to your knees, for you shall immediately die!" John complied, without remonstrance, and proceeded to pray, in terms so melting, and with such earnest supplication for his wife and their born and unborn children, that Claverhouse saw the hard eyes of his dragoons beginning to moisten, and their hands to tremble, and thrice interrupted him with volleys of blasphemy. When the prayer was ended, John turned round to his wife, reminded her that this was the day come of which he had told her when he first proposed marriage to her, and asked her if she was willing to part with him.

'Heartily willing,' was her reply. This,' he said, 'is all I desire. I have nothing more now to do but to die.' He then kissed her and the children, and said, 'May all purchased and promised blessings be multiplied unto you!' 'No more of this,' roared out the savage, whose own iron heart this scene was threatening to move. 'You six dragoons, there, fire on the fanatic! They stood motionless; the prayer had quelled them. Fearing a mutiny, both among his soldiers and in his own breast, he snatched a pistol from his belt and shot the good man through the head. He fell, his brains spurted out, and his brave wife caught the shattered head in her lap. 'What do you think of your husband, now?' howled the ruffian. 'I aye thoct muckle o' him, Sir, but never sae muckle as I do this day.' 'I would think little to lay thee beside him,' he answered. If you were permitted, I doubt not you would; but how are ye to answer for this morning's wark ?' To men, I can be answerable; and, as for God, I will take him in my own hands! And, with these desperate words, he struck spurs to his horse, and led his dragoons away from the inglorious field. Meekly and calmly did this heroic and christian woman tie up her husband's head in a napkin, compose his body, cover it with her plaid,-and not till these duties were discharged did she permit the pentup current of her mighty grief to burst out, as she sate down besides the corpse and wept bitterly."

How many suffered in these persecutions it is impossible to say. "The roll of their number," as Defoe says, "is kept under the altar and before the throne." Nearly twenty thousand, on a rough guess, seem to have perished by fire, or sword, or water,

or the scaffold, or to have been banished abroad or to the northern islands. Besides these, numbers without number expired of cold or hunger among the morasses of the country. "It was as if some pestilence or 'black death' had crossed the land, so great was the sacrifice of life, so intense had been the excitement and terror, and so deep the desolation that was left behind. Excepting that of the Waldenses some time before, who had dyed the mountain-snows with their blood, there had been no such persecution in Europe; none so inveterate, so fierce, and so long continued; and had Milton been alive, he might have varied his sonnet and applied it to the heroic children of the famous Covenant:

'Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountaius 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 roll'd
Mother with infant down the rocks. The 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 way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.'"

We do not justify all the acts of the Covenanters. Much that was narrow, and false in principle, according to our notions, was doubtless mixed up with nobler and truer aims. But they were HEROES of whom Scotland may well be proud, nay, who will not soon be forgotten in the annals of the Christian religion.

"And

one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. THEREFORE are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."*

PERPLEXED AND PACIFIED.

THREE CHAPTERS ON WORK.

CHAPTER II.

THE LESSON AT SCHOOL.

George Pearson was subject, like other men, to varying moods of mind; he was also affected, like many working men, by the vicissitudes of trade. Dull and brisk, full and just moving, were terms of frequent use, and designations of different states of business. It being a bright August day, and the work upon which Pearson was employed not being urgent, he asked and obtained leave to be absent from the shop in the afternoon. His purpose was to carry out a scheme which he had been revolving in his mind for some time, of taking his wife, who seldom went out, and the whole of the children, for a stroll into the country.

A more delightful day could not have been fixed upon, and the scenery around the town of B- was of such a character that none but the unreflecting, or the hopelessly wretched, could fail to derive pleasure from gazing upon it.

