delicate females and helpless infants, who, if driven from their native country, must be reduced to the greatest distress: but whatever resolution might be come to respecting this request, they entreated that a rigorous investigation should be made into the crimes, affecting their honour and the credit of their religion, with which they had been charged; and that, if any of them were found guilty, they should be punished, according to their demerit, with the utmost severity. With hearts as rigid and haughty as the Alps which they had lately passed, the deputies replied to this touching and magnanimous appeal: We are not come here to listen to your faith. The lords of the seven cantons have, by the deed now made known to you, declared what their religion is, and they will not suffer it to be called in question or disputed. Say, in one word, are you ready to quit your faith, or are you not?" To this the Protestants, with one voice, replied: "We will live in it—we will die in it;" while the exclamations: We will never renounce it it is the only true faith-it is the only holy faith--it is the only saving faith," continued for a considerable time to resound from different parts of the assembly, like the murmurs which succeed the principal peal in a thunderstorm. Before leaving the room, they were required individually to give their names to the clerk, when two hundred persons immediately came forward with the greatest alacrity, and with mutual congratulations.

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Perceiving that they could look for no favour from the deputies, who sternly refused them permission to remain till the rigour of winter was over, the Protestants made preparations for their departure, and sent Taddeo de Dunis before them to request an asylum from the magistrates of Zurich.

Riverda, the Papal nuncio, and the other priests he brought along with him, laboured hard to convince them of their errors, but did not succeed in making a single convert. Having heard of three ladies of great respectability, Catarina Rosalina, Lucia di Orello, and Barbara di Montalto, who were zealous Protestants, the nuncio felt a strong inclination to enter the lists of controversy with them; but they parried his attacks with so much dexterity, and exposed the idolatry and abuses of the Romish Church with such boldness and severity, as at once to mortify and irritate his eminence. Barbara di Montalto, the wife of the first physician of the place, having incurred his greatest resentment, he prevailed on the deputies to issue an order to apprehend her for blasphemies which she had uttered against the sacrifice of the mass. Her husband's house, which had been constructed as a place of defence during the violent feuds between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, was built on the Lake Maggiore, and had a concealed door, requiring the strength of six men to move it, which opened upon the water, where a boat was kept in waiting, to carry off the inmates upon any sudden alarm. This door he had caused his servants to open that night, in consequence of an alarming dream, which led him to apprehend danger, not to his wife indeed, but to himself. Early next morning the officers of justice entered the house, and bursting into the apartment where the lady was in the act of dressing herself, presented a warrant from the deputies to convey her to prison. Rising up with great presence of mind, she begged them, with an air of feminine delicacy, to permit her to retire to an adjoining apartment, for the purpose of putting on some article of apparel. This being granted, she descended the stairs, and, leaping into the boat, was rowed off in safety, before the eyes of her enemies, who were assembled in the court-room to receive her! Provoked at this disappointment, the nuncio and deputies wreaked their vengeance upon

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the husband of the lady, whom they stripped of his property. Not satisfied with this, they amerced in a large sum two members of the Reformed Church who had refused to have their children baptized after the Popish forms. But the severest punishment fell on a poor tradesman, named Nicolas. He had been informed against some time before, for using, in a conversation with some of his neighbours, certain expressions derogatory to the Virgin Mary, who had a celebrated chapel in the vicinity, called Madonna del Sasso; and the prefect Reuchlin, with the view of silencing the clamours of the priests, had punished his imprudence by condemning him to an imprisonment of sixteen weeks. The poor man was now brought a second time to trial for that offence, and, after being put to the torture, had sentence of death passed upon him, which was unrelentingly executed by order of the deputies, notwithstanding the intercession of the Roman Catholic citizens in his behalf.

