"Thou art safe thou art safe," cried Pierre, grasping with unwonted energy the hand he felt for; "I am old, blind, and powerless; yet, ere a foot approach thee, they must first tread on this withered body - the body of their pastor."- And as he spoke, he flung himself before the monk.

A deep silence followed this action, and Pierre felt the force of its appeal.

"My brethren," said Pierre," to-morrow ye may pass to your mortal trial before the mighty of the earth-even those who keep in their hands the keys of the doors of life and death if they unlock the latter, ye appear at sun-rise before your eternal Judge! And in His presence of what avail will be the trifles that divide ye now? THERE the question will not be whether ye have baptized infants or adults-whether ye have sung the songs of the Jews, or the hymns of our more enlightened brethren; but whether ye have fed the hungry, clothed the naked Alas! ye could not, for ye were hungry, naked,

and save the stranger;" and he pointed with strong action towards the monk of Montcalm.

The appeal had its full effect: the multitude retreated, the clamour subsided, and the murmur arose deep and strong among the congregation. -"Pierre, our pastor, we will hear him; he shall guide us touching the matter of our treating with the crusaders."

"The zeal of our brethren may seem to thee rash," said the poor pastor, "but thou must

needs yield they be zealous."

"I may not deny it," said the monk, smiling, "when they were well nigh zealous unto slaying."

The pastor felt rebuked; and murmured that their zeal might indeed be urged to extremes; but that, at least, they must be allowed the praise of an unmoved and constant firmness.

At this moment, the multitude again lifted up their voices, exclaiming that they would hold a conference with the divines of the cru

saders; and that Pierre, the pastor, should be

They call me Moses, now," said Pierre, "and yesterday they would have rent me to pieces, in a controversy touching whether the Psalms of David, or the hymns of the brethren, should be sung in the congregation."

"Alas! reverend man," said the monk, "I fear thou canst claim as light praise for the firmness as for the zeal of thy people."

The "hectic of a moment" passed across the cheek of the humbled pastor "Thou hast seen the nakedness of the land in truth,” he said, “and I am rebuked for my confident boasting; yet, credit me, these are but the infirmities of our evil nature, that break forth in all and judge not of us, that we are violent, rash, and unjust because we are (what thou wouldst deem) heretics, but because we are human."

The monk of Montcalm admitted the humble apology, though, perchance, his creed disclaimed it; and the matter of conference, so

long disturbed and interrupted by the violence of the multitude, was now about to be settled in a few moments by two mild and heavenlyminded men.

"Bear back our message," said Pierre, "to the crusaders-a message of peace will well become thy lips: tell them

we will hear the

reasons of their preachers; and that I, the humblest of those thou seest, (and humble we are all in rank, and power, and birth, and speech,) I will answer them by action, if not by words;" and he waved his staff, meditating perhaps the action which he meant to substitute in place of "many words" on the day of the intended meeting.

"Surely I will bear thy message," said the monk; and, resolved to give no offence to the tenacious Albigeois, he told his beads in silence for the prosperous event of the meeting.

A chill seemed to hang over the pastor as he pronounced his assent to the meeting; he struggled with recollections at once painful and terrible-remembered massacres, under the guise of truce, floated before his sightless but sharpened vision, turning inward on me

mory with redoubled power from the suspension of its exercise on things external. — “And what security shall we demand for our safety," he asked, "before the lords and knights in whose presence we must plead defenceless ?"

"Do peasants then demand security from noble lords and valiant knights?" said the monk, who was not wholly untouched by the spirit of the age, and its high prejudice in favour of noble and gentle blood.

"We demand it," said Pierre, " in the name of a thousand massacres."

The monk's blood rose to the cheek and brow that it had deserted for thirty years.

Thy rebuke is just," he said, " and we have both erred-each in cleaving too closely to the cause, not the motive to the instrument in

whose power and pride we have trusted, not to the Great Agent who gave them power, but not pride-I stand your surety; let that suf fice."

"And it shall," said the pastor: 66 we shall meet in that plain of controversy thou hast named; and if that fail, where next?"

"In heaven," said the monk, grasping his