The children were all in high spirits when their father got home. George was despatched to ask for a half-holiday for himself and Jane and Tommy, and upon his return with the teacher's permission for them to be absent from school that afternoon, their joy was almost unbounded. There were high anticipations of pleasure, and each was loud in praise of the splendid weather. Even Master Johnny, the baby, caught the enthusiasm, and was laughing and shaking the chair by which he held most heartily. Dinner being over, there was no little hurrying and skurrying to find and fix the array of the juveniles. At length all were ready and in the street, with their faces turned toward the bridge at the end of the town. They had to go but half a mile beyond the river before they had a prospect of fields and woods, stretching far away, and bounded by the distant hills, whose dim outline was lost in sunlit clouds, thus showing how heaven joins and brightens earth.

The party were now to be seen taking their turns over the stile which introduced to a path across a meadow, and through corn fields, down to the river side.

"How warm and tired those men must be," said Mrs. Pearson, as they came into a field where the harvest men were employed in reaping wheat.

"Yes, and the worst of it is, poor fellows," answered her husband, "they are so badly paid for their work, that except at this time, when they get a little extra, they have hardly enough to live upon. Why, I have been told that some farming men don't get a piece of meat, except a little inferior fat pork, by the month together, and that a short time ago, when flour was so dear, their wages were not sufficient to buy bread enough."

"Poor things, it is dreadful to think what shifts the women must have to make, and that the children cannot be properly fed. Do you know, George, I often wonder why we should be better off than such people, for with all our troubles, I suppose you earn twice as much as they do in general. It cannot be because we are better than they."

Jane, who had come up in time to overhear this observation of her mother's, began unconsciously humming the verse which she had often repeated at school:

"Not more than others I deserve,
Yet God has given me more;
For I have food while others starve,
Or beg from door to door."

The younger, Caroline, looked, while her sister was repeating these lines, as though it was a reproof to her for wishing to be a lady. Her simple act had, beside, a twofold good effect, for it led her father to say, as he patted her on the shoulder, "I know I ought to be more grateful to God, who has placed me in a better condition than others;" while it stirred up George's memory, as was evident by his saying, "That was one of the things which Mr. Hamilton mentioned in the lesson."

"Ah!" exclaimed half the family at once; but George would not wait for encouragement or reproof. So, increasing his speed and loudness in speaking, and trying to look serious, he went on,-"I know what you were going to say. I have not forgotten; but it is very strange that you should have said almost the same as master did. was talking to us first class boys, and he said that he had no doubt but that we were

He

expecting soon to have to go to work, and that we often wished we could be like rich people; and then he told us that work was much more general than some people thought, and that people who do the hardest work with their hands might be respectable and happy."

"Was that all ?" asked the father.

"Oh, no!" continued George, "Mr. Hamilton said that even men with great wealth cannot perform their duty and be happy, unless they try to help others; and that many are not satisfied without endeavouring to get more: and that all this makes it necessary for them to work somehow. And we know," added George, as though speaking upon his own authority, "that all the great men that we read of in history had to work in one way or another before they became eminent. That was the way with Dr. Franklin; he was very clever, but he got on through working hard and taking care. And then master said besides that even savages, whom some people envy because they have not to work regularly as people do in this country, suffer great hardships, and have to endure many privations which the poorest people in England know nothing about; and this is the case with idle careless people who emigrate, expecting to live without labour."

"I know nothing about foreign parts, and I hope I shall never go to Stralia,' that we hear so much talk about," said the mother; "but as to what Mr. Hamilton says about people working who seem to be better off, we may know that by him, for I am sure, though he dresses better than a mechanic, and is not so many hours at his school as your father is at the shop, his work must be very trying indeed. I often wonder how he can stand it; I am sure I never could."

This reference to father roused him from a reverie into which he had fallen, and elicited the acknowledgment that he would sooner work twice as long as he did at hammering and filing in an engineer's shop than have to put up with the tempers of so many children. It was also his opinion, not expressed now for the first time, that it was a shame that schoolmasters were not better paid.

Having now walked as far out as they wished, they began their homeward journey. Almost directly after doing so, they saw the schoolmaster coming down a field on the left, towards the path along which they were advancing. Almost before the caps

and tippets, and socks, and bonnet strings, were put into what was thought proper order, Mr. Hamilton was upon them; to whom Mrs. Pearson, after answering his enquiries about the health of the family, said, "We were just talking about you, Sir."