The Protestants had fixed on the 3d of March 1555, for setting out on their journey; and so bitter had their life been for some time, that, attached as they were to their native place, they looked forward to the day of their departure with joy. But before it arrived, the government of Milan, yielding to the instigations of the priesthood, published an edict, prohibiting the Locarnese exiles from remaining above three days within the Milanese territory, under the pain of death; and imposing a fine on those who should afford them any assistance, or enter into conversation with them, especially on any matter connected with religion. Being thus precluded from taking the road which led to the easiest passage across the Alps, they set out early on the morning of the day fixed, and, after sailing to the northern point of the Lake Maggiore, passed the Helvetian balliages, by the way of Bellinzone, and reached Rogoreto, a town subject to the Grison league. Here the Alps, covered with snow and ice, presented an impassable barrier, and obliged them to take up their winter quarters, amidst the inconveniences necessarily attending the residence of such a number of persons among strangers. After two months, the thaw having opened a passage for them, they proceeded to the Grisons, where they were welcomed by their brethren of the same faith. Being offered a permanent residence, with admission to the privileges of citizenship, nearly the half of their number took up their abode in that country; the remainder, amounting to a hundred and fourteen persons, went forward to Zurich, the inhabitants of which came out to meet them at their approach, and, by the kind and fraternal reception which they gave them, consoled and revived the hearts of the sad and weary exiles.

DEPENDENCE ON GOD.

EVEN as the needle that directs the hour

Touch'd with the loadstone, by the secret power
Of hidden nature points upon the Pole;
Even so the wavering powers of my soul,
Touch'd by the virtue of thy Spirit, flee
From what is earth, and point alone to thee.
When I have faith to hold thee by the hand,
I walk securely, and methinks I stand
More firm than Atlas; but when I forsake
The safe protection of thine arm, I quake
Like wind-shaked reeds, and have no strength at all,
But like a vine, the prop cut down, I fall.

QUARLES.

SABBATH HUNGER.

1. THE hunger I now notice induces a thankful recognition of the Sabbath some time before it arrives. It is well to be on the look-out for such a friend as the Sabbath, and a hungry hearer will discern the beauty of it through the mists of the week. Hungry people have thought of their dinner hour before it overtakes them; and it is nothing strange that one, hungry for the Word, should have pleasing anticipations of the feast day.

2. And he is not going to be late to public worship. Hunger for food, especially when it pinches, drives one up. You will not have to ring for that mun often; nor will the dinner be likely to cool by delaying for him. So the hungry hearer will hasten to his repast. He has an excellent appetite, and will lose no part of the feast; hence the untimely uproar of the church and pew door will not give notice of his arrival at the sanctuary.

3. And you will not catch the hungry hearer drowsy. Hunger and Drowsiness are not often in each other's company. When one is present, the other is generally missing. A hungry hearer sleepy! Not he. He does not go to church to sleep. He goes to satisfy a craving appetite. That appetite makes divine truth sweeter than honey and the honey-comb. It would not look well to see a man drowsy at his dinner. It does not look even as well as that to see one so at the spiritual banquet.

4. And the hungry hearer will not be over nice about the kind of dish in which the food is served. There are hearers who will not accept of anything much short of an angel to feed them, and it must be from a "lordly dish;" and the food itself must be prepared in the very nicest style of cookery, else they will not eat. Well, they are not hungry; that is the reason. They have been surfeited, or they are sick; something or other has carried off their appetite. Not so with the hungry hearer. He has such a keen relish for his food, that he would be thankful for it if even ravens brought it. He is after the message, not the man. He cannot tell whether the preacher be in plain or splendid apparel. The dish-what docs he care for that? The food is what he wants. He was asked if the preacher was a fine speaker-if he made graceful gestures-if he wore a white or a black cravat-if his hair was properly trimmed. Poor man! he was so hungry he could not tell. The feast was so refreshing that he forgot all about the cook.

If

5. The hungry hearer's attention is not easily liverted. As for other hearers, they can prick up their ears at any other sound sooner than those from the pulpit, and send their eyes in all other directions more easily than in the right one. If a romping log trots through the aisles, he must be looked up at. there be a sound of a wheel of the passing Sabbethbreaker, he must be peeped at. Each of the m embers of Squire Loiterer's family must have a gla ace, But as they severally make their untimely entrance. the hungry hearer-his ear is fixed, his eye is fi: ced, and all because his heart is fixed. He wants to be fed. He came for the purpose. And he is not going to lose his errand. There must be high times in the sanctuary before his attention shall be diverted.

