor but truly excellent woman.

The account given of Gracey by the landlady of the town is thus graphically described. I asked, “Is there a Sunday School in the parish?” “O yes! there are as many as seventy children, and set up by a poor woman.” “What!” said I, “a Sunday-school of seventy children, and set up by a poor woman!” “Aye, it’s as sure as you stand there; and she’s so poor, that sometimes she can’t scramble on without parish relief. Sure enough, she’s a wonderful woman: I never saw the like of her. She knows as much of her Bible as any person: and you would be surprised to hear how the children of her school answer questions; and they are so pretty—behaved too. There are some wild swearing chaps here amongst the men in this place, but they dare na’ swear in her presence; and yet she’s a poor little woman, and a cripple too.”

Describing his visit, he says: “I entered and found the children ranged around, and Grace the nucleus of the circle. They were reading the history of Joseph. She, a little woman, crippled, raised up on a pair of pattens, to allow full scope for her large, black, intelligent, brilliant eyes, which no nuts, or playthings, or cake could possibly escape. I retreated into a corner, near enough to hear all that passed, and not near enough to disturb the teacher or distract the children. I was quite delighted. Her questions were so apposite; her remarks so enlightened, her reflections as to the subject-matter before her so judicious; her manner animated; her heart and tongue in evident coincidence. No wonder that every eye was fixed upon her. The interest expressed in the children’s countenances, as she proceeded, told you that they felt there was a reality in what was urged upon them. As the clock struck twelve, she waved her hand, and her little children departed.”

The remaining extracts are in Gracey’s own words. “I was once a worldly woman, blind as to the concerns of my soul, and ignorant of a Saviour. I was always fond of reading, and got my neighbors to subscribe to a circulating library in the next town. So we got novels and such trash; and so it went on for some time. I kept a school for a livelihood; but I did not teach the children the Bible, for I did not understand it myself. However, it came into my mind one day, these novels are not quite the thing; I think I will begin to read the Bible; and as I read on, I saw it would never do to go to novels again; and I began for the first time to have a real concern about my soul, and a real desire to be saved. I had no one to talk to me about these things; but I read in my Bible about Jesus Christ, and what He had done to save sinners; and I felt that I was a sinner, and needed such a Saviour. So the Lord led me to put my trust in Him, and to love Him, and serve Him.”

The Missionary Tour

BY THE LATE ROBERT GRIBBLE.

“And it came to pass, that He went throughout every city and village, preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.”—Luke 8:1.

In the summer of this year, I accompanied a beloved brother on a short missionary excursion into some destitute villages of our neighborhood. We were without purse or scrip, and had no settled plan for our journey, our object being to preach the gospel, distribute tracts, and ascertain the moral condition of the people. About noon on the first day, we preached at Chittlehamptolt, a village three miles from the parish church. The inhabitants were noted for lawlessness, having driven away all who had before attempted to minister there; yet about thirty persons heard with attention, and a house was offered for preaching. In the evening, we preached in Chittlehampton, the church-town—as it was called—of the same parish, which, being under high aristocratic influence, no house had been used for preaching there within the memory of any inhabitant, and the rain prevented our ministering out of doors. In this emergency, the Lord provided for our need. A cottage which had been quitted that same day was offered us, and crowded with attentive hearers.

On the second day, a large company belonging to a club assembled to hear the word at High Bickingtou, after which we walked until day-light, being unable to discern any shed to lie down in, and the rain falling during the greater part of the night. Having lost our way, we found ourselves in the morning near Winkleigh, a small town where the word was preached at nine o’clock. Here dwelt one family of disciples, who received us gladly.

On the morning of the fourth day, we again lost our way, and wandered to the small village of Kingscot, where our hearts were much cheered by finding many dear Christians, with whom we had a short season of happy communion. The news of our arrival spread so rapidly, that thirty persons were soon gathered in one of the cottages to hear the word of life. We then went to the village of St. Giles, two miles distant, where we purposed to spend the evening; and my dear companion preached with great power to about one hundred persons. One of them, who came from the village where we tarried in the morning, was converted; so that our mistake in losing our way, through which our meeting was known, was used by the Lord for bringing a soul to Himself. How wonderful are the ways of our God, who causes all events to fulfill His own blessed purposes! This village was very near the mansion of the most influential nobleman in the county, whose decided dislike to all public worship, except that of the Establishment was well known; and in the whole surrounding district, which formed a part of his vast possessions, his word was considered almost as law. He is now dead, and his title extinct.

Being greatly interested in the appearance of the people, I gave notice of a second service on that day fortnight, though the place was ten miles from my home. Two dear brethren accompanied me on this second visit, when many again assembled, while some individuals endeavored in many ways to annoy us The regular ringers, it is true, refused to ring the church bells to drown our voices; but some young learners made noise enough to answer that purpose. We were delivered from this in a very singular manner. The clergyman, riding to the church-gate where we were assembled, and giving his horse in charge to one of the hearers, hastened to the church tower, where he stopped the bells in much anger, supposing they were rung to compliment, instead of to disturb us! On going to the inn for a pony on which one of my companions had ridden, we were grossly abused by the schoolmaster of the place. The poor man’s arm was in a sling, and we were afterward told that he had intended to get up a dance on the green when we came to preach, and had offered sixpence to each person who would join, while he played the fiddle. But the Lord interfered: he was thrown from his horse in the meantime, and the arm which was to have been used in the service of Satan was disabled. How oft is that solemn word fulfilled, “The wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder thereof shalt thou restrain.”

I felt encouraged to give notice of a third service; and on coming to the village on that occasion, I found that the publican could neither receive my horse at the inn nor sell me any refreshment, having offended the clergyman by doing so before, and by allowing his family to attend the preaching. This, however, did not discourage me, as I generally went on foot; and when I again rode, the Lord provided my horse a shelter. Having a shoe loose, I took him to the blacksmith, who kindly offered me to leave him there at any time, and refused to be paid for his labor. The Lord had touched this man’s heart, and he refused to work while I was preaching. I believe he was one of the first converts there. On this third visit, the schoolmaster rode into our midst, and tried by every means to make his horse plunge and kick to disturb us. The people generally were, however, favorable to the gospel; but no one as yet ventured to ask me into his house, lest he should incur the displeasure of the great; so that I have walked the whole distance out and home without any intermediate rest. But in the end I was richly repaid for my toil and labor.

When the approach of autumn prevented preaching in the open air, I was still anxious, and I may say impelled, to continue my labors at this village. There was no way to accomplish this, so as not to interfere with my other duties, except by a short service early on the. Lord’s day, which I continued unto the middle of November, at half-past nine in the morning, at the gate of the churchyard.

As a specimen of the ignorance which we met with on our tour—one poor man, when asked if he knew Jesus, replied, “He had often heard of the man, but had never seen Him yet; but he hoped he should someday.” At another place, a deaf woman mistook us for quack doctors, and thought our tracts were papers to recommend our medicines, perhaps from never having seen any before. We were much touched. with the sufferings of another very afflicted, and asked if she wished us to pray with her; when she burst into tears, and said, with much feeling, she had nothing to pay us!

A Modern Parable

THE late Dr. Gregg, of Cork, had a kind heart and a ready wit. It is sometimes allowable to use a refined humor if it will gain a hearing or remove a prejudice. On one occasion Dr. Gregg was present at a meeting, and to address an assembly that contained a large number of Roman Catholic priests. He told them that he was quite sure that if the Virgin Mary and the apostle Peter were to visit Cork, they would attend his church in preference to theirs; and he proceeded to prove it by the following witty parable:

Once on a time the Virgin and Peter paid a visit to Cork; and wishing to go to a place of worship, they set forth to find one which suited them. On reaching the first, they pulled aside the heavy curtain which hung before the door, and a puff of incense blew into their faces. ‘What’s this horrid smell, Peter? I don’t like this at all.’ Just then they heard the priest saying, ‘O holy mother of God, blessed Virgin, queen of heaven, have mercy upon us.’ She then exclaimed, ‘This is dreadful, Peter. When I lived on the earth, my soul magnified the Lord, and my spirit rejoiced in God my Saviour; and here they are actually praying to me. I cannot bear this; come away.’

They next went to Dr. Gregg’s church, and as they stepped inside the congregation were saying:

‘Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep.’

‘Ah, now, this is nice,’ said Peter; ‘it quite reminds me of old times. This will suit us; let us stay here.’

This, with the merry twinkle of the good doctor’s kindly eyes, quite disarmed all opposition; and let us hope that some would receive the truth so skillfully presented.

"To Die Is Gain."

BISHOP HOOPER was condemned to be burned at Gloucester in Queen Mary’s reign. A gentleman, with the view of inducing him to recant, said to him, “Life is sweet and death is bitter.” Hooper replied, “The death to come is more bitter, and the life to come more sweet. I am come hither to end this life and suffer death because I will not gainsay the truth I have here formerly taught you.”

"None but Christ."

JOHN LAMBERT suffered in the year 1538. This martyr was very cruelly used at the stake. They burnt him with a slow fire by inches; for if it kindled higher and stronger than they chose, they removed it away. When his legs were burnt off, and his thighs were mere stumps in the fire, they pitched his body upon pikes, and lacerated his broiling flesh with their halberts. But God was with him in the midst of the flame, and supported him in all the anguish of nature. Just before he expired, he lifted up such hands as he had, all flaming with fire, and cried out to the people with his dying voice, “None but Christ! None but Christ!” He was at last beaten down into the fire, and expired.

A New Scene of Service

“I will be with thee in all places whither thou goest.”—Genesis 28:15.

AFTER a residence of nine months at Barnstaple, I saw clearly it was the Lord’s will that I should go to High Bickington. There was, however, one great difficulty, as no convenient house could be obtained. The health of my beloved wife was fast declining: but her heart was so much set on going there, and as we fondly hoped she might derive benefit from the change, we were content to reside for a time in very incommodious lodgings.

I was prepared to enter on this new field of service as a pilgrim, and was soon made to feel myself one to an extent I had not anticipated. Leaving many dear friends behind, I was cast among strangers, of whom the majority were scorners, immoral, and profane; with only three or four individuals who knew the Lord.

My last evening previous to removal was spent with some dear Christians, who met with me for prayer at the cottage of S—, at Loveacot, At parting. one of them said to me, “I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it;” and it was a word of strength and encouragement to me, as from the Lord Himself. It was much in my thought while journeying the next day to my future home, where my dear wife had preceded me; and it was the text of my first sermon there. It was also prophetically true, as I afterward proved to my great joy.

The Lord, who knew how much I needed encouragement and comfort, was graciously pleased soon to cheer my spirit. I had only arrived a few hours when I was informed of the great change in the conduct of a poor man who had been accustomed to attend the ministry. I called on him immediately, and found him deeply convinced of sin, and anxious to find peace with God, which was ere long granted. He said he had very seldom gone to any place of worship, till he was led from curiosity to go to the. cottage; his usual practice on Lord’s day being to retain his working dress, and seldom even to shave till the evening: much of the afternoon was spent in his pig’s house, where he would sit on a stool and worship his unclean idol, frequently combing it! We need not contemplate a more disgusting picture of moral depravity in this so-called Christian land, yet are there many equally debased.

This man was the first fruit of my labor in the gospel at High Bickington. My beloved wife, during her brief sojourn there, was also used by the Lord in the awakening of a dear girl, who came with some others to a meeting for reading the Scriptures, which she held soon after her arrival.

It was also at this time, when surrounded with outward trials, that the Lord began to teach me somewhat more fully the evils of my own heart. It will appear strange to some, that after having known the Lord nearly twenty years, and having been used by Him as an instrument of blessing to many souls, I should have known but little comparatively of myself. I could not yet understand how the most honored of the apostles could call himself “the chief of sinners,” and “less than the least of all saints.” But the Lord was now opening to me the secret “chambers of imagery,” and causing me to say with Job, in a manner I never did before, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” The Lord knew how greatly I needed this increase of self-knowledge; and while the discipline was deeply painful, I could heartily praise Him for it all, being enabled thereby to minister with greater liberty and clearness the truth of His own word.

The great trial so long anticipated soon came upon me. Within two months after our removal to High Bickington, the Lord was pleased to take my dear wife to Himself. She had previously been carried to her father’s house for the benefit of the kind attentions of her dear sisters, who watched over her with great tenderness. I was now a pilgrim indeed! But great as was my sorrow, it was not permitted to overwhelm me. My six children were scattered, and thus all my domestic joys taken away, just when I was more than ever in a land of strangers. My beloved and very aged mother was also taken hence a few weeks before. I should not notice these family trials, did it not seem necessary, in order to show the peculiar circumstances in which I was placed after entering on a new path of service, with no source of help or dependence, save the living God.

Through the kindness of friends, my dear children were in various ways cared for, by being sent to school, &c.; so that my deep and painful bereavement left me at liberty to give my whole time to the Lord’s work, in pursuing which I found my chief comfort and joy. I had much to be thankful for in this respect. I had taken a large cellar, and fitted it up for preaching the gospel. It accommodated about a hundred persons, though many more crowded within its walls every Lord’s day evening; some of whom from the very commencement evinced their attachment to the gospel.

When I retrace this sorrowful period of my life, I seem to wonder that I was sustained through it; but our poor hearts are very prone to mistrust the power and grace of Him who has promised strength equal to our day. Through His abounding mercy, I was never permitted for one moment to murmur or repine, or to doubt that all was sent in love by Him who is able to do for us “exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”

My coming to High Bickington appeared to excite, in no common degree, the enmity of the servants of sin. Many hearts which had hitherto been under the dominion of “the strong man armed” were about to own the sway of Him who is stronger than he, and great efforts were made to retain, them. Vain amusements abounded more during the summer of this year than at any previous period. The village band was often engaged; wrestling and cock-fighting, together with their favorite amusement of bell-ringing, were frequent; and at the annual fair, some low comedians were hired from a distance to take part in a masquerade, which was kept up several successive nights. One of them personifying Satan (who was himself much nearer than they were aware of) and suddenly appearing in the company, one of the party was greatly frightened, and became seriously ill. There seemed to be no bounds to their sin and folly at this season, during which the Lord was working in the hearts of many, the seed of the word having taken root.

I had been there but a few weeks, when it occurred to me, that a service on the morning of the Lord’s day might be useful. I was strongly dissuaded from this, and told that, as the cellar in which we met was close to the gate of the church yard, no one would attend. But feeling assured that it would eventually work for good, it was commenced. At first it was attended by only four or five persons, beside the children of the Sunday school, who were instructed by two young persons, who were the only believers I then knew in the village, except the poor man whose conversion has been related. But the number gradually increased, until, at the end of the summer, we had from twenty to thirty adult hearers, some of whom were hopeful enquirers. On the whole, I had much cause for thankfulness in the prospect before me.

While thus rejoicing in the progress of the Lord’s work, and the sure hope of future blessing on my labors, I was subjected to much scorn and contempt from the openly wicked; one instance of which may be noticed. When once on my way to the evening prayer meeting, I was accosted by the overseer of the parish, who requested me to go before a magistrate; and on my inquiring for what purpose, he said I was but recently come into the parish, where I might perhaps gain a settlement, and eventually be a burden to them by requiring support. He therefore wished me to go and state my circumstances. I expressed my readiness, and asked for his summons. He said he had no summons, but thought I ought to go without requiring one!

This poor man was made drunk for the purpose, and chose a time when the village band was near enough to be within hearing. He was a farmer, and his habits of intemperance had undermined his health. He died not long afterward of consumption. I once called at his house, and endeavored to set the truth of the gospel before him; but my offer to pray was rejected, saying, that he should give offense to his friends by permitting it. How truly was it thus made manifest, that “the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the knowledge of the gospel of Christ should shine unto them.”

A Noble Scottish Boy

In a time of great darkness, when priestcraft and intolerance were doing their worst to suppress Divine truth, a party of soldiers, under a very cruel leader, were one day riding along a road in Scotland, when they met a lad carrying a book. Upon being questioned as to the nature of the book, he replied, with a fearless upward glance, The Bible.

“Throw it into the ditch!” shouted the fierce commander.

“Na,” returned the boy, in his broad northern accent, “it is God’s Word.”

A second order to the same effect only caused him to grasp his treasure more firmly. A very cruel command followed—

“Then pull your cap over your eyes,” was the mocking retort. “Soldiers, prepare to fire!”

For a moment the soldiers hesitated; but their leader’s face was stern. The lad never flinched; he was not afraid to face death, or taste its bitterness, because he knew he should pass through it into the immediate presence of the Lord who loved him, and who redeemed him at the cost of His own precious blood. He heard a voice, unheard by others, whispering to his inmost soul, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

“I will not cover my eyes;” he said, firmly, “I will look you in the face, as you must look me in the face at the great judgment day.”

Wonderful words from one so young, at such a time of peril. Another moment and he lay shot through the heart; but his spirit was with the Lord who gave it.

The Waldensian Witnesses

IN the dark ages, when Popery reigned all over Europe, the Waldenses held fast to the Gospel. And many an earnest preacher went forth from them to different countries, proclaiming to perishing sinners the unsearchable riches of Christ, From the first, persecution was their lot. Their chief dwelling-places were in some beautiful valleys in the north of Italy, where, in spite of all that was done against them, they continued faithful to the old Gospel, and to the simple form of government that had prevailed among them. During some hundreds of years these faithful people, with brief intervals of peace, were subjected to a series of the most terrible persecutions at the hands of the Dukes of Savoy, the Princes of Piedmont, or the Kings of France. Again and again decrees of extirpation were issued against this unoffending people, the agents of intolerance coming in overwhelming numbers, and with instructions to spare neither young nor old, neither man nor maiden, but to cut off root and branch ... . Every form of suffering which a devilish ingenuity could devise was inflicted on those brave confessors, whose one offense was their assertion of the rights of conscience and their claim to liberty of worship.

One of the most dreadful of their persecutions was in if, when Oliver Cromwell interposed, and sent liberal contributions for the relief of the sufferers. His young secretary, the poet Milton, wrote, in connection with this, his well-known sonnet

“Avenge, O Lord! Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;

Even them who kept

Thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones.

Forget not; in Thy book record their groans,

Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled

Mother with infant down the rocks.

Their moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

To heaven.

Their martyred blood and ashes sow

O’er all the Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundred fold, who, having learned thy ways,

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”

God has preserved the descendants of these people to our own day. They inhabit seventeen parishes in the valleys of the Cottian Alps, and still cling to the faith and the Church of their fathers. Of late years, since Italy became open to the. Gospel, they have been trying very earnestly to spread the truth over the whole of it, and at Rome itself.

Beware of Traps

ONE of the things remembered from early childhood is a notice that used to stand in a farmyard: “Beware of man-traps.” The mind formed its own conception. of these mysterious words, and used to wonder what would be the fate of any person who did not beware. Since that time, I have become acquainted with other kinds of both traps and warnings; and have also had many desires to warn others of the seen and unseen snares laid for their unwary feet.

It is frequently the case that natural objects arc capable of furnishing illustrations of both moral and spiritual truths and principles. One of the most interesting flowers in nature is that which grows on what is called the “pitcher-plant,” because the flowers resemble a jug or pitcher in shape. The flower secretes a sweet juice, which is also very sticky; and this fluid attracts flies and other insects to the already attractive flower. In addition to this, the flower is provided with a kind of lid, which is sensitive to the touch of an object; and as a result, when an insect “walks into the pretty parlor,” the lid closes after it, and renders escape very difficult. And more than this: it is not so easy to walk out of the flower as it is to walk into it. Besides being uphill, the feet are clogged with the sticky fluid.

Now, is not this exactly what takes place with respect to many of the traps and snares that are laid for the purpose of ensnaring unwary souls? There is, first, on the outside, much that is attractive and therefore alluring. There is, further, the prospect of something sweet when the inside shall have been gained. And there is, also, the difficulty of escape from the danger when it has been perceived.

O, how many snares there are that answer to this threefold description! The theater is one; and this appears to be a very enticing snare to thousands. Worldly pleasure, in its varied kinds, is another; and we have the assurance of God’s Holy Word that the heart of man by nature is a lover of pleasures rather than of God. The same unerring Word tells us that there are pleasures in sin, though these are but for a season.

I need not enumerate the many kinds of ensnaring things, baited with promises of pleasure and even of profit, that are adapted to captivate the minds of the young especially. They are well-known to many of my readers. Access to them, as to the pitcher-plant, is made attractive and easy; and escape from the results, as in the sensitive flower, is rendered very difficult.

The best way of preventing the results here named is to keep away from the trap. I believe that a well balanced mind, with sobriety of temperament, and a clear perception of things, will keep many persons from evils that are eagerly followed by others. But I should not like to omit saying here that the grand preservative from the seductions of sin is to have the fear of God implanted in the heart. The writer of this has never been inside a theater, except once for a gospel purpose; he has never played at cards, or been to a racecourse. It will therefore probably be said by some that he cannot rightly judge of the danger of these things. But this is quite a mistake. He has been into a chemist’s shop, and knows perfectly well that he need not take a dose of strychnine to ascertain whether that would poison him. No; blessed be God, he has been put into possession of that which is far sweeter than all the poor sweets of time, and earth, and sin and of that which is sweeter in its nature and essence too. He has known times, also, when if all the sweetest things in nature were presented to him, he would not exchange his better joys to become possessed of them. And he ventures to add something more to this: he has known seasons of sorrow wherein he would rather have his sorrow than the worldling’s joy and pleasure.

I believe that the outside of a prison, of a theater, and of a public house, is a far safer place than the inside. The same applies to mouse traps, rat traps, and all kinds of man traps.

I once watched a man who was fishing in the two ponds at the foot of Burley Wood, in Rutlandshire. I ventured to ask him if he used the same kind of bait for different kinds of fish. I might not have been quite so ignorant as my question indicated; but the fact is that I am ever on the lookout for facts which will be useful as illustrations in the Lord’s service. Somewhat amused with my question, the angler condescended to inform me that it was necessary to adapt the bait to the fish he wished to catch. And this is exactly what I am now desirous of doing; though I am using a net instead of a rod and line. And this is exactly what Satan does in trying to catch his unwary victims. He seldom or never tempted me, when young, with worldly pleasures, but adapted his temptations to my temperament. If I were on a long sea voyage, I should not offer a tract on the evils of horse racing. If visiting the workhouse, I should not present tracts on the love of finery in dress. These would be greatly out of place in both instances.

I should have liked also to speak of the deeper snares laid by the enemy of precious souls to hinder their salvation. He sometimes suggests that one is too young to be saved, or too great a sinner to become a believer. At other times he will suggest that a person is too old, or too far gone, to be saved at all; or that there could not be mercy for him if he cried for it. But I would assure my fellow-sinner that he cannot be either too young or too old to be saved, if he really feels he needs salvation. And I have never yet found a sinner who was too great a sinner for the Lord to save. He delights in saving sinners; it gives Him more joy to save them than it gives them to be saved.

O my fellow-sinner, read His blessed Word, and there see how He saved Manasseh, David, Saul of Tarsus, the dying thief, the woman without a name (Luke 7), and many others who surely were great sinners. One of these called himself the “chief of sinners” and spoke of his salvation as a specimen of what the Lord could do to others. Do not begin to listen to any suggestion that would limit His power or His mercy in this matter.

It is a great favor to be delivered from the snares of sin, and to have a gracious and willing liberty to serve Him “whose service is perfect freedom.” The willing bondage of the service of Christ is far sweeter than the fancied liberty of the slavery of sin. Do you know this?

God's Wondrous Love

HOW precious is the Gospel of Christ! How it tells forth the wonderful truth “that God is Love!” See how the Saviour Himself speaks it forth with loving lips from His loving heart, knowing that every blessing freely bestowed upon guilty man would cost Himself dreadful curse and agony. He says, “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Here is indeed wonderful love, bestowing a wonderful gift, to save sinners from a dreadful destruction, and to give the wonderful blessing of everlasting life. Might not the Son of God have told us that God was so justly angry with such a world of offenders that He was determined to take vengeance, and leave them all to reap the bitter curse due to their sin? But so great was His love that we find instead the glad tidings that “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” And so the dreadful vengeance fell on Him, and God’s anger is turned away. And Christ has opened a new and living way, wherein whosoever draws near to God shall be lovingly welcomed to His arms, His heart, and to the glorious heaven above.

Precious indeed is the Gospel of Christ. Instead of God’s anger we are told that, “God so loved.” Instead of His loving angels, He “so loved the world.” Instead of His loving such as men, judging by an outward appearance, would call good, He loved sinners—sinners sunk and wrapped in sheer worldliness, in friendship with the world which is at enmity with God; and yet He “so loved” them.

This great and wondrous love is manifested, in that He sent not an angel to cut us off and consign us to the bottomless pit, as He might have done;, but gave His dear Son to live a life so pure, in the face of the bitterest contempt, opposition, temptation, and cruelty; and to die even the death of the cross, to make an atonement for sinners wretched, vile, rebellious, lost. Well may we rehearse the lines,

“Crimes of such horror to forgive,

Such guilty daring worms to spare—

This is Thy grand prerogative,

And in the honor none shall share:

Who is a pardoning God like Thee?

Or who has grace so rich and free?”

So, then, each poor guilty one that is drawn by this wondrous love, and flees to Christ for refuge, is safe. Each poor trembling sinner who comes to God by Him shall be saved to the uttermost. The life and death of Jesus, the righteousness and atoning blood of Jesus, all the blessings and benefits thereof, are really and truly made over to each humble believer in Him. He bore his curse, and he inherits the blessing, even life for evermore. Truly happy are the people who are in such a case. Their happy hearts and tongues may well rehearse His praise. They can say,

“Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb,

We love to hear of Thee;

No music like Thy charming Name,

Nor half so sweet, can be.”

Truly herein shines the Father’s love, the Saviour’s grace, and the Holy Spirit’s life-giving and soul-comforting power.

Alas for those who wander on in ignorance, blindness, rebellion, and hardness of heart, with no sure hope, no heavenly light, no love to God and things divine! Alas, alas! the end of these things is death. O may many a reader, under the drawing influence of this wondrous love, be brought to see and to flee unto Him who alone can save.

—B. B.

"Firm Footing."

ON the sea wall of one of the watering-places in North Wales is placed a large board with the above inscription. When the sea is boisterous there are tracts of quicksand which would yield to the pressure of the unwary foot. But near the wall, as indicated by the board, was “firm footing.”

There are many quicksands on the shore of time, and it is one of the objects of these humble pages to point out the dangerous places, and to uplift a pointing finger to the firm footing revealed by the Holy Spirit in the gospel of the grace of God. All the good works, so called, that men perform with the idea of meriting the favor of God, are quicksands. All penances performed with the same view are equally deceitful sands. And there are many others.

But the work of the Lord Jesus Christ gives the soul “firm footing.” The merits of His life and death are infinite; and a true faith is favored to realize that the standing hereby given is safe for time and for eternity.

“On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand.”

This Rock is the only sure footing for ruined sinners. It will stand all the tests of time, and it will stand when all refuges of lies shall have been swept away.

Great Rock for weary sinners made,

When storms of sin infest the soul;

Here let me rest my weary head,

When lightnings blaze and thunders roll.

Within the clefts of His dear side,

There all His paints in safety dwell;

And what from Jesus shall divide?

Not all the rage of earth or hell.

Blest with the pardon of her sin,

My soul beneath Thy shade would lie,

And sing the love that took me in,

And others left in sin to die.

O sacred covert from the beams

That on the weary traveler beat,

How welcome are Thy shade and streams,

How blest, how sacred, and how sweet!

And when that awful storm takes place,

That hurls destruction far and near,

My soul shall refuge in Thy grace,

And take her glorious shelter there.

To shake this rock Thy saints are in,

Tempest or storm shall ne’er prevail;

‘Twill stand the blast of hell and sin,

And anchor sure within the vail!

A Lesson From the Snow

How beautiful is the snow as it falls from heaven! How lightly and gently it drops upon the field and the garden, as if its mission were of a kind and bountiful nature!

This is, in fact, the real nature of the mission of the snow. Farmers tell us that if much rain falls during February, it often beats down the surface of the soil, and leaves it hard. But if snow falls, it lies a longer or shorter term upon the surface, and then sinks very gradually into the earth. The result is that the earth is soft and spongy, and yields much more readily to the plow.

Now, this will help us to understand a very beautiful promise of God in His Word (Isaiah 55:10) “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow, from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

The words of God often drop softly upon the heart, and remain a long time before they sink down; but they do the bidding of their Author, and produce His praise.

"That Cursed Drink."

AT the time of writing this, a youth named John Cossey lies under sentence of death in Norwich prison. He had, in a moment of anger, taken the life of a fellow-creature; and the law of this country, agreeably to the law of God, sentenced him to the penalty of death. It is not within the province of these pages to make any remark as to the guilt of the unhappy man, or refer to his position as so near eternity. The present desire is to place upon record a very solemn warning. He had a painful interview with his parents, and afterward wrote the following letter:

“MY DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER, BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

“Just a few lines to you, and I hope they will reach you quite well as they leave me.

