Ocean still taught the cabin-boy many a lesson. Its currents and tides, its calms and storms, its myriad forms of fish and flower, and shell and coral, plainly told him that one hand had made them all: the hand of Him that was nailed to the cross. Years have passed: Jack is a cabin-boy no longer, and takes care, now that he has become first mate, that his mother wants for nothing which can add to the comfort of her old age. She says that she expects to see him after his next voyage; but if they do not live to meet again on earth, hopes to meet where storms can never come. Read your Bibles, dear children, in spite of all opposition, and may the Holy Spirit Convince you of your sin, Then lead to Jesus' blood, And to your wondering view reveal The secret love of God. JUDGE HALE ON INTEMPERANCE. LORD CHIEF JUSTICE HALE once remarked, "The places of judication which I have long held in this kingdom have given me an opportunity to observe the original cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for the space of nearly twenty years, and by a due observation I have found that if the murders and manslaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, and other great enormities that have happened in that time, were divided into five parts, four of them have been the issues and product of excessive drinking, or of tavern and ale-house meetings." The proportion is little less at the present time. Boys, ever shun the alehouse, and that smoking and drinking that lead to it. HAPPY DEATH OF A YOUNG CHILD. "COME hither, dear George, take a seat by the fire," Going home she got cold, and was afterwards worse; I am sorry to find you lie suffering here.' 'Do not grieve, sir,' she answered, 'my Jesus is good, Farewell, my dear mother,' we then heard her say, Then she bade us farewell, as she turned on her side, By affliction God separates the sin which he hates from the soul which He loves; therefore, sanctified afflictions are numbered among the Christian's mercies. "No, Lisa, you must not go out this morning," said old Hans Tiskan, the cloth-weaver, Carl's tried and faithful friend, and himself also in heart a Calvinist. I Lisa was standing cloaked and hooded, with a marketbasket on her arm. It was now three months since her husband's departure, and not one word of tidings had reached her. This was not worse than she expected, yet she looked pale and anxious, and you might have seen her lip quiver as she listened to the unexpected remonstrance. "But, Hans," she answered, "you know the poor children have no one now to look to but me. Indeed I must go, for their sakes." Hans Tiskan's lip quivered too, but instead of answering he gently took the basket from her arm, unloosed her cloak and hood, and drew her to a seat. There was something in the strange tenderness that replaced his usually blunt and rough, though kind manner, which surprised and even alarmed her. Rather from a vague sinking of heart than from any definite cause, her tears began to flow; the old man did not ask her to restrain them; he sat down beside her, took her hand gently in his, and murmured in a trembling voice, "Poor child." Then he told her, very slowly and gradually, what he knew she must know, and what we can tell in a few short words. Carl, having ventured back to Gouda in the hope of obtaining a brief interview with his family, had been recognised the night before by one of the Burgomaster's secret agents; and even whilst they spoke, he was standing before that relentless judge to answer for the crime of heresy. Hans did not doubt that he would fearlessly confess his faith. There was but one result to look for, a swift and sure one, how could he speak of that? It was not necessary; her own heart divined all. The crowd in the market-place-the grim angry faces-the silent glances of sympathy and suppressed tears-the execrations and threats of vengeance that sometimes were scarcely suppressed, though it might be death to breathe them-the chain -the stake-the piled faggots-the hideous lurid glare in the sunlight, then the little heap of ashes and the few feet of blackened earth,-these were every day realities to the men and women of Holland three hundred years ago. There was scarcely a Calvinist family in the provinces that did not number amongst its members one at least who "was not, for God took him" by that chariot of fire to heaven. Well indeed was it for the mourners if, looking beyond the wrath of man, they could bow their heads and say, "God took him," and be thus delivered from the agonizing sense of wrong and the passionate longing for revenge that must have burned like fire in unsanctified hearts. And how was it with Lisa? At first Hans Tiskan's terrible news completely overpowered her, and she found refuge from her sorrow in unconsciousness. When at length she recovered, and was able fully to comprehend her husband's situation, it was very difficult to persuade her that she could do nothing to save him. Piteously did she entreat Hans to allow her to go with her little ones, throw herself at the Burgomaster's feet, and beg for mercy. 66 Surely he will pity us," she said; " he too has children." "Thou shalt not go," returned Hans, sternly and bitterly; "Carl's wife shall never kneel to him, his heart is harder than this," and he ground his heavy heel upon the hearth-stone. "I would that heart were there," he added, muttering the words between his teeth, while the expression on his face told plainly that had the wish been granted his strong foot would have gone down still more heavily. Patience, Hans Tiskan, a day of reckoning for tyrants has sometimes come, even on earth! |