6. Nor is the hungry hearer quarrelsome about the varieties of the truth served up for him. Some hearers want all bones, as if they were hyenas; it must be all doctrines, or they have no ears for it. Others will not touch a bone; it must be all meat. And milkothers must have that, and they will have nothing else. Each must have his own savoury dish, or all

the fat is in the fire. But a keen relish for truth

will make all sorts go well; bones, meat, milk, law, gospel, promise, threatening-it is all good. Hunger does not stop for the savoury dishes, and turn the nose up at all the rest. A good appetite is a most excellent thing to bring to the sanctuary. You will not see him disappointed that brings it. He is going to get something to eat, come what may. If there is any truth in the Lord's house, he is going to find it and be fed.

7. Nor is the hungry hearer easily frightened about the weather. Those that have poor appetites for the Word are easily put into consternation. If a cloud or two happen to scoul for an hour or two about the sky, it does them up for the day. If it should actually drizzle, mercy on them, how could they venture out! | And the wind has got to keep all the weather-cocks in a particular trim, if it would not alarm them into an exile from the sanctuary. But the hungry hearer

ago.

His

broke caste with all that tribe some time hunger for the Word has tossed all his fears about the weather overboard. Boreas must steam it up well to shut him up in his house, and the sky must be a watering pot on a pretty large scale to give him any other home on the Sabbath than the house of prayer. He is hungry-that is the great fact, and the elements must be terribly by the cars to cut him off from public worship and house him up at home.American Periodical.

FIELD PREACHING.

of

"I WONDER at those," says Wesley, "who talk of the indecency of field preaching. The highest indecency is in St Paul's Church, where a considerable part the congregation are asleep, or talking, or looking about, not minding a word the preacher says. On the other hand, there is the highest decency in a behave and look as if they saw the Judge of all, and church-yard or field, where the whole congregation heard him speaking from heaven." Sometimes, when he had finished the discourse and pronounced the blessing, not a person offered to move-the charm was upon them still; and every man, woman, and child remained where they were, till he set the example of leaving the ground. One day many of his hearers were seated upon a long wall, built, as is common in the northern counties, of loose stones. In the middle of the sermon it fell with them. "I never saw, heard, nor read of such a thing before," says. "The whole wall, and the persons sitting upon it, sunk down together, none of them screaming out, and very few altering their posture, and not one was hurt at all; but they appeared sitting at the bottom, just as they sat at the top. Nor was there any interruption either of my speaking or of the attention of the hearers."

he

The situations in which he preached sometimes contributed to the impression; and he himself perceived that natural influences operated upon the multitude, like the pomp and circumstance of Romish worship. Sometimes in a hot and cloudless summer day, he and his congregation were under cover of the

sycamores, which afford so deep a shade to some of the old farm-horses in Westmoreland and Cumberland. In such a scene, near Brough, he observes, that a bird perched on one of the trees, and sung without intermission from the beginning of the service till the end. No instrumental concert could have accorded with the place and feeling of the hour so well. Sometimes when his discourse was not concluded till twilight, he saw that the calmness of the evening agreed with the seriousness of the people, and that "they seemed to drink in the word of God, as a thirsty land the refreshing showers." One of his preaching places in Cornwall was in what had once been the court-yard of a rich and honourable man; but he and all his family were in the dust, and his memory had almost perished. "At Gwenap, in the same country," he says, "I stood on the wall, in the calm still evening, with the setting sun behind me-an almost innumerable multitude before, behind, and on either hand. Many likewise sat on the little hills, at some distance from the bulk of the congregation; but they could all hear distinctly while I read, The disciple is not above his Master,' and the rest of those comfortable words which are day by day fulfilled in our ears." This amphitheatre was one of his favourite stations. He says of it in his old age: "I think this is one of the most magnificent spectacles which is to be seen on this side heaven. And no music is to be heard upon earth comparable to the sound of many thousand voices, when they are all harmoniously joined together, singing praises to God and the Lamb." At St Ives, when a high wind prevented him standing where he had intended, he found a little enclosure near, one end of which was native rock, rising ten or twelve feet perpendicular, from which the ground fell with an easy descent. jutting out of the rock, about four feet from the ground, gave me a very convenient pulpit. Here well-nigh the whole town, high and low, rich and poor, assembled together. Nor was there a word to be heard, nor a smile seen, from one end of the congregation to the other. It was just the same the three following evenings. Indeed I was afraid on Saturday, that the roaring of the sea, raised by the north wind, would have prevented their hearing; but God gave me so clear and strong a voice, that I believe scarce one word was lost." On the next day the storm had ceased, and the clear sky, the setting sun, and the smooth, still ocean, all agreed with the state of the audience.