"Indeed! something about school matters, I suppose? I hope my pupil, George, is able to inform you what we talk about, day after day. He is now old enough to make use of what he learns. And what has been the subject of your discourse ?" he enquired of George.

The scholar respectfully replied that he had been telling his parents something about the lesson on labour which he gave them lately.

"Ah, Mr. Pearson, that subject is one of great interest, and is often a source of much perplexity to those who, like yourself, have to toil hard to procure daily provision; and being anxious to foster right views of life in the minds of my young friends, I was endeavouring, on the occasion referred to by your son, to encourage contentment and fidelity in the station in which it may be God's will to place them."

"You do not think, Sir, do you, that it is wrong for a person to desire to rise in society or that it is impossible for one like my boy, for instance, to improve his condition, should he be obliged to start in the world as a journeyman mechanic ?"

"Oh dear no! very far from that; the object of my lesson was to show that there are gradations of excellence and enjoyment, and that they cannot be attained without labour. I had in my mind the words of a celebrated writer, John Foster, 'Pain is the price of pleasure.' The price will be different, not only according to the degree or kind of pleasure which is sought; but the difficulty of getting or giving the price which we call labour will very much be determined by the disposition, as well as the original circumstances of the worker. The rule is universal; none can escape the necessity; while it is in the power of every one, by proper moral discipline, to mitigate the mental effect, if not to diminish the amount of labour. I think it well, sometimes, to take this view of what some consider an evil, that we may perceive that it is a general, and seems to be a necessary thing. When we get to thinking of our own difficulties and trials, we are apt to imagine that none are so burdened as we are, and that there must be some special

cause for our particular ills, the reason for which we cannot comprehend."

"It is true, Sir, what you say. Since thousands and millions are under the same rule, and are dealt with upon the same system, we ought not to murmur more than they; but what puzzles me is, why there should be such a difference in the. original condition of people. That is what I cannot understand. If we must work, why don't all begin alike, and have to do alike? Not some too much, and some almost nothing."

"It would not be difficult to answer your questions, my friend, and I shall be happy to do so at some future time; but I must leave you now, and you, I dare say, are anxious to get home with your family,"

They had now got back into the road again, where Mr. Hamilton bade them good evening. The appearance of the children indicated that they had been thoroughly gratified with their way of spending their holiday; and when Caroline was sent forward with the key to get things in readiness, they looked as if they would do justice to whatever the cupboard might afford.

"I like that Mr. Hamilton," said Pearson to his wife, as they were walking along ; and I shall be very glad to hear what he has to say on the subject that I named to him."

"Well, I am not so fond of arguing," rejoined the woman in her usual pleasant contented way. "He is a good man, I

THE TRACT DISTRIBUTOR. It was a cold frosty evening in December, about six or seven years ago, that the inhabitants of a country town seemed in an unusual state of excitement. The town was always a busy, bustling place; but the great number of carriages which were hurrying to and fro the wide street, showed that something unusual was going forward. The large inn of the town was brilliantly lighted, and a number of poor people were standing around the ways which led into the inn, to watch the company as they alighted from their carriages. It was the evening of a ball.

Although a cold evening, yet the sky was beautifully clear and blue, and the moon and stars shone out brightly upon the busy town. How differently were they regarded by different persons! It was a night on which the astronomer would be busy in making his calculations of the number, and distance, and size of the stars: happy if he mingled with his contemplations the feelings of love and adoration of their great Creator; and as "night unto night showed him knowledge," could, with the Psalmist, exclaim, "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who hast set thy glory above the heavens !" Many a pious and humble christian, on such a night, looked to the blue firmament, and, beholding its starry grandeur, could say," When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained, Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him ?" Perhaps some one who lay upon his dying bed looked up to the bright sky, and thought upon that glorious city to which he was hastening, which "had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb was the light thereof."

