operation. How much good is being done by means of Sabbath schools, infant schools, schools of industry, district visiting, tract and Bible distribution, and similar instrumentalities, besides innumerable others of a purely benevolent and temporal nature, is known only to Him from whom all good works proceed, and who never works in vain.

Another circumstance I cannot omit noticing, which is, the manifest favour shown by the Christians of these kingdoms toward the Jews, God's ancient and still beloved people, not only in the kindly feeling that now so happily exists toward them, but in the positive plans devised and put in force for their spiritual benefit. I look upon this circumstance- the favour of British Christians toward that people as a most auspicious token for good; for the promise stands unrepealed, "I will bless him that blesseth thee;" and, "They shall prosper that love thee."

And can I omit noticing, also, what is perhaps the most striking feature of the day-the success that has attended the efforts made to promote and manifest union and love among true Christians of all denominations?-a thing often attempted, but never accomplished before. No later than within the last few weeks, have above a thousand Christians, including representatives of the Protestant Churches of all Christendom, from America as well as Europe, assembled in London for the above-mentioned purpose; and, notwithstanding confident predictions of failure, an event that would have been most uncommonly to be deplored, so great and delightful has been the harmony of sentiment and feeling arrived at, that it really resembles what occurred at the day of Pentecost, and can be ascribed only to the glorious operation of that Spirit of love and peace, who maketh men to be of one mind in the Lord, and to the effectual pleading of Ilim whose prayer, you remember, it was "that his people may all be one, that the world may believe that the Father hath sent him." (John xvii. 21.) Surely "it is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."

Lastly, and above all, I would mention the spirit of prayer that is now so widely in exercise. I believe that never did such a cloud of earnest supplication and intercession ascend, like incense, to the heavens, as does now from the bosom of God's Church in all lands, but es. pecially in these British islands; and however lightly some may be disposed to estimate this circumstance, none who know and believe the

Bible, but will account it the most promising token for good that could possibly occur. God himself has told us that "the fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much;" and Scripture records the wonders it has wrought; opening heaven and shutting heaven; and proving, in fact, all but omnipotent, as laying hold of God's omnipotence. "Prayer moves the arm that moves the world." A spirit of prayer comes from "the God of all grace," and is the sure prelude and harbinger of the happiest results: for he most assuredly intends to confer the blessings he gives the grace tʊ solicit. "He hath not said unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain.” (Isa. xlv. 19.)

In fine, therefore, while in a deep and sorrowful sense of our sinfulness, and of God's anger on that account, we humble ourselves before him, and seek to do such things as may tend to conciliate and please him through his dear Son, let us still take comfort, and "hope in his mercy."

But let it be clearly understood, and firmly borne in mind, that please him we cannot, until we truly turn to him, and give ourselves to him. Then let him not have to say of us, "This people turneth not unto him that smiteth them." God forbid that it should be so! For who hath hardened himself against the Lord, and hath prospered? Woe unto him that contendeth with his Maker! If we do not bend, we must break. If we do not repent, we must perish. God will "overcome when he judgeth.”. O let us, then, turn to the Lord our God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Should not a people seek unto their God! There is not in the universe a sight so hideous as that of a human being, redeemed with the blood of God's own Son, and favoured with innumerable mercies, yet refusing to turn to him, and live to him. O that we could but see it in its true light, see it as we shall presently see it; but, alas! sin and Satan now blind our eyes to its enormity.

Let us, my beloved brethren, turn us truly to our gracious God, through his blessed and adorable Son, and then, how great will be our blessedness! Hɛ our friend, all things will work together for our good. We shall be in | league with the stones of the field. What promises upon promises have his people! "There shall no evil happen to the just""Say ye to the righteous, It shall be well with them"-"They shall not be confounded in the evil time; and in the days of famine they shall

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be satisfied"-" He hath been mindful of us; he will bless us; he will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great"-"Ye are the blessed of the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth"-" All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies."

Will you not, then, now at length indeed turn unto him, that you may be his and he yours, for ever and ever-that he may be a Father unto you, and you may be the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty? Will you not join yourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgotten? 0 when shall it once be? What a Father do foolish, infatuated mortals despise! Can you, in times like the present especially, have any comfort while living estranged from CHRIST? May He in mercy bend our stubborn hearts, and make us willing to be his! "Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and so shall we be turned !"