"A

There is a beautiful garden at Exeter, under the ruins of the castle and of the old city wall, in what was formerly the moat: it was made under the direction of Jackson, the musician, a man of rare genius in his own art, and eminently gifted in many ways. Before the ground was thus happily appropriated, Wesley preached there to a large assembly, and felt the impressiveness of the situation. He says: "It was an awful sight! So vast a congregation in that solemn amphitheatre, and all silent and still, while I explained at large, and enforced that glorious truth: "Happy are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered!"" In another place he says: "I rode to Blanchland, about twenty miles from Newcastle. The rough mountains round about were still white with snow. In the midst of them is a small winding valley, through which the Darwent runs. On the edge of this the little town stands, which is indeed little more than a heap of ruins. There seems to have been a large cathedral church, by the vast walls which still remain. I stood in the church-yard, under one side of the building, upon a large tomb-stone, round which, while I was at prayers, all the congregation kneeled down on the grass. They were gathered out of the lead mines, from all parts-many from Allandale, six miles off. A row of

143

children sat under the opposite wall, all quiet and still. The whole congregation drank in every word, with such earnestness in their looks that I could not but hope that God will make this wilderness sing for joy." At Gawksham he preached "on the side of an enormous mountain. The congregation," he says, "stood and sat, row above row, in the sylvan theatre. I believe nothing in the postdiluvian earth can be more pleasant than the road from hence, between huge steep mountains, clothed with wood to the top, and watered at the bottom by a clear winding stream. Heptenstall Bank, to which he went from hence, was one of his favourite field stations. "The place in which I preached was an oval spot of ground, surrounded with spreading trees, scooped out, as it were, in the side of a hill, which rose round like a theatre." The congregation was as large as he could then collect at Leeds; but he says: "Such serious and earnest attention! I lifted up my hands, so that I preached as I scarce ever did in my life." Once he had the ground measured, and found that he was heard distinctly at a distance of seven score yards. In the seventieth year of his age, he preached at Gwenap to the largest assembly that had ever collected to hear him; from the ground which they covered, he computed them to be not fewer than twoand-thirty thousand; and it was found, upon inquiry, that all could hear, even to the skirts of the congregation.-Southey's Life of Wesley.

Miscellaneous.

PREACHING SERMONS OVER AGAIN.-Dean Colet (the founder of St Paul's School) gave, as a reason for the repetition of his Theological Lectures, that it was better to set wholesome cold meat before his hearers than that which was raw.

PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT.-My great controversy is with myself; and I am resolved to have none with others till I have put things upon a better footing at home.-Adam.

INDWELLING CORRUPTION.-It is with our sins after regeneration, as it was with the beast mentioned in Daniel, which, though it was wounded with a deadly wound, yet had its life prolonged for a season. Flavel.

THE DANGER OF BEING IN THE RIGHT.-It will sometimes be found, in struggling with superiors, that, although they will readily pardon your being in the wrong, they will never forgive your being in the right.

READING BOOKS THROUGH.-When I read, I wish to read to good purpose; and there are some books which contradict, on the very face of them, what appear to me to be first principles. You surely will not say that I am bound to read such books. If a man tells me he has a very elaborate argument to prove that two and two make five, I have something else to do than to attend to this argument. If I find the first mouthful of meat which I taste from a finelooking joint on my table is tainted, I need not eat through it to be convinced I ought to send it away. -Cecil.

ILL-CONSIDERED OPINIONS.-When men first take up an opinion, and then afterwards seek for reasons for it, they must be contented with such as the absurdity of it will afford.-South.

REPROOF OF A FRIEND.-Considering how many difficulties a friend has to surmount before he can

bring himself to reprove me, I ought to be very inuch obliged to him.-Foster.

