SOME few days after the Protestants had taken this resolution, a letter from the Emperor came to Salzburg, which showed in what light their rulers thought proper to regard them. But a rumour of the solemn meeting and covenant forced its way, with terrible exaggerations, into the archiepiscopal palace, and being interpreted by an evil conscience scared all sleep from the bed of the persecutor. Then were the Protestants, when they assembled for worship, watched, with double vigilance, Lutheran Bibles and Protestant books of devotion publicly burned, and the best known, and most influential of the Lutherans, thrown into prison. That last act of cruelty would certainly render useless any attempt at resistance; but no hand was raised, no blow followed, and the Protestants saw, without opposition, their fathers led away to prison, and the soldiers of the emperor quartered upon them, who had come over the Austrian frontier for the purpose of strengthening their oppressors. This happened in the beginning of September, 1731; other regiments came in October, till the country was occupied by nearly 6000 foreign soldiers, who lived on the goods of the Protestants. All kinds of violence seemed now permitted by the government. Those who were only suspected were taken into custody. One, who was lame in both feet, was cruelly misused. An old man of seventy-two was chained to his son, and both were thrown into a dark hole beneath the earth, so that they were obliged to lie not near, but upon one another. "So cruelly," said our already quoted contemporary narrative, "did one Christian treat another, who had perpetrated no crime, save that of worshipping God in a different manner."

Guile and bribery, threatening and violence, were employed as means of conversion. In vain! The dear evangelical faith proved its power over the hearts of men, who rather gave up freedom and life and property than the truth. Nothing, too, is more remarkable than the scantiness of the means which the inhabitants of Salzburg possessed for awakening and maintaining the Lutheran belief. To guide them they had neither theological institutions, nor a scientifically educated clergy, nor even an abundance of edifying and instructive religious books. Still the grain of mustard-seed germinated, and grew with a hidden inward growth; and if encouragement and consolation came from without, we must think after all of the tears which watered the germ during the hard and barren time. The thoughts of the oppressed, but not despairing sufferers, may be best gathered from a paper sent to their fellow-countrymen at Regensberg :

"God knows that our faith is no other than that found in the Scriptures, and expressed in the Augsburg confession; and we are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, where Jesus Christ is the Corner Stone. We understand that men pretend that we are rebels and seditious persons, a charge which no one can with truth bring or prove,—but we gladly hold to the saying, Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's,' and are obedient in all reasonable matters to our rulers, but not in matters of faith, which are not ours but God's, whom we ought to obey rather than And since, blessed be God! we have grace to know the evangelical faith, we will, by God's help, remain steadfast therein, should it even cost us our life, as it probably may, so violently do they act towards us.

man.

On the 27th of September, in the middle of the night, some were taken out of bed, and led away to prison in irons and chains; and on the 10th of October, in cruel mockery, were conveyed away under a guard of soldiers, to the number of one-and-twenty in all. And we know that already more than fifty men lie in prison. Since then we are in the greatest distress; we humbly pray with God, and through God, from the bottom of our hearts, that help may be vouchsafed to us."

The project of help, however, grew from day to day more doubtful, and only a momentary relief came to the sufferers, though certainly from a quarter whence it could have least been expected. Among the soldiers, who were quartered upon the Protestants in unfair proportion, especially in Prince Eugene's regiment, were many Lutherans, and their hearts were moved by the sufferings of their brethren in the faith whose oppressors they were compelled to be. So the soldier, more humane than the orders he had received, divided his bread with his needy host, and more than that, calling to mind the lessons of his childhood, became, in the stillness of the night, the spiritual teacher and comforter of the imperfectly instructed Protestants of Salzburg. Surrounded by a circle of eager faces, where all listened with profound attention, he went through the questions of the Catechism, and explained, as well as he could, the commandments of the Lord, and the articles of the Christian faith, and prayed with them, "That God may protect and keep us, in order that the world, our flesh, and the devil may not deceive us, nor mislead us into heresy, despair, or any other great crime or sin, and that we may still fight on so as at last to win the victory."

That under the uniform of the soldier religious guides had come to the Protestants could not remain altogether unknown, and messengers were again soon despatched to Vienna, to request a change of regiments. Other troops were sent accordingly, but as at that time men of different faith were to be found in the same company, the new comers sometimes continued the work which had been begun by those whom they displaced.