“I am very sorry to have caused you so much sorrow and trouble, but I really did not know what I was doing of at the time. I must have been out of my mind, and I pray God will forgive me.

“I hope this will be a lesson to the other boys and girls, and may they learn to do as you wish them to, for if I had obeyed you this would not have happened; but I must suffer for it, God helping me.

“It looks to me as I am born unlucky, for I have never been able to get on. I have had good chances in my life, but that cursed drink has been my downfall, and I hope the other boys will not make it a practice to spend their time in the public house, but do as you bid them to, and learn to love God and do His will, and love one another.

“I hope they will take care of you both in your old days and make you comfortable and happy. Give my love to uncle and tell him not to fret about me; and you must not.

“I must now draw this to a close as it is dinner time. You can do as you like with my clothing and box, and tell to give my best respects to—. So now, good-bye to you all.

“If I don’t see you no more on earth, I pray God we may meet in Heaven, where there will be no more parting.

“Good-bye, from your unworthy son,

“JOHN COSSEY.”

May this be useful as a word of warning to our young people.

Our Late Beloved Queen

THIS magazine for February was in the hands of the printer before the sad news of the death of Queen Victoria was made known. We therefore desire to make a reference to the event in the present number.

The reign of our good Queen was one of the most glorious in history, and filled with events of vast and far-reaching importance to our mighty empire. These pages have nothing to do with history, as such; but it is lawful to refer to even historical events if they have any bearing upon the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the spread of His gospel.

It is a fact deserving remark and remembrance that the reign of Victoria was begun with prayer. The circumstances connected with her accession to the throne have been thus recorded.

William the Fourth died on June 20th, 1837, at two in the morning, and immediately Dr. Howley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Marquis Conyngham, Lord Chamberlain, posted from Windsor to Kensington Palace, arriving there at five. Their business was urgent; and they demanded to see the Princess at once. Being told that she was asleep, Conyngham said, “We are come on business of State to the Queen; and even her sleep must give way to it.”

Very quickly, well knowing the purport of this early visit to her, did the Princess respond to the request of her visitors, with tears in her eyes, yet self-possessed and calm.

Lord Conyngham announced the death of the King, intimating thereby that Victoria was now Queen of England. Her first words of reply were, turning to Dr. Howley: “I ask your Grace to pray for me.” Then and there, in the stillness of that morning hour, before London was awake, those three knelt down and sought the favor of the King of kings to rest upon the youthful wearer of England’s crown. It was a touching commencement of the golden reign of Victoria, the most glorious reign of our history. Surely this primary acknowledgment of Him “by whom kings reign and princes decree justice,” has borne precious fruit in the years that followed. Surely, too, the God who acknowledged the prayer of Solomon, who asked for wisdom and grace as a ruler, recorded the prayer of Queen Victoria, who thus sought first the kingdom of God. No state formality marked this incident; it was the simple utterance of Victoria’s heart, her own desire to commence her reign under the guidance and smile of Almighty God.

The coronation of the Queen took place on June 28th, 1838; and it is most important to remember that the throne of this mighty empire is avowedly built upon a Protestant foundation, as the following will show.

As the Queen entered Westminster Abbey the anthem was sung: “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” This was followed by the National Anthem.

Then came the “Recognition.” The Queen turned to the four quarters of the compass, and at each point the Archbishop of Canterbury repeated the challenge “Sirs, I here present unto you Queen Victoria, the undoubted Queen of this Realm; wherefore, all you who are come this day to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?” To each challenge the response came loud and clear: “God save Queen Victoria!”

After this impressive part of the ceremony the Queen knelt to present the customary offering of gold. Then, followed the Litany and the first part of the Communion Service. The sermon was preached by the Bishop of London, from 2 Chronicles 34:31: “And the King stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in, this Book.” To this discourse the young Queen listened with deep attention and reverential emotion.

Then came the Coronation. The Archbishop of Canterbury asked: “Is your Majesty willing to take the oath?”

“I am willing.”

“Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the respective laws and customs of the same?”

“I solemnly promise so to do.”

“Will you, to your power, cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgments?”

“I will.”

“Will you, to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the dospel. and the Protestant Reformed religion established by law? And will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the United Church of England and Ireland, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established within England and Ireland, and the territories thereunto belonging? And will you preserve unto the bishops and clergy of England and Ireland, and to the churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them?”

“All this I promise to do.”

Then, approaching the altar, and placing her right hand upon the Bible, she said:

“The things which I have heretofore promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.” The Queen then kissed the book, signed the oath, and knelt while the hymn was sung: “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire.”

After this came the further ceremony of the Anointing. The Archbishop anointed the Queen on the head and hands with oil, saying: “Be thou anointed with holy oil as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be you anointed, blessed, and consecrated Queen over this people, whom the Lord your God hath given you to rule and govern. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

A blessing was then pronounced upon the Queen; and as the Sword of State was placed in the hands of Her Majesty, the Archbishop said: “Receive this kingly sword, brought now from the altar of God, and delivered to you by the hands of us, the servants and bishops of God, though unworthy. With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order; that doing these things you may be glorious in all virtue, and so faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this life that you may reign forever with Him in the life which is to come. Amen.”

The crown was then placed upon the Queen’s head; and the Abbey rang with shouts of “God save the Queen!” A Bible was then presented to the Queen; the Te Deum was sung; the peers paid their homage; the remainder of the Communion Service was proceeded with; and the long service came to an end.

Our late beloved Queen was ever ready to extend her rich sympathy to the bereaved and the distressed, and the largeness of her heart won the love and esteem of her subjects. An interesting instance of the kindness and large-mindedness of the Queen is seen in the case of Mr. William Jones, an aged Baptist minister, and an author of some note, who through adverse circumstances had come to want. His case having been brought to the notice of the Queen, she offered him a nomination to the Charter House. One of the conditions, however, was, that recipients must be members of the Church of England. Mr. Jones replied that being a “dissenter on principle,” he was unable to accept the offer. What did Her Majesty do? She directed that the sum of sixty pounds should be paid to Mr. Jones from the Royal Bounty Fund in annual installments of twenty pounds each year. The recipient was then eighty-two, and he lived to receive two of the payments. In our day, we suppose this would have been a fit case for the consideration of the Royal Literary Fund, to which Her Majesty has always been a liberal contributor. But not the less is the kindness and the patience of the Queen to be admired, with her respect for the conscientious scruples of this “dissenter on principle.”

May God bless our new King, and enable his counselors to give him sound counsel. May God enable him at all times to walk in the footsteps of his royal mother, who has left him so excellent an example. And may God be graciously pleased to bless our nation with peace and truth, that our privileges may be preserved to us and to our children.

The Maiden Martyr

MORE than two hundred and fifty years have passed since a Spaniard thus wrote of his native land: “In Spain, many very learned, many very noble, and many of the highest gentry, have for this cause” (that of the reformed faith) “been led forth to the scaffold. There is not a city, and, if one may so speak, there is not a village, nor a hamlet, nor a noble house in Spain, that has not had, and still has, one or mere that God of His infinite mercy has enlightened with the light of His gospel. Our enemies have done what they could to put out this light, and thus they have visited with loss of property, of honor, and of life, very many in Spain. And yet it is worthy of note, the more they threaten, scourge, throw into the galleys, imprison, or burn, the more they multiply.”

The good work had been begun and carried on chiefly by the means of Bibles and tracts. Although the Inquisition kept strict watch and strong guard, to prevent all books from entering the land, it was so managed, that they were carried from the border towns to those in the interior, in bales of goods, and were gladly bought by all classes. And thus the work of the Reformation went silent and steadily on. But cloudy days indeed have come over the country of Spain since the times of which we speak; the light has been put out, and “gross darkness covers the people.”

One of the cities in which the Gospel took the deepest root was Seville, a place of great wealth and trade, and famous for its noble palaces, beautiful churches, and ancient dwellings.

Among its other buildings there once stood a long and lofty range, whose gloomy walls and iron-barred windows marked it as a prison. The passenger, as he drew nigh to it, quickened his pace, and trembled at the thought that he might one day be shut up in its dreary cells. This place was the court of the Inquisition, so called, because it was the tribunal set up to inquire into the opinions of any who were inclined to renounce the religion of the land.

This court sent forth a class of monks as its agents, known as the inquisitors, or inquirers, to search out and punish all those who did not promptly submit to the creed of Popery. The steps of these inquisitors took hold on death. Few who went into their presence returned again to their homes. Fires were lit by them, and many faithful servants of Christ were cast into the flames. “Others had trial of cruel mocking, and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment.”

The unhappy victim who passed the iron gate of the Inquisition was led through several halls, one opening into the other, and each increasing in darkness, until the last was shrouded in dismal shadows. A single window looked into the yard below, around which were ranged the entrances to the cells, sunk far below the surface of the ground. The descent into these was by many winding ways, that from their depths the cries of the prisoners might not be heard. The sweet light and pure air of heaven entered not there. All was black, and damp, and terrific. In some of these vaults human bones were spread on the ground, and the walls were covered with the names of those who had been left to perish, unpitied and unknown. There were cruel and wicked deeds done in these silent vaults, in the name of the holy and merciful Saviour, which, could we know them, would fill our hearts with shame and horror.

The assistants to the inquisitors were called familiars; that is, those attached to the “family” or order of monks. In the darkness of the night these familiars suddenly stood before the door of a house, with their faces entirely covered with a hood, in which were two small holes for the eyes. No one dared to resist their power, or to assist the object of their search in his escape. It might be that they had got a father to inform against his wife, or a mother against her son, or a brother against a sister; for all the bonds of love and duty were broken by their craft. It was enough if anyone were suspected of having read, or lent, or kept in the house a book of the reformed faith, or had a Protestant for a friend, or had tried to console and aid a prisoner in the cells. They had now come for the unhappy person in an hour when he was at rest. The door must instantly be opened, and at once they seize him, and carry him away to their dungeons; there, perhaps, to lie for many months, in awful suspense, wearied and worn, before he knew the charge that he was called to answer.

Among those who had been seized by the familiars, and brought before the court of Inquisition, was a young Spanish lady, named Maria de Bohorques, the daughter of a gentleman of high condition in Seville, and related to several noble families. Her early youth was full of hope and promise, and her home was cheered by every earthly comfort. But she had been led by Divine grace to give her heart to Christ, and set her affections on things above.

Maria, when about twenty-one years of age, was suspected of being faithless to the Church of Rome.

Her tutor, Doctor Gil, who had been led to embrace the reformed faith, was one of the most learned men of the age. Under his care she had studied the Holy Scriptures in their original languages. A blessing had attended the reading of the word of God; and her gifted and inquiring mind had found the only foundation on which true religion rests. She was not long in learning that the Roman Catholic religion is contrary to the truth of God, and she had courage to make known what she knew and felt.

There were times when Maria thought of the terrible Inquisition. In her hours of secret study and prayer, she had asked of God to give her strength, if the day of trial which had come to many should at last reach her. And now it had come and she stood alone and undefended before her judges.

The maiden martyr was led by the familiars into a secret chamber, where at a table sat the inquisitors, clad in dark robes, their faces scarcely to be seen, from the position in which they sate, amid the deep gloom of the place. Before them was a small wooden cross, and a roll of paper inscribed with the charge against the prisoner. By her side were the familiars, who acted both as guards and witnesses.

Soft words were at first spoken. They told her that they wished well to her soul; that they hoped to restore a stray sheep to the fold. As she listened to their address, Maria prayed in her heart, and strength was given her to be faithful. She boldly owned her hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and refused to yield to the smooth speeches or the angry threats of her judges. They then declared that, unless she submitted to the Church of Rome, she should be tried by torture. And to awaken terror in the mind of the young Christian, there were spread out to view the engines of cruelty used in that horrid chamber. She was pointed to the pulley, by which a prisoner was raised to the roof of the dungeon, with heavy weights fastened to the feet; to the rack, on which the body was violently stretched; to the fire, over which the feet of the sufferers were hung.

The judges were concerned to know who were her companions in the faith, and called on her to make them known. But she gave no reply. Again they directed her eyes to the instruments of torture, with a threat of their severest trial. Still she stood firmly in her resolve. The order was now given to stretch her upon the rack; and, like wolves greedy for their prey, the officers seized her, and casting her on the frame, they secured her wrists and feet to the cords. In a few minutes the slow turn of the wheel drew her tender limbs, as though they would be torn from her body.

In this position of agony Maria was again called on to confess; but the bold girl refused to renounce her own faith or betray those she loved. Another turn of the cruel wheel was made, and her joints seemed to start from their sockets. Poor lonely one! the men in whose hands she had fallen had no hearts to teel: to them mercy was unknown. Great as was her misery, and when she thought it had reached its height, it was as though it only had begun. New seats of pain were reached, and in the depth of her woe she called for pity.

Perhaps many have said to themselves, “If we were called to be martyrs we would show our persecutors how to die.” But how little do we know our own weakness! In the hour of her greatest pain, when scarcely sensible of what she said, poor Maria owned that her sister Juana had often spoken to her about the reformed faith, and was a secret follower of it. This confession soon cost Juana her life. To the rack she was quickly brought, and on being removed from it, she lay for a short time in the greatest agony, and then died.

But Maria—what had she done? She felt that she had been faithless to the cause she loved. She had betrayed one dearer to her than her own life. When they took her from the wheel, they carried her to a cell. It was sweet to her to lie on that cold stone floor, and feel that the wheel was no longer dragging her life away. Yet she had only gained a short release at the expense of a beloved sister.

Another day of trial was at hand. Maria was soon doomed to the flames as a heretic; but before the sentence was carried into effect, two priests were sent to her, then another two, and again two more. They went to her cell in the hope that she might yet yield, and profess her faith in the Church of Rome.

It must have been an affecting sight to have beheld that poor young creature—her limbs all bruised and full of intense pain—without any human friend—reclining on the straw of her cell, while she meekly and piously disputed with the crafty priests. She heard their words in patience, and then calmly refused to receive their doctrine. Hour after hour they tried all their art and power, but in vain. She told them of her weakness in suffering; but yet she looked to God for grace to bear all, and to go boldly to the burning pile rather than deny the truth she loved.

On the morning of the 24th of September, 1559, more than one fatal stake was driven in the great square of the city of Seville. A number of the reformed faith were to be burned that day. Among them was Maria de Bohorques. Early in the morning the familiars came to her cell, to carry her to the place of death, for the torture had deprived her of the power to walk. Feeble in body, she was yet strong in heart. Her inward strength was made perfect in weakness and suffering. The Lord was with her; she “endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” Her looks betrayed no fear; it was to her a day of victory and deliverance. Through the flames she knew that she should pass to glory.

There were other female Protestants burned in Seville’s great square at the same time, and Maria sought to comfort her sister’s martyrs. She invited them to join with her in singing a hymn. And above the noise and tumult of the crowd there assembled, their sweet voices were heard sounding the praises of the Saviour. They then cheered one another as they stood ready for death.

It was usual at such a time, when the victims were bound to the stake, and the torch was about to be applied to the wood, for one more attempt to be made to lead the prisoners to confess. For this purpose several priests, out of regard to the youth, talent, and family connections of Maria, tried yet again to bring her to renounce her faith. She was asked to repeat the Creed, and this she did in a firm voice; but, at the same time, she explained its several parts in the Protestant sense. Finding that they gained nothing by their attempts, the officers were ordered to strangle her. This done the pile was soon lighted, and her body was consumed. Her released spirit passed beyond the reach of her tormentors, there to receive the martyr’s crown from the hands of her Lord and Saviour—a crown which He purchased with His own most precious blood, and which is the rich gift of His grace and love.

As we fondly cherish the memory of those who “loved not their lives unto death,” we may well direct our thoughts to their happy state now in the world of glory.

Who are they, clothed in radiant white,

That stand around you golden throne

Their garments of celestial light,

Pure with a luster not their own?

These are the saints who once below

Walked in the path their Master trod;

Midst pain, and mockery, and woe,

And scorching flames, they sought their God.

Through His dear might who once was slain

Firm at the burning stake they stood,

And washed, from every guilty stain,

Their garments in His precious blood.

Therefore around the throne they stand,

And in His holy temple shine;

Rich in the joy of His right hand,

Robed in His righteousness divine.

There they can never hunger more,

Nor ask the cooling draft in vain;

For He will living waters pour,

And heal from every earthly pain.

In those blest realms of endless day,

The Lamb shall all their wants supply;

And God’s own hand shall wipe away

The falling tear from every eye.

"That Will Do."

WHAT a very great favor it is to have a good and solid foundation to our religion! The house built upon the sand must certainly fall; but the house built upon the Rock must as certainly stand.

A very interesting illustration of this is given in that living book, “The Memorials of Captain Hedley Vicars,” the godly soldier, who nobly died at the post of duty in the Crimea. His religion made him truly brave, for he had no fear of death.

In one of his letters home he thus writes: “I do not think I ever told you of Craney’s happy death. Shortly before he breathed his last, he asked Dr. Twining to read the eighth chapter of Romans to him. As he read, the dying man’s breath became shorter, and his face brighter; and as the last words fell upon his ear: ‘Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,’—he said, ‘Thank you, Sir; that will do,’ and died.”

Yes, here is a firm foundation that will indeed do. It will do for time, it will do for death, and it will do for eternity. Do you think, dear reader, that you could in the same position, use the same words that were used by the dying soldier?

The Good Queen Victoria

IT is most pleasing to notice the universal respect and affection paid to the memory of our late beloved Queen, by all classes of society. Though passed away from earth, she yet lives in the hearts of the subjects she so long and so wisely ruled.

One special feature in the life of Victoria was the motherly kindness shown by her to her afflicted and poor subjects. She was ever keenly alive to the sufferings and necessities of those in trouble and in poverty. This could be illustrated to a large extent by quoting from her journals. Here is just one extract:

“We met an old woman who was very poor, eighty-eight years old, and mother to the former distiller. I gave her a warm petticoat, and the tears rolled down her old cheeks, and she shook my hands, and prayed God to bless me; it was very touching.

“I went into a small cabin of old Kitty Kear’s, who is eighty-six years old—quite erect, and who welcomed us with a great air of dignity. She sat down and spun. I gave her, also, a warm petticoat; she said, ‘May the Lord ever attend ye and yours, here and hereafter; and may the Lord be a guide to ye, and keep ye from all harm.’”

Balmoral, as every one knows, was the Queen’s Highland home, and in her younger days Her Majesty was on speaking terms with all the farmers and cottars within miles. She sometimes called on one of her humble neighbors, a dear old woman over a hundred years of age. After reading to her on one occasion the centenarian looked earnestly at the Queen and said, “May I ask your Majesty a question?” “As many as you like,” she kindly replied. “Will you meet me up yonder in the Paradise of God?” Listen to the Queen’s answer— “YES, by the Grace of God and the all-availing Blood of Jesus.” Her only hope for eternity lay in the precious, atoning Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from all sin all who put their trust therein (1 John 1:7).

The Starving Family

BY AN IRISH PASTOR

AT the period when I took possession of my new residence, the results of the late disastrous season were beginning to show themselves in various forms. Who that remembers the summer of 1817 will say that the scenes of distress and suffering which marked its progress have yet been effaced from his mind? The great inclemency of the weather during many months, had produced sickness and famine among the lower orders, beyond all former example. In particular, the deficiency of peat fuel had been so extensive, that the supply of the peasantry fell short by fully three-fourths of the quantity which in common years had been thought essential to their health and comfort. The oat crop had been scanty and defective; and the potatoes, the staple food of the poorest, were bad in quality, unwholesome, and totally insufficient for the wants of the population. The inevitable consequences of these calamities, were famine and disease; the latter being greatly aggravated by the close unventilated cabins in which the poor live. The laboring man, ill clad, ill housed, ill fed, returning to his wretched hovel, weary, hungry, and dripping from the cold rains, found neither food to nourish, nor fire to warm him. Sometimes he crept into a cheerless bed, and sought to forget in sleep the miseries of his situation; more frequently he sat before the delusive phantom of the once bright hearth, chilled, and musing, till sickness fastened upon his frame, and death itself sowed its not unwelcome seed. The twin scourges, famine and pestilence, began to afflict our peasantry about the latter end of March, and continued to grow in fearful intensity till August.

Happily the Lord raised up a few in every parish to offer their aid to the sick at this trying time. We were generally enabled to relieve the very distressed in their utmost need.

Returning from an absence of three days, I learned that a family, composed of four persons, whom I had left in the last stage of typhus fever, had all died (as was supposed) the morning after my departure. They had no near relatives around them, being recent settlers; and of their neighbors, not one had the hardihood or the kindness to enter the abode of death. The bodies had lain unattended to during the two days already mentioned; and it was only early on the third that I became acquainted with the circumstance, so strange in a civilized country. My first step on going to the spot, was to cause holes to be made in the walls of the mud cabin, at the opposite ends, to admit a free current of air. This done, and the door having been open for some days, I led the way into the house. The dead bodies lay, a father and son, in one bed; two grown up girls, his daughters, in another—a melancholy sight. They had all perished, if the people spoke the truth, within, a few hours of each other. It was probably as asserted; for though the house had been little visited, yet one of their neighbors, an old woman, who subsequently undertook the charge of washing, and dressing in funeral attire, these poor victims of the destroyer, had brought them some jugs of cold water, for which alone they expressed the smallest desire, and by this means ascertained pretty accurately the period of their decease. I was afterward obliged to assist personally in the manual labor of carrying them out of doors to their coffins, having at one time serious apprehensions that the old woman would have been my sole fellow-porter. The four were consigned to one grave.

It was while those scenes were enacting, that on a beautiful evening in July, I had walked to visit a family living about a mile distant from my residence, every one of whom, eight in number, had been attacked by the scourge of the time—typhus fever. Three of them had died. The remaining five were in various stages of convalescence, but still avoided by the great majority of their neighbors, and so feeble, as to be entirely incapable of providing for their livelihood. As I proceeded slowly through the picturesque lanes which led to their humble habitation, I met several of the rustic population, whose pale and emaciated countenances betokened, in lines not to be mistaken, the silent ravages of famine and disease. Some were anxiously surveying the early potato crop, as if they hoped, by looking on it, to hasten the growth. All seemed weak and dispirited, and replied to the language of kindness or friendship with which I addressed them, in tones of profound melancholy. My own mind caught the contagious sadness of the hour; so that when I reached the object of my excursion, I felt a species of despondency quite foreign to my general habit.

In this frame of mind I commenced my instructions at the door of the cottage of the sick family, who sat or stood around me. We had scarcely begun our devotions, when they were disturbed by the approach of a female, followed by three children between the ages of eight and four; she herself appeared somewhat under thirty, and was remarkably handsome. Without regarding my occupation, she hastily, and with a wild vigor of importunity, asked alms; the children lifting up their voices in concert, and seemingly bent on forcing their way into the house. Whether the interruption, offended me, or that the eager stare and inexplicable smile of this very comely young woman inspired me with opinions prejudicial to her character, I could not accurately define to myself; but certain it is, that her presence disturbed the train of thought I most desired to cherish; and I therefore ordered her to withdraw, with some rather severe remarks upon the intrusion she had been guilty of. She retired without uttering a word of remonstrance or apology, merely repeating the strange smile which had so struck me when she first solicited charity. She was not yet out of sight, when the stings of conscience began to work painfully within me. I ceased to pray, and asked my sick friends if they thought the woman was an imposter.

They answered with one consent, that they were firmly persuaded of the contrary; that they thought she appeared in a state of faintness from absolute starvation—was no practiced beggar or vagrant, and a stranger they had never seen before. It was besides evident, though they did not say so, that they disapproved of my conduct in dismissing my afflicted sister so abruptly. I therefore bid an instant goodnight to the cottagers, and followed the poor wanderer. The winding nature of the path, enclosed on either side by a high hedge of hawthorn, enabled me to pursue my way unperceived; and from the same cause, the little band of mendicants was concealed from my view. I knew, however, that I was on the track they had taken, and proceeded confidently for about four hundred yards without coming in sight of the object of my chase. At that moment a sudden exclamation of distress struck upon my ear. The shriek—oh! how loud and shrill it sounded!—was undoubtedly from the mother; and the mingled wail of young sorrow revealed the companions of her disaster. I hastened to the spot, fearing that they might be attacked by some dog, of which many in a half-famished state prowled through the country in quest of food. Arriving quickly at a low stile, which led from the lane by a field path to a group of cabins, a scene presented itself so surpassingly affecting, that as God’s will ordained that my eyes should behold it, so I pray that His grace may preserve it forever unaffected, undimmed, unchanged, in my heart. In the field, at a few paces beyond the stile I have spoken of, knelt and prayed, with streaming eyes and uplifted hands, the young mother. And thus she spoke: “Father of the fatherless, and God of the widow!” —these were her very words— “hast Thou brought me so far through misery and temptation, to forsake me now?” I might perhaps have heard more, but I could not refrain from pressing forward, and asking the cause of her new distress. She made no reply; but smiling as before, showed me her empty apron, and pointed to her children. The occasion of her grief was now apparent. It seemed that she had fallen, from pure weakness, in stepping over the stile. The produce of the alms-seeking of a long summer day, consisting of about a dozen of potatoes, was scattered on the grass. A flock of geese, scarcely less hungry than herself, promptly seized the poor provision, and fled away. The children engaged in a fruitless pursuit—the mother, addressed a not unheeded prayer to the footstool of the Divine Throne.

Such was the sight then, presented to my eyes; such it still remains, ever abiding in my recollection. More than twenty years have elapsed since the incident occurred. I have related it to my friends; I have thought on it with a frequency that would have rendered any other subject faded and irksome; but yet I am firmly persuaded that this one scene—one amidst the varied multiplicity of life’s checkerings—is destined of God never to be obliterated from my memory—never to diminish in freshness or in force. It seems traced as by an iron pen upon the tablets of my very soul, to remain while life and faculties shall endure.

I questioned the poor woman, whom I made sit down on the grass beside me, as to where she had come from, whither she was going, and her name. She told me, that “she was an inhabitant of a remote part of the county of—; that she had gone over with her husband and children, about three months before, to Workington, in the hope that the former would find employment in the coal-pits, where he had on, previous occasions labored. She was herself well skilled in needlework, and a tolerable laundress; and they calculated, between their joint earnings, to bring up their family in comfort and decency. But God, she said—and profound was her anguish as she pronounced the sentence—God in his unsearchable counsels decreed it otherwise. My dear kind husband, too good for a sinner like me, was carried off by fever in less than a month after we landed in England. We had already begun to thrive. My dear departed John, on the day he sickened, brought home to his little boy a child’s whistle—this, sir, which you see (for the children had grouped around us)—saying, Here, namesake, I have laid out twopence of my earnings to amuse you; but you must not play on it till tomorrow, for my head is like to split asunder from pain. Alas! Alas! that morrow came, and dear, dear John was in a raging fever!—six days more, and he was a corpse. If anything could have mitigated my affliction for such a loss—if any balm would have allayed the inexpressible pain of my heart—I might have drawn comfort from the manner in which he closed a life wherein the love of God and neighbor had shone bright and glorious. He was attended by a minister; a feeling gentleman, who performed all his offices with true Christian charity, and only ceased to speak, the words of consolation and precept to myself, when the vessel was unmoored in which I left England. But what consolation, what reflections, could recompense me for the privation I had experienced? My husband, my dear, dear husband, was gone! Oh what could supply, his place? Not surely empty words of sympathy?—and yet why should I call them empty, though they had been no more than mere words, for they flowed from full hearts; full indeed they were of every human virtue. They came from the family of the minister who visited me in my affliction, and behaved towards me with a tender regard which I can never, never forget. God also raised up some benevolent ladies, who frequently came to see me. They all wished me to remain at Workington, promising me needlework and embroidery, and after a short time the superintendence of a school likely soon to become vacant; for miserable as I must appear to you, I received an excellent education—(her language fully bespoke it)—and was accustomed to teaching. Advantages were also offered to my children, sufficient to have decided anyone but me to accept them. But strange to say, I determined from the first moment after the stunning effects of my dear partner’s death had subsided, to return to Ireland. It seemed to my poor weakened brain, as if every enjoyment I should have at Workington would be an offense against his memory and love. I knew I was very wrong—and bitterly, most bitterly, do I lament my folly: but I could not help it; a power superior to my own will seemed to govern me. By day I thought, by night I dreamed. My dead husband was continually before my eyes, warning me that ill betided my stay. The impression, far from losing its force, gained strength daily. At length it became intolerable, and in defiance of reason, kindness, prudence, duty, and affectionate remonstrance, I set sail with these orphans, and another, who I trust is now in heaven. The ladies were greatly displeased with me; still they gave me some money, and also clothes for these children, and with much excellent advice wished me farewell. I came in a coal vessel, and had a tedious passage to Belfast. While there, the Lord laid his hand on me once more. First, my little baby, an infant of four months old, died of convulsions, without scarcely any previous illness, the day after we landed. I waited one other day to see the little one decently interred, intending to set out on the morning after; but even while I stood beside the grave of my child, I was seized with shivering fits, and before night became so unwell, that the people of the house where I lodged, alarmed by the appearance, insisted on removing me to the hospital. They abandoned this intention only on learning that that receptacle already overflowed, and could admit no more patients. Still, on finding the necessity they were under, they treated me and my children with all possible tenderness. Next day the fever showed itself in its plain character. In this dreadful disease I lay for three long weeks, during a part of which I was either insensible or delirious; and when I became convalescent, I was greatly annoyed by the return of hysteric attacks, which a fright I met with at the birth of my poor baby had occasioned. As soon as I was able, and much sooner than it was prudent for me to travel, I commenced my journey with these poor children. Though I had practiced all economy, and experienced much consideration at Belfast, my resources in money, and what arose from the sale of my clothes, were totally exhausted. I left a town wherein 1 had suffered so much affliction, with ten-pence only in my pocket, and with seventy long miles to accomplish before I could reach the end of my journey—namely, the residence of my mother—a woman far advanced in years, and laboring under many infirmities. Weak as I still find myself, and with these poor children to drag along with me, we have been unable to get forward in the direct line of our journey more than about five miles each day, and perhaps may walk nearly two more through fields and lanes seeking support and shelter for the night; which latter, the dwellers by the wayside have uniformly refused, and those in more retired situations only grant in their outhouses, such is the prevailing fear that wanderers like us may carry infection. This is the sixth day since we began our pilgrimage; tomorrow, as you know, will be the Sabbath. Neither I nor my children have tasted a morsel of food since this time yesterday; and although we have not been refused by any poor body” —My fair autobiographer laid no emphasis upon the words, but my own conscience pointed them. The blood rushed into my cheeks like a fiery flood of lava; they seemed to swell as if the skin must burst; and eyes and forehead were equally burning. “Although,” she said, “we have not been refused by any poor body, yet they often gave us only one potato, and that sometimes a small one. With such store, collected during the day, we purchased a night’s lodging, and supported nature as we best might. This day has been the most unsuccessful of all, while a double need was before me. You, sir, have seen what has happened to my little provision for the morrow.”