Daily Bread

FRIDAY.

"Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake."-Ps. cxliii. 11.

If so poor a worm as I

May to thy great glory live,

All my actions sanctify,

All my words and thoughts receive; Claim me for thy service, claim

All I have, and all I am,

Our best pleas in prayer are those that are fetched from the glory of God's own name. Lord, do it, that thy mercy may be magnified, thy promise fulfilled, and thine interest in the world kept up; we have nothing to plead in ourselves, but everything in thee. -Henry.

SATURDAY.

"Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth."-COL. ii. 2.

Prince of universal peace,

Destroy the enmity;

Bid our jars and discords cease-
Unite us all in thee.

If once, like Hezekiah, we call in spectators to see our treasure, and grow proud of our gifts and comforts, then is it high time for God, if he loves us indeed, to send messengers to carry these away from us, which carry our hearts away from him.-Gurnall.

SABBATH.

"Satan would sift thee as wheat."-LUKE Xxii. 31. Unto God, my help, my hope,

My safeguard, and my tower,

Confident I still look up.

And still receive his power:

All the alien's hosts I chase,

Blast and scatter with mine eyes;
Satan comes; I turn my face,

And, lo! the tempter flies!

Satan knows that an arrow out of God's quiver wounds the believer deep; and, therefore, when he accuses, he sometimes comes in God's name. He forges a letter; he, as it were, counterfeits God's hand, and then gives the writing to a poor disconsolate child of God, threatening him with banishment from his Father's house, and loss of his inheritance. The Christian, conscious of his unworthiness, weakness, and many miscarriages, takes it all for Gospel, sets himself down for an alien and an outcast, and builds to himself a prison of real distress upon false, imaginary grounds. Endeavour to deal with Satan's base suggestions as you use to serve the rogues and vagrants that come about the country-though you cannot keep them from passing through the town, yet you can take care not to let them settle there. When you find your sins so represented and aggravated to you, as exceeding either the mercy of God's nature, or the grace of his covenant, or the merit of Christ's blood, or the power of his Spirit, you may be assured this comes from hell, and not from heaven; you may know where it was invented-'tis one of the devil's own lies.-Gurnall.

MONDAY.

"No man can serve two masters."-MATT. vi. 24. Be it my only wisdom here,

To serve the Lord with filial fear-
With loving gratitude;

And such a course may I display,
By shunning every evil way,

And walking in the good.

A man may serve many masters, if they all command the same things, or things subordinate to each other; but he cannot serve two masters, if their commands clash and interfere with each other. And such are the commands of Christ and the flesh in a

suffering hour. Christ says: "Be thou faithful to the death;" the flesh says: "Spare thyself and secure the comforts of life." A dog follows two men while they both walk one way, and you know not which of the two is his master; stay but a little, till their path separates, and then you will quickly see who is the master.-Flavel.

TUESDAY.

"God in Christ."-2 COR. v. 19.
My heart is fix'd, O God, my heart
Is fix'd to triumph in thy grace:
(Awake, my tongue, and bear a part!)
My glory is to sing thy praise,
Till all thy nature I partake,

And bright in all thine image wake. Would we know God's love and grace? would we admire his wisdom and holiness? Let us labour to come to an intimate and near acquaintance with his Son Jesus Christ, in whom all these things dwell in their fulness, and by whom they are exhibited, revealed, unfolded to us. Seck the Father in the Son, out of whom not one property of the divine nature can be savingly apprehended, or rightly understood, and in whom they are all exposed to our faith and spiritual contemplation. This is our wisdom to abide in Christ, to abide with him, to learn him; and in him we shall learn, see, and know the Father also. -Owen.

WEDNESDAY.

"I go to my Father."-JOHN xvi. 10.
From earth we shall quickly remove,
And mount to our native abode-
The house of our Father above-
The palace of angels and God.

How sweet for a dying believer to reflect that, though he is yet a stranger in the world of spirits, still the world of spirits are no strangers to him! God, his Father, is there; Christ, his Saviour, is there; angels, his elect brethren, are there; saints, who got home before him, are there, and more shall arrive every day. He has the blood and righteousness of Christ for his letters of recommendation, and the Holy Spirit for his introducer. He also goes upon express invitation from the King of the country.Toplady.