In the meanwhile the Catholics of Salzburg, who had been prevailed upon to serve in the army by the promise of indulgences, carried on a cruel and fanatical crusade against the heretics, whom they regarded as having forfeited the rights of humanity. To increase the misery, the passes were occupied by a double and treble guard, and whoever seeking to escape had successfully climbed and descended the steep rocky walls of the province, was driven back by the bayonets of the pitiless guards of the frontier.

(To be continued.)

THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.

THE Miracles of our Divine Master cannot be spared from his history, were it possible to tear them apart, because they not only confirm his doctrine but unfold his character.

First, of his majestic serenity.

His wonderful works are all characterized by a quiet dignity, which is thrown into intenser light by the surrounding agitation, dread, stupefaction, sometimes frenzy. Whether at his voice the maddened sea sank to stillness, the spell-bound tongue was loosed, the wandering reason restored, or the buried brother revived from his long sleep, Jesus of Nazareth was neither awe-struck nor elated, neither forgetful of his hastening doom, nor of rendering the supreme glory to his Heavenly Father. Looking forward in entire surrender, looking upward in filial trust, he heard not the applause, he feared not the threat, he asked not the favour of the world.

The tempest on the lake was an illustration of this heavenly peace. Not in its sleep that was simple exhaustion; but when he awoke, when he found his disciples trembling on the brink of destruction, when at a word the wind went down and the sea sank back as if ashamed; Jesus simply says to the bewildered band, as he might have said before, "Where is your faith! Will ye never trust our Father's providence? Can ye not commit yourselves to the keeping of him that rules the winds and waves?" And was there not as sublime a lesson to those fearful hearts in that heavenly peace as in any truth he uttered?

In another case, at the Bethany garden, the contrast is still more marked When Lazarus came forth, weakened by a long fast, oppressed by the blinding light, amazed at his own appearance, as much as his friends, and unable t relieve himself because of the linen which swathed his limbs, his friends seem quite as helpless as himself; fear palsied them; the supernatural overpowered their childlike natures. But Jesus spake instantly; spake so as to relieve those fettered limbs; spake that "loose him and let him go," which seemed to divert the public attention from his demonstration of a divine power to the immediate aid and personal comfort of Lazarus.

A second feature of the Saviour's Miracles is their peculiarly generous pity.

That walking on the sea to his panic-stricken disciples was evidently to relieve their minds from needless fear. That feeding of the famished thousands, whom his disciples would have dismissed to their distant homes, was, as he said, because of his "compassion." That cure of the impotent man on the Sabbath was invoking upon himself the utmost malice of the most inveterate bigotry, out of tenderness to helpless humanity. Could we summon before us in one vast assembly all the wretchedness Jesus relieved, the thousands not named in the Gospel narratives, the endless variety of mental and physical miseries which he endured every reproach to bless, I think we

should be convinced that the pity of his miracles was a perfect manifestation of the Father's love, and a heaven-wide distinction from all the wonder-works of lawgiver and prophet.

Especially do I attach importance to the fact that he touched the leprous, because it was religion in her highest incarnation bending down to embrace the outcast as in other cases he put his arm: beneath the fallen, and res deemed the abandoned by his own holy sympathy.

A third character of the Gospel miracles is disinterestedness. Moses seems to display his gifts before the Egyptian court: Jesus would not perform a miracle to gratify Herod. He readily ministered to the mirth of the marriage® feast; while shortly before he trod under foot the temptation to make bread for his own famished body. The ninth chapter of the Gospel of John is remarkable in this respect: in fleeing from the temple with his life in his hand, he infuriates his enemies afresh by bestowing sight upon the man blind from his birth. All his sabbath cures express the same self-forgetfulness: they not only provoked opposition, in some narrow minds they inspired doubt. "How could he be the Messiah," they whispered, "who did not rest on the great rest-day of Jehovah ?"