Ye that are his-that have given yourselves to him, and are living to him and for himrejoice in Him. It is his own reiterated command, "Rejoice in the Lord always." Many of his children are grievously reprehensible in their failure in this duty. Instead of rejoicing, they go mournful and desponding their look, their manner, their very voice, melancholy. Such not only rob themselves of comfort, but do incredible injury to religion. What! "is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor perished?" Are you God's children, or are you not? If you are, then what mean ye thus to displease and dishonour him, by want of faith in his promises?

Hath he said that "it shall be well with the righteous"! Is Christ made the head over all things to his Church? Does he overrule the whole course and current of affairs with a constant view to its advantage, and that of every single member of the same? Does He keep his purchased vineyard night and day, lest any hurt it? Does He water it every moment! Are His eyes upon it for good continually? Is He in the midst of his people, mighty to save them? And does He rejoice in them, and rest in his love toward them?-Then, timid and faint-hearted believer, take down thy harp from the willow, and, in the strength of almighty grace, tune it to the triumphant anthem of the prophet: "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat, the flock shall be cut off

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from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stall; yet will I rejoice in the Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation."

DEATH-BED OF THE LATE REV. MR.
RUSSELL OF MUTHIL.

THE following account of the last days of the Rev. Mr. Russell of Muthil was drawn up by his son, within a few days after Mr. Russell's death. It bears date "March, 1817," and was printed in 1834, at Kilmarnock, in the shape of a letter for private circulation:

On Monday night, February 17th, I found my father in a most happy frame of mind. He said more than once, "I had much need of this. It is exactly ven's glory. suited to me, and necessary to prepare me for heathe wisdom of God, and his power, and his mercy, and his faithfulness!" He adverted to that expression of Peter, "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." "The sufferings of the redeemed," said he, "are Christ's sufferings, because they suffer in a least grain of that divine faith which unites the soul state of vital union with him. How precious is the to the divine Saviour. O for more supplies of it!" On another occasion he said, "I have had my trials them, and I hope he will still carry me through, and in this life, but the Lord hath carried me through bring me to the haven of eternal rest. I wished to have realized in experience these words of Jacob, God Almighty, who appeared to me at Luz, and blessed me there. I have often had sweet Mondays at Muthil. One time, at family worship, that expression was peculiarly sweet to me, That I might finish grace of God." He spoke, too, of having had some my course with joy, and testify the Gospel of the spiritual refreshment in writing a criticism on that text, Phil. i. 23, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." It is as it the apostle had expressed himself thus: "If the purposes of God are served by me in this world, I am ready to weigh anchor, and, quitting these mortal shores, to set sail for the haven of eternal rest." On another occasion he remarked, "that it seemed to be the design of God, in every age, to try his people, to try their faith, their hope, their self-denial, and their heavenly-mindedness." He asked repeatedly, "Are there any appearances of the work of God among the people at Muthil?" when I expressed my regret that there was so little of vital religion among us. "Well," said he, "the great Redeemer will, in the day of judgment, call together all that belong to his fold, and then we may see some blessed fruits of our poor labours." At another time he said, "I have had a great manifestation of God in these words, James i. 12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for, when he is tried, he shall mised to them that love him,' and what pleaseth the receive the crown of life which the Lord hath proLord that he doeth." He prayed often in our hearing, that the Lord would send a Gospel minister to blessed, by leaving a sweet savour of Christ among his poor people, and that his own death might be them. When his distress was very great, he used to break forth with such expressions as these: "Dear Lord! sweet Jesus! make no tarrying, O my God. I am willing, by thy grace strengthening me, to abide in this furnace, until all thy purposes are f

and thou art glorified in me." And on one speaking of the Hebrew youths, he said, "They were noble heroes indeed; they suffered no injury while in the midst of a burning fiery furnace, because the Son of God was there." He often repeated Isa. xliii. 2: "When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burnt, neither shall the flames kindle upon thee." And Isa. xl. 27 to the end: "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." And he commented on the words as he used to do in the pulpit. One time, while suffering under excruciating pain, he cried out, "If it be thy will, dear Lord, send relief. Oh! give grace to glorify thee to the end;" and again, “Why should I dwell so much upon my little sufferings which I now feel? How much did my loving Lord suffer! What are my sufferings compared with his and how soon they will be over! The heavier the redeemed groan on earth, the louder will they sing in heaven." He appeared deeply impressed at times with a view of the divine holiness, exclaiming, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord; O to behold an unveiled three-one God!" On that passage, Isa. xxvi. 4, "In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Oh, astonishing! what a powerful support in a time of trouble! Surely he will-yea, he is engaged to preserve me from fainting." He spoke much on that passage, Zech. x. 12: "Yea, I will strengthen them, and they shall walk up and down in my name." Adding, "What a pleasant walk is that, whether in health or sickness!"