She ceased, completely worn out, but evidently aware that her history had interested me, and that some attention was reserved for her for one night at least. I need not add, that her expectations were justified by the event. I lodged the wanderers in a cottage about a hundred paces distant from my own house. It was requisite to observe considerable caution in administering food to the entire party. Even the mother herself, when relieved from the burthen of care which oppressed her, seemed to forget the prudence which her delicate state of health demanded, and would have devoured, rather than eaten, whatever was set before her as ravenously as the most famished of her children. I attributed this greediness to the hysterical affection under which she labored, and which I now perceived had caused the wild smile that had well-nigh hardened my heart against all pity for her distress.

On further acquaintance, I discovered that she had been brought up partly by religious parents, but more especially in a gentleman’s family. She married the miner, and after some years of prosperity, adversity overtook them.

The three children came uninvited on the following day to my Sabbath school. Their mother and they attended divine service; and many a tear fell from her wan cheek. Yet I believe she rested her hopes where true joys are to be found, and I trust, did there find a blessed substitute for those transitory pleasures she was no longer to, experience here.

Monday morning came, and she insisted on resuming her journey. We did what we could to dissuade her; but in vain—she would go. I was half-vexed at this obstinacy, and expostulated with her without effect. Her principal reasons, or I should rather say answers, were sobs. But she was not insensible to our kindness. The spirit and the heart seemed in prayer, as her weeping bore witness. At length the tongue found utterance, and with much composure she thanked us all for the benevolence we had bestowed upon her, in terms of deep sensibility which I never shall forget. She asked my blessing on herself and her children, and returned it by an ardent supplication on my behalf, for which they all knelt. I trust and hope, that the trials of her who was the object of it may have been sanctified to her immortal good; and I pray that no impatience may ever again cause me to “turn my face from any poor man.”

Safe Leading

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not Isaiah 42, 16.

LEAD Thou me on:

I dare not walk without Thee,

The way is dark and wild, and I am full of fear;

Let that small voice, Lord, whisper now unto me.

“Fear not, thou worm, O Jacob; I am with thee near.”

Lead Thou me on: sorrows have compassed round me;

My path is hedged about, I find no helper near:

Let me not murmur; draw me nearer to Thee;

Teach me to trust and wait, confiding every fear.

Lead Thou me on: my mind is sore perplexed,

Weary, and weak, and faint,

I scarce know how to pray,

Let me not falter, by Thy word directed,

Hear Thine own voice behind: “Fear not; this is the way.”

Lead Thou me on: Satan seems ever present;

His wily crafty arts have laid me very low.

Let me not follow, though his ways seem pleasant;

Only with Thee I’m safe, Lord, safe from every foe.

Lead Thou me on: through every step untrodden,

Nor can I fear to walk with Thee, my Saviour, near;

“Resting in Thee, Lord,” ne’er shall I forgotten,

Traverse my way alone, or fail to persevere.

Still lead me on: till Thou in love relieving,

Shalt say, “It is enough,” and bring sweet liberty;

Then from the darkness, joy and light receiving,

I’ll come at Thy glad call, to dwell on high with Thee.

K.S.

Making Others Happy

IT is related of the lamented Princess Charlotte, that in one of her walks with Prince Leopold, in November, 1816, she addressed a decent-looking man, who was engaged as a day-laborer, and said, “My good man, you appear to have seen better days.” “I have, your royal highness,” he replied; “I have rented a good farm, but the change in the times has ruined me.” At this reply she burst into tears, and said to the prince, “Let us be grateful to Providence for His blessings, and endeavor to fulfill the important duties required of us, to make all our laborers happy.” On her return home, she desired the steward to make out a list of all the deserving families in the neighborhood, with the particulars of their circumstances; orders were given to the household that the whole of the superfluous food should be carefully distributed according to the wants of the poor; and, instead of the usual festivities on the following birthdays of the prince and princess, £150 were spent on each occasion in clothing the poor.

Awful End to a Persecutor

WE cannot read the Bible, or study history, without tracing the love of God to His suffering people, and the displeasure He shows to all who touch them. This is very plainly seen in the end of the man who sentenced to death those, two noble and faithful men whose candle by God’s grace still burns in England.

On the day of the martyrdom of Ridley and Latimer, Gardiner waited with impatience for the account of their burning, having arranged that messengers should be dispatched to inform him as soon as the pile should be set on fire. He delayed sitting down to his dinner till he received the desired intelligence, which arrived about four o’clock. He now sat down to his dinner, and, as Fox remarks, “he was not disappointed of his lust, but while the meat was yet in his mouth, the heavy wrath of God came upon him.” While at table, he felt the first attacks of a mortal disease, the effect of vices in which he had long indulged; and though, for some days afterward, he was able to go out and attend the parliament, his illness rapidly increased, until, as was stated by one of his contemporaries, he became so offensive, “that is was scarcely possible to get any one to come near him.”

The sufferings of his mind were not less painful than those of his body. He frequently exclaimed, “I have sinned like Peter, but I have not wept like him.” He endured these protracted pains longer than Ridley or Latimer had suffered, lingering in this state till the 13th of November, during which time it is recorded that “he spake little but blasphemy and filthiness, and gave up the ghost with curses in his mouth, in terrible and inexpressible torments.” What were the sufferings of the martyrs compared with these? Verily there is a God who judgeth in the earth.

A Woman of Stone

When the ruins of Pompeii were brought to light, there was found a petrified woman, that is, the remains of a woman who had been turned to stone. The reason of this was that, while the torrent of burning lava was preparing to overwhelm the city, she spent her precious moments in gathering her gold and her jewels, as if these were of more value than her life. She saved these her treasures, but lost her life by so doing.

You will say that this woman acted a very foolish part, and say truly; but are you doing the same? The wrath of God is surely pursuing all who are not sheltered by the precious blood of Christ. Yet there are multitudes who are so absorbed in earthly pursuits, seeking pleasure, wealth, and other things, that they do not realize how near they are to eternal death and destruction. Such as these the Lord’s solemn question describes: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

If you are not in Christ, the sinner’s only Refuge, you are now under the wrath of God. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John, 3:36). What an awful position and portion—to have the wrath of God abiding on the soul forever and ever!

An Aged Pilgrim's History

SAMUEL LONG was a remarkable instance of long life. He was born at Standlake, Oxfordshire, March 16th, 1774, and died October 8th, 1873; thus only five months short of being one hundred years of age.

Samuel Long seems to have been when young very full of spirits, and would in later days recount some of his youthful doings. He was never in any way addicted to taking too much drink, and was never known to smoke a pipe. His occupation was that of a wheelwright.

He was married on December i6th, 1800. He was at that time twenty-six years of age, and his wife was eighteen. She lived with him for upwards of seventy years. In the early part of his married life Solomon and his wife were quite of one mind, living an industrious life but both of them were strangers to the grace of God. Solomon was remarkably fond of singing. He used to buy ballads, which he rolled together until he got a very thick bundle of them.

On one occasion, in or about the year 1810, he was walking along the road humming a tune, when his attention was arrested by the sound of singing. He said to himself, “Those people sing pretty well; I will just go in a bit, and hear them out.” He stood in the porch, and as they were singing, he thought, “I wonder what they talk about. I will stop and listen.”

The hymn proved to be the one sung before the sermon. Upon its close, the minister of this humble sanctuary, a Mr. Holmes, announced his text: “For to be carnally-minded is death; but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace.” In the early part of his sermon, the minister drew a striking picture of the natural man as under the influence of the carnal mind. And as the preacher went on, Solomon was struck at hearing his own character and feelings so clearly pointed out. He kept saying, “That is I! that is I! who can have been telling the man all about me? I wonder how he knows so much about me!” Just what Solomon delighted in, the minister described as the delight of the carnal mind.

At length the sermon went on to describe those who are spiritually-minded. Here Solomon could not follow the speaker. The spiritual man was described as hating what he had no desire after. All this puzzled the listener. At length came the closing remarks. The minister solemnly told his hearers that those who answered to his description of the carnally-minded were, according to God’s word, on the way to everlasting death; and that, if grace prevented not, such would be lost forever. This was an arrow from God’s bow lodged in the conscience of Solomon. He went home. His wife soon perceived a great difference in him, and inquired what was the matter. He was unable to tell her.

He went to bed, but not to sleep. When he thought his wife was asleep, he got out of bed to try to pray. His wife awaked, and said, “What is the matter?” He said, “Oh, mother, we shall all be lost!” She exclaimed, “You have been amongst those meetingers.” He said, “Yes; I have been hearing the preacher.” She replied, “I hope you will not go again; if you do, they will drive you mad.” He said, “I feel I must go again.”

There was to be a prayer meeting on Monday evening. He went; and in the course of the prayers that were offered the Sunday evening’s sermon was much alluded to. There seemed a great desire for the Lord’s blessing to attend His truth. The Lord was entreated that He would be pleased to give the spiritual mind to those who had only the carnal mind. He felt this was just what he desired.

After some time, the Lord gave him faith in Jesus, and took away his load of guilt and sin.

The effects of his conversion were seen in a long life of consistent walking in the ways of God. He very soon commenced the worship of God in his family. He was accustomed for many years to call them together three times a day that he might read to them the Word of God and pray for them. He had eleven children. He passed through many sore trials, one of which was the loss of a son in a very painful manner at sixteen years of age. This lad was an apprentice at Abingdon, and had been spending the Sunday with his father. When he left to return to Abingdon, his father charged him to go straight back, and not stay to bathe. The lad, however, disobeyed his father, and was drowned. This was a bitter trial to his father, who bemoaned him as having died without giving any evidence of the new birth, and by an act of disobedience.

Solomon lived more than sixty years after his conversion and was for all these years a consistent Christian. Daniel Holmes used to go out on week evenings to preach in the villages around Faringdon, such as Stanford, Longcot, Shellingford, and Coxwell. He would on dark winter nights carry a lantern; and by the light of that lantern might generally be seen the wheelwright walking with his pastor after his day’s toil.

When the chapels at Stanford and Shellingford were built, this zealous man freely gave his labor towards their erection. And for forty years he was not known to be absent from the prayer meetings on Lord’s day mornings and Monday evenings. What does the reader think of this?

On the last Sunday of his life, this old pilgrim requested the friends who visited him to sing some hymns. One of them said to him, “Mr. Long, do you know me?” He answered, “No.” Stooping near to his ear, and speaking loudly, his minister said, “Do you know Jesus?” He smiled, and answered, “I should think I do! I love Jesus, and He loves me.” He was then asked, “Solomon, are you afraid to die?” He replied, in the Berkshire dialect, “Bean’t afraid.” He was asked if he was happy. He answered, “Very!”

He then repeated two portions of Scripture: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy Name. Bless the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all His benefits. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies: who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Psalm 103; Romans 8)

After his minister had prayed, he followed with clearness; and then said, “Sing to me about Jesus.” These verses were sung:

“How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds

In a believer’s ear!

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,

And drives away his fear.

“Dear Name the Rock on which I build,

My shield and hiding-place;

My never-failing treasury, filled

With boundless stores of grace!”

There was a pause, and he said, “Don’t gie out; it is so beautiful!”

His mind continued thus happy in the Lord until the Wednesday morning, when his ransomed soul, so long lodged in the clay tabernacle, soared to its mansion in the Father’s house. His wife had died only two years previously.

He left behind children and children’s children to the fifth generation. At the time of his death, there were living five children, twenty-seven grandchildren, forty-five great-grandchildren, and four of the fifth generation. He was looked upon as a patriarch in Faringdon and its neighborhood. His consistent, industrious, lowly life had won for him general respect. The children loved him; and received his loving pat on the head when they came near him.

What a grand and noble thing it is to be a Christian! Dear friend, are you born again? Have you the spiritual mind; or do you delight in sin? Do you know and love Jesus? Do you delight in His grace and love His people and His service? Or are you on the way to hell?

And this will be read also by some who are Christians. Does your religion speak well of you? Do you stick to the prayer meeting? Do you help your minister? Do your love the children? And does your holy and consistent life speak well of your religion?

A Message to You

Go, little leaflet, tell to all

Who take you up to read

Of Jesus Christ the sinner’s Friend:

He is a Friend indeed.

Proverbs 18:24.

Tell them that time is short, and life

Will quickly pass away,

And bid them, if they would be saved,

To seek the Lord today.

James 4, Hebrews 3:7, 12, 13.

Oh, Fellow-sinner, heed my verse,

I cannot come to you, Hear,

“Now is the accepted time,”

Believe, God’s word is true.

2 Corinthians 6:2.

Think not alone of those around,

The wicked and depraved,

But ask, Was it for me, Christ died?

Were my sins on him laid?

Isaiah 53

Twas for lost sinners Jesus came,

To seek, and bless, and save;

Am I among that number great?

May I his mercy crave?

Luke 19:10, Luke 18:13.

Or have I come to Christ, through grace,

And learned His power divine

To pardon sin, to live to say

I know that Christ is mine.

Ephesians 2:8. John 4:13, 14.

These questions to yourself applied

Answer with thought sincere;

Nor be content until you see

This weighty matter clear.

2 Corinthians 13:5, first half.

If still unsaved, seek Jesus now,

While yet He may be found;

Call on Him, while He still is near,

To make His grace abound.

Isaiah 55:6, 7

“Seek ye my face,” the Lord hath said,

Ye cannot seek in vain;

Thy face, Lord, will I seek at once,

Let your heart answer plain.

Psalms 27:8.

And they who seek shall never want

For anything that’s good;

For having Christ, they all things have,

If rightly understood.

Psalms 34:10, Ephesians 1:3

As Moses in the wilderness

The brazen serpent raised,

And bid the dying look and live—

And all were healed who gazed;

Numbers 21:8, 9.

So look to Christ, the anti-type,

And thou shalt saved be,

From death, and hell, and every ill,

Now and eternally.

John 3:54. 15. Isaiah 45:22.

Put all your trust in His dear name,

That name of saving power;

Believe His word, and wait His will,

In joy or trouble’s hour.

Acts 4:12.

So shall you find the perfect peace

Of trusting in His love;

And learn that we can here begin

The rest of heaven above.

Isaiah 26:3, 4.

The rest of trusting Christ for all;

The joy of being saved;

These are the gifts I wish for you,

The blessings which I craved.

Isaiah 12:2, 3.

For Jesus soon will come again,

According to His word;

Then they who love Him here shall be

Forever with the Lord.

John 14:3. 1 Thessalonians, 4:15-17.

And so I wrote these little lines

In hope that you might Lead,

And find the Lord as I have done,

A faithful friend indeed.

John 15:13, 14.

And now I pray God’s Spirit may

Teach you these precious truths;

And for the sake of Jesus Christ,

New life in you infuse.

John 3:3, 5-8.

O do not careless cast aside

This message sent to you,

But search, as did the Bereans,

To find these things are true.

Acts 17:10, 11.

Go, little hymn, and should you pass

To one who knoweth well

The preciousness of Jesu’s blood,

Bid such its virtue tell.

1 Peter 1:18-20. Ephesians 1:7. 1 John 1:7.

And pass this little leaflet on,

That some one else may learn

How sweet it is to know the Lord,

And thus to Jesus turn.

Now may God’s blessing follow you

Wherever you may go;

And the precious texts referred to

Make hearts with praise o’erflow.

L. BINCKES.

Search Out the Texts

The Glorious Freeness of the Gospel

By the late WILLIAM GADSBY, of Manchester.

WITH what matchless, graceful, and endearing language He invites sinners to come unto Him and have rest! And how pregnant with grace and mercy are the invitations that fall from His heavenly lips! Hear Him, ye poor, guilty, ruined, and helpless sinners; hear Him, and rejoice: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Mark well, the Lord does not say, Come unto Me, all ye that are pious and holy; nor all ye that are in possession of so many good dispositions, and are in a heavenly frame of mind; nor all ye who have conquered the corruptions of your evil nature. Had this been the case, you might justly have despaired of a hearty reception. But it is rich grace that is poured into, and flows from, His precious lips.

The characters invited are such as labor under, and are heavy laden with, a sense of guilt, wrath, and misery, destitute of anything whatever to recommend them to His favor, unless sin be a recommendation, for which sin they are overwhelmed. Poor, guilty conscience! here is a hearty welcome to your sin-sick soul. Though your sins stare you in the face like mountains, and threaten you with everlasting destruction; though your conscience be as foul as hell, and you feel yourself nothing but a mass of uncleanness, the scum of the earth, and a pest to society, unable to do anything but add sin to sin, experiencing daily that all your vows and promises to forsake sin and become holy prove abortive, and only aggravate your guilt: though this be the case with you, into you is the word of this salvation sent!

It is you, ye poor, forlorn, undone, ruined souls! it is you that the dear Redeemer so freely invites to come unto Him, and have rest. Were anything left for you to do, as a necessary qualification for the reception of Christ, or as a recommendation to Him, you might eternally despair; nor would salvation, under such circumstances, be entirely of grace. But it is grace that is poured into His lips, and He as freely pours it out, and welcomes sinners, without money or price, worth or worthiness, to come unto, rest upon, and trust in Him. And when the Holy Ghost makes this grace manifest in the conscience, the sinner is brought in reality to know that salvation is of grace, and with pleasure to join the apostle in saying, “By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”

A self-righteous principle is one of the greatest bars in the way of our peace. It appears to reason quite absurd to believe in Christ for salvation while we feel ourselves such vile sinners. We think we must be holy, but how to get at this holiness we know not; and to come to Christ, and to venture entirely upon Him, we dare not. And if we hear the blessed Gospel freely preached, and Jesus set forth as a complete Saviour, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him, we are ready to conclude that this may be true for such and such people. but not for us. “If I could but do this or the other good thing, I should have hope. If I were but like such a one, I should not despair. Their case appears as clear as the noonday, but mine is of a very singular nature. I am more vile than anyone. I find things in and about me that I dare not mention to the dearest friend I have—things that others know nothing of. And I am quite unable to see how God can be just in saving such a vile wretch as I.”

Thus unbelief and carnal reason operate upon our self-righteous principle, and all unite to keep us in bondage, and to hide the glory and beauty of Christ from our view. When the sinner is thus entangled, there he is, and there he must be, till free grace from the heart and lips of Christ sweeps away this refuge of lies, and the blessed Spirit reveals Christ to the soul as the only hope; and causes the sinner, as a guilty, lost, and undone wretch, to rest entirely on Christ.

The Sunset Hour

ARRETON, the quiet hamlet in the Isle of Wight, is rendered immortal by the fact that in its churchyard are buried the remains of the “DAIRYMAN’S DAUGHTER,” whose history has been given us by Legh Richmond, and whose cottage still stands on Hale Common. close by. Her gravestone, placed at the head of the grave in September, 1822, is thus inscribed: “Sacred to the memory of Elizabeth Wallbridge, ‘the Dairyman’s Daughter,’ who died May 30th, 1801, aged 31 years. She being dead, yet speaketh.”

Then follow some lines, composed by Legh Richmond:

“Stranger! if e’er by chance or feeling led,

Upon this hallowed turf thy footsteps tread,

Turn from the contemplation of the sod,

And think on her whose spirit rests with God.

Lowly her lot on earth,—but He who bore

Tidings of grace and blessing to the poor,

Gave her His truth and faithfulness to prove,

The choicest treasures of His boundless love:

Faith, that dispelled

Affliction’s darkest gloom;

Hope that could cheer the passage to the tomb;

Peace, that not Hell’s dark legions could destroy;

And love, that filled the soul with heavenly joy.

Death of its sting disarmed, she knew no fear,

But tasted heaven e’en while she lingered here.

Oh, happy saint! may we like thee be blest;

In life be faithful, and in death find rest.”

Our Late Beloved Queen

A NOBLEMAN arrived at Windsor at a late hour one Saturday night. On being introduced, he said, “I have brought down for your Majesty’s inspection some documents of great importance; but, as I shall be obliged to trouble you to examine them in detail, I will not encroach on the time of your Majesty tonight, but will request your attention tomorrow morning.” “Tomorrow morning,” repeated the Queen; “tomorrow is Sunday, my lord.” “True, your Majesty, but business of the state will not admit of delay.” “I am aware of that,” replied the Queen, “and, as your lordship could not have arrived earlier at the palace tonight, I will. if those papers are of such pressing importance, attend to their contents after church tomorrow morning.” So to church went the Queen and the Court, and to church went the noble lord; when, much to his surprise, the discourse was on the duties and obligations of the Christian Sabbath. “How did your lordship like the sermon?” asked the Queen. “Very much, indeed, your Majesty,” replied the nobleman. “Well, then,” retorted Her Majesty, “I will not conceal from you that, last night, I sent the clergyman the text from which he preached. I hope we shall all be improved by the sermon.” The Sunday passed without a single word being said relative to the State papers, and at night, when her Majesty was about to withdraw— “Tomorrow morning, my lord, at any hour you please,” said the Queen, turning to the nobleman— “as early as seven, my lord, if you like, we will look into the papers.” The nobleman said that he could not think of intruding on her Majesty at so early an hour: he thought nine o’clock would be quite soon enough. “No, no, my lord,” said the Queen: “as the papers are of importance, I wish them to have very early attention. However, if you wish it to be nine, be it so.” And at nine the next morning, the Queen was seated ready to receive the nobleman and his papers.

Another fact has been brought to light which tells us what manner of woman our good Queen was. A secretary of the London City Mission visited a small cottage at Windsor, with an old-world garden of sweet-smelling flowers in front, and upon taking a seat upon a Windsor chair, which had been dusted for him, was told, ‘That is the Queen’s chair.’ He was then told that one of the Royal Princesses had stopped her carriage to look at the flowers, and, upon hearing from the daughter that her mother was ill, went in to see her. The next day another Royal carriage drove up, and the Queen herself stepped out. ‘Of course,’ the daughter told the secretary, ‘we were greatly flurried, but the Queen said, “Don’t be put about. I come, not as a Queen, but as a Christian lady. Have you got a Bible?” She was given one, and she sat down on that chair and said, “I heard from my daughter of your long and sad illness, and I came to comfort you.” She took mother’s poor wasted hand in hers and said, “Put your trust in Jesus, and you will soon be in a land where there is no pain. You are a widow, so am I; we shall soon meet our beloved ones.” She then read the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to John (“let not your heart be troubled,” &c.), and knelt down on the floor and prayed for my mother. That wasn’t the only visit, for always since the Queen came to Windsor Castle she came to see mother once or twice a week, and always read the Word of God and always prayed.’

The Silent Sinner-Woman

LUKE VII.

He needed not a word to tell

The measure of her grief,—

Those sorrows that would ever swell,

And vainly seek relief:

For there is not in human woe,

Whatever we may feel,

One anguish that He does not know,

One wound He cannot heal.

He knew the sadness and the smart,

The heavy load of sin,

That pressed the sinner-woman’s heart

As she was entering in:

No words could speak her hopes or fears,

His willing ear to greet;

She therefore brought her sins and tears,

And rained them on His feet.

She dared not look up to His face,

Or lift her guilty head;

But He, in rich abounding grace,

Was soon to speak instead:

Now let the storm of conflict cease

Within this heir of heaven;

“ Thy faith path saved thee; go in peace:

Thy sins are all forgiven.”

No words could tell the bliss that filled

The sinner-woman’s breast,

When His forgiving voice had stilled

Her conflict into rest:

For there are times when human praise

Is so surpassing sweet,

It cannot speak or sing, but lays

Its music at His feet.

Lord, may this happy lot be mine,

As hers in days of old,

To hear that gentle voice of Thine,

And taste Thy love untold:

Enough if here on earth I know

The joy of sin forgiven;

For what I cannot speak below

Shall all be told in heaven.

WLLIAM WILEMAN.

October 13th, 1900

Death!

BY THE LATE BISHOP KYLE.

Reader—There is a text in the Bible which says, “It is appointed unto men once to die.” (Heb. 9:27.) Happy would it be for men if all would think of this, and not put away the subject of death from their minds. One reason why so many are not ready to die when their turn comes, is their unwillingness to think about death while they are well.

Reader, settle it down in your mind that death is the end to which you must come at last, unless the Lord shall first return to judgment. After all our scheming, and contriving, and planning, and studying—after all our inventions and discoveries, and scientific attainments—there remains one enemy we cannot conquer and disarm, and that is death. The chapter in Genesis which records the long lives of Methuselah and the rest which lived before the flood, winds up the simple story of each by two expressive words: “he died.” And now, after 4,800 years, what more can be said of the greatest among ourselves? The histories of Marlborough, and Washington, and Napoleon, and Wellington, arrived at just the same humbling conclusion. The end of each, after all his greatness, is just this: “he died.”

Death is a mighty leveler. He spares none, he waits for none, and stands on no ceremony. He will not tarry till you are ready. He will not be kept out by moats, and doors, and bars, and bolts. The Englishman boasts that his house is his castle, but with all his boasting he cannot exclude death. An Austrian nobleman forbade death and the smallpox to be named in his presence. But named or not named, it matters little: in God’s appointed hour death will come.

One man rolls easily along the road in the best-appointed carriage. Another toils wearily along the path on foot. Yet both are sure to meet at last in the same home.

One man, like Absalom, has fifty servants to wait upon him, and do his bidding. Another has none to lift a finger to do him a service. But both are traveling to a place where they must lie down alone.

One man is the owner of hundreds of thousands. Another has scarce a shilling that he can call his own property. Yet neither one nor the other can carry one farthing with him into the unseen world.

One man is the possessor of half a county. Another has not so much as a garden of herbs. And yet two paces of the vilest earth will be amply sufficient for either of them at the last.

You wonder sometimes at the tone and language of ministers of the Gospel. You marvel that we press upon you to make sure that you are born again, and ready for heaven. You go away and say to one another, “The man means well, but he goes too far.”

But do you not see that the reality of death is continually forbidding us to use other language?

Reader, remember what you have just been reading. Depend upon it no dying man ever yet complained that he had thought too much about death while he was in health.

Somebody Is Praying for Me

YES, anxious pastor, you may be assured of that.

You must not think that you are wholly and totally forgotten. Many forget you, who once remembered you at the throne of grace. They have forgotten their own sins, and wants, and dangers. Yea, they have forgotten their Saviour, and it is not strange, therefore, that they have forgotten you. But all have not forsaken you. A few, if not the many, carry your wants and burdens on the heart of their most tender love to the throne of grace. The whirl of business, or the love of pleasure, may have swept your work, and your wants and sorrows, from the minds of even many of the disciples. But cheer up. That poor widow—that obscure saint, little known to the world, with great burdens and wants of her own, yet there is a place in her heart for you. In her humble dwelling your name is dear. You have fed her and comforted her, in your ministrations, when you knew it not; and her humble gratitude seeks to repay the debt, by asking the richest of Heaven’s blessings upon your person and your work. Precious are those prayers. How many evils they have averted! how many blessings procured!

Quite True Today

HUME, Gibbon, Voltaire, and other blind leaders of the blind, wrote volumes to prove that the Bible is a curse to society. The history of the world, and in particular that of Scotland, is proof positive that exactly the reverse is the fact.

In 1320, when all Europe lay groveling in the dust by kissing the pope’s toe, Scotland alone stood up for her independence. The pope laid some burdens on Scotland too grievous to be borne. The barons, earls, freemen, and the Scottish community sent him a remonstrance, declaring that neither the pope, the devil, nor the king of England, should reign in Scotland.

