Biography. WILBERFORCE RICHMOND. WHEN this beloved son of the Rev. Legh Richmond was near to death, and had overcome the reserve which for a time he felt in conversing with his father as to his own religious state, he and his father had many spiritual and heavenly interviews. On one Sabbath, when he was very weak, his father left him for a time, begging him to endeavour to gain a little rest. The father continues the narrative as follows: "I returned to my son, whom I found with the Bible open before him. He looked at me with a smile, and said, 'Well, papa, I have not been asleep. I have been otherwise employed. I revived almost as soon as you left me, and as I wanted to converse with you on the epistle to the Romans, I have been reading through the first eight chapters, whilst you were below, in order that I might have this subject more clear to my recollection.' I was surprised and pleased to find that he had strength sufficient for such an exertion, and I reflect on the circumstance with greater interest, as this was, I believe, the last time he was able to read at all. "He observed that he had purposely stopped at the eighth chapter, because the apostle had there seemed to make a division of his subject and argument. What a beautiful summary of doctrine these chapters contain, papa! I have thought of them again and again. St. Paul lays his foundation deep in the corruption of human nature, and shows so plainly that neither Jew nor Gentile has any hope from works, but only from faith in Christ Jesus. I have found great comfort from that view of the righteousness of Christ, which the apostle declares to be the only way of salvation. There is, there can be no other. We have no righteousness of our own-all are under sin-every mouth must be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. I have been at times perplexed about the principle of acceptance with God, but now I see it quite clear. With what earnestness does the apostle labour to prove the vanity of all human dependence! I have been thinking, as I read these chapters, how entirely the walk of a believer depends on his faith in Christ, and how closely connected the holiness, and the comfort, and the reliance of the soul are with each other.' "He proceeded to comment on the fifth and sixth chapters, as a train of experimental and practical reasoning deduced from those which preceded them, adding