On the day he died, he turned towards my mother, and, embracing her, said: "We have been long united together, and enjoyed happiness and sweet Christian fellowship. We are now to part for a little, but shall soon meet in a better world where there is no parting. I commit you to my faithful covenant-keeping God; he will care for you. We can take no carnal attachment to the heavenly worid-O no; we must leave all and follow Christ. Sweet Jesus, entreat me not to leave thee; for whither thou goest I shall go, where thou dwellest I shall dwell. I am persuaded that neither things present, however pleasant; nor things to come, however painful; neither the height of prosperity nor the depths of adversity, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. It was in Christ that this love began to flow forth to the redeemed from eternity, and through the same channel it will continue to flow through everlasting ages." A little before his departure he addressed us all, while standing round his bed, in the following manner: "I am has tening to my eternal rest. Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure. O, that we may all meet in Christ, and be for ever with the Lord." He then thanked the doctor for all his kind attentions; also all his friends. After which, he fell into a sound sleep, and continued in that state for about an hour, when he fell asleep in Jesus, without a sigh or groan. Thus my dear father died as he had lived-glorifying God, and committing his eternal all into the hands of his loving Saviour.

MEMORIALS OF THE INQUISITION.
NO. V.

BY THE REV. W. K. TWEEDIE, EDINBURGH.

We have already seen some specimens of the cruelty practised by the Inquisitors upon their victims when undergoing examination by torture. Let us now study the demeanour of some of the murderers on the one hand, and of the murdered on the other, when death was about to be inflicted. We take these illustrations well-nigh at random from the records of the Inquisition.

heretical books, among others, the Word of God In 1557, the Inquisitors learned that many in Spanish, had been introduced into Spain, and instantly every effort was made to discover the author of the crime. Julian Hernandez, a native of Villaverda, was detected as the perpetrator, and immediately seized. He never concealed the fact-nay, he gloried in it—that he had been the means of placing many hundreds of copies of the Scriptures, in the Spanish tongue, in the hands of his countrymen. No mercy was therefore shown him, and it was hoped that by his tortures he would be forced to accuse many who were supposed to be his accomplices. All the arts of that system which is characterized in all it does by the deceivableness of unrighteousness were practised. The torture was applied in its most remorseless forms; but all was unavailing. Hernandez confessed his own faith-he would not implicate others. For three years he was detained a prisoner, he was repeatedly tortured, and when all proved fruitless, he was, on the 22d of December 1560, delivered to the secular arm, along with thirteen others, and burned in an Auto-de-fe. He exhorted his fellow-sufferers to be valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ, till he was silenced by the gag. A priest afterwards tried to induce him to recant. Hernandez remonstrated with his tormentor, who was himself an apostate, and the incensed bigot exclaimed: "Shall Spain have her peace disturbed by a dwarf? (alluding to the low stature of his victim)-executioner, do your office." The pile was lit, and the guards, envying, says Dr. M'Crie, the unshaken firmness of the martyr, terminated his sufferings by plunging their lances in his body.

Such was the end of a martyr of low degree, for Hernandez was only an artisan. But at another Auto-de-fe, twenty-one persons were delivered to the secular arm, and among them was Don Juan Ponce de Leon, son of the Counti de Baylen, and closely related to the Duchess de Bejar, who was present at the Auto. Don Juan had given ample evidence of attachment to the Reformed cause, and was proportionally ob noxious to the Inquisition. He anticipated the end which he met, and had long familiarized his mind with its horrors. The rack was ap

plied, and wrung some confessions from him, for he appears to have wavered under the horrid appliance. He was, however, first strangled, and then burned; for nothing could save one so infected as Don Juan was, from the Inquisitors' grasp.

Doctor Juan Gonzalez was another conspicuous victim. He was of Moorish descent, and one of the most renowned preachers in Spain, but he embraced the Reformed doctrines; and to do so was to embrace death. He left his mother and two brothers in the prison, when he went forth to his Auto, and was accompanied by two sisters doomed like himself to the flames. He sang the 109th Psalm on his way to execution, and addressed a few words of consolation to one of his sisters, but was speedily silenced by the gag. He was degraded from the priesthood, and he and his sisters, before they were consumed in the flames, were strangled, and thus dismissed to the presence of their God -witnesses against the system whose abettors are said to be drunk with the blood of the saints the system whose infallible head is again parading his pretensions in our land. It is an ascertained fact, that while Cardinal Ximenes presided over the Inquisition-a period of eleven years-51,167 persons were condemned, of whom 2,436 were burned alive; and it is not to be forgotten, that the system which led to such butchery glories in the immutability of its dogmas.