In 1505 John Knox was born. In 1555 he raised the standard of the Reformation in Scotland. Here, with no other weapon than the Bible, he contended with popes, priests, and cardinals, till he established religious freedom and independence. From that day Scotland became emphatically the land of Bibles. It is the Bible that makes Scotchmen differ from all men under the sun. To be sure, the Bible is found in most houses between Montauk Point and the Rocky Mountains; but it is not read. even among the families of the sons of the Pilgrims and daughters of the Puritans, as it is read in Scotland. Here it is seldom read except in schools, and in some families on the Sabbath. In Scotland, rich and poor, bond and free, at morn and eve, assemble round the family hearth; the verses are sung, the chapter read, and prayers sent up to heaven. Hence the children, like Timothy of old, know the Scriptures from their youth. Hence every man, woman and child read the Bible and write their own name. Hence, comparatively speaking, you don’t find Scotchmen in the almshouse, penitentiary, or State prison. Among the tens of thousands of Catholic peasantry who are landed yearly on our shores, not one in a hundred ever saw a Bible, or learned a letter of their own language. Never, since the days of pope Joan the First, did a popish peasant print a tale or compose a song to cheer the heart of his fellows.

The third chapter of Habakkuk, and the thirty-ninth chapter of the Book of Job, contain more sublime language than you will find in all the orations of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Shakspere put together.

I have seen the rise and fall of all the republics on earth, for the last seventy years. They were all strangled in the birth by an ignorant populace, led on by aspiring politicians. When the Bible shall be driven from our schools, colleges, and family firesides, the American republic will be numbered with them that were.

GRANT THORBURN, Senior, Aged 86 years and 41 days. New Haven, March 28th, 1859.

What Do You Think?

A FRIEND asked me one day the following questions; 17 and I desire to ask the same questions of my readers. I shall, however, add one question which my friend did not ask me.

What do you think of novels and novel-reading? I think that novels, as we generally understand the word, are very frivolous when they are not worse; and their readers are exactly like them. Stupid, silly people write them; and stupid, silly people read them. A taste for reading novels is a very depraved taste; and, as a rule, those persons who read many of them have no brainpower for reading anything better.

What do you think of dancing? Is it not sanctioned by Scripture? Certainly it is; and if you want to dance as Scripture sanctions, you have my hearty approval in dancing as much as you please. The dancing of the Bible was the expression of religious joy and praise; only men never danced with women, and women never danced with men. If you want to dance like this, in the worship of God, commence your dancing with praise and prayer, and then dance till you are tired. But the dancing of the world is quite another matter. Gossip, foolish mirth, idle talk, and pleasing the flesh, are its accompaniments and what will the retrospect of these be on a dying bed?

But what do you think of a game at cards? Cards are for men who have nothing better to do with their time. They are utterly unworthy the attention of immortal beings. Can you afford to throw away your precious time? I cannot.

What do you think of the theater? It is the place of shams. It is a vain show, professing to be unreal. It kills time, truly; and it kills the soul as well. I never heard of anyone getting any real good at the theater; but I have known of many who have got a great deal of real harm there. I should be most sorry for anyone I loved to go even near a theater.

I have now answered these questions. Will you kindly answer just one of mine?

“What do you think of Christ?” Do you know anything of Him? Do you love Him for His love, prize His atonement, and rely by faith in His precious blood? Do you serve Him, follow Him, pray to Him, and try to tell others about Him? It is indeed a very important question: “What do you think of Christ?”

"I Think of Jesus."

By the late JAMES SMITH, of Cheltenham.

A POOR woman, who was generally cheerful, though deeply tried, was asked what she found the best antidote for the troubles of life, and she replied, “I think of Jesus.” There can be no doubt but thinking of Jesus will sanctify the mind, and devote it to God, and will strengthen the heart under heavy crosses and losses. Thinking over our troubles only adds to their weight, and dwelling upon our trials only gives them a sting. The best way is to look away from them; and I know of no object upon which the mind can be fixed with so much profit as Jesus. Let us therefore lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus. Looking to Jesus will lighten our load, disperse the gloom that gathers over the mind, and produce fortitude and patience.

Are you poor? Is your dwelling mean, your fare coarse, and your privations many? Think of Jesus, for He was poorer than you are. He suffered from hunger and thirst, from weariness and cold. He would have been glad of a fig for breakfast in the morning, and a drink of water at noon to slack His thirst, but knew what it was to be denied them. He could say, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.”

Are you tried by your relations? Think of Jesus, for so was He. His brethren did not believe on Him. They said, “Thou art beside Thyself.” They wished Him to court popularity, and show Himself to the world. Jesus found little sympathy in those most nearly related to Him; therefore it is written, “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God.” A new birth was necessary to reconcile them to Jesus, and a new birth may be required to reconcile your relatives to you.

Are you suffering much from sorrow and pain? Think of Jesus, for He was a man of sorrows, and the daily companion of grief. He could well say, “Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow, which is done unto Me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger.” Your sufferings are not worth a thought, when once compared with His. And then His sufferings were for your sins, to extract all the curse out of what you endure, and to turn the curse into a blessing to you. Jesus suffered both in body and soul. The sufferings of Jesus were inflicted by heaven, earth, and hell. He suffered without sympathy, without any human alleviations, and endured the worst alone.

Are you drawing near to death? Think of Jesus. He died for you, that you may never die. To you, as a believer in Jesus, death has lost its sting. The very nature of death is changed. It is no longer a penal evil. It is not a debt of nature, or a debt to Divine justice, but a merciful arrangement of our gracious God, that we should fall asleep in Jesus, and forget all our troubles, trials, and woes. Besides which, “Absent from the body, we are present with the Lord.” To depart and to be with Christ is best of all. Fear not then to die, for Jesus stands by the dying pillow to support and comfort you. He will guide you through the valley, and then receive you to glory. Think of Jesus, then, for it will enable you to bear poverty, to endure trials, to suffer pain, and to die in peace. O may the last thought I have on earth, be a thought of Jesus!

"Take the Gold Who Will!"

By the late BISHOP KYLE.

IT SHALL never forget the effect produced upon my I own mind when I read some years ago of that fearful shipwreck, the loss of the Central America—that great steamer, that was lost on the voyage from Havannah to New York. Do you remember what happened then? That steamer was bringing home from California three or four hundred gold-diggers. They had all “made their pile,” as they said. They had all got their gold, and were coming back, proposing to spend their latter days in ease in their own country. But man proposes and God disposes.

About four-and-twenty hours after the Central America left Havannah, a mighty storm arose. Three or four waves struck the ship. She broke her engines. She sprung a leak, and fell off into the trough of the sea.

And after a while, when they had pumped and baled, and baled and pumped, and no good was done, it appeared perfectly plain that the Central America, with her three or four hundred passengers and all her crew, was like to go down into the deep, deep sea, and carry all on board with her. They launched the only boats they bad. They placed the women on board—all honor be to them for their kind feeling to the weak and defenseless at a time like that! The boats put off from the vessel, but there were left behind two or three hundred people, most of them gold-diggers, when the Central America went down. One who left the ship in one of the boats that took the women, described what he saw with his own eyes in the great cabin of that steamer, when all hope was over, and the great ship was about to go down. Men took out their gold. One man said, holding his leather bag, containing his long-toiled-for accumulation, “Here; take it who will; take it who will. It is no more use to me; the ship is going down. Take it who will.” Others took out their gold-dust, and scattered it broadcast over the cabin. “There,” they said, “take it; take it who will; we are all going down; there is no more chance for us: the gold will do us no good.” Oh, what a comment that is on the truly valueless nature of riches, when a man draws near to God; “Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death.” Think of your folly, my beloved hearers, think of your folly as well as your danger, your folly as well as your guilt, if you will cleave to your sins. Think of your folly, if you will not hear the warning that I give you this night. In my Master’s name, I say to you once more, “Except thou repentest” —thou, even thou who hast come here tonight— “thou shalt likewise perish.”

A Skeptic's Awakening

“MY DEAR SIR—In compliance with your request, I write to say that I have followed your advice as to the reading of the Scriptures, and have been astonished at the effect upon my mind. Many things are dark to me, and some involve considerable difficulties; but the more I read the more I am attracted and delighted. Indeed, I have found myself, at times, in a new world. My mind has opened, in a most unexpected way, to spiritual realities. It is as if some mysterious change had taken place in my modes of thinking. Instead of being shut up, as I have hitherto been, to the narrow domain of the senses, or the region of abstract ideals. I wander at will in a new spiritual world, as real and palpable as it is sublime and glorious. Where have I been all my life? How blind to all spiritual realities I how blind especially to the immediate power and presence of God! I am amazed beyond measure that I ever doubted the existence of God, or the immortality of the soul. I believe them—I feel them now. The difficulty is to believe in the existence of dead matter, and, above all, of sin, under the dominion of God. And yet I can deny neither. Indeed, I have painful evidence in my own soul, of the power and predominance of sin. I am a sinner, in myself undone; and yet I see God, I hear His voice, I feel His power, I recognize His love. He is to me more real now than all other realities. The finite is explained by the Infinite, the effect by the Cause. All things are full of God. Earth is His footstool; heaven is His throne. Man is His offspring. In Him we live, and move, and have our being.

“Thus, you perceive how rapidly I have got beyond your proofs, interesting as they were. It is as if, by stepping-stones or stairs, my spirit has been assisted to climb some lofty elevation, where, to quote your own language, the whole universe could be seen lying in God, as stars lie in the depths of space.

“The Bible, as you have remarked, is indeed penetrated and filled with God. Every leaf is stamped with His glory and might; every word and sentence breathe His grace. It is, take it as a whole, God imbreathed. But the Bible alone, it seems to me, could not have produced this wondrous effect upon my mind. I had read it before, but saw little more than the words; at most, but the bare facts and doctrines, dead and withered, like Ezekiel’s dry bones in the valley of vision, or like this cold, hard world of ours in wintry weather. Now the whole is alive, not simply with human, but with divine life and beauty. The winter has passed; spring and summer have come, with their light, fragrance, and power.

“As I have stated, some things are dark, others are perplexing; but I leave them, as I would leave dark shadows or barren spots in a wide landscape. There are anomalies and mysteries in my own frame; strange aspects and even enigmas in nature; and I must expect such things in the Bible. Besides, I have much to learn from observation, reflection, and books, and, above all, from the Bible itself. But I see a clear track of light; I follow from afar the windings of the river of life. Now and then I come to a tangled forest, or rocky pass, and sometimes I topple headlong into some hidden pit; but yonder I once more see the guiding light—yonder the living stream.

“The great thing I have found, is God, and with God, the soul, spiritual and immortal through Him. The Bible reveals God, and vindicates His ways. It makes man, sinful as he is, the child of God. It recalls him from his wanderings. It invites him to become a partaker of the Divine nature, an heir of endless joy.

“Conversing upon the subject with a Christian friend the other evening, he suddenly turned upon me, and said, ‘Why, you are converted!’ I was startled, almost alarmed. ‘You are mistaken,’ I replied, I am only enlightened a little. I see only in part; but alas! I fear, not converted; for the very thought (I cannot tell why) sent a strange pang through my heart. It recalled me to myself. And though I had tried to pray, and found it delightful, that evening I could not pray. God was all about me as before; nay, nearer than ever; but mind and heart seemed suddenly oppressed, as by some dread impending calamity. The light was yet above me and before me, clear and beautiful as ever. But I was burdened with a sense of personal insignificance and unworthiness. Nay, the thought occurred to me, What if all this be delusion, so far as my own personal well-being is concerned. God is, but what am I to Him? A child—but perhaps a rebellious child, not yet renewed, not yet forgiven.

“This feeling, in more or less degree, has lasted ever since. Occasionally the burden is lifted up, and an unspeakable repose comes to my heart; but soon again the doubt and fear falls upon me with crushing weight. And yet right before me yonder is the goodly land of promise, through which I see the gleam of the river of life. God is all good; and a step or two only would seem to take me to His bosom. But I cannot take it. Write immediately, and tell me what you think of this.

Yours most truly, FRANK—.”

THE learned and courted infidel, the “brilliant Frenchman,” VOLTAIRE (born 1694; died 1778) has left us his view of life in the following words:— “In man there is more wretchedness than in all animals put together. He loves life, and yet he knows that he must die. If he enjoys a transient good, he suffers various evils, and is at last devoured by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative; other animals have it not. The bulk of mankind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches equally criminal and unfortunate, and the globe contains carcasses rather than men. I tremble at the review of this dreadful picture, to find that it contains a complaint against Providence itself, and I wish I had never been born.”

Eternity

By LEGH RICHMOND.

WHAT a word, what a thought, is Eternity! What prospects does it set before us! What inconceivable mysteries are involved in it! How does it make the things of time dwindle into insignificance! But what questions of unspeakable import are involved in it! Sin, a corrupt nature, a broken law, an offended God, eternal punishment: conscience, guilt, regeneration, salvation by Christ, faith, hope, love, free grace, undeserved mercy, justification, calling, adoption into God’s family, pardon of sin, consolation in Christ, heaven, and glory. These, and a thousand other accompaniments, are all connected with the idea and the reality of eternity.

What a sad proof of the, depravity of our heart is our indifference towards thinking, and our backwardness towards speaking, upon the things which belong to our everlasting peace!

Sandy Morrison

JUST at the foot of the Pentland Hills, lay, years ago, an old farm house, of the plainest kind, built of rough stone, and roofed with thatch; but shaded by venerable trees, and cheered by a “bonnie burn, wimp-ling” over its pebbly bed. That was the home of Sandy Morrison, an old-fashioned Presbyterian elder, whom I knew in the days of lang-syne. In exterior, Sandy was rough, tall, and ungainly. The only, thing about him really attractive was his large, clear hazel eye, which lay beneath his shaggy brows, like a deep fountain among the brown hills of his native land.

Sandy belonged to a peculiar class of Scotsmen, some of whom the writer knew in his boyhood. He was perfectly natural in all his ways; honest, industrious. and shrewd; simple as a child, and yet thoughtful as a sage. He walked with God as friend with friend. When he prayed, he seemed to talk with God face to face.

Philosophers would have called him a mystic. He had never heard the word; and had it been applied to him, in his hearing, and its meaning explained, he would have said, “HoOt man,’ ye needna ge round about seeking the nearest to explain a thing se simple. It’s only God in the hert of a puir sinner.” Had you demurred at his explanation, he would have cut the matter short, by asking, “If ye didna believe in the mighty power o’ God?”

The whole secret of the simplicity and power of Sandy’s religion lay in the fact that he truly believed in God, as the life of the soul of man, as well as the life of the universe.

His favorite books were Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Boston’s Fourfold State, Erskine’s Sermons, Halyburton’s Remains, The Book of Martyrs, and Rutherford’s Letters, and above all the Bible. Next to the Bible, Halyburton and Rutherford exerted upon him the greatest influence. The tender and meditative Halyburton, and the ardent “Eagle of Anwoth,” had minds accordant with his own. We rather think he had read with interest “Scougal’s Life of God in the Soul of Man,” and this might account for some of his peculiar expressions.

Sandy had a perfect trust in the Providence of God. “The Lord reigneth,” he would say, “everything is wisely ordered, and will come out right in the end.”

If you said, “Not surely the sins and follies of men!” he would reply as follows:

“Sins and follies are ours, and we suffer for them; but God overrules them for His glory. You see the eddies in the stream yonder; they twist and turn a’ sorts o’ ways, but they go wi’ the current at last. Irt the storm, sticks, stanes, and dirt come tumbling douni frae the hills; but in the valley yonder they lie a’ quiet enough, and in the simmer time will be covered wi’ grass and daisies. In the same way, it seems to me, God works a’ things accordin’ to the counsel o’ His aim will.”

This accounts for Sandy’s peace and joy. “You see,” said he, explaining the matter in his peculiar fashion, “years gave by, I believed just as ithers do, who have a form o’ godliness, but deny the power thereof. I did’na understand, and, abuve all, I did’na love God. I was worryin’ about this, that, and the ither. Things were nae richt. Wife and I were puir, ye ken, and had to work hard; but we did’na mind that se long as we had health and strength. We lived in a bonnie place. The sun shone cheerily on our bit housie, amang the roses and honeysuckles, that my auld mither had planted wi’ her ain hand. And, mair than that, the Lord sent us a bonnie bairn. Hech! the wee thing seemed an angel in disguise, wi’ its yellow hair, dimplin’ cheeks, and blue een. It was the licht and glory o’ our hame.

“But the Lord took her to Himsel. O how we grat when we laid her in the yird! And Mary (that’s my wife’s name) began to fail. She could’na tell what was the matter wi’ her. The doctor said she had a weakness in the chest. But it made our hame unco dowie like. Everything seemed to ge wrang, and I murmured sair against the Lord. The warld looked waefu’, and I would have liked to dee.

“But I began to think. I seemed to come to mysel; yet my mind was unco dark. Then I read the Bible and prayed. Our neebor, auld Mr. Wallace, a gude man, tauld us to look to the Rock o’ Ages, and see if the Lord wad’na open for us the fountain o’ consolation.

“Then I saw, but not very clearly at first, that there was anither warld-anither kingdom like, spiritual and eternal, as holy Mr. Rutherford wud say. This warld is only a husk, or shell. The substance, the spirit, is anither. And a’ is full o’ God. Then I saw wee Mary, whose body we had laid in the grave, wakin’ in that warld n’ licht and peace. I heard her singin’ there wi’ the angels o’ God. I heard the voice o’ Jesus there, saying, Peace, Peace! It cam like the sweetest music to my puir hert!

“Then I understood how blind, unbelievin’, and wicked I had been, and I said to mysel ‘What’s the use o’ murmurin’?’ The Redeemer liveth, and blessed be His name; I will just put mysel and a’ I have under the shadow o’ His wings.

“Says I to my wife, ‘Mary, we maun believe in God. He’s a’ and in a’. He gave us our bonnie bairn, and He’s taen her again; for she was His mair than ours; and noo she’s an angel. She wunna come to us, but we will go to her. And noo ye maun be comforted.’

“And then we kneeled Boon thegither, and prayed to the God o’ our fathers, the God o’ our bairn, and were comforted.

“Then the warld appeared to me in a new licht. It was filled wi’ the holy presence o’ God. I saw that a’ was His, licht and darkness, simmer and winter, sorrow and joy, death and life; and that He was governing a’ things according to the counsel o’ His ain will.”

Literature for Ireland

MY readers will remember that in 1899 I made an appeal for the purpose of sending literature to two friends (Miss S. and Miss B.) for distribution in Ireland. The amount received in response was £8 Is.; and I had the great pleasure of sending a good boxful of Penny Books, Volumes of Old Jonathan and Gospel Echo, and suitable tracts.

Just as this number is going to press I am in receipt of the following letter, which shall speak for itself. I need hardly add that I shall be intensely pleased to send another box to dark Ireland, if friends will kindly help. As the two friends know Ireland, they can work to the best advantage, and nothing is wasted.

—W. W.

“Wimbledon Park, May 12th, 1901.—You will be glad to know that the good box of books you sent us to Galway has proved a very great blessing to the West of Ireland. Where we could not get them into the Roman Catholic houses, we found not only were the Protestants delighted with them, especially Old Jonathan and the bound Volumes of Gospel Echo, but the Roman Catholics would go secretly and hear them read. The kind givers of these books will never know how great a boon they have been and are to those who live where literature of all kinds is most scarce. In one western town of a thousand inhabitants, I could not discover one house where they sold anything in print, not even a paper: hundreds of men standing about, ready for any wickedness, under the influence of the priests, but no food for the mind.

“You will be interested to hear that with much labor and expense, we have built a moveable wooden hall for dark Connemara; our object being for two young men to live in it and hold gospel meetings.... It was a terrible ten weeks. We were cursed, boycotted, and persecuted; our lives threatened and always in danger. Still, we held on through all; and now, blessed be God, the priests have largely lost their power. Open-air meetings are being held, and the whole of that densely dark and wicked town is being permeated with the glorious Gospel.

“Pardon me for burdening you with these matters. I think as you have shown such truly practical interest in the Lord’s work in our hands you will much like to know something about it.

“With kind Christian regards, Yours in Christ’s service, E.S.S.”

Any amount, large or small, will be gladly received for this purpose, and faithfully applied.

“Somebody is praying for me.” Yes, the Hearer of the poor widow’s prayer is himself doing it. Have you not seen that splendid gem in the casket of divine truth, “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” He forget his anxious ministers! He cease intercession for them! And such intercession! No. He is at all times a sweet savor unto God, in behalf of all his servants. Cheer up; you are not forgotten. Nor let your despondency lead you to forget, that there are those on earth, and One all-prevalent in heaven, who remember you. Wherefore, comfort thyself in this matter, and give thyself anew to thy work.

Ah!

“Neighbor,” said I to one of my friends who lives near me, “you have sadly splashed your stockings. In the state in which the roads now are, a little care is required in crossing them; which care, it is very plain, you have not exercised. If you were a little more careful, your appearance would not be a whit the less respectable.”

My neighbor civilly thanked me for my very excellent advice, and then added that, as I had so narrowly scrutinized his stockings, it would do me no harm to take a glance at my own. This I immediately did, and found to my confusion, that if he had been in the mud, I had as surely been in the mire. How it happened I cannot tell, but certain it is that I was by no means in a fit state to call him to account in the manner I had done. However, this advantage attended this affair, that I resolved another time to give a sharp look out for my own imperfections before I ventured to rebuke those of another.

If it were only half as easy to amend ourselves as to reprove others, and if by giving advice we could secure the benefit we are so intent to confer on our neighbors, how often would Old Humphrey be spared the mortifying reflection that he was scattering abroad what was wanted at home! Only two days ago, while in the very act of recommending more care in a servant who had upset a salt-cellar, he knocked a drinking-glass from the table with his elbow and broke it in pieces.

—Old Humphrey.

The Latin Bible

“I SHALL never, never forget it,” said Elizabeth. “I shall think of it all day, and dream of it by night; how could they be so cruel?”

“Nay, my dear young lady,” said the old nurse, stroking the beautiful long silken hair of Elizabeth, as she arranged it for the night. “It is not for little ladies such as you to call that cruel which the law commands. The law did it, child; and the law must not be questioned.”

Elizabeth was a bright-eyed, pretty child; and her cheek flushed, and made her look still more pretty, as her old nurse said these words. You could scarcely imagine a greater contrast than the two figures presented. The nurse, fully seventy, with a wrinkled face; the child, not twelve years old, with golden hair and flashing eyes, and her neat figure gracefully dressed. There was as great a difference between the two as there is between the first buddings of the spring and the withered autumn leaves. And if you could have looked into their hearts, you would have found the contrast quite as great as in their outward forms. The old woman was a Roman Catholic, and as cruel as her creed; the girl, though trained in the way of Romanism, hated all its cruelties with all the hatred of which her young heart was capable. That day several Protestants had been burnt alive in the market. It had been a busy day in that old German city. Everybody talked about the execution, and how the victims had praised God in the fire; and from one and from another Elizabeth had heard all about it, and now poured out her complaint to the old servant who waited on her.

“It must be wrong, Maud, I am sure it must be wrong; the good Jesus, who shed His blood for us, would never want the blood of his creatures shed so wantonly. Why, when I went to church last Good Friday, the priest told us that when Jesus was dying on the cross, he prayed for his enemies, so you see—”

“Little ladies,” interrupted Maud, “must not talk about such things as these; all they have to do is to learn catechism, and say their Ayes, their Paternoster, and their Credos; and when they are old enough, be confirmed, and go to confession, and always do just exactly as their priest tells them.”

“But suppose the priest should make a mistake?” asked Lizzy.

“Priests cannot make a mistake, child; they are always right.”

“How are they always sure to be right?”

“They get their knowledge from the pope.”

“And suppose the pope makes a mistake?”

“The pope made a mistake, child! Little rebel, how dare you say that word? We shall have some great dragon flying away with you one of these nights, and then we shall see who’s made a mistake.”

“But, Maud,” said the child in a softer voice, for her nurse’s wrath alarmed her, “is there not a book called the Bible?”

“The Bible, child, aye, that there is; and a bad book it is.”

“A bad book! is it not God’s book?”

“Never mind that,” said Maud; “it is the book that the heretics read, and no good people ever look into it—but enough of this; light your taper, and sing your evening hymn— ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God.’”