But other thoughts than these crowded into the minds of the gay party who were hastening to the ball. A young lady (whom I shall call Katherine) was now just mounting the stairs which led to the assembly room. She was carefully protected from the cold air, and, with a countenance blooming with health and gaiety, was proceeding on her way. A gentleman standing by the staircase with a number of tracts in his hand, advanced, and offered her one. She took the little book, and was putting it into her reticule, when the gentleman said to her, "Will you, ma'am, promise me one thing ?it is, that you will read this tract." With cheerful good humour the young lady promised to do so, and, passing on to the busy assembly, was soon engaged in the mirth and pleasure of the evening.

Whether Katherine at that time performed the promise she had made I have no means of ascertaining, but, as she was a person of strict integrity, we cannot doubt that she kept her word. Most probably she read it carelessly over, and was perhaps little interested in its contents. It is quite evident that she did not value her little book, for it was thrown carelessly into a

drawer, and its first page was torn off and lost. If the giver of that tract had seen it lying there, he would have thought his effort had been in vain. But God had a great work to do through that little messenger of mercy.

Although Katherine's blooming countenance seemed to give hope of long life, though her eye was bright and her step was firm, yet disease was insidiously lurking beneath these fair appearances. One symptom of illness, and then others, gradually showed themselves, and long months of languor and debility followed. Not only was the young lady withdrawn from the gaieties of life, but the calmer and more simple pleasures which she had enjoyed, were now denied to her. She could not take the long cheerful country walk. Music, and even reading, fatigued her now, nor could she share with her family the conversation of the fireside. In the quiet of her chamber, she was left to her own silent, and sometimes sorrowful, reflections. It was one day, when thus alone, that she took up the torn aed crumpled tract, given her long since. Katherine's attention was arrested, and she read it carefully. The tract told her that she was a sinner-that we are all by nature enemies to God. That she might be amiable, and just, and dutiful to her parents, and kind to the poor; and yet, if she did not love God supremely, if she had not faith in Christ, she would be undone for ever. It proved, from the Scriptures, that man is in a fallen condition, that "our very righteousness" (the good works in which Katherine would have trusted)" are as filthy rags" in the sight of a pure and holy God; that our very devotions are mingled with sin; that the "thoughts of man's heart are only evil, and that continually;" that "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Katherine must have heard these things before, for she had always been accustomed to attend at church, at least once on every Sunday, and had often joined in the solemn response, "Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!" but never till now had she felt anything of the sinfulness of her own heart, or the necessity of so great a change as that which the Scriptures describe as being "born again." She called to mind how many days had passed without one thought of God; how she had been amused by passing events, and never experienced one

feeling of holy gratitude to the Lord of glory, who had come down on this sinful earth to die the death of the cross, that we might be saved. But the tract did not tell the sinner that he was guilty before God in order to leave him there. It told also the blessed truth that life and salvation are offered by the Gospel. It showed that it was for the sinner that Christ's sacrifice was offered. "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die; but God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us." It showed, that while God could not pardon the transgressor with justice, except a Mediator between God and man had appeared, that God's only beloved Son had become that Mediator, and that, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous." Christ's own words invited the sinner to come to him. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and ye shall find rest to your souls." "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me." found that God's Holy Spirit was promised to sinners, to bring them to God. That he was to "guide them into all truth;" and that our Saviour had said, "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall God give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him ?"

Katherine

Every passage, as she read it, seemed to bring some new light to Katherine's mind. God was teaching this poor child. He who had died for her soul was revealing himselr gradually to her. Her illness was a long one; but she found, in communion with God, and in the study of his promises, a deep and lasting happiness. The bed of pain and sickness was to her the prelude to everlasting glory, and she longed to be absent from the body, that she might be present with the Lord.

Many months after she thus read the little tract, Katherine's happy spirit entered into the joy of her Lord. But the good done by the tract did not end here.

Katherine had found "the pearl of great price," and she did not conceal it. She called on others to rejoice with her on finding it. She had one friend (whom I shall call Emma) who was much with her during her long illness, and who had been her companion from her childhood. Katherine endeavoured to lead her to God; she entreated her to come as a sinner to the