THURSDAY.

"What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to.wards me ?"-Ps. cxvi. 12.

I'll praise my Maker while I've breath;
And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

I have nothing to give him but his own: I have nothing worth giving him or worth the taking. But know, he desires nothing beyond what thou art able to give, and he accepts according to that we have, and not according to that we have not. For free favours, he expecteth but free thanks; free duties, fast affections. He hath given us the choicest and best things we have; and we, in the way of thankfulness, must return and offer the best things we have unto him.-Lev. ii. 1. The cakes for the meat-offering must be made of the finest flour.-Taylor.

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which they are engaged in the true, divine spirit of it. It is not sufficient that societies be formed for missionary work, but far rather that their operations be directed under the true influence of the spirit of the Gospel. It is not sufficient that missionaries be sent to Jews and Heathens, but still more, that these witnesses of the Lord show in all things that they are actuated by his

If any one supposes this, too, to be little, he understands not the meaning of the Lord's words. There is a good old proverb Pray and labour; they who first used it understood the problem of Christian life. For true it is that man can do nothing without prayer, worthy of his high calling. What he attempts to do without prayer is of no service to him; what he does against prayer, that must injure him, whatever be the character of the work he is engaged in. The activity of the missionary spirit cannot be realized, apart from the continued devotedness of the spiritual power of man to the interests and progress of the divine kingdom; indeed, it is nothing more than the entering on, and perseverance in, this direction -that is, in the spirit of continued prayer. He who has not his whole disposition and character in conformity thereto, as he wants the character of the true follower of Christ, so he is unfit to be a labourer in the work of missions.

Four things are contained in the words, "Pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send labourers into his vineyard."

1. The most immediate signification of the words is-Pray the Lord that he would prepare lalourers for his work. If the missionary work is to be conducted efficiently, much is required. There are necessary-heads to devise-hands to work-money to supply wants-ships to plant the Church of Europe in the furthest ends of the earth. But the most indispensable thing of all is, that true spirit of missions, which will direct the judgment, and assist the labours, and bless the contributions, and fill the sails. Brethren! here there is much to pray for. It is not enough that societies meet for the missionary work; but more especially is it required that these societies should realize the work in No. 13.

pray for! Pray, then, without ceasing. Pray for all who engage in the missionary work, that the Spirit of the Lord may accompany and bless all their labours. It is the Lord himself alone who can prepare labourers for his vineyard. Ile who makes the winds his servants, and flaming fire his ministers, he it is alone who can make his servants as winds, that purify the moral atmosphere of the world, and his ministers as flame, that gives heat to what is benumbed, and quickens the dead.

2. A second signification of the holy precept is-Pray the Lord that he would make you, indiridually, labourers in his work. It may be, that for those of you who have long since engaged in special pursuits here, it would be impossible to go into the uttermost ends of the earth. You have the cares of your families to occupy you. But, although this be impossible, still that consecration for the missionary work is all the more assuredly possible, and, in so far as you are Christians, is it demanded of you. One requires not to go from place to place in order to engage in the proper labours of the missionary fieldin spreading the dominions of the kingdom of Christ. If this kingdom, and what appertains to it, be that thing to which all other things are subordinated and directed; if your duties, and relations, and your whole transactions in life, are regulated by its spirit and laws; if to this kingdom you dedicate your home and heart, and employ your body and life; thus, if a statesman, serving your king to advance this higher kingdom; if a soldier, using your arms for its defence; if a farmer, cultivating your fields for it; if a citizen, employing your business or trade, be it great or small, only for it. In all this you are acting the part of missionaries—you are labouring for the harvest of heaven; there is no part of your life or labours so unimportant or insignificant, as not now to become invested with the highest of all relationships, namely, those that relate to the kingdom of God. See, then, that no day pass in which all, rich and poor, high and low, young and old, do not repeat and urge the prayer: Lord, thy work is so blessed, and the necessity is so pressing, and the harvest is so great, and the labourers are so | few indeed, I pray thou wouldst make me, even

May 23, 1845.