The exercise was gone through rapidly enough; then the child was put to bed, the lamp taken away, and in darkness the little one thought over the dreadful scenes in the market; the flames seemed burning before her, she seemed to hear the yells of the crowd and the prayers of the victims; her pillow was wetted with tears, and trembling and afraid, she fell asleep.

~~~

When Elizabeth grew older, she was sent by her parents to a convent near Sear, in East Friesland—now a province of the kingdom of Hanover—there to learn various arts, and likewise the Latin language. She was not a favorite with the sisters—her manners, they said, were so reserved: some of them hinted that she was proud of her good looks; others, that she thought herself somebody great, because she belonged to a noble family; and others darkly suggested that she might be touched with the prevailing heresy. However this might be, Elizabeth was always kind and gentle, and never neglected any duty that devolved upon her. She went regularly with the sisters to the chapel at service time; in the morning, the evening, and at midnight, you might have seen her beautiful form gliding along with the rest toward the altar; with them she stood, and sat, and kneeled, and crossed herself, and took holy water, and chanted the Romish hymns; her sweet voice might be heard distinctly above all the rest; and many came to that chapel again and again, because of that nightingale voice. When the nuns worked, she worked with them; when they taught, she was a docile pupil; but her great delight was to steal away into the old library, and turn over the pages of many an antique book—books nearly all of them of saintly story, religious questions, or devotional exercises.

As she was one day thus employed, as the twilight shadows thickened round her, she perceived in a dusty corner a book that she had never noticed before. She took it, opened it, found it to be in Latin, and read. What a strange, marvelous story I things that she had heard of, never clearly, but as the foundation of the faith, were now opened out before her. Here was the story of the old world, here the life of the “Man of Sorrows,” four times told! here the record of the first missionary effort; here the letters written by saints and martyrs long ago; and here the glorious vision that the beloved one saw on Sabbath eve at Patmos. It was a Latin Bible. She read it very carefully, till the twilight deepened into night, and hastily placed it under her robe as she heard a step approaching.

“Why, still at work, Elizabeth,” said sister Ursula, “you are a very model to us all.”

The vesper-bell rang out its note of summons, and the nuns sang, and the monks prayed, and the host was lifted amid a shower of incense, and so the service ended.

Next day, Elizabeth begged of the lady abbess that she might be allowed to read the book she had found. The permission was given, and she was told that if she pleased, she might have the book, but to read it with great caution, for fear of heresy.

So Elizabeth read the Bible; prayed to the great God for light upon its sacred page; saw in it a clearer way of salvation than that which the church prescribed; saw that Jesus Christ had died for the ungodly, and that without masses, without works, without the intercession of the saints, without the authority of Rome, without fastings and vigils, heaven might be gained; and so she approached her Saviour in the words we sometimes sing

“Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked, flee to Thee for dress;

Helpless, come to Thee for grace;

Black, to the fountain fly,

Help me, Saviour, or I die!”

But now she felt the full difficulty of her position. She was a mere child— “a tender damsel,” an old chronicler calls her—and she knew not what to do. She could no longer join the service of the chapel, she could no longer enter the confessional, and pour out her heart before any human being—what was she to do? She resolved to escape.

Though the nuns had never at any period been very partial to Elizabeth, she was a favorite with one or two of the servants, and those who came to the convent with provisions. Among these was a milk-girl, in whom she thought that she could trust. She told her all the truth. The girl resolved to help her. They exchanged clothes, and in the gray morning the Lady Elizabeth escaped in the garb of the milk-woman, her preserver afterward accomplishing her own flight from the house.

“Elizabeth confided,” says her historian, “in the fatherly providence of God Almighty.”

A weary, weary way she traveled—homeless, friendless, knowing not which way to turn. She avoided the public roads, for fear of being followed, and turned and doubled like a poor hunted hare. She had been away from the convent some four or five days, and it was a cold, drizzly evening, in the fall of the year. Her strength was completely exhausted, and she sank down by the hedge-side—to die! In this condition she was found by two good-natured people, who carried her to their own home, and tended her as carefully as the good Samaritan in the parable. It was a long time before she recovered from the severe illness which came upon her; but when she did, to her great joy, she discovered that her preservers were Protestants.

If I was writing fiction, instead of truth, I think I should leave off here, and say, like some of the old story-books, “that they lived happy and comfortable ever after;” but it cannot be.

“On the 15th of January,” says the historian, “reckoning the beginning of the year from New Year’s day, Elizabeth was apprehended. When they who were to take her came into the house where she lived. they found a Latin Bible.” So the “tender maiden” was carried to the council-house, and on the next day two Capuchin friars took her to the block-house, and placed her before the council.

The examination need not be detailed here. They questioned her as to her opinions, and she boldly maintained the Protestant faith. They accused her of being possessed with a devil, and she replied in the spirit of her Master. They led her away to the torture tower, and Hans. the sworn tormentor, applied the thumb-screws, so that the blood gushed out from under her nails; but she cried to the Lord, “Help, 0 my God, thy poor handmaiden; for thou art a helper in the time of need.” Then they applied screws to her ankles, and she fainted, and they said, “She is dead” but after a little, she recovered again, and they loosened the iron screws, and spoke to her with entreaties.

It was in vain—God was her helper in the time of need, and gave her strength to bear her testimony to the gospel of his Son.

“After this,” goes on the record, “the sentence was pronounced upon Elizabeth, in the year 1549, on the 27th of March, and she was condemned to death by being drowned in a sack, and thus she offered up her body a sacrifice to God!”

Drinking and Thinking

I the pretty little village of Milford, near Stafford, these words are affixed to one of the cottages:

“A public-house, without strong drink,

Where men may talk, and read, and think.”

The following lines were suggested after perusal of the above:

Can it be true? Too oft, alas!

Men love the sparkling, brimming glass;

Then if o’ercome by maddening drink,

How can they pause to read and think?

Would that each public-house were lit

With words so full of wisdom’s wit;

That many in this favored land

‘Gainst alcohol would make a stand!

“A public-house;” ah! pleasing thought!

Where only harmless drink is bought,

And nothing sold to disagree,

But only wholesome food and tea.

And might we not a sermon preach

From words that such a lesson teach?

Bear with me while I now essay

A few reflections by the way.

There is a drink both good and strong;

To needy souls it cloth belong;

For heavy hearts there is a wine; (Pro. 31:6.)

Both strength and goodness here combine.

There is a drink the Lord of heaven

To all His trembling saints has given;

Who tastes this drink shall thirst no more,

He will their fainting souls restore.(Psa. 55:1)

Though scattered here, and very few,

Christ’s “little flock” are staunch and true;

They love to find a meeting-place,

There to enjoy the means of grace.

And every saint will hold sweet talk,

As heavenwards they as pilgrims walk;

Their conversation is above (Phil. 3:20.)

Where reigns the Lord they’ve learned to love.

And every saint has learned to read,

And on God’s promises to feed;

They hold the Word of life their guide,

And by its precepts they abide.

And as of life’s sweet streams they drink,

Of dying ones they’ve learned to think;

And longing that they too may taste,

They offer help with loving haste.

Come, thirsty ones, He waits to give;

Come, heavy laden, drink and live;

Come, perishing, for whom He bled,

He is the Water, He the Bread.

(John 4:14; 6:48.)

No earthly food can satisfy;

We eat and drink, and then we die;

In Christ alone is found true joy,

And pleasures too without alloy.

A. M. H.

"Lead Us Not Into Temptation."

IN the spring of 184—, we chanced to be spending a few days in a beautiful inland country town in Pennsylvania. It was court-week, and to relieve us from the somewhat monotonous incidents of village life, we stepped into the room where the court had convened.

Among the prisoners in the box we saw a lad but ten years of age, whose sad countenance, and youthful appearance, made him look much out of place among the hardened criminals by whom he was surrounded. Close by the box, and manifesting a great interest in the proceedings, sat a tearful woman, whose anxious glance from the judge to the boy, left us no room to doubt that it was his mother. We turned to inquire of the offense of the prisoner, and learned that he was accused of stealing money.

The case was soon commenced, and by the interest manifested by that large crowd, we found that our heart was not the only one in which sympathy for the lad existed. The bright smile had vanished from his face, and now it more expressed the cares of the aged. His young sister—a bright-eyed girl—had gained admission to his side; but that sweet voice, which before caused his heart to bound with happiness, added only to the grief his shame had brought upon him.

The progress of the case acquainted us with the circumstances of the loss, the extent of which was but a penny—no more!

The lad’s employer, a wealthy, miserly, and unprincipled manufacturer, had made use of it, for the purpose of what he called “testing the boy’s honesty.” It was placed where, from its very position, the lad would oftenest see it, and least suspect the trap. A day passed, and the master found the coin untouched. Another day passed, and yet he let it remain.

This continued temptation was too much for the lad’s resistance. The penny was taken. A present for his sister was purchased with it. But while returning home he was arrested for theft! These circumstances were sustained by several of his employer’s workmen, who were also parties to the plot. An attorney urged upon the jury the necessity of making the “little rogue” an example to others, by punishment. His address had great effect upon all who heard it. We felt that there was but little hope for the boy; and the youthful appearance of the attorney who had volunteered his defense gave no encouragement, as we learned that it was the young man’s first address. He appeared greatly confused, and reached to a desk near him, from which he took the Bible that had been used to solemnize the testimony. This movement was received with general laughter, among which we heard a harsh fellow close by us cry out— “He forgets where he is. Thinking to take hold of some ponderous law-book, he has made a mistake and got the Bible.” The remark made the young attorney flush with indignation; and turning his flashing eye upon the audience, he assured them it was no mistake, saying, “Justice needs no other book.” His confusion was gone, and instantly he was as calm as the judge on the bench.

The Bible was opened, and every eye was upon him, as he quietly and leisurely turned over the leaves. Amidst a breathless silence, he read to the jury this sentence:

“LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.”

We felt our heart throb at the sound of these words. The audience looked at each other without speaking—and the jurymen mutually exchanged glances, as the appropriate quotation carried its moral to their hearts. Then followed an address, the influence of which was irresistible. We saw the guilty accuser leave the room in fear of personal violence.

The little time that was necessary to transpire before the verdict of the jury could be learned was a period of great anxiety and suspense. But when their whispered consultation ceased, and those words, “Not guilty,” came from the foreman, they passed like a thrill of electricity from lip to lip—the austere dignity of the court was forgotten, and not a voice was there that did not join in the acclamation that hailed the lad’s release.

Coming to Christ

ONCE more, coming sinner, think of the Saviour who inviteth thee, full of grace as well as of truth. He complaineth if thou come not; He is displeased if thou call not upon Him; He can bear with thy weakness He can pity thy ignorance; He can be touched with the feeling of thy infirmities; He can affectionately forgive thy transgressions; He can heal thy backslidings, and love thee freely. His compassions fail not; He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax; He can pity where no eye pities, and be afflicted in all thy afflictions; He will bow His ear to thy stammering prayer; He will accept the weakest offerings if there be in it but thy heart; He hath strewed all thy way, from the gate of hell where thou wast to the gate of heaven whither thou art going, with promises. Behold how the promises, invitations, calls, and encouragements are mixed with the names of mercy, goodness, love, pity, and pardon! In this book they are fairly written, that thou, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. Coming sinner, blessed art thou, for “flesh and blood have not revealed this unto thee, but thy Father who is in heaven!”

—Bunyan.

A Faithful Letter

“MY DEAR FRIEND,” My love to your person, my concern for your welfare, and my relation to you as your pastor, urge me to address to you the subsequent lines.

“It is with great surprise and inexpressible grief, that I hear of your persevering in a conversation so inconsistent with your former religious sentiments and feelings, so dishonorable to your Christian profession, so opposite to the doctrine, to the spirit, and to the example of the blessed Redeemer, and so awfully injurious to your own soul. Ten years ago, the nth of May next, you made a public and a solemn profession of your faith and repentance, and you adorned your profession for several years. O that it was with you as in months past! when your conduct was ornamental, when you attended and enjoyed meetings of prayer and conference, when you communed with us at the table of the Lord, and when you were much esteemed and beloved by your Christian brethren. I particularly loved you, and hoped that you would have continued an ornament to your holy profession. You did run well, but ah! what hath hindered you? While so many apostatize from God, will you also, my friend, go away? Will you also crucify the Lord of glory the second time? Will you also add to my grief and discouragement? Will you also draw back to perdition? God forbid. Where, oh, where will your present conduct end? Is it better with you now, with respect to your reputation, peace of mind, and hope of eternal glory, than when you were in fellowship with us, and walked circumspectly with God? As your eternal interest lies near my heart, I most earnestly and affectionately entreat of you, seriously and repeatedly to examine the following passages of Scripture:—Heb. 10:24, and to the end of the chapter; 2 Pet. 2:20-22; Matt. 26:24; Jer. 3:12-14.

“O my friend, you and I have to do with an infinitely holy God, who will not be mocked, and cannot be deceived. Go to the throne of grace; go to the cross of Christ; neither presume nor despair. O do not oblige us to exclude you from us! O do not exclude yourself from heaven and do not torture my mind with the fear of being a witness against you in the day of judgment. Pray come and see me, that I may have some free conversation with you. Expect nothing from me but love and tenderness, faithfulness and sincerity; and believe me to be,

“Your friend and pastor,

“GEORGE FRANCIS.”

[The writer of the above letter was a minister for many years in Southwark. It is pleasing to be able to record that so faithful a reproof issued in the reclaiming of the wanderer.]

Reminiscences of John Newton

By the late WILLIAM JAY.

DURING my first visit to London to supply Mr. Hill’s chapel, one Friday morning, after hearing me, he came into the vestry. I did not then know his person, but he introduced himself, and, to my surprise, intimated a wish to retire into the house with me. I led him into the study, and I have never forgotten the condescension and kindness with which he addressed me. Taking me by the hand, he said, “Some of us are going off the stage, but we rejoice to see others rising up and coming forward. But, my young friend, you are in a very trying situation, and I am concerned for your safety and welfare. I have been so many years in the ministry, and so many years a minister in London; and if you will allow me to mention some of the snares and dangers to which you are exposed, I shall be happy to do it.” How could I help feeling not only willing to receive, but grateful for such a seasonable warning? And how useful may the aged servants of God be to the younger, if they would privately and freely communicate of their experiences and observations! Some of the things he mentioned seemed, for the moment, rather strange and needless; but I confided in his wisdom, and time has fully shown me that they were all words in season.

Contrasts strike us; and it is curious and useful to observe the different qualities and manners of good men themselves. A week after this interview, one of his very attached followers, a Mr. B—, wished to introduce me to Mr. Romaine. I can truly say I shrunk back from modest timidity; but he urged me and prevailed, and one Tuesday morning, after the service at Blackfriars Church, he took me into the vestry, and, with a few words, mentioned my name. But Mr. Romaine noticed me in no other way than, as, immediately leaving the room, he said, very audibly, “There was a Sir Harry Trelawney.” I inferred that some faithful caution was intended, but a mere youth from the country, and little acquainted with the religious world, I had never heard of the person by whose errors or fall I was to be warned until I inquired. I have no doubt of the aim of both these admonishers, and I ought to have been thankful to the latter as well as to the former; but severity does not actuate like affection, and “he that winneth souls is wise.”

He also more than once mentioned, that he knew a good man and woman, who read the Scriptures morning and evening in their daily worship, to whom a gentleman gave a folio commentary to aid them. But after they had tried it for some time, the husband said to the wife, “I think we did better before we had this great book. When we read the Bible itself only, it was like a glass of pure wine; but now it is like a glass of wine in a pail of water.”

I recollect a little sailor-boy calling upon him with his father. Mr. Newton soon noticed him, and, taking him between his knees, he told him he had been much at sea himself, and then sang part of a naval song. Was this beneath him? Would not the lad always favorably remember him?

Another morning a forward young man said, “Pray, Mr. Newton, what do you think of the entrance of sin into our world?” “Sir,” said he, “I never think of it. I know there is such a thing as moral evil, and I know there is a remedy for it; and there my knowledge begins, and there it ends.”

I saw Mr. Newton near the closing scene. He was hardly able to talk; and all I find I had noted down upon my leaving him is this: “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour.” And, “Did you not, when I saw you at your house in Bath, desire me to pray for you? Well, then, now you must pray for me.”

Paul Quoting a Heathen Poet

IN Paul’s address to the Athenians (Acts 17) he quotes a heathen poet, confirming a sentiment he had uttered:— “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.” He is supposed to have referred to Aratus the Cicilian, and Cleanthes the stoic of Assos. Mr. Lewin has furnished the following translations:

From Aratus.

From Jove begin we—who can touch the string,

And not harp praise to heaven’s eternal king?

He animates the mart and crowded way,

The restless ocean, and the sheltered bay.

Doth care perplex? Is lowering danger nigh?

We are His offspring, and to Jove we fly.

From Cleanthes.

Great Jove! most glorious of the immortal band!

Worshipped by many names alone in might!

Author of all! Whose word is nature’s law!

Hail! unto Thee may mortals lift their voice,

For we Thine offspring are.

All things that creep

Are but the echo of the voice divine.

The Pequot of a Hundred Years

AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE.

“I AM an aged hemlock. The winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches. I am dead at the top,” said a venerable Mohawk chieftain. The ancient Pequot woman, whose brief history is here given, expressed herself in language equally figurative: “I am a withered shrub; I have stood a hundred years; all my leaves are fallen; but water from the river of God still keeps my root alive.” Here was a bright allusion wanting in the speech of the Mohawk, which implied confidence in God. This individual, long known in her neighborhood as the Good Old Ruth, died a few years ago, aged 100 years.

The Pequots, her native tribe, were distinguished for cruelty and hatred of the Christian religion; and she herself, in early life, possessed the same characteristics. In her youth, she resided a while among the Narragansetts, and married one of that tribe, named Pomham, with whom she removed to the Mohegan settlements in the vicinity of New London, Connecticut. They lived together about a dozen years, in a low, irregular manner. Pomham at length died; the sons went to sea, the daughters to service; and at fifty years of age Ruth was left a lonely widow, ignorant of Christ, and with no cheering hope either for this world or the next.

About this period she became a constant attendant upon an aged lady, who was very infirm, but intelligent. This lady often conversed with her on the subject of religion, and two young children connected with the family took great pains to teach her to read and understand the New Testament. Its truths, now for the first time brought home to her understanding, made a deep impression on her soul. She soon began to confess her sins to God, and to cry to Him for mercy. The knowledge that she imbibed from the lips of these children seemed to her, as she afterward said, “sweeter than meat or sleep.” Her situation was one of great confinement, but whenever permission was given her to go out for refreshment or exercise, instead of availing herself of it, she would spend the time with these children, sitting down on a low stool by their side, while they instructed her from the Bible, or other good books—preferring this privilege to the enjoyment of the fresh air, or rambling in the green fields. Thus was she gently led, like a little child, by the instrumentality of little children, to the feet of Christ.

During the last thirty years of her life, she resided with her youngest daughter in a comfortable tenement, where the charitable and the pious often went to see her, and took care that in her old age she should not be without some of the comforts of life. Those who knew her origin and her early history, were surprised at the depth of her Christian experience, and even strangers were often affected to tears to find such a heavenly relish of divine things in one so poor, so ignorant, and so aged.

Her senses were very little impaired at ninety years of age, but she had never been able to read fluently, and a visit from a Christian, or even from a child, who would read to her in one of her two precious books, her Bible and Psalm-book, was a blessing for which she used most devoutly to thank God. For every little article of comfort also that was presented to her, she would first give thanks to God, and then express her gratitude to her earthly benefactor. The smallest of these gifts would instantly carry her mind away to its Author, and lead her to dwell upon his goodness, sometimes with calm delight, and sometimes with deep emotion. “God is good,” she would say, “O how good! The air that comes in at my window, the singing of birds, and all the sounds I hear, tell me that He is good. This fruit that I hold in my hand speaks of His goodness; I see it everywhere; I learn more of it every day. Yes, He is good, and He is my Heavenly Father—that is my exceeding joy.”

She often spoke of the sweet views she had of God, and Christ, and heaven, during the silence of the night—always preferring to sleep alone, that her communion with God might be undisturbed. “It is sweet,” said she, “to be alone in the night season with my Saviour.”

A visitor once wished to ascertain whether her love to the Saviour was truly spiritual, or merely like what we feel for a dear earthly friend. “Ruth,” said she, “do you love the Saviour more” —she could proceed no further before the aged woman raised her shriveled hand from the bed, and exclaimed with great animation, “Better than all the world besides—better than friend or kindred; He is all my hope and all my joy.”

She manifested such confidence in God, and such a happy assurance of Heaven. that faith seemed at times lost in vision. Life had no distressing doubts or cares, neither had death any terrors. “I am in the hands of my Father,” she would say; “God will take care of me—all the days of my appointed time I will wait. But I am not afraid of death. Jesus has been through the valley, and He will go with me. I will lean upon His rod and His staff.”

All who came near her shared in her prayers and exhortations; and after she had lost her eyesight, even the sound of footsteps passing by would make her heart beat quick with desire for the salvation of the wayfaring man and the stranger. To some teachers who had been instrumental in establishing a Sabbath school in the neighborhood, she said, “I thank my God for what you have done. May He bless you for it! I cannot see it, but I can hear the little feet as they patter along on the Sabbath morning, and I rejoice that they are going where they will be taught to love the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Once, on a cold day in winter, the almoners of a charitable society carried her a donation very opportunely. As they opened their stores, her daughter remarked, “Mother will surely think this comes in answer to prayer for when I told her this morning that we had nothing left, she bade me trust in God and take courage, saying, ‘I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seek the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.’” Her mother from her bed overheard this last sentence, and interrupting her, exclaimed, “Oh! He has always fed me, and He always will; none ever trusted in Him and were forsaken.” At another time they arrived on their charitable errand just as Ruth was about to take her dinner. As she was blind, they entered unobserved. Her food consisted of a kind of soup made by boiling bones in corn-water, and it stood before her in a tin basin. After tasting it, she folded her hands and asked, to borrow the language of one of the visitors, “a most heavenly blessing.” Her words were slow, but she expressed herself with great propriety and fervency. The idea she conveyed was, that as God had fed the Israelites with manna from heaven, so she in her poverty had been sustained by the same kind hand; and she prayed that she might always have a thankful heart, and as good and as sweet food as that which was now before her.

In a message to an absent minister, whose prayers and conversation had yielded her great delight and comfort, she said, “Tell that dear man what happiness I have. Last night I had such views of heaven, that I thought I heard the music of the angelic host, and saw the Saviour face to face. I could not believe but I was there, till I called to my child and she answered me. Oh! it was a foretaste of heavenly bliss! Tell him that this is my continual frame of mind.”

Her death was sudden. The last distinct words she uttered were, “Come, my Saviour, come!” A short time previous, she breathed the prayer which may be found upon her grave-stone in New London: “Thou hast been my hope, O Lord God; I have trusted in Thee; now take me to Thyself.”

A Reminiscence of the Late Isaac Broad

ANY who were privileged to know Mr. Isaac Broad, of Mortimer, will not need to be informed that he was a good man, a man of prayer, a plain, honest, fearless, yet tender, man of God. He was able to converse very profitably upon most subjects; and his love of music would find expression in the singing of the old-fashioned tunes set to well-known hymns.

On one occasion, a miller in the neighborhood was in a temporary difficulty in his business, as he was called upon to pay a heavy debt, and could not just then meet it. He met Mr. Broad in the village, who kindly asked him about his trouble. The miller told him that he wanted no less than two hundred pounds, and that if he could not find that amount at once, he was a ruined man. He believed himself quite solvent, and said that he could repay an advance of the amount in a reasonable time.

Mr. Broad replied that he was not in a position to lend that amount, as he himself was far from rich. But he told the miller that if he were in a similar difficulty, he should go at once to the throne of grace, and tell his heavenly Father all about it. He had no evidence that the miller was a man of prayer; but told him that God heard prayer by His creatures for temporal mercies needed by them, and recommended him to pray about his trouble.

Good Mr. Broad then went to a lady of means who lived near, and told her about his conversation with the miller. “I am not able,” said he, “to advance the amount he needs; but I believe it is one of those cases in which it is only temporary help that is needed, and that when the present difficulty has been met, he will be right again.” The lady replied that she had no knowledge of the miller’s position, and therefore it would not be prudent for her to advance the amount without good security. After further conversation and inquiry, Mr. Broad gave his own promissory note for the whole amount; and the lady handed it over to him on this security alone.

Mr. Broad then took the amount to the astonished miller, and once more told him what a mercy it was to have a Friend in heaven, who knew all His children’s needs, and delighted to answer their prayers.

The sequel was that the difficulty was met in due course, and the two hundred pounds were promptly repaid to the lady, with the interest.

There was, however, another sequel. Mr. Broad had been for very many years the collector of the local rates and taxes, and this position yielded part of his income. He filled the position with honor and satisfaction. But, soon after the occurrence already narrated, it came to pass that another person desired the position, and laid his plans to secure it. At this time, a local landowner who very highly respected our friend, was absent in Italy; and advantage was taken of his absence to secure the post of collector for Mr. Broad’s rival.

There were many who thought this a very unfair proceeding; and a petition was prepared, requesting that the position might be retained by one who had so honorably held it for so many years. Mr. Broad himself made it a matter of prayer, knowing that nothing could take place without his Father’s permission, and calmly awaited the result.

When, however, the day of decision came, it was found that the rival had obtained his coveted position, and that Mr. Broad was thrown out.

Some few days after this, he met the miller, and said to him: “Well, friend, you remind me of Joseph and the butler. When the butler was released from prison, he promised to remember Joseph; but in the enjoyment of liberty, he forgot him. I was very glad to be able to help you in the time of your great trouble; but when I needed your help, you were not the man to come forward and sign the petition in my favor. I can only hope that the Lord will not reward you as you have rewarded me.”

The miller replied that he only abstained from signing the petition because he believed it would have been useless, and that he knew pretty well how the matter would fall.

On the return of Captain from Italy, he was both surprised and grieved at what had taken place during his absence, and was not backward to give expression to what he felt.

However, the Lord who has written the promises in His Word for the comfort of His tried and praying people, soon after appeared to the joy of His servant, by securing to him for life something better than the position he had lost.

It is good indeed to have a Friend in heaven. He knows all we need, all we desire, all we fear, and all we suffer. Men may be permitted to injure a child of God. but it is always to their own injury; and He who wrote the thirty-seventh Psalm will see that none of them who trust in Him shall finally be put to shame.

The Martyr

BY MRS. H. C. CONANT

IT was a small dark chamber in the Tower of London. Its very aspect was enough to freeze the blood. The cold gray walls of stone closed upon the inmate like a sepulcher. The heavy oaken door, with its massive bars and bolts, seemed the seal of bondage rather than the portal of hope. A high, narrow window towards the west admitted through most of the day an uncertain, cheerless light, which served only to reveal the desolate appearance of the interior. At this moment, however, an unusually brilliant sunset shot a rich amber gleam athwart the gloom, which fell like a glory around the head of the prisoner. It was a woman. She lay extended on a coarse bed, in an attitude of utter exhaustion and helplessness. Her face was of a deathly pallor, and the cold sweat stood in great beads upon her high, open brow, and drenched the hair which lay in wild matted masses around her neck and shoulders. Yet the pale countenance wore a, triumphant smile. A conqueror’s soul beamed forth in that radiant, upward glance. In that slender, broken form, beat a heart which had proved itself stronger than the love of life or the fear of death. It is Anne Askew just from the torture of the rack.

This beautiful, cultivated, and pious lady was one of the victims of the cruel persecution under Henry VIII. Belonging to an ancient and noble family, her early years were passed in the bosom of a happy and luxurious home. As was the fashion with the distinguished ladies of that time, her mind was trained by a severer discipline and a richer culture than is common in our day. Early in life she exchanged the parental abode for that of her husband. We know nothing of the first period of this union, nor of its duration; but we know that when her earnest, inquiring mind had seized the doctrines of the Reformation, and her warm heart had found satisfaction for all its restless cravings in the living gospel, her husband turned against her, and brutally drove her from his house.

Resuming her maiden name, she thenceforward devoted herself to the extension of that knowledge, for which, like the apostle, she had “counted all things as loss.” Many great ladies of the court secretly embraced her sentiments, and it was rumored that. the Queen herself had received heretical books from her. Catherine was well known to be favorable to the Reformation; but the admirable prudence of her conduct had, thus far, offered no handle to her enemies—eagle-eyed, and malignant, and powerful as they were. But an overt act of disobedience to the royal decree promised what they wished. This would have been an offense beyond pardon in the eyes of the passionate and despotic Henry. To convict Anne was the first step towards the downfall of, the Queen. She was seized and sent to prison.

But Anne Askew proved more than a match for the enemies. To the world’s eye her case was a fearfully forlorn one. A poor, weak, helpless woman, she stood alone against a host. But her feet were planted on the eternal rock of faith. Her faith was no mere creed, a speculative belief in abstract dogmas. It was a life in her soul: and, at this hour of need, proved itself the well-spring of a wisdom which her adversaries could not gainsay, of a strength which they could not subdue, of a joy which smiled with undisturbed serenity on the terrors of the prison, the torture, and the stake.

The Lord Chancellor of England visited her in prison, with the purpose of endeavoring to terrify her into a confession of her accomplices. Such were those called who had committed the crime of receiving religious books from her, and of contributing to her support in prison. Her calm and cautious answers afforded him no clue. Enraged by his disappointment, the dignified and manly Primate orders her to the rack. Think of it! A MAN, a wise and learned statesman, a high dignitary of the realm, ordering a weak and unresisting woman to the rack—and for what? For this, verily, that she could not believe the consecrated wafer and wine to be the literal body and blood of Christ, and that she would not betray those who held with her in the rejection of that Popish dogma.