In another Auto, two remarkable victims of Popish ferocity were doomed to the stake. These were Francisco de Vibero Cazalla, parish priest of Hormigos, and Antonio Herezuelo, an advocate of Toro. The latter acted with astonishing heroism, exhibiting no symptom either of terror or of compromise. The horrors of the torture, the ignominy implied in being made a gazing-stock, and the terrors of the flames, were equally without effect. His wife had recanted, and when he saw her at the Auto in the garb of a penitent, that occasioned a pang, but all else was endured without shrinking; and even the Popish record declares that he allowed himself to be burned with unparalleled hardihood. He was gagged, lest he should address the spectators; but, unmoved by all that his blood-thirsty oppressors could inflict, he passed like the prophet in a chariot of fire to the world where all is righteous retribution on the one hand, and mercy on the other. His courage provoked his guards, and one of them plunged his lance into Herezuelo's body amid the flames.

We have referred to his wife, Leanora de Cisneros. Overcome by terror, or betrayed by the craft and deceptions of her tormentors, she had for a time given way; and when we remember that she was only twenty-two years of age, we can scarcely wonder that she wavered at the sight of torture and death. But her martyred husband's look, as she saw him at his Auto, never could be forgotten-she mourned

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over the pang she had added to his dying agonies, and hastened to follow him to the dungeon and to the stake. She abandoned the course of penance which superstition had imposed, was again immured in the secret prisons, where she was detained for eight years, during which every effort was made to induce her to recant, and died at last in an Auto-de-fe at Valladolid, in the year 1568. The Popish chronicler, Illescas, narrates, that "she suffered herself to be burnt alive, notwithstanding the great and repeated exertions made to reclaim her, and resisted what was sufficient to melt a stone-an admirable sermon preached at the Auto of that day."

Wit

The case of Dóna Leanor de Vibero is scarcely less illustrative of the atrocities of Popery. She was the mother of five children who appeared together as criminals at an Auto, but had died several years before they were burnt, when no taint of Lutheranism was supposed to attach to the family. But when her children were arraigned as heretics, because they appealed to the Word of God, and believed it, an action was instituted against the dead woman. nesses were put to the torture, and confessed while under it that Leanor's house had been used as a Lutheran temple. That was enough. Sentence was therefore pronounced against her as an heretic; her property was confiscated; her bones were dug up and committed, with her effigy, to the flames; her house was razed, the ground on which it stood was sown with salt; and a pillar, bearing a suitable inscription, was erected on the spot. The pillar stood there till the year 1809, when it was removed during the occupation of Spain by the French.*

We must defer till a future Number the recital of some other cases selected to illustrate the nefarious proceedings of the Holy Office. Monarchs graced them-the members of royal households vied with each other in giving them celebrity. On the 8th of October 1559, Philip II. was present at an Auto-de-fe in Valladolid, attended by his son, his sister, the prince of Parma, and a crowd of prelates, and nobility of both sexes. The truculent Inquisitor Valdes presided, and twenty-nine prisoners appeared on the scaffold, of whom sixteen were penitents-the rest were doomed to death. The chief of these was Don Carlos de Seso, a distinguished nobleman, who had at one time performed important services to the emperor, Charles V., and was married to Donna Isabella de Castilla, a descendant of the royal family of Castille and Leon. He dared, however, to embrace the truth of God, and must therefore be exterminated by the upholders of the system which is the antagonist of that truth. We quote his case as illustrative of the malignity of the Papacy against the Revelation of Christ -a malignity which becomes intense in proportion as the truth is held in purity.

* M'Crie's History of the Reformation in Spain.

De Seso was arrested at Logrono, where he had for some time been busy spreading the knowledge of Reformed doctrines, and thrown into the secret prisons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. During all his trials he maintained the most unwavering constancy, withstanding alike the blandishments and the tortures of

his oppressors. When sentenced to die, he prepared a confession of his faith so vigorous in point of sentiment, and so scriptural in point of doctrine, as to have surprised some of the functionaries of the Holy Office. During the night prior to his death, he was teased by friars to recant; but all was in vain. He appeared at the Auto with the gag in his mouth, which, however, was removed when he was bound to the stake, in the hope he might recant. But De Seso used his freedom of speech only to exhort the executioners to do their duty. They lit the pile, and he expired without a struggle or a groan, in the forty-third year of his age.