Then, fourth, no words of his are more inspired with trust than his wonderful works. He who assures us that "whatsoever we ask, believing, we receive," asks us in our hearing at the grave of Lazarus what he knew would be bestowed-asks never in vain. Knowing everything about the "laws of nature," he saw that nothing stood in the way of our receiving the richest blessing except the doubt of our own hearts; and that doubt, by sympathy with his miracles, will change to reliance. As we dwell upon these "signs and wonders," we shall catch more and more of his assurance that all things are possible to him with whom we have to do; and that

"God calms the tumult and the storm;

God rules the seraph and the worm;

No creature is by him forgot

Of those who know or know him not."

No truths have received such full proofs as those that have been questioned, BLESSED is that zeal which is founded in truth, and governed by charity. WE cannot but be losers by our absence from holy assemblies.

He that desires to see Jesus is in the way to enjoy Him.

It is a vagrant zeal that does not begin at home. We can have little influence over others, if we seek not to bring our own families to God.

DESIRES are the language of the soul; they are heard by Him who is the Father of Spirits.

If we could fervently pray against sin, we should not need to pray agains punishment, for they are as inseparable as the body and its shadow.

A HARDENED SINNER may laugh at his sins. But does such a man's heart laugh with his face? How often his heart bleeds while his face counterfeits a smile; his thoughts allow him no sleep, or his sleep affords him no rest.

THERE is no peace without reconciliation; no reconciliation without remission; no remission without satisfaction; no satisfaction without an atonement; and no atonement without the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world.

THE eternal Son of the Father without ceasing to be God, which He always was, became man, which He was not before, in order that He might be a perfect mediator between God and man; God that He might satisfy, and man that He might suffer: as it was, man that had sinned, and God that was offended, He, who is God and man, satisfied the offended by suffering for the offence.

HELPFUL HEARERS.

NONE but a minister can know how much a minister may be helped by his hearers. Helped, we do not mean, by their benefactions, which indeed may help him to live comfortably; nor by their kind words, though these may help him to work cheerfully; nor by their Christian activities, though these may help him to work successfully; we mean that as present, and as hearers, when and where he preaches, they may help him to preach cheerfully and successfully. We have in mind now two ways of doing this, and we beg you, reader, to have them also in mind every Sabbath. "There is a man,' ," said a pastor, "who comes to his place in church fifteen minutes before I begin the service, and, when I begin it, there he has been, with his face covered, praying for me. I should scarcely know how to begin without him." If prayer is needful and effectual for any object, why not that God may help his servants to preach His Gospel? In three epistles we find the request, "Pray for us." If it were needful for apostles, surely it is for common ministers. Besides the Divine aid they may thus obtain, it is something to them also in the way of encouragement and stimulus to know that it is sought. The assurance that they are prayed for then and there, prepares them for their work. Contribute to your minister's preparation, by asking for him the blessing that he needs, and the more by giving him reason to believe that you ask it. This is one way of helping a minister.

The other is, by good hearing. If it devolves on him to preach well, it devolves on you to hear well, and both must conspire to the desired effect. Good preaching certainly favours good hearing, but good hearing also favours good preaching, and each side has a responsibility for the other. Attention, earnestness, sympathy, intelligence,-these are qualifications for the pews, as well as for the pulpit. By this means the hearers sccond the effect of preaching on themselves, and this is to help the minister, as they help their physician by attending to his prescriptions. But we mean more:-for they may help him in the very act of preaching, if they are not only good listeners but appear to be such. Their manner, as well as his, has its effect. What if they hear every word, and master every thought in the sermon, yet do it as though they did it not? There are such attentive listeners in disguise. For aught that can be learned from their heads cast down, and closed or averted eyes, they may be in a sleep, or reverie, or speculation. They operate on the speaker, especially if he is a stranger, like the stupid or frivolous, whose eyes are "off and on," whose minds are "everywhere and nowhere." But let him see the upright form, the earnest steady look, sometimes the parted or quivering lips, the lights and shadows of his theme playing over the countenance, perhaps the big tear stealing down the check; and forthwith the magnetic communication is established between the pulpit and the pew, the preacher feels himself to be in the current, and the message goes and comes!

There are listeners as gifted and effective in their part as the most eloquent orator in his eloquent listeners, shall we call them ?-at once so devout, earnest, intelligent, and responsive. It was of such a one that a minister said, "I would give that man his pew-rent, just to have him in my audience." You, reader, may not be so richly endowed, nor so