Perhaps, in this happier age, some of my readers do not even know what is meant by the torture of the rack. Let us accompany Anne Askew to the question-chamber. See that heavy oaken frame furnished with wheels and pulleys. That is the rack. She is laid by the rough executioner on the floor directly under it. The depending cords are fastened tightly to her slender wrists and ankles. Now the hellish instrument begins its work. Slowly, slowly, the victim rises, till her body is on a level with the rack. Now is your time, Lord Primate; under these convincing arguments surely light will dawn upon her mind, especially as she well knows that these are but the prelude to others still more cogent. In vain. She is as blind and obstinate as ever. The noble examiner directs the officer in attendance to increase the torture. But the Lieutenant of the Tower, used as he is to scenes of legalized cruelty, cannot endure the sight. Perhaps he has a wife, a daughter, a sister, the thought of whom makes his heart weak. He remonstrates, he entreats, but without effect. He then endeavors, by his directions to the jailer, to mitigate the torture. Perceiving his aim, the Lord Chancellor, in a fit of fury, flings off his costly robe, seizes the lever with his own noble hands, and plies it with so fierce a will, that the bones of the poor sufferer start from their sockets. Will she confess now? No Though the frail flesh quivers with the sharp and rending agony, though the low moan, perchance the wild shriek, confess that mortal anguish, the strong heart is still true to its friends and its God.

Turn we for a moment to a scene of far different character. In a magnificent apartment in the palace of Westminster, we find Queen Catherine surrounded by all the pomp of royalty. Priceless jewels sparkle in her golden hair. The necklace that clasps her neck would buy a small kingdom. Her word is law to all around her. Still young and beautiful, every motion grace, every look expressive of dignity and sweetness, who can doubt that her empire is secured by love no less than by right! Does not this brilliant scene seem to mock the misery and horror of that which we have just left? Are we not ready to complain of the unequal distribution of the gifts of Providence?

“Judge not according to the outward appearance.” These two hearts, that in the dungeon and this in the palace, beat, in perfect unison. The same humble, living faith reigns in both. The same love to God and man, the same high, self-forgetting devotion to truth and duty. But Anne Askew is the happier of the two. The sword hangs by a hair over the regal head of Catherine. Cares, anxieties, fears, nestle under that velvet and ermined mantle. Traps and footfalls beset her steps. She knows that among her royal consort’s counselors are her own deadly, foes; that his capricious fondness may at any hour fasten on a new object, and make way for it by consigning her own head to the block. She fears, indeed, less for herself than for others near and dear to her, who would be involved in her ruin. At this hour her heart is distracted with apprehensions from which her noble kinswoman has been forever set free. True, she has the same refuge from which Anne has drawn help; and, were she called to the test, doubtless she would endure as worthily. But it is also true, that the martyr’s strength and the martyr’s joy come not but at the martyr-hour.

All efforts to induce her to recant or confess being found unavailing, Anne Askew was condemned to be burned alive. The stake had no more terrors than the rack for her constant spirit. One who saw her the day before her execution has recorded, that “she wore a smiling face, and her countenance was like that of an angel.” Her limbs being so dislocated that she could not walk, she was carried in a chair to the fatal spot. She was already fastened with her fellow-sufferers to the stake, when a message arrived from the Lord Chancellor: that their pardon was already drawn and signed, and would be given them upon the instant if they would recant. This last temptation was promptly rejected by them all. The flames were kindled, and soon Anne Askew had put off mortality and entered into the eternal joy!

That Settled It

SOME years since we heard from the lips of the venerable William Jay, of Bath, while preaching a missionary sermon, a statement which evidently thrilled a vast congregation, and settled in the minds of many of his hearers a very important question.

The preacher told us that in his very early life, now a hundred years ago, the missionary topic began to excite great interest, and he was invited to take an active part in advancing it. He had, however, some difficulties on the subject. The object appeared so vast, and the means at hand so small, that effort seemed to him almost hopeless till God should, in some wonderful manner, give indications that His time was come. Indeed, the preacher told us that he sympathized not a little with those who were disposed to let the world alone.

Before he quite made up his mind to refuse to deliver one of the first missionary sermons in the metropolis, he determined to consult his old friend and counselor, the venerable John Newton, of London. He found the old minister with his ever constant pipe, and soon began to lay before him the whole subject, in all the aspects in which it had been presented to his mind, concluding with a request for his opinion.

The excellent old minister listened to him with the most profound attention to the very end of his story; and then, emptying the ashes of his pipe on the side of the grate, and looking with intense feeling into the face of his young friend, he said, in tones of solemn earnestness, “My dear brother, I have never once doubted either the power or readiness of God to convert the heathen world since he converted me.”

“All my doubts,” said Mr. Jay, “were gone forever, and I have ever since felt that the grace which converted is can as easily convert the most abandoned sinners on earth. Let us therefore labor for this object.”

W. R.

The Sabbath Below and Above

THE late Mrs. Tonna— “Charlotte Elizabeth” always expressed a desire to pass away from earth on the Lord’s day. The following lines were written by her about 1830, sixteen years before her death. On Lord’s day, July 12th, 1846, she was called away from the Sabbath below to the eternal rest above: “I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until I drink it new in my Father’s kingdom.”

Thou cup of blessing, fare-thee-well,

My lips shall kiss thy brim no more;

Mid shadows I no longer dwell,

Nor diet on the temple’s store.

I go to quaff, in heaven above,

The wine of my Redeemer’s love;

In pastures where the Lamb doth lead

His ransom’d flock, I go to feed.

Ye Sabbath bells, your early chime

Again shall sweetly wake tomorrow,

To melt the heart of pardon’d crime,

To calm the heaving sigh of sorrow.

Mine eyes shall see this Sabbath day

The hand which wipes my tears away.

O Sabbath of unknown delight!

O day that cannot merge in night!

Farewell to my Redeemer’s cross,

To struggling sin, farewell forever;

On life’s wild wave no more I toss,

And passion’s storm shall vex me never.

The chain is rent—my conflicts cease,

All, all is pure, eternal peace

Up to my Saviour’s throne I soar,

To rest and sing for evermore.

Mark Lorimer: A Story of Queen Mary's Days

ON a summer evening, about three-and-a-half centuries ago, two young men, one sixteen, the other a year or two older, walked together.

Business was over, and the shutters of the shops were closed. Tradesmen stood at their doors, faces looked out of lattice windows above, and apprentices played at single-stick in the street. While things were thus, the two young men—the younger named Mark Lorimer, the elder Edward Dawmer—were walking together. They were talking very earnestly, and did not seem to heed the boys at play; for their conversation had just turned upon a matter that was deeply stirring the minds of men in those days.

“I am sorry that it should be so,” the elder lad observed; “and sorry that our lot should be cast in such troublous times.”

“Would God,” returned Mark, “we knew when they would end!”

“I understand,” went on the other, “that there is to be another burning in Smithfield tomorrow, and that Queen Mary and her husband will be present.”

“God pity them!” said Mark; “may they find more mercy in the last judgment than they have meted out upon the earth.”

“Amen!”

“Why,” said Mark, and his face flushed crimson, “I heard, and know it for a truth, that they burnt a child not many days old in the flames with its mother; they drove another frantic, and then slew it for its mad words. They are crowding the streets with orphans, and offering up, in the fires that are daily kindled, the best and bravest of the land”—

“Hush, hush!” said Dawmer; “there are ears everywhere—be careful, for both our sakes.”

“I am not afraid,” Mark answered, with all a boy’s heroism. “I say again that these things ought not to be.”

“Yes, yes, that is all very well,” Dawmer returned; “but it is not a pleasant thing to be tied to a whipping-post, as more than a score of lads were, not many days ago, and lashed almost to death.”

“I would not deny the truth,” said Mark, “if the whips were scorpions, and the whipping-post the stake.”

“But supposing now,” Dawmer asked—oh! so slyly and so softly!— “they were to come to you and say, What do you think about the bread and wine in the Lord’s supper?”

“What do I think of it?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Bread and wine:”

“But after the prayers of the priest?”

“Bread and wine.”

“Why, don’t you know,” said Dawmer, “that it would be flat heresy to say so?”

“Why?”

“After the priest, it is bread and wine no longer.”

The young man laughed. “What is it, then?” he asked.

“The body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“That I deny,” said the young man, “and always will deny.”

“Well, you know it is better to be cautious,” said Dawmer. “Nobody can tell what may happen in these troublous times; better, I should think, try some cunning way of getting out of it!”

“What,” said Mark, smiling again, “frame some pet verse, like poor Princess Elizabeth, God save her!

Christ was the word that spake it;

He took the bread and brake it,

And what the Word did make it,

That I believe and take it.”

Thus talking, the young men passed on, crossed the stocks market, and shaped their course for London Bridge, where they parted.

Mark Lorimer lived with his father on this famous old bridge, for in those days it was covered with houses, and had the appearance of a regular street. It was evening, and the sun was setting when Mark reached home. In a small room, which overhung the river, sat his old father; he was watching the stream as it flowed rapidly onward, gurgling and struggling against the piles of the bridge, as it dashed wildly under the narrow arches. The old man turned his head as Mark entered, and clasped his hands. They sat and talked together about the troubles of the period, about the cruelty of Queen Mary, and the dread that was on all those who held the reformed faith. They talked of those whom they had known, with whom they had often worshipped, but who had suffered death by fire or sword for the faith they held so dear. They sat and talked together till the last rays of the sun had glided away, and the pale moon had arisen in the heavens, and cast its flood of mellow light on the picturesque old city. Then the old, man summoned his servant a godly woman, stricken in years; the cloth was spread, a frugal meal spread out, and they sat down to supper. The old man asked God’s blessing on their food, and as he ended there was a loud knock at the outer door. Margery withdrew to open it. A few moments more, and a tall, well-made man strode into the room. He lifted his cap as he did so with a courtly air, then, pointing to a paper which he held in his hand, said, “In Queen Mary’s name.”

They saw it all. The old man arose, but his tongue slave to the roof of his mouth; Margery wept aloud; but the young man was gone. The few moments which had elapsed between the knock and the entrance had been sufficient to apprize the old man of his son’s danger. The other knew and felt it, and at his sire’s command had concealed himself in one of those secret closets with which old houses then abounded.

“Sir,” said the officer, “I have come here commanded to arrest your son. Let him come forth.”

“Sir,” returned the old man, “my son is but a child, yet do your errand if you list.”

“Your son was seen to enter here—he is here now—surrender him at once!”

The old man refused. The officer called aloud to his men, who waited outside, and five or six stout fellows, in leathern jerkins and half armor, came at his command. They searched, but searched in vain; and when every effort proved fruitless, they turned fiercely on the old man, who watched their every movement.

“Old blood shall pay for young blood, if you conceal him longer,” said the officer. “As I live, you shall taste the rack for this!”

“Spare the green and take the ripe,” the old man answered, “and God be judge betwixt us!”

What needs it to repeat all that was said—how oaths were mingled with the holy name of Jesus, and how they roughly used the venerable man, and were about to test him, as they said, by holding his hand over A burning lamp. Just at that moment the secret door was opened, and the young man came forth.

He was thrown into prison that night, and the old man, with a heavy heart, was left in his home. The next day and the next he sought to see his son, but sought in vain; on the third he was told that he was condemned—that he who had betrayed him had borne witness against him—conclusive evidence, they said, of guilt. This fellow was but a lad himself, no other than Edward Dawmer—Judas that he was!—he had sold his friend for the blood-money, and had left him now to die.

So there was another high holiday. Crowds thronged the way again from Newgate to Smithfield; thousands gathered in that open space and city officers and soldiers kept guard about the stakes, which were ready for the victims. Six or seven were to die that day, and huge bundles of fagots were being brought together for the burning. At the hour fixed, the prisoners were brought through the street—four men, two women—and the lad Mark Lorimer. They were exhorted by the priests to repent, but remained true to the gospel; were fastened by strong chains and iron rings to the stakes the fagots piled about them, and at a given signal fired. So the black smoke curled up, and the fire leaped and danced, and some of the people wept. It was more than an hour before it was all over, and then the people went their way. So perished young Mark Lorimer—a victim to the persecution of Queen Mary’s reign.

If you had entered the old house on the bridge, and gone with Margery to the little room that overlooked the Thames, you would have seen the old man kneeling down. If you had touched him, you would have found him dead!

Remember Lot

By the late Bishop J. O. RYLE, written about 50 years ego, when he was minister at Helmingham.

WHO is there among you that feels secure, and has no fear of lingering? Come and listen while I tell you a few passages in Lot’s history. Do as he did, and it will be a miracle indeed if you do not get into the same state of soul at last.

One thing, then, I observe in Lot is this, he made a wrong choice in early life.

There was a time when Abraham and Lot lived together. They both became rich, and could live together no longer. Abraham, the elder of the two, in the true spirit of humility and courtesy, gave Lot the choice of the country, when they resolved to part company. “If thou,” he said, “wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.”—(Gen. 13:9.)

And what did Lot do? We are told he saw the plains of Jordan, near Sodom, were rich, fertile, and well watered. It was a good land for cattle, and full of pastures. He had large flocks and herds, and it just suited his requirements. And this was the land he chose for a residence, simply because it was a rich, well-watered land. It was near the town of. Sodom! He cared not for that. The men of Sodom, who would be his neighbors, were wicked! It mattered not. They were sinners before God exceedingly! It made no difference to him. The pasture was rich.. The land was good. He wanted such a country for his flocks and herds. And before that argument all scruples and doubts, if indeed he had any, at once went down. He chose by sight, and not by faith. He asked no counsel of God to preserve him from mistakes. He looked to the things of time, and not of eternity. He thought of his worldly profit, and not of his soul. He considered only what would help him in this life—he forgot the solemn business of the life to come. This was a bad beginning.

But I observe also that Lot mixed with sinners when there was no occasion for his doing so.

We are first told that he “pitched his tent toward Sodom.”—(Gen. 13:12.) This, as I have already shown, was a great mistake.

But the next time he is mentioned, we find him actually living in Sodom itself. The Spirit says expressly, “He dwelt in Sodom.”—(Gen. 14:12). His tents were left. The country was forsaken. He occupied a house in the very streets of that wicked town.

We are not told the reasons of this change. We are not aware that any occasion could have arisen for it. We are sure there could have been no command of God. Perhaps his wife liked the town better than the country, for the sake of society. It is plain she had no grace herself. Perhaps the daughters urged living in the town for the sake of gay company: they were evidently light-minded young women. Perhaps Lot liked it himself, in order to make more of his flocks and herds. Men never want reasons to confirm their wills. But one thing is very clear—Lot dwelt in the midst of Sodom without good cause.

Reader, when a child of God does these two things which I have named, you never need be surprised if you hear, by and by, unfavorable accounts about his soul. You never need wonder if he becomes deaf to the warning voice of affliction, as Lot was (Gen. 14:12), and turns out a lingerer in the day of trial and danger, as Lot did.

Make a wrong choice—an unscriptural choice—in life, and settle yourself down unnecessarily in the midst of worldly people, and I know no surer way to damage your own spirituality, and to go backward about your eternal concerns. This is the way to make the pulse of your soul beat feebly and languidly. This is the way to make the edge of your feeling about sin become blunt and dull. This is the way to dim the eyes of your spiritual discernment, till you can scarcely distinguish good from evil, and stumble as you walk. This is the way to bring a moral palsy on your feet and limbs, and make you go tottering and trembling along the road to Zion, as if the grasshopper was a burden. This is the way to sell the pass to your worst enemy—to give the devil the vantage ground in the battle—to tie your arms in fighting—to fetter your legs in running—to dry up the sources of your strength—to cripple your own energies—to cut your own hair, like Sampson, and give yourself into the hands of the Philistines, put out your own eyes, grind at the mill, and become a slave.

Reader, wake up and mark well what I am saying. Settle these things down in your mind. Do not forget them. Recollect them in the morning. Recall them to memory at night. Let them sink down deeply into your heart. If ever you would be safe from lingering, beware of needless mingling with worldly people. Beware of Lot’s choice. If you would not settle down into a dry, dull, sleepy, barren, heavy, carnal, stupid, torpid state of soul, beware of Lot’s choice.

Remember this in choosing a dwelling-place, or residence. It is not enough that the house is comfortable—the situation good—the air fine—the neighborhood pleasant—the expenses small—the living cheap. There are other things yet to be considered. You must think of your immortal soul. Will the house you think of help you towards heaven or hell? Is the gospel preached within an easy distance? Is Christ crucified within reach of your door? Is there a real man of God near, who will watch over your soul? I charge you, if you love life, not to overlook this. Beware of Lot’s choice.

Remember this in choosing a calling, a place, or profession in life. It is not enough that the salary is high—the wages good—the labor light—the advantages numerous—the prospects of getting on most favorable. Think of your soul, your immortal soul. Will it be fed or starved? Will it be prospered or drawn back? I beseech you, by the mercies of God, to take heed what you do. Make no rash decision. Look at the place in every light, the light of God as well as the light of the world. Gold may be bought too dear. Beware of Lot’s choice.

Remember this in choosing a husband or wife, if you are unmarried. It is not enough that your eye is pleased—that your tastes are met—that your mind finds congeniality—that there is amiability and affection—that there is a comfortable home for life. There needs something more than this. There is a life yet to come. Think of your soul, your immortal soul. Will it be helped upwards, or dragged downwards, by the union you are planning? Will it be made more heavenly or more earthly—drawn nearer to Christ or to the world? Will its religion grow in vigor, or will it decay? I pray you, by all your hopes of glory, allow this to enter into your calculations. Think, as old Baxter said, and think, and think again, before you commit yourself. “Be not unequally yoked.”—(2 Cor. 6:4). Matrimony is nowhere named among the means of conversion. Remember Lot’s choice.

Remember this, if you are ever offered a situation on a railway. It is not enough to have good pay, and regular employment, the confidence of the directors, and the best chance of rising to a higher post. These things are very well in their way, but they are not everything. How will your soul fare, if you serve a railway company that runs Sunday trains? What day in the week will you have for God and eternally? What opportunities will you have for hearing the gospel preached? I solemnly warn you to consider this. It will profit you nothing to fill your purse, if you bring leanness and poverty on your soul. Beware of selling your Sabbath for the sake of a good place. Beware of Lot’s choice.

Reader, you may perhaps think, “a believer need not fear—he is a sheep of Christ—he will never perish—he cannot come to much harm. It cannot be that such small matters can be of great importance.”

Well! you may think so; but I warn you, if you neglect them, your soul will never prosper. A true believer will certainly not be cast away, although he may linger; but if he does linger, it is vain to suppose his religion will thrive. Grace is a tender plant. Unless you cherish it, and nurse it well, it will soon become sickly in this evil world. It may droop, though it cannot die. The brightest gold will soon become dim when exposed to a damp atmosphere. The hottest iron will soon become cold. It requires pains and toil to bring it to a red heat. It requires nothing but letting alone, or a little cold water, to become black and hard.

You may be an earnest, zealous Christian now. You may feel like David in his prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”—(Psalm 30:7). But, be not deceived. You have only got to walk in Lot’s steps, and make Lot’s choice, and you will soon come to Lot’s state of soul. Allow yourself to do as he did, presume to act as he acted, and be very sure you will soon discover you have become a wretched lingerer, like him. You will find, like Sampson, the presence of the Lord is no longer with you. You will prove, to your own shame, an undecided, hesitating man, in the day of trial. There will come a canker on your religion, and eat out its vitality without your knowing it. There will come a consumption on your spiritual strength, and waste it away insensibly. And at length you will wake up to find your hands hardly able to do the Lord’s work, and your feet hardly able to carry you along the Lord’s way; and this perhaps at some turning-point in your life, at a time when the enemy is coming in like a flood, and your need is the sorest.

Ah! reader, if you would not become a lingerer in religion, consider these things. Beware of doing what Lot did.

The Covenanter's Bible

BY ROBERT SIMPSON, SANQUHAR.

WILLIAM HANNAH, the Covenanter, lived in the parish of Tundergarth, in Annandale. It was in this parish that the famous James Welwood labored in the Gospel, for a number of years, with so much acceptance and success. Under his ministry, not a few rare Christians were trained up to bear testimony to the truth in that dark and overbearing age of persecution. Among these, William Hannah was one of the most conspicuous, and one who was subjected to many hardships in following the dictates of his conscience. From the time that Prelacy was introduced, William firmly maintained his principles as a Nonconformist, and no inducement could lead him to resign from the old Presbyterianism of the Church of Scotland, or leave the ministrations of those good men that had been so singularly blessed to his soul, to follow the curates, who neither preached the Gospel nor practiced its morality. This conduct was, of course, grievously offensive to the Prelatists of that day, who sought to lord it over men’s consciences, and to trample the liberties of the people under their feet. William’s residence was near that of the curate, who narrowly watched his movements, as he felt indignant.at his withdrawal from the church; and, therefore, in the year 1678, he resolved to proceed against him with the highest censures of the Church, and actually formed the design of excommunicating him; because, having been cited before the session, to answer for his non-conformity, he had declined to appear. Accordingly, on a given Sabbath, he proceeded to put his purpose in execution; but before he pronounced the sentence his courage failed him, and he desisted from the attempt.

Sometime after this an infant child belonging to William died, and the curate, in order to annoy the good man, appointed some persons to watch the family burying-place, and prevent his friends from digging a grave. Notwithstanding the curate’s opposition, however, some persons came to make the grave, and were proceeding to their work, “when,” says Woodrow, “the curate being informed, came out himself in great fury, and took away the spades and shovels, and told them if they buried the child by day or night he would cause trail it out again, since he knew not if it was baptized; so the men were forced to bury elsewhere.” It was, no doubt, from the fear of some opposition, and from the dread of being apprehended in the churchyard, that numbers of the people in the lone moorlands buried their deceased relatives in the deserts and hence the graves that are occasionally to be met with in the wastes, of which no person can give any account.

On one occasion, when Mr. John Welwood came to Tundergarth, his father’s parish, to preach and hold conventicles, the curate was incensed, and instantly convoked a court, to which the parishioners were summoned, and there ordered to bind themselves not to hear the outed ministers. This, Hannah positively refused, and was prepared to take consequences. After this he found no rest, and was obliged to betake himself to the woods and glens to escape the notice of his persecutors. Hannah and his son endured many hardships in their wanderings and hidings; for it was but on rare occasions that they durst resort to their home. By a circuit held in 1683, he was denounced and declared a fugitive, and, consequently, was in greater hazard than ever, and was under the necessity of keeping himself in still closer concealment. He sometimes narrowly escaped the hands of his enemies; for his neighbor the curate was ever on the watch for him, and on one occasion, knowing that he had secretly ventured home, dispatched a messenger to Dumfries to fetch a party of soldiers to apprehend him. He eluded their grasp, but another gentleman who had been in company with him was caught.

The year 1684 was probably the most severe of any during the long period of the persecution, and the military license, which was in full operation at this time, was exercised with terrible severity by the troopers, who shot the people in scores on the moors and the heights, to which they resorted for safety, but on which their blood flowed profusely. This year, Hannah, being worn out with incessant privations and perils, resolved to remove to the north of England, if, perchance, he might find a little repose. He had not long taken up his abode there, however, till he was seized by Colonel Dacres, who sent him to the Scottish border, where “Sprinkel with his troops,” says Woodrow, “received him and some prisoners, when they were brought to Annan, and next day to Locherbridge, when Queensbury ordered him to be carried to Dumfries, where he lay in irons till the prisoners were carried into Edinburgh and Leith. From Leith he was brought up to the Canon-gate Tolbooth, and cast into a dark pit, where he had neither air nor the least glimpse of light for some days. Here he fell very sickly, and begged the favor to be let out into the guard hall, that he might have the free air, which was refused. The soldier who brought him in his small pittance of meat and drink, when he opened the pit door to let him in, said, Seek mercy from heaven, for we have none to give you. Here he lay nine days without anything charged upon him but nonconformity, and at the end of that period was sent to Dunottar.”

His son William, a pious youth, deserves a special notice here. He endured persecution in company with his father, and abode with him in his wanderings. When he was no more than sixteen years of age, he was forced to flee to England for not attending the curate, where he resided some time. Shortly after, however, he ventured home, when he was seized with the ague—a disease very common in those times, owing to the marshy and uncultivated state of the country. When he was laboring under this affliction he was apprehended by a strolling party of troopers, who came upon him in his place of confinement, and the barbarous men compelled him to trudge along with them, though he could scarcely stand on his feet. They had no compassion, however, but obliged him to go with them three or four days in thus ranging up and down the country. But this was not all—they used him ill, and accosted him in rough and threatening language. In passing through a wild moorland, they came to the grave of a martyr who had been recently shot, and who was sleeping beneath in his gory shroud. In the wantonness of their cruelty they placed young Hannah, faint and staggering with weakness, on the grave, and having covered his face, told him deliberately that they intended to shoot him, and that in a brief space his blood would flow on the turf that covered that grave, unless he promised compliance with their injunctions, which were, that he should attend the curate, and leave off going to conventicles, and other things of like sort. The poor boy, being strengthened by the grace of that God whom he sought and followed, replied with all firmness, that God had sent him into the world, and had appointed the time he should go out of it, but he was determined to take no sinful oaths, and to make no foul compliances, come what might—he was now in their power, and they might do as they pleased. This magnanimity on the part of the youth astonished the soldiers, who saw it in vain to attempt to force his compliance, and they desisted from their threatenings, and carried him to Westerrow, who sent him prisoner to Dumfries. Truly there was a spirit of genuine heroism in the Scottish peasantry in those days, when even women and children, not to speak of firm-minded men, could thus outbrave the scowlings of an armed soldiery, and the very terrors of death.

But the trials of the youth were not yet over. He was sent to Edinburgh, and after many searching examinations, was subjected to the torture of the thumbkins, and afterward laid in irons, which were so tightly applied to his slender limbs, that the flesh swelled over, and covered the iron that girded him. The little money with which his friends had supplied him was stolen, and at another time, he was robbed of eleven dollars—no small sum in those days to a person in his situation. He was detained in prison for a year and a half, and then banished to Barbadoes, where he was sold for a slave. But at length the Lord turned his captivity, and he came home after the revolution, and eventually became a minister in Scarborough.

But the Covenanter’s Bible, what of it? This brings us back to a veritable tradition respecting young William’s father, which contains an incident worthy of notice, and for the introduction of which, the preceding sketch has been given. William Hannah, the father, besides his other retreats, had a hiding place in his own barn. On one, occasion, when he was lying among the straw, reading his Bible, which he always carried with him as his sweetest companion in his solitariness, the house was visited by a party of soldiers in search of him. In his haste to flee from the place, he left his Bible among the straw, and escaped to a distance. The troopers, in the course of their searching entered the barn, every corner of which they pried into, turning everything upside down, and tossing about the straw that had so recently been the bed of him whom they were so eagerly seeking. According to their custom, they thrust their long swords down through the heaps of straw or hay, that lay on the floor, with the view of stabbingany one who might happen to be concealed beneath. In this process one of the men pushed his sword accidentally on the Bible lying among the straw, by which means it received a deep cut, which, doubtless, its owner would have sustained had he been in the same place. The Bible was afterward found, with the recent hack in it, and restored to Hannah, to whom it was now more endeared than ever. The same Bible is still preserved, exhibiting the distinct marks of the dragoon’s heavy sword. It came into the possession of his son William, who afterward was settled in Scarborough, and was uniformly used in the pulpit as the Bible from which he preached, holding it in the greatest veneration, for his father’s sake, who had so often perused it, and derived from it much comfort, in the days of his suffering for conscience’ sake. Mr. Hannah of Scarborough, when, through infirmity, he became unfit to exercise his ministry in that town, returned to his native parish of Tundergarth, and resided in the house of one of his relatives, where he died having both suffered and labored much in the cause of his blessed Master. He brought his father’s Bible with him, and, after his decease, it was retained in the possession of his friends as a relic too precious to be lost.

The congregation of Scarborough, to which Mr. Hannah ministered, became desirous of possessing this Bible as a memorial of their first minister, and on application being made for it, it was found, and purchased by the congregation.

William Hannah died sometime about the year 1725. When, in his youth, he was banished to Barbadoes, it is said that Dalzell proposed that his father should also be banished, and that when the old man entreated that he might be allowed to spend the few short years he had to live, in his own country, as he was too old and infirm to be of any use for manual labor, “No,” said the ruthless man, “you shall be hanged tomorrow.” Before tomorrow came, however, Dalzell himself was in eternity. The old man was afterward set at liberty—returned to his home and ended his days in peace.

Thus lived and died the two Hannahs of Turtdergarth, the father and the son, who, by the grace of God, were honored to bear witness to the truth in the dark and cloudy day of Zion’s affliction. They continued steadfast amidst all the distresses to which they were subjected, that they might maintain a good conscience, and now, delivered out of all tribulations, they have entered into the joy of their Lord.

Sayings of Old Humphrey

Our frail bodies are tottering habitations; every beat of the heart is a rap at the door, to tell us of our danger.

Do you want to know the man against whom you have most reason to guard yourself?—your looking glass will give you a very fair likeness of his face.

When I put my finger on my pulse, it tells me, at the same moment, that I am a living and a dying man.

When the Infidel would persuade you to abandon your Bible, tell him you will do so when he brings you a better book.

A man should always look upwards for comfort; and when the heaven above our heads is dark, the earth under our feet is sure to be darker.

When we start back with unusual surprise at the wickedness of others, may it bot be a proof that we are not sufficiently acquainted with our own hearts?

The friend that lightly flatters thee is an enemy; the enemy that justly reproves thee is a friend.

He who neglects religion prepares for himself a bitter draught, and a meal of wormwood; a nightcap of thorns, and a bed of briers; a life of vexation, and a death of sorrow.

If you want to get a spiritual appetite, walk often in the green pastures and by the still waters of God’s promises to his people.

If the world knew what passes in my heart, what would it think of me? I do know it; what then do I think of myself?

The Widow of Annandale

BY PROFESSOR ALDEN.

IN a lowly cottage in the parish of Hutton, in Annandale, lived a widow with her sons and daughters. God had taken away the companion of her youth, but she had thrown herself upon the divine promises, and had received grace to train up her children in the fear of the Lord. Though the sigh was often breathed over the vacant seat by the ingle-side, yet was the family a happy one. Industry and frugality kept want at a distance: the peace that passeth all understanding had its abode in their hearts: God was the Father of the fatherless.

