Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

"I am glad to find that you can trace God in your mercies." She replied, "I have reason so to do; I have been a widow thirty-five years, and have not known the want of a bit of bread; I was left with eight children, and their labour and mine procured a decent subsistence, through God's blessing, until they married, and had to support their own families."

"Do they give you any assistance at present ?" "They are far removed from me, lady; but God is a present help in time of trouble. He opened the heart of our clergyman's lady to pay the rent of my present hut, 1s. 6d. per week, and she kindly gives me a dinner, when I am able to walk for it."

"Can you read ?" I inquired. "No, I cannot read; but my heavenly Father will not reject me on account of my ignorance; for, in His great mercy, He has taught me by his Spirit to know that I am a sinful creature, and that he has given to me-even to me-his own dear Son to save my immortal soul, and with a full heart I bless his holy name. Oh, the joy of having such a refuge to flee to! My God meets me; he sends his Holy Spirit into my heart, and warms my soul with the thoughts of my Saviour."

"Do you live alone?" I asked. "I have no one in the hut with me," she replied; "but I am not alone, for God -the Mighty God--is with me; I lay down to sleep in his arms, and when I awake He is present with me. He graciously gives me power at this advanced time of life to help myself; my hearing is good, my sight is perfect,-I can see the finest hair of my head. What shall I render to my God?"

"I trust, then," I said, "that when the last summons comes, his rod and his staff will comfort you.”“Oh, lady, he will never leave me nor forsake me. I do not fear death; my eyes fill with tears of joy as I walk along the road, at the thought of soon seeing Jesus face to face; this is all my desire in this life; it cheers my declining days, smooths my cares, and makes every thing appear trifling here below?"

"Do you

think your sins are forgiven ?" I asked. "I

1

do; the heavy burden of them is gone, and instead of the weight of them, the love of Christ comes more deeply into my heart. I wish I could serve him as I ought; I am a poor insignificant creature, and yet he deigns to make me as one of his own. I cast myself upon His mercy, upon the great Sacrifice, and find Him all-sufficient."

We parted with mutual expressions of hope that we might meet at the right hand of God. - Churchman's Monthly Magazine.

THE LATIN BIBLE.

"I SHALL never, never forget it," said Elizabeth; "I shall think of it all day; 1 shall dream of it all night; how could they be so cruel, so very, very 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 prettier, as her old nurse said these words. You could scarcely imagine a greater contrast than the two figures presented; the nurse full seventy, with a wrinkled face, and her grey hair put up carelessly under a white nightcap; the child, not twelve years old, with golden hair and dark flashing eyes, and her neat figure gracefully dressed in the fashion of the time. There was as great a difference between the two as there is between the first buddings of the spring-time and a withered autumn leaf. 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.

[ocr errors]

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 Aves, 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 make 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 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

[ocr errors]

the child was put to bed, the lamp taken away, and in darkness the little one thought over the dreadful scene 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.

[ocr errors]

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 favourite 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, marvellous story! 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 placing it under her robe as she heard a step approaching.

66

"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, I 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.

« AnteriorContinuar »