But we must again pause. It was in this remorseless way that the Inquisition at Seville, in the first year after its erection, committed two thousand persons alive to the flames, burnt as many in effigy, and condemned seventeen thousand to various forms of penances. Between the year 1480 and the year 1520, Puigblanch computes that forty-five thousand were burnt alive in the archbishopric of Seville alone. During the same period about thirty thousand persons informed against themselves in Andalusia alone, in the hope of securing a mitigated punishment; while the entire number condemned in Spain during a period of thirtysix years, amounted, according to Llorente, to one hundred and ninety-one thousand four hundred and twenty-three. All this, let it be remembered, was done to preserve the purity of religion!-all this was perpetrated to promote the salvation of sinners! Ought we not rather to say, All this was done to prove that Popery, wherever it is fully developed, or is not checked by the vicinity or shamed by the light of Protestantism, is resolutely bent on extinguishing the light of truth in the blood of its supporters? *

WINTER IN CANADA.

It is very difficult to give an idea of the cold of a Canadian winter to those who have never experienced it a cold which not only converts the rivers into solid pavements, but freezes the arms of the sea like brass and iron-a cold in the midst of which, if you touch metal with your naked hand, your skin will peel off as if you were handling red-hot iron. After experiencing it, one can understand what a fearful meeting the army of Napoleon encountered in Russia, and with what an emphasis the question of the Psalmist may be put: "Who can stand before His cold?" It is astonishing how well Thomson could paint a similar scene without having seen it, although, for that very reason, part of his description is inaccurate :

* M'Crie, Llorente.

"Yet more outrageous is the season still—
A deeper horror in Siberian wilds,
Where Winter keeps his unrejoicing court;
And in his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is for ever heard.
There through the ragged woods, absorpt in snow,
Sole tenant of these shades, the shaggy bear,
With dangling ice, all horrid, stalks forlorn,
Slow-paced and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath the drifted snow;
And, scorning the complainings of distress,
Hardens his heart against assailing want,
While tempted, vigorous o'er the marble waste,
On sleds reclined, the furry Russian sits;
And by his rein-deer drawn, behind him throws
A shining kingdom in a winter day."

The poet here just takes a British winter and exaggerates it, adding, to make up his picture, bears. sledges, rein-deer, &c. But there is this vast and providential difference, that whereas our winters are accompanied with "driving tempests," there is comDriving tempests are not for ever heard," otherparatively little wind where the frost is so intense. wise the cold would be a far more fearful thing chan it really is. There is very little, indeed, either wind or rain, and far less tempest. The frost, wl it once sets in, is steady and constant, only interru ed occasionally by slight thaws and falls of snow There are several things also extremely to be admi of such fearful cold, we naturally imagine that it ed in the arrangements of Jehovah. When one hears must be a dreadful thing to live in the midst of it. We cannot imagine how a man can see and breathe amidst a cold that will freeze mercury. Now it is undoubtedly destructive to human life, if men are not properly clothed. When I was there, I heard of a person who had escaped from a lunatic asylum. not being properly dressed, was frozen dead in a very short space; but if one is properly dressed, there would be little danger even in going to the North Pole; and simply because, owing to the manifest design of God, the parts that require to be exposed posed, for a man must see and breathe, otherwise the will not freeze. A man's eyes and lungs must be excountry would be uninhabitable; and these are just the parts that are not injured by frost. This is a very singular thing, and illustrates the truth that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." One would think that if there was a part of the face more tender than another, it was the eye-if there was anything more apt to freeze than another, it was the liquid of the eye, and that the same frost that would congeal mercury, and turn the naked hand very speedily into a piece of ice, would soon freeze the eye; and yet, it it were so, many parts of the earth would not be fit for an habitation to man. Now here is the proof of infinite wisdom, that the eye is altogether unaffected, even by the extremest cold. Again, the coating of the lungs is more tender than the coating of the hand or of the ears; but if a man's lungs were to freeze, or if he could not breathe with perfect safety amidst a Canadian winter, of course the country would he immediately depopulated. And the singu lar fact, illustrative of the "manifold wisdom of God," is, that the most piercing cold, which makes you put up your hand involuntarily to discover if lungs. Another thing is very well worthy of notice. your nose and ears are there, only exhilarates your When you see such a vast country, with its mighty rivers and arms of the sea locked in the embrace of that tremendous Winter, you wonder how it is ever to be unlocked. Your idea is, that it will take months to break up such adamantine frost-work. And yet what would take puny man ages to accomplish, is

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