As it was to be expected, they were firm adherents to the covenant, and devoted friends to those who upheld its banner; but as they were without influential connections, it behooved them to avoid giving needless provocation to those who swayed the scepter of power with a merciless arm.

In those perilous days, when to give shelter or comfort to the persecuted ones was a crime to be visited by the severest penalties, a stranger knocked at the door of the cottage. His pale cheek and sunken eye told of exposure and suffering. He had been hunted like a partridge upon the mountains. Sickness had come upon him, and he must lie down and die in the open fields, unless shelter and concealment be given him for the sake of the cause for which he has suffered.

Can the widow and her sons allow him to enter their abode? Will it not bring down swift destruction upon their own heads? This is well-nigh certain, for spies and informers abound on every side.

But, on the other hand, shall a follower of Christ die in the fields, while there stands a roof underneath which Christ is worshipped? What answer shall be given to Him who shall say, “Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these my brethren, ye did it not unto me?” What were the penalties of “reset and converse,” compared with the displeasure of God?

The wanderer was admitted and concealed. His illness increased rapidly; and though we may be sure he had kind nursing at the hand of the inmates of the cottage, yet he soon fell a victim to the disease induced by the hardships he had undergone. At a distance from his home, with no mother, or wife, or sister, to receive his last farewell, he slept the sleep of death, and had no more to fear from his foes.

Now that he had breathed his last, might not the men of blood be satisfied? May not his remains be carried to his native parish, and be laid by the side of the loved ones who had gone before him? No. Death would be the portion of those who should attempt to perform that pious act. Those who had watched over him knew that they must bury him in secret, if they would not speedily follow him to the spirit-world.

Accordingly, when the darkness and silence of midnight had fallen upon the earth, they prepared a grave in a neighboring field, in which they buried the body. They smoothed down the earth over his resting-place, in hopes that it would not be discovered.

There lived in the vicinity a man by the name of Johnstone. He had formerly been a zealot in the cause of the covenant, but had become a renegade and cruel persecutor of his former friends.

A few days after the burial, this man was seen approaching the cottage. He was followed by a party of soldiers. The widow and her children felt that their hour was come—that the cloud which had long hung over them was about to burst. Their hearts sank within them as they saw the soldiers turn aside into the field, and commence disinterring the dead. Their work was soon done. The body of the poor wanderer was exposed to the light of day. He had died without the aid of the bullet—he had been buried by sympathizing friends. These atrocious facts were plain to the renegade and his ungodly crew. He was beyond the reach of their malice—those who had given him burial were not.

The party proceeded at once to the dwelling of the widow, and charged her with having given shelter to the dying man, and her sons with having committed his body to the earth. Truth would not permit them to deny the charges, though, like their brethren, they did not feel bound to become their own accusers.

The savage Johnstone had little regard for the authority of law. His object seems to have been to signalize his attachment to the government, and at the same time to gratify his fiendish passions. He entered the cottage, and seized or destroyed every article of property it contained, and then razed the building to its foundation, thus leaving the family shelter-less and destitute. They are sent forth as wanderer’s to seek food and shelter where they may. Where they wandered—what sympathizing friends they found—what sufferings they endured, we know not. We are ignorant of the subsequent history of all the family, with the exception of the oldest son.

It would seem that he alone of the sons had attained to manhood. After the separation of the family, he was arrested by Claverhouse, and brought the same night before Johnstone, the destroyer of his home. Johnstone passed sentence of death upon him the next day, and urged his immediate execution. Strange as it may seem, Claverhouse disapproved the sentence, and would take no part in the shedding of young man’s blood. Perhaps the words of the wife of John Brown, whom he had murdered only ten days before, were still ringing in his years, “How will ye answer for this day’s work?” Certain it is, that he objected to the murder of Hislop; and when he at last yielded to the persistence of Johnstone, he said: “The blood of this poor man be upon you, I am free from it.”

Johnstone then called upon the captain of a company of foot, who attended him in his excursions through the country, to require some of his men to execute the sentence.

“I will not do it,” said the captain with an oath; “I would sooner fight Claverhouse and his dragoons than be the instrument of such atrocity.” He therefore drew off his men to a distance, that they might not be the witnesses of the murder.

Johnstone then directed three of his own attendants to do the bloody deed. They were of the like spirit with himself, and readily obeyed him. They furnished themselves with arms, and placed the young man in a position to receive his death-shot.

“Draw your bonnet over your eyes, young man,” said one who, perhaps, could not so well take aim while the eye of his victim was upon him.

“I am not afraid to look my death-bringers in the face,” said the young man, “for I have done nothing of which I am ashamed.” Then holding up the Bible, he added, “I charge ye to answer for what ye are about to do at the day when ye shall be judged by this book.” This solemn charge made no impression upon the hardened wretches. The word was given—they fired—he lay a lifeless corpse. The earth was rudely thrown over him, and there, on the spot where he fell, his remains await the resurrection morning.

October Musings

OCTOBER, grave October,

Thy warning voice I hear;

And it wakens in my spirit

A sad and solemn fear;

Thy breath is like the fragrance

That lingers, round a tomb,

From flowers by sorrow planted,

In solitude to bloom.

Enrobed in sombre garments,

Thy well-known form draws nigh;

And transient is the luster

That lights thy pensive eye:

No glad evangel bringest thou,

Our lonely hearts to cheer,

But words of mournful parting,

From the forest growing sere.

The leaves are falling thickly,

The perfumed flowers are gone;

Like an Eolian harp, the wind

Has sadness in its tone;

And reverently we listen,

For wise monitions lie

In the voices that surround us,

When Flora’s children die.

All earthly things that gladden,

The dearest and the best,

Forbid a firm dependence,

A long unbroken rest;

Yet our affections closely

Round human props entwine;

Our choicest gems we lavish

Upon an idol-shrine.

And who hath not been wounded?—

The trusted one hath failed,—

The idol hath been shattered,

Its guarded throne assailed.

And we, in desolation,

Have mourned our misplaced trust,

And scorned the drossy image

Now prostrate in the dust.

And is there one amongst us

Whose tears were never shed

In unavailing anguish,

Upon the narrow bed,

Where those we loved and leaned on

In dreamless sleep repose,

Unconscious of the vacuum

Our aching bosom knows?

But is there no kind shelter,

When wintry winds are high?

No fountain ever flowing,

Though creature-springs are dry?

No heart of love unchanging,

No sympathizing breast,

On which the weary soul may lean,

And safely, sweetly, rest?

Oh yes ! above the changes

Which earth-born pleasures wear,

The eye, by faith illumined,

Descries a region fair;

And One, enthroned in glory,

Who did not scorn to be

A “Brother” in our likeness made,

“Born for adversity.”

He has a true and tender heart

That feels our keen distress;

He has a strong and ready hand

That will our wrongs redress;

He has a faithful memory

That never can forget

The toiling burden-bearers

On whom His love is set.

And now, thou grave October,

I offer thanks to thee;

For thy solemn voice hath kindled

A heavenly hope in me;

Thy hand may leave the impress

Of swift and sure decay;

And joys as fleet as human breath,

As soon may pass away.

My heart, by mercy guided,

Hath sought that better Home,

That Home of love and concord,

Where change can never come;

And He who soothes my sorrows

Will share with me His throne,

Before His Father, not ashamed

His ransomed child to own.

E. D.

The Inquisition

IT is the first day of November, 1755. The capture of an unusually large number of convicted heretics is the result of increased activity of the dread tribunal now at the height of its power in Lisbon.

The sun is shedding golden light over lofty pinnacles of church and palace, grand avenues, noble mansions, and squalid streets lined with houses of the poor, far-stretching vine clad hills, and the waters of the Tagus as that river flows into die broad bosom of the bay; all nature seems responsive to the joyous influence of sweet air and glorious sunshine. Excited throngs of people of all classes and conditions are filling streets, plazas, windows, and balconies; all are dressed in holiday attire, and as the hour of noon draws on excitement is intense.

At length the signal! Deep toned bells toll the hour of execution, and the “sacred play” begins. The dread portals of the Inquisition open, and a strong guard of halberdiers first issue from them; then black-robed priests in procession, the leader bearing a large crucifix and chanting a Te Deum; next follow the victims, dressed in the hideous and fantastic garb prescribed by the Holy Office; after them a group of veiled nuns, saying Ayes. A composed and even cheerful expression is upon the countenances of most of them.

There is one amongst the doomed number who attracts most of the notice and sympathy of the onlookers—a young girl only sixteen years of age, and so beautiful that even the horrid dress and her agony of fright fail to break the charm of her loveliness. Her large dark eyes are raised imploringly to heaven, and tears are streaming down her pale cheeks, as low sobs of agony burst from her lips. Sometimes she casts a searching gaze into the throngs about her as if hoping for a last sight of some loved one before her eyes should close in death.

In a palatial mansion in another and far different portion of the city fond hearts are breaking for her sake. With all the glorious sunlight excluded, father, mother, brothers, sisters, in darkness and despair bewail their utter inability to rescue their loved one; also, knowing full well that to show feelings of anguish, or even sympathy, would but bring upon them all a like fate. None of her family had dared to visit her since her condemnation. She is the eldest daughter of one of the most accomplished noblemen of the kingdom—Albert De Castro, of the Ducal House of Yavora. The residence occupied by Lord Effingham, British Minister at the court of Lisbon, adjoined the De Castro home.

The difference in religion of the two families had interposed no bar to their social intimacy, and each entertained a high regard for the other, with frequent interchange of hospitalities. The children being naturally much together, and Lord Effingham’s children studying under an English tutor, it came about that Leonor De Castro began the study of English with the tutor, a former curate of the Church of England. Her progress was rapid and the worthy curate was delighted with her intellectual capacity and depth of thought, and never dreaming what might be the outcome of his instructions, he was careful to give her a thorough explanation of the Scripture lessons which were read each day. He also presented her with a copy of the New Testament in English, telling her that its sacred pages would show her the way, the truth, and the life. Leonor soon became convinced that the religion of Rome was not that of the Gospel of Christ; and with her ardent temperament, she quickly decided that she could no longer continue to follow the practices and idolatries of the Roman Church.

She soon confided her change of opinions to her parents, and also to the family confessor. The priest, after trying to convince her that she had been misled, and utterly failing to do so, advised her father to send her at once to the Ursuline Convent at St. Ubes, fully expecting that by the wise methods of the Lady Superior and the nuns of that famous seat of piety, the seeds of heresy would soon be eradicated. At the same time he blamed her noble father for his thoughtlessness in exposing Leonor to the wiles of an “arch-heretic.” To St. Ubes this lovely child was sent; her parents, in their alarm and desperation, not daring to disobey the priest.

The most ingenious arguments, coaxing, alluring rewards, and dire threats, were the successive means used by the Lady Superior to stifle a conscience now fully roused. No sympathy or shade of pity stirred that Mother Inquisitor’s heart. Leonor’s youth, her helplessness, her honesty of soul—all pleaded for her in vain. Nothing would now save her delicate body from cruel torture; but the fiendish inflictions were also powerless to kill the new faith that filled her soul, and she was denounced to the officers of the Inquisition as an obstinate and dangerous heretic!

Her removal to the prison of the Inquisition soon followed. With wonderful strength of faith and resolution in one so young and so tenderly nurtured, she, in the very presence of the Inquisitor-General, defied danger and death and gloried in enduring suffering for the sake of the Lord Jesus.

She was condemned to be burned with the other victims of the “auto da fe” of the first of November, and in accordance with this sentence was now on her way to the plaza. Ever since the procession left the prison a young man, whose dress and appearance indicated high rank, had been striving to force his way through the dense masses to reach the line of captives. It was the young Marquis of Elvas, Leonor’s affianced husband. The two had known and loved each other from childhood, and the prospect of a matrimonial alliance between the families was highly satisfactory to all concerned. The lovers were devotedly attached to each other. The engagement had been formally announced shortly before Leonor began her English studies in Lord Effingham’s house. The powerful families of the Marquis and De Castro had both exerted all their influence to save Leonor, but without success. Even a petition for a short respite had been rejected by the monstrous ecclesiastical Dagon who fattened on blood and tears.

The young nobleman, in his despair, had cursed the dread tribunal and openly questioned its authority, thus drawing down on himself the secret hut sure vengeance of the Church. Though well aware that by his words and acts he was courting a like fate, he had resolved to force his way to Leonorls side and say, if possible, some words of comfort, and at least assure her of his sympathy and undying affection, and then he knew not what act of desperation he might commit!

The procession had reached its goal before the distracted Marquis had been able to gain speech with Leonor. The captives were drawn up in line before the Inquisitorial interrogator and urged to recant, while most horrible punishments, full of everlasting torment, vividly portrayed, were assured to them if they persisted in their heresy.

The pitiable distress of Leonor led the Bishop to think that she, at least, would not continue obdurate, and, addressing her, he held out hopes of a respite, and perhaps of ultimate pardon;, he alluded to her tender years, her beauty, accomplishments, high station, and the joys that life had in store for her; he pictured the heart-rending grief of her parents and relatives unless she turned from her apostasy, and then dwelt on their joy over her if she would recant, even at the eleventh hour. “And now,” continued the Bishop, “Leonor De Castro, will you discard the, heretical opinions implanted in your mind by that son of Belial? Will you retrace your wandering steps? Our Holy Church, ever lenient to the faults of her erring children when they confess their sins, would receive you again to her bosom. Will you come?”

He paused for her reply. In a calm, clear voice, her agitation seemingly all gone, came the response: “I cannot acknowledge the authority of the Church you represent. I believe the faith I now hold to be the true one. There is only One who can forgive sins, and but one Mediator between God and man—our great High Priest, Jesus the Christ, and in His mercy do I trust!”

The astonished Bishop, enraged at such a reply, and fearing the effect of these words upon the people, furiously ordered the prisoners to be bound to the stakes and the fires to be lighted at once, adding sternly to the brave young girl: “Obdurate heretic, this day shalt thou enjoy a foretaste of the fiery torments in which thy soul shall writhe forever!”

Leonor, greatly weakened by all she had endured, and shocked at the barbarity of the Bishop, staggered, and would have fallen, had not the Marquis, rushing forward, caught her in his arms.

“Inhuman monster!” he exclaimed to the prelate, “she is fitter for heaven than such as thou! If there is an angel in the presence of God, she will soon be one.”

“Ha, my Lord Marquis!” cried the Bishop, “these are bold words and have sealed your doom. Arrest the Marquis of Elvas!” he said to the Provost.

So far the tragedy of the “Sacred Play”—now, it was to be superseded by one in which Pope, King and Inquisitor had no voice or power!

As the officer moved forward in obedience to the high prelate’s command, a deep, rumbling sound was heard, followed by a sudden sinking of the earth, which threw the assembled multitude prostrate. An immense wave came rolling in from the Tagus and quenched the impious flaming torches. In a few seconds the shock was repeated. Cries of terror and dismay now mingled with the crash of falling buildings. All was consternation and there was a universal panic. The prisoners were for a time forgotten in the dreadful crisis. As the crowds fled, aghast at their own dire peril, the Marquis of Elvas tore a veil from one of the nuns, and completely enveloping Leonor in its ample folds, he bore her away, and, threading his way by a circuitous route through the debris of the city, he safely conveyed his precious burden to her father’s house which, being beyond the district immediately affected by the earthquake, had escaped with slight injury.

No words can express the joy, the revulsion of feeling with which the unexpected sight of their darling filled the household. On bended knees they thanked God for her escape from a horrible death. But this pleasure was of short duration, for soon apprehension filled their souls that the officers of the Inquisition would immediately institute a search for their escaped victims. Where could they hide from the prying eye of that insatiate Moloch? Preparations for immediate flight ensued. The situation of the Marquis was now as full of danger as that of Leonor. As plan after plan was being considered by the anxious family conclave, Lord Effingham entered. His sympathy with the afflicted family had been constant and of the deepest nature. Now the added horrors of the earthquake had brought him again into their darkened dwelling. As soon as he learned of Leonor’s escape and of the plans for flight he shook his head and expressed grave fears as to any possibility of success. “I feel quite certain,” said he, “that by attempting to leave the city now, you will bring certain destruction upon yourselves; indeed, I am surprised that your house has not already been searched. As soon as some degree of quiet is restored, active measures will be taken to arrest every fugitive. You must not attempt to leave the city yet, nor will it do to remain here. You, my Lord Marquis, and Leonor must take up your abode with me for the present. The Holy Office will hardly dare to search the house over which the flag of England floats. Most opportunely, too, I am expecting the early arrival of a British man-of-war to convey part of my family and suite to England, and it may be managed that in good disguise you can leave this country with them.” Eagerly was the proposal accepted, and Leonor and the Marquis returned with the Minister just in time to escape the officers of the Inquisition, who arrived at the house almost immediately after Lord Effingham’s departure with his young proteges. Leonor’s father expressed the deepest surprise at the visit of the officials and continued apparently wrapped in intense sorrow, protesting ignorance of her escape. No one having seen her return to her home, or leave it, no clue could be obtained as to her whereabouts.

Day after day passed in quiet security in the asylum so happily furnished by their English friend. Leonor had always been a great favorite with the Minister and all his family, and now each vied with the others to efface, if possible even the remembrance of the horrible suffering from which she had so miraculously escaped. Soon the bright color returned to her cheeks, and smiles of hope and happiness lighted up her beautiful face with more than former loveliness. The worthy curate, whose successful efforts in instructing Leonor concerning Bible truth had so nearly resulted in her departure from this world through a gate of fire, wept over her as one raised from the dead. All looked anxiously for the arrival of the British man-of-war. At length, about the middle of November, just as the setting sun was casting a softened glory over the Bay of Lisbon, the long hoped for warship appeared, moving majestically over its quiet waters. On the next day, everything being in readiness, the Minister’s family went on board. Amongst the party, disguised as servants, were the Marquis of Elvas and Leonor De Castro. The anchors were weighed, the sails set, and with England’s flag flying at the peak the gallant vessel bore away for the open sea.

When the white cliffs of England came in sight, the glad curate joined together in the holy estate of matrimony John, Marquis of Elvas, and the lovely Leonor De Castro.

Scattering the Seed

I have to thank several kind friends who have sent their help in the good work of circulating the Gospel Echo and other tracts. Early in August I was enabled to send two boxes to Ireland, value over Five Pounds, consisting of volumes of the Gospel Echo, Old Jonathan, and other books, besides a nice assortment of gospel tracts. Those friends who made this possible have my heartiest thanks.

The two letters following came by one post on the day of writing this page:

“The Roman Catholic priest has begun to lecture on What Catholics Believe. He has sixty Irishmen on Sundays, whom he compels to pay one shilling each. After mass he treats them to whiskey and snuff, as the meeting is held in a public-house carriage place. He was beginning to entice the English lads who went to look on, and actually got a little boy to confess to him We want Protestant books simple enough for those people who cannot answer. I should be glad of some. Several are beginning to feel their need of knowledge.”

“Dear Mr. Wileman—Please find enclosed for the purpose of sending literature to Ireland. I have often read your Gospel Echo with very great pleasure and blessing. It seems to me so full of pure gospel truth, and so faithful in addressing sinners dead in sin, that there could not be a tract more suitable for the purpose of sending among those poor people who are priest ridden, and so ignorant of the Gospel of Christ. Wishing you every blessing.”

It is remarkable that these two letters should reach me by the same post. I shall be really thankful to send further supplies, as enabled: also to Mr. Brider and other fellow workers.

After many requests, I consented to have a photograph taken early in July by Russell and Sons. Copies, cabinet size, may be had at 1.s. 6d. each, post free; the proceeds to be devoted to the spread of Gospel Literature. It is specially desired that these may be ordered direct, as they will not be supplied to the trade.

August 1901.

Two Fragments From Dr. H. Bonar

A Melted Heart

IT is strange how loving Jesus appears to me when I speak to others about him; and yet I cannot feel that he is love to me. I had a very sweet time at prayer this morning while confessing sin; the love of Jesus in forgiving my vile, vile sins against light and against love, appeared so wonderful, that I could not stand it; my hard heart melted, and I would not give the sweetness of the tears I then shed for a world of this world’s joy. I could only say, “Truly, thy name is Wonderful.” When I get a sight of Christ’s willingness to forgive and receive his backsliding child again, without one word of upbraiding, it almost breaks my heart. O! how this tender, forgiving love should make us hate sin!

Nearness to God

What a loving being our God is! for the nearer we get to him, and the more we know of him, we are the less afraid. His perfect love shed abroad in our hearts, casts out all our fear.

I see more and more that it is our simply looking to Jesus as ungodly, empty sinners, that makes us what the holy are. Let us look at him too, nothing doubting, and we shall grow as they do; there is nothing to hinder it; on the contrary, they are blessed means of growing in grace. They lead us more to Jesus; and everything that does that, whatever it be, is a blessing.

Connemara: A Good Work in Benighted Galway

“Dublin, August 16th.

“DEAR MR. WILEMAN—Thank you very much for the most welcome box of useful books. Those for the children are very pretty, and will be highly prized by the dear little ones who may yet get them. Some are already being read by families in Dublin. We trust the friends who have so liberally helped us to sow the good seed in poor dark priest-ridden Ireland may be richly blessed in return for their Christian kindness and generosity. With very sincere thanks, believe me, yours truly in the Master’s service, E. S. SCOONES.”

“Connemara, October 3rd.

“DEAR MR. WILEMAN—I meant to write and thank you before this for the beautiful books received from you before Miss Scoones and I left Wimbledon. We came away from home in August, and have been in Ireland ever since. Workers are sadly needed in poor dark Connemara. One feels, if our English friends only realized the dire need in these benighted districts, surely some would be found to come to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

“We are once again in the same place where we came through so much last year, and sorely need the prayers of God’s children, as there is not one here to lend us a helping hand. Still, I am thankful to say, since last year the persecution has ceased; the attitude of the people has changed; an open-air meeting, which we had commenced when here last year, amidst much opposition and persecution, is now carried on weekly, and the people listen quietly and attentively. A Christian man comes a distance of nearly twenty miles every Thursday to hold it, unless circumstances prevent, as is the case today; and I am always so sorry when it falls through. I accompanied him myself last week; and, though a great effort, felt it a great privilege to tell out to those poor dark benighted souls, who are in too much fear of the priest to have ventured so far, the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

“The young worker we had with us last year, and who under us commenced the meeting, was cruelly ill-used and persecuted. He has gone now, and we are waiting on the Lord to send another. We do want His choice, a God-sent man, for the work is not easy. There is an old barn here we are thinking might be converted into a little dwelling-house for one or two Christian workers, or for a man and his wife.

“At a great effort, I have myself secured the little cottage in which we are just now. It had to be sold, and we feared it falling into the hands of Roman Catholics, and so the work would have been stopped, and the one solitary opening closed.

“We are very glad to have some of the texts you sent on the walls of my bare little cottage. It is a comfortless little place yet. But I feel thankful for the privilege of having been permitted to purchase it to hold for God and for His work. The texts we have found very useful. One was left in one of the few Protestant lodging houses in Galway. The woman is a Christian, and has promised to put them up; nothing of the kind being there before. Two others have been placed in a Protestant cottage, where lives a poor old rheumatic man. Roman Catholics come in to see him sometimes, and he talks with them; so we trust the texts will be blessed.

“I hope I have not wearied you with this lengthy epistle, but I wanted to thank you for the beautiful books, and to ask an interest in your prayers on behalf of the work here.

“With Christian regards, believe me, yours in the Master’s service, A. M. BARBOUR.”

The books sent included volumes of the Gospel Echo, Old Jonathan, and other illustrated books, suitable for young and old; halfpenny gospels, and pictorial tracts; and the cards were floral texts of Scripture, 12 inches by to, published at a penny each. My readers will thus see for how small a sum a great deal of good can be done. It will give me pleasure to send another box early in November, and another early in December.

W. W.

An Incident in a Prison

IN the year 1552, the dungeons of the city of Lyons were tenanted by two prisoners of very opposite character. In one of these dark, damp, and dismal vaults, bound hand and foot, and tormented by the fierce cravings of hunger, which the scanty prison allowance seemed rather to stimulate than to satisfy, lay Jean Pierre Chambon, who having three years before committed robbery and murder, had at length fallen into the hands of justice.

Shut out from the light of day, and from the sight of his fellow-men, save when once in the day the jailer entered with the portion of food, this ruthless robber had for two weary months been fain to vent his impotent rage by impatient tossings on his moldy straw, making the gloomy walls resound with the clanking of his chains, mingled with blasphemies against God, and curses upon the day of his birth, his parents, and all mankind.

But, a few days before the period at which our relation commences, most unwonted sounds were heard in those gloomy caverns, and the harmonious sounds of psalms and hymns were borne distinctly to his ear from neighboring dungeons.

The year 1552 is, alas marked in the annals of France as one of grievous Protestant persecution, and many pious Huguenots were imprisoned in Lyons, and in other parts of France, for their adherence to their holy faith. From them proceeded the unwonted sounds: which produced no other impression on Chambon than a stirring up of the native enmity of his heart, impelling him to redouble his blasphemies whenever the accents of prayer or praise fell with distinctness on his ear; for he was rude and boisterous by nature, his heart was hardened by crime, and so entire was his ignorance of the Gospel, that, although familiar with the name of St. Francis, he was wholly unacquainted with that of Christ the Saviour of the world. Such was the bodily and spiritual estate of this miserable man, when, in the gracious providence of God, it came to pass, that as all the cells were overfilled with persecuted Gospel confessors, one of them, named Peter Bergier, a native of Geneva, was placed in the same dungeon with Chambon.

Bergier being engaged in commerce, had come to Lyons in the course of business, probably little anticipating any evil results from his journey thither. He was a man of considerable property, was highly esteemed by his fellow-citizens, and specially happy in the possession of a devoted wife and promising children; yet none of these temporal advantages had so absorbed his affections, as to induce him to neglect the higher and holier ends of his being; but, like that merchant of whom the Saviour speaks, he had been a seeker of “goodly pearls,” and having recognized in the Gospel the “one pearl of great price,” he felt ready to part with all, even life itself, rather than forego possession of it.

In being subjected to bonds and imprisonment for the truth’s sake, Bergier knew he did but share the lot of all Christ’s disciples, from apostolic times down to his own; yet was he not a little startled when he learned with whom he was to be imprisoned, and still more was he appalled when he heard the curses and blasphemies which flowed unceasingly from “the evil treasure” of the wretched Chambon’s heart. But the thought that for this soul also the Saviour had died, changed his horror into compassion, his disgust into an earnest longing to contribute to the rescue of the lost one.

Bergier began by beseeching, with all gentleness and kindness, his rude companion to desist from cursing and blaspheming; representing to him that these could not possibly help, but would most assuredly injure him, by heaping up wrath against the “day of wrath” on his head; and he further entreated the unhappy man to join with him in prayer. Chambon replied that it was very true that his curses did not bring him any aid, but that Bergier’s prayer would bring himself as little. Finding, therefore, the futility of his attempts to induce his wretched associate to pray for himself, Bergier was only the more fervid in intercessions for him, and at the same time evinced his sympathy and good-will towards him by performing (for he was unfettered) many little services for the manacled prisoner, and even by sharing with him the better food with which private friends in the city strove to lighten the privations of the martyr’s imprisonment. The result was, that Chambon ceased to disturb, at least, the good man’s prayers, by the accustomed rude and blasphemous interruptions, and began by degrees to listen with patience, if not with interest, to what Bergier communicated to him from the Word of God.

With true Gospel wisdom, Bergier dwelt chiefly on the love of Christ in “emptying Himself” of his inherent glory for our sakes; in becoming a man, yea, a man of sorrows; and in at length submitting to the bitterest sufferings and death, even the death of the cross, in order that none who believe in Him should perish, but that all, all without exception, who turned their believing eyes on Him, might be saved by free grace, and receive the gift of eternal life.

And lo! what bolts and bars, dungeon darkness, fare, manacled limbs, and hunger-wasted frame could not effect, was effected by the preaching of the Gospel. As “a fire” the words of free favor enkindled repentance in the heart of this sin-burdened man, and as “a hammer” did they break in pieces his stony heart. Sighs after pardon and forgiveness burst from his laboring bosom, and his sins rose up before his mental vision in all their condemning enormity. Like Cain, he had committed murder, and like him too, he was tempted to despair. But Bergier pointed out to him the mercy of God, who “willeth not the death of the sinner, but that he should turn to Him and live.”

“What! even a murderer?” asked Chambon, with averted face.

“Yes!” replied Bergier, “for thus speaks the Lord by His prophet to those whose hands were full of blood, ‘Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do well; and though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’”

“But what good can I now do,” asked Chambon, “bound and fettered, and appointed to death as I well know myself to be?”

“You can believe God’s declaration,” replied Bergier, “and look to Him for the forgiveness of your sins. It was a criminal like you, one nailed hand and foot to the cross, appointed to death, and disabled from living a life of obedience, that said to Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom;’ and to him the Saviour gave this comforting assurance, ‘To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.’ Take that for your example and your warrant.”

“And do you really believe,” cried Chambon, on whose mind a ray of hope began faintly to dawn, “that I can be saved?”

“Only believe, and thou shalt be saved,” said Bergier, with solemn earnestness; and straightway kneeling down, he began to pray aloud that Jesus Christ would take compassion on the repentant sinner, and give him assurance of His grace. Chambon had fallen on his knees likewise, and with folded hands and trembling voice joined in Bergier’s prayer with the petition, “Lord Jesus! dear Saviour, have mercy on me! I am indeed unworthy of Thy notice, and merit nothing but damnation; but Thou hadst mercy on the malefactor on the cross; O! have mercy on me also, even on me!”

And now, as it was the first time in his life that he had really prayed, so he learned also now for the first time that prayer can help us. Even while he prayed the ray of hope grew brighter in his heart, and the Holy Spirit, which had, by means of the word, begun the good work in his soul, carried it on by the same instrumentality to the day of redemption.

From that hour Chambon commenced, as he himself afterward expressed it, a new walk. Openly confessing himself the chief of sinners, bewailing his shameful life and horrid acts, he continued instant in prayer to God for mercy and pardon. At the same time he drank in the Scriptures, which Bergier repeated to him, as the thirsty earth drinks in the rain from heaven, until he at length attained to the firm assurance that he too, all unworthy as he was in himself, had obtained, through the Lord Jesus Christ, “redemption in His blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” The lips of him who was before “a blasphemer, and injurious,” now overflowed with thanksgiving and praise for the mercy which had been vouchsafed to him. He bore now every suffering with patience, acknowledging he had deserved much more both from God and man, and professed a humble but devoted love for that God of whom he had once refused to hear.

About the time when this entire change took place in his inward man, it pleased God, who is rich in mercy, to appoint him some alleviation of his outward sufferings by the removal of his fetters, and the being furnished with better food. But far more than over such bodily comforts did the repentant sinner rejoice in the acquisition of a Bible, which some friends had sent to. Bergier, and which he gladly permitted his fellow-prisoner to read. A very little light fell into the dungeon through a small air-hole, and before this orifice Chambon would stand hour after hour, poring with extreme difficulty, but unsated delight, on the newly obtained treasures of the sacred page.

Bergier, who seems to have met sympathizing abettors among the prison officials, found opportunity of communicating to other Gospel confessors, who pined within the same walls, the great mercy which Chambon had experienced from the Lord; and in order to strengthen his faith and comfort his heart, they sent to him some books they had themselves received from pitying friends, accompanied by a letter of encouragement and exhortation. Chambon obtained, through the kindness of one of the prison attendants, writing materials, and replied to those Christian prisoners in the following terms: “Time would fail me were I to attempt to rehearse all the mercies and benefits which the Almighty hath bestowed on one whose godless life and daring crimes deserved nothing but judgment at his hands. But thanksgiving and praise be to Him for the merciful chastisement with which he has graciously visited me in this world, that I might not be condemned in the next. For, although my punishment is severe, I yet feel and confess that I have deserved a thousand-fold worse. Hence, I no longer regard my pains and torments as heavy to bear, but looking away from them, endure all patiently, only wondering at all the goodness and mercy which God hath displayed towards me. Wherefore I am ready and willing to undergo whatever further trials he may see fit to lay upon me, and will take them all patiently. But I earnestly entreat you to do me one kindness, and that, is, to write to me how I may best prepare myself for death, in case I be doomed thereto, and I further beg that you will not forget me in your prayers. The Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, comfort you, and give you patience in your imprisonment!”

Thus it was with Chambon, as with all Christians— “old things passed away and all became new.”

But the Lord showed him yet another distinguished mercy. His brother, though wholly innocent of all participation in Jean Pierre’s blood-shedding, had been accused, arrested, and imprisoned as an accomplice, and, worse than all, had been put to the torture to make him confess himself guilty! Bergier having opportunity of meeting him occasionally in the cell of another prisoner, availed himself of these opportunities to relate to him his brother’s change of mind, and to urge him to follow his example. And the Lord “opened his heart, so that he received the word with joy,” and Bergier became the honored instrument of his conversion also. This was the greater joy to Chambon, as he justly felt himself to be the procuring cause of his brother’s misfortunes, and he thus alludes to the circumstance in the already mentioned letter to his Christian fellow-prisoners: “I must also inform you of the great grace which God hath shown my brother, and thus made him ample amends for the torture to which he was innocently subjected. He came into this prison with blinded eyes as well as I; but by God’s mercy and blessing the instructions of our brother Bergier, he will leave it with the light of the knowledge of the Divine word; so that his benefit is greater than his injury; and if brother Bergier had never done any other good but this, it would be a wondrous deed, for I esteem it higher than if my brother had gained the whole world!”

Chambon continued to grow in grace, so that at length he was able to meet his fearful punishment with courage and hope. He was condemned to be broken on the wheel, and yet, notwithstanding the well-known tortures which accompany this death, he listened to his sentence with composure, and bore its execution with patience.

At the place of punishment he confessed, with much contrition, his many sins in the hearing of the assembled multitude, and entreated their forgiveness for the scandal and offense he had occasioned, even, as he trusted, God had forgiven him for Christ’s sake, for which grace he praised God with a loud voice, and then quietly laid himself down to endure his fearful doom.

And what became of Bergier?

He might easily have not only saved his life, but obtained permission to return to his home and family, had he been willing to purchase these favors by a recantation of his Protestant faith. But he remembered his Saviour’s declaration, “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it;” and so he manfully “held fast that he had,” that “no man should take his crown,” continued steadfast in the faith without wavering, and was condemned to be burnt to death.

On his way to the place of execution, we are told, the peace of God so illumined his countenance, that his friends deemed they had never seen him look so beautiful and engaging: and as he passed along in the condemned car, he greeted such as were known to him by bidding them a friendly “Good night,” whilst he at the same time entreated every one whom he might unintentionally have offended to forgive him, as he from the heart forgave all his fellow-creatures.

Unmoved by this touching evidence of Christian humility and love, a Romish priest called out to him, “Thou art going straight to hell, thy fitting dwelling-place,” to which the martyr replied, “The Lord forgive thee!”

A vast multitude having accompanied him to the scene of his sufferings, Bergier cast on them a compassionate look, exclaiming, “Oh, how great is the harvest! Lord, send laborers into thy harvest.” (Matthew 9:38.) He then repeated the confession of faith, and cried out at its conclusion, “Oh, Lord, how sweet and lovely is Thy name!”

As they were binding him to the stake, Bergier prayed, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” And when the fire was kindled, and the flames began to wrap him round, he looked upward and said, “I see heaven open!” These were the last words he was heard to utter. Smoke and flame choked his voice, and his soul ascended to Him who hath promised, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown. of life.”

What gave Bergier the strength thus to hold out to the end? The same word and Spirit which changed Chambon, the reckless, ruthless murderer, into the humble, contrite, and patient disciple, and thus united the murderer and the martyr. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”

The Hand of God in History

A FRIEND, who has hereby our best thanks, has kindly sent a copy of the Times newspaper, bearing the date, November 7th, 1805. It contains a series of dispatches from admiral Collingwood, relating the great naval victory of Trafalgar on October 21st, in which the gallant Nelson was mortally wounded.

What is, however, of higher value is the following General Order, issued by Collingwood on the day after the glorious victory, here copied verbatim:

“GENERAL ORDER.

“The Almighty God, whose arm is strength, having of His great mercy been pleased to crown the exertion of His Majesty’s fleet with success, in giving them a complete victory over their enemies on 21st of this month; and that all praise and thanksgiving may be offered up to the Throne of Grace for the great benefits to our country and to mankind: I have thought proper that a day should be appointed of general humiliation before God, and thanksgiving for His merciful goodness, imploring forgiveness of sins, a continuation of His divine mercy, and His constant aid to us in the defense of our country’s liberties and laws, without which the utmost efforts of man are naught; and direct, therefore, that a day be appointed for this holy purpose.

“Given on board the Euryalus, off Cape Trafalgar, 22nd October, 1805.

“(Signed) C. COLLINGWOOD.

“To the respective Captains and Commanders.”

On reading the above, the thought is forced upon the mind that, under similar circumstances at the present day, no such provision would be made for a day of humiliation, prayer, and thanksgiving. Of this we have had painful evidence during the last few months. When the lamentable war in South Africa was forced upon us, a godless daily paper, published in Fleet Street, made merry over the matter, and said that our troops, after an easy victory, would have a picnic on Christmas day in Pretoria. It does not appear that the picnic has yet been held, after nearly two years of bloodshed and disaster. And as to holding a day of humiliation and prayer, it is scarcely likely in the present boastful temper of the nation. The legislature can, by a public act, take a day from the service of the nation for the purpose of attending Epsom races, and thus publicly break its own laws; but when a day of prayer is suggested, we are met with scorn and ridicule. O that the day might return when men would realize that God deals with nations, as with individuals, in much long suffering and goodness; but that any denial of His authority must be met with rebuke and punishment.

"There Is Nothing."

(1 Kings 18:43.)

THIS was the language of Elijah’s servant, who had only sense, and sight, and feeling by which to judge. But Elijah, the man of faith and prayer, who judged by faith in the power and promise of God, had already said, in spite of appearances, that there was “a sound of abundance of rain.”

Thus sight said there was nothing, while faith said there was abundance.

But truly there were many things to cause the servant to say there was nothing. It was a time of grievous famine and drought, which had wasted the land for over three years. Thus we read that there was no dew, and no rain, throughout the land of Israel. In Zarephath also of Zidon, a poor widow woman had no food, and no fuel, and was reduced to the last extremity. So also Ahab and Obadiah could find no water in the brooks, and no grass in the valleys. The widow’s son died, and there was no breath left in him. There was thus one universal no there was nothing!

And is it not very often so with God’s dear people and servants? No joy in the heart, no comfort in the life, and no apparent prosperity in anything. Reason says “there is nothing”; but faith says “there is abundance.” Sometimes a tradesman has no customers at his counter, no orders on his desk, and no balance at his bank. A dear child of God may have no comfort in his soul, and no power to pray. A servant of God may have no sermon, and even no text. But what does faith say under these circumstances? Faith knows well that there is abundance of everything with God, and that from His all-sufficiency there will be a rich supply for every real need. “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

How our God delights to answer prayer! He likes to be trusted, and invites every needy soul to name fully all its need to Him.

“With heaven and earth at His command,

He waits to answer prayer.”

Things Worth Remembering

OUR Judge, instead of condemning us, stepped from the bench and died for us. The blood of Christ upon the heart is the greatest blessing—upon the head the greatest curse.

They that do nothing are in the readiest way to do that which is worse than nothing.

Have you found mercy? show mercy.

Waiting upon God continually will abate your unnecessary cares and sweeten your necessary ones.

If we forget God when we are young, he may forget us when we are old. If we expect to live with Christ in heaven, we must live with him on earth. Christ satisfied the law of God to the uttermost, and, therefore, can save those who believe in him to the uttermost.

Doing God’s will is food to a healthy soul.

God speaks to our ear by his Word, to our eye by his providences, to our feelings by his rod, and to our hearts by his Spirit.

The Bible is our representative of God upon earth.

Harvest Thoughts

By JOHN FLAVEL.

Corn fully ripe is reaped, and gathered in;

So must yourselves, when ripe in grace or sin.

WHEN the fields are white to harvest, then husband-men walk through them, rub the ears, and, finding the grain full and solid, they presently prepare their scythes and sickles, send for their harvest-men, who quickly reap and mow them down; and after these follow the binders, who stitch it up; from the field where it grew it’s carried to the barn, where it is thrashed out; the good grain gathered into an heap, the chaff separated and burnt, or thrown to the dunghill. How bare and naked do the fields look after harvest, which before were pleasant to behold! When the harvest-men enter into the field, it is before them, like the garden of Eden, and behind them, a desolate wilderness; and in some places it’s usual to set a fire to the dry stubble, when the corn is housed; which rages furiously, and covers it all with ashes.

The application of this, I find made to my hands by Christ Himself: “The field is the world, the seed are the children of the kingdom, the tares are the children of the wicked one, the enemy that sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the world, the reapers are the angels.”

The field is the world; there both the godly and ungodly live and grow together, till they be all ripe, and then they shall both be reaped down by death; death is the sickle that reaps down both. I will open this allegory in the following particulars:

1. In a catching harvest, when the husbandman sees the clouds begin to gather and grow black, he hurries in his corn with all possible haste, and houses day and night.

So doth God, the great Husbandman; He hurries the saints into their graves, when judgments are coming upon the world. “The righteous perish, and no man layeth it to heart; and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come” (Isa. 57:1). Methuselah died the year before the flood, Augustine a little before the sacking of Hippo, Pareus just before the taking of Heidelberg, Luther a little before the wars broke out in Germany. But what speak I of single saints? Sometimes the Lord houses great numbers together, before some sweeping judgment comes. How many bright and glorious stars did set almost together, within the compass of a few years, to the astonishment of many wise and tender hearts in England I find some of them thus ranked in a funeral elegy:

The learned Twisse went first (it was his right),

The Holy Palmer, Burroughs, Love, Gouge, White,

Hill, Whitaker, great Gataker, and Strong,

Perne, Marshal, Robinson, all gone along.

I have not named them half; their only strife

Hath been, of late, who should first part with life.

These few who yet survive, sick of this age,

Long to have done their parts, and leave the stage.

The Lord sees it better for them to be under ground than above ground, and therefore, by a merciful providence, sets them out of harm’s way.

Neither the corn or tares can possibly resist the sharp and keen sickle, when it is applied to them by the reaper’s hand; neither can the godly nor ungodly resist the stroke of death when God inflicts it. “No man can keep alive his own soul in the day of death, and there is no discharge in that war.” The frail body of man is as unable to withstand that stroke, as the weak reeds, or feeble stalks of the corn, are to resist the keen scythe and sharp sickle.

The reapers receive the wheat which they cut down into their arms and bosom. Hence that expression by way of imprecation upon the wicked, “Let them be as the grass upon the house-top, which withers before it grows up, wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves, his bosom” (Psalm 129:6, 7). Such withered grass are the wicked, who are never taken into the reaper’s bosom, but as soon as saints are cut down by death, they fall into the hands and bosoms of the angels of God, who bear them in their arms and bosoms to God their Father (Luke 16:22). For look, as their blessed spirits did exceedingly rejoice at their conversion (Luke 15:10), and thought it no dishonor to minister to them whilst they stood in the field (Heb. 1:14), so when they are cut down by death, they will rejoice to be their convoy to heaven.

4. When the corn and weeds are reaped or mowed down, they shall never grow any more in that field; neither shall we ever return to live an animal life any more after death. “As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more; he shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more” (Job 7:9, 10).

Lastly, the reapers are never sent to cut down the harvest till it be fully ripe; neither will God reap down saints, or sinners, till they be come to a maturity of grace or wickedness. Saints are not reaped down till their grace be ripe. “Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, as a shock of corn cometh in its season” (Job 5:26).

The wicked also have their ripening time, for hell and judgment; God doth with much long-suffering endure the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Of their ripeness for judgment the Scripture often speaks. “The sin of the Amorites is not yet full” (Gen. 15:26). And of Babylon it’s said, “O thou that dwellest upon many waters, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness” (Jer. 51:13).

‘Tis worth remarking, that the measure of the sin and the end of the sinner come together. So Joel 3:13, “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest of the earth is ripe, for the press is full, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great.” Where note, sinners are not cut down till they be ripe and ready. Indeed, they are never ripe for death, nor ready for the grave; that is, fit to die yet they are always ripe for wrath, and ready for hell before they die.

Prayer the Forerunner of Mercy

THERE was once a young man who had begun to pray, and his father knew it. He said to him, “John, you know I am an enemy to religion, and prayer is a thing that never shall be offered in my house.” Still the young man continued earnest in supplication., “Well,” said the father, one day, in a hot passion, “you must give up either God or me. I solemnly swear that you shall never darken the threshold of my door again, unless you decide that you will give up praying. I give you till tomorrow morning to choose.” The night was spent in prayer by the young disciple. He arose in the morning, sad, to be cast away by his friends, but resolute in spirit, that come what might he would serve his God. The father abruptly accosted him: “Well, what is the answer?” “Father,” he said, “I cannot violate my conscience, I cannot forsake my God!” “Leave immediately,” said he. And the mother stood there, the father’s hard spirit had made hers hard too; and though she might have wept, she concealed her tears. “Leave immediately,” said he. Stepping outside the threshold, the young man said, “I wish you would grant me one request before I go; and if you grant me that, I will never trouble you again.” “Well,” said the father, “you shall have anything you like; but mark me, you go after you have had that; you shall never have anything again.” “It is,” said the son, “that you and my mother would kneel down, and let me pray for you before I go.” Well, they could hardly object to it; the young man was on his knees in a moment, and began to pray with such unction and power, with such evident love to their souls, with such true and Divine earnestness, that they both fell flat on the ground, and when the sun rose, there they were; and the father said, “You need not go, John; come and stop, come and stop;” and it was not long before not only he, but the whole of them, began to pray, and they were united to a Christian church.

—From a Sermon by the late C. H. Spurgeon.

Gentle Jesus

TWAS a time of bitter sorrow;

Stormy had the daytime been;

How I trembled for the morrow,

Dreading too the night between

Then I heard a sweet voice saying

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild;”

And another, white-robed, praying

“Look upon a little child.”

Quickly then my trouble vanished,

As the mist before the day;

And all anxious care was banished,

For the moment, far away:

Then the precious dewdrop glistened

“Pity my simplicity;”

And I melted as I listened—

“Suffer me to come to Thee.”

O the music of those voices!

“Perfect” praise and “perfect” prayer!

And a father’s heart rejoices,

Even in the midst of care,

When he hears the sweet petition—

“Fain I would to Thee be brought,”

Joined to His Divine permission—

“Gracious God, forbid it not.”

Now my soul grew calm and tender,

Though as hard as stone before;

Softened to a sweet surrender,

I became a child once more:

With them in my spirit kneeling,

“In the kingdom of Thy grace,”

I could ask with holy feeling,

“Give a little child a place.”

I could view my Father’s pleasure

In the sorrow of the way,

With His all-sufficient treasure

As my portion day by day:

Faith could pierce the clouds above me

“O supply my every want;”

Knowing He would ever love me—

“Feed the young and tender plant.”

Lord, I thank Thee for Thy kindness

Shown to me, a child of dust,

And deplore the sin and blindness

At the root of my distrust:

What from Thee my soul shall sever?

“Day and night my Keeper be;”

Since Thy mercy lasts forever,

“Every moment watch round me.”

WILIAM WILEMAN.

October 5th, 1901.

An Aged Pilgrim

“Who lives in that room?” I asked of a woman, pointing to a door in a house in my district. “A very old woman, but I do not think she would care to see you,” was the reply.

Some days after, being in the same house, I thought I would ask the old woman herself if she would like a visit from me. So I knocked at her door.

“Come in,” said a sharp clear voice.

I opened the door, and then saw before me indeed a very old woman—she was tall and erect, with a clear blue eye, but her face was literally furrowed with wrinkles.

“I have called to see if you would like a visit from me sometimes when I come to this house,” I said.

“Very much, ma’am. I am obliged to any lady who will take the trouble to come and see me,” said my old woman in a brisk cheerful voice.

So I sat down, and told her the house was a part of my district, and that it was a pleasure to me to come, and I hoped sometimes a visit of sympathy and kindness would be pleasant to her.

“Do you like living quite alone?” I asked.

“Oh yes, I have long outlived all who belonged to me. I am very old, I am ninety-three.”

“And can you do all you require for yourself?”

“Yes! people tell me of the infirmities of old age, but as yet, I know little of them. I can do all I need—I don’t require much for my support, and that I gain by taking in washing; and my employers are very good to me, and do not hurry me. I am very well—no pain, no aches my sight is quite good, and as you may perceive I am not at all deaf. I have many and great mercies—still with all this, I shall be glad when my summons comes.”

“Why should you be glad?” I asked. “You seem to have much to make life desirable?”

The old woman’s face was lighted up by a smile so bright and sweet, it seemed almost to chase away the wrinkles, as she answered, “Why should I be glad? Because I long to see Him who all my life long has cared for me, watched over me, redeemed me.”

“Then you love the Saviour who has done such great things for you, and therefore you long to be with Him. You will rejoice to see the city whose streets are gold, and the gates of pearl.”

“Yes” she replied, “but not because of the golden streets or gates of pearl. I never cared for smart things in this world, and I am very sure I shall not care for them in my Saviour’s presence. My delight will be to sit in the very lowest place near to my Lord and my God.”

I saw this dear old woman was indeed ready for the home prepared for her. I soon went again to see her, and found her the same holy, cheerful, happy person. She welcomed me with true Christian courtesy, and listened as I read God’s word to her with rapt attention.

I had seen her well as usual, when, on going a few days after, I was surprised on knocking at her door, to hear a very feeble voice say, “Come in,” and on entering her room I found the old woman in bed. “Ah,” she said, “I think the summons has come, I find now what are the infirmities of old age. On trying to rise this morning all power was gone. I cannot move—I am quite helpless, but I am very happy, the Saviour is so gently leading me. The woman in the next room, of whom I knew little, not hearing me move, came in to see what was the matter, and has been so kind, and now you have come. I seem to have all I want. But I cannot see you, my sight is become quite dim, but it is all right, and I am just waiting for my final call.”

“You have perfect peace,” I said, according to the promise, “because your mind is stayed on Him.”

“Yes,” she replied, “it is just that. This morning there came to my mind the text, And He said, Let us make man.” Surely if the blessed Trinity took all that trouble to make me, they will indeed never let go—I am safe, quite safe.”

She dwelt with a kind of rapture on the prospect of so soon being in the presence of her Lord; and she lay on her dying bed a picture of peace and trust.

Very soon her dearest wish was realized, and the spirit left its earthly tenement to enter that home prepared by the Saviour’s love for His faithful children.

On going after death into the next room to thank the neighbor who had shown her such prompt kindness, she said: “I need no thanks, I gained more than I gave.”

I never before saw such real faith in God and the Saviour as in that old woman. I saw religion was indeed a reality with her. I hope I may never forget the lesson I learned from that dying saint.

“My Father’s house on high,

Home of my soul! how near,

At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye,

Thy golden gates appear!

“Ah! then my spirit faints

To reach the land I love,

The bright inheritance of saints,

Jerusalem above!”

M. D. H.

A Simple Explanation

MANY persons have been puzzled; and many have been led into a mistake, by the expression in Acts 21:15: “We took up our carriages, and went up to Jerusalem.” But the matter is very plain when it is understood. The meaning is quite likely to be misapprehended, unless the reader is well acquainted with the changes which have taken place in the English language since the Bible was translated. Probably nine-tenths of all who read the verse suppose, and very naturally too, that Paul and his companions were provided with such conveniences as now are known by the name of carriages. Even writers of books have fallen into the same error. Thus we read in Rae Wilson’s “Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land:”

“This, I am inclined to believe, was not the track which was taken by the Apostle Paul, when he went up to Jerusalem from the coast, as he appears to have traveled in some conveyance moved on wheels; for it is so far from being in any degree possible to draw one along, that, on the contrary, a great exertion is necessary to travelers to get forward their mules.”

The error here is a comparatively harmless and amusing one, but the same mistake has been made the foundation of serious cavil at the truth of the passage. “How is this possible,” says a modern objector, “when there is nothing but a mountain track, impassable for wheels, between Caesarea and Jerusalem?” The blunder in the former case, and the sneer in the latter, would alike have been saved, had the writers known that when the Bible was translated, “carriage” did not mean “that which carries,” but “that which is carried.” “We took up our carriages” means no more and no less than “we took up our baggage,” or, as one of the earlier translations familiarly expresses it, “we trussed up our fardels.”

There are other passages in the Bible where the word “carriage” is evidently used as synonymous with baggage. For example, “So they turned and deserted, and put the little ones, and the cattle, and the carriage before them.” Judges 23:21. “And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage.” 1 Sam. 17:22. David’s “carriage” consisted, as we learn from the preceding verses, of an ephah of parched corn, ten loaves of bread, and ten cheeses. Examples of a similar character may readily be cited from the historians and essayists who were contemporaneous with the translators of the Bible. North, in his translation of Plutarch, says that Spartacus withdrew an opposing army, and took all their “carriage;” and Bacon, quoting 1 Sam. 30:24, speaks of those “who stayed with the carriages,” substituting the word “carriages” for “stuff,” which appears in the ordinary version.

In fact, “carriage,” “luggage,” and “baggage,” were not only formed in the same way, but were originally synonyms; baggage being that which is bagged, luggage that which is lugged, and carriage that which is carried.

Happy for One Night

A YOUNG lady was remarkable for her beauty and her winning manners. She though a child of many prayers, finding herself admired and flattered, longed to break loose from parental restraint, and to rush into the false glare of worldly pleasure. Hitherto she had been held back from such scenes by the entreaties of her mother. But she was nearing womanhood, and her heart rebelled against what she termed “religious captivity:” and nothing short of a father’s command could now restrain her. Home was made as agreeable as possible, and she was loved, with all her faults, with a love which is almost fearful to bestow on mortals. But still her heart asked for the ballroom, the card party, and the theater; and she cried, “I wish I could be happy for one night!”

Her father was laid upon a sick bed, unconsciously moaning in his pain. One night, while the anxious mother watched beside him, she, who should have shared her weariness and smoothed her sufferer’s pillow, stole, thinly dressed, from her home, and passed the hours until gray morning in a scene of unhallowed revelry. O! what a sight for angels to behold—the mother weeping, praying, and ministering beside the sick bed of him who had so tenderly loved his children; while the daughter, young and strong to perform the work of love, was “killing time” in the giddy whirl of the midnight dance; mingling with those whose characters shut them out from her father’s fireside, and hearing things all new to one taught by a praying mother.

She wanted to be happy, and for one night she was happy!

But joy fled with the first beam of day; and she crept like a thief, half-clad, to her home; and shivering to her very heart, sought her bed. Two weeks from that day she left that bed for her coffin! Poor beauty 1 She had been often reproved, but hardened her heart, and now sudden destruction had come upon her. Parents, pastor, Sabbath schoolteacher, had labored for her soul; while she, vain child, made a mock at sin. When her lovely form was stretched in restless agony on her couch, she moaned pitifully in her wanderings, “O, if I had only known this;” O! if I could have seen it before “Is it possible, is it possible that I am numbered with the dead! Mother, mother, pray for me!”

O! then she, who used to elude her pastor and friend, lest he might speak of her soul, called his name wildly throughout the long night, and when he came, begged piteously that he would not leave her.

Thus she died, and that face, all too lovely for the grave, seems to speak from the coffin’s pillow a warning to those children of praying parents who will seek their portion below. That sweet face had ensnared her soul, and she had preferred the flattery of the trifler to the love of God.

The writer, when ministering beside the poor sufferer, as those large, earnest eyes were raised pleadingly to physician and pastor, and every remark and every prayer only received the one answer, “O! if I had only known this!” felt that it is indeed a fearful thing for the child of a Christian home, the scholar of a Sabbath school, to break loose from such heavenly restraint, and madly choose vanity as her portion. “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”

C. T.

God's Gracious Providence

PHILIP HENRY, the father of the well-known commentator, a devoted and useful minister, had in his boyhood a remarkable escape from fire. He was at Westminster School, where he had formed the dangerous habit of reading in bed. One night, as he was thus occupied, he was overcome with sleep; and the candle having fallen, the bed took fire, and was partly consumed before he awoke. Nothing but the arrival of speedy and efficient help saved him from death.

Dr. Adam Clarke, in his boyhood, escaped from danger even more imminent. He rode a horse down to a large river which flowed near his father’s house, and attempted to cross it. The stream proved both deeper and stronger than he anticipated. The horse lost its footing, and was swept down the current. He was speedily carried off his back, lost his consciousness, sank, and continued in the water he knew not how long, for the next thing he could remember was his recovering from insensibility on the bank of the river. He must have been drifted there by the stream, and the hot summer sun must have acted as a restorative to the system. Sixty years afterward he related this fact in a sermon preached before the Royal Humane Society.

A providential escape of a similar character was experienced by the excellent and devout Cecil. Whilst quite a youth he was playing in a yard at the back of his father’s house, in which were several large tanks of water. One of these, which was sunk in the earth, was frozen over, and a hole had been made in the ice for the purpose of watering the horses. At this hole Richard Cecil was playing with a stick, when suddenly his foot slipped, he plunged into the hole, and was carried under the ice. The workmen in his father’s employ had received particular orders overnight to go to work in a part of a dye-house from which this piece of water was not visible; but without any assignable reason they disobeyed the orders given them, and were at work near the tank in question. So sudden and so noiseless had been the plunge that none of them perceived it at the time; but a few minutes afterward one of the men thought he saw a scarlet cloak appear at the hole, and resolved to go and see what it was. In attempting to get it out he discovered it to be the scarlet cloak of his young master. The boy was drawn from the freezing water apparently dead; but proper means being used to restore animation, after long efforts life returned.

Some time after this, Cecil was caught by the coat in the wheel of a horse-mill, and was on the point of being drawn in and crushed to atoms. With marvelous quickness and presence of mind he noticed that the head of the horse which worked the mill was within reach of his feet. He therefore dashed them violently into the animal’s face; and thus checking its progress, stopped the mill, and then succeeded in extricating himself.

He lamented in after life that these events, so fitted to arrest the mind, and lead him to a grateful dedication of himself to God, should have produced no more than a mere temporary excitement of feeling. For years afterward he lived in sin, and sought to silence the accusations of conscience by skepticism; till at length God, who had guarded his life amidst these perils, in great mercy delivered him from that fearful condition of spiritual darkness, and made him “a burning and a shining light.”

The Gospel Echo: Volume 17 (1901)

Table of Contents

The Gospel Invitation

A New Year - A New Century

The Rescue

The Lord Knows Best

Gracey, the Schoolmistress

The Missionary Tour

A Modern Parable

"To Die Is Gain."

"None but Christ."

A New Scene of Service

A Noble Scottish Boy

The Waldensian Witnesses

Beware of Traps

God's Wondrous Love

"Firm Footing."

A Lesson From the Snow

"That Cursed Drink."

Our Late Beloved Queen

The Maiden Martyr

"That Will Do."

The Good Queen Victoria

The Starving Family

Safe Leading

Making Others Happy

Awful End to a Persecutor

A Woman of Stone

An Aged Pilgrim's History

A Message to You

The Glorious Freeness of the Gospel

The Sunset Hour

Our Late Beloved Queen

The Silent Sinner-Woman

Death!

Somebody Is Praying for Me

Quite True Today

What Do You Think?

"I Think of Jesus."

"Take the Gold Who Will!"

A Skeptic's Awakening

Eternity

Sandy Morrison

Literature for Ireland

Ah!

The Latin Bible

Drinking and Thinking

"Lead Us Not Into Temptation."

Coming to Christ

A Faithful Letter

Reminiscences of John Newton

Paul Quoting a Heathen Poet

The Pequot of a Hundred Years

A Reminiscence of the Late Isaac Broad

The Martyr

That Settled It

The Sabbath Below and Above

Mark Lorimer: A Story of Queen Mary's Days

Remember Lot

The Covenanter's Bible

Sayings of Old Humphrey

The Widow of Annandale

October Musings

The Inquisition

Scattering the Seed

Two Fragments From Dr. H. Bonar

Connemara: A Good Work in Benighted Galway

An Incident in a Prison

The Hand of God in History

"There Is Nothing."

Things Worth Remembering

Harvest Thoughts

Prayer the Forerunner of Mercy

Gentle Jesus

An Aged Pilgrim

A Simple Explanation

Happy for One Night

God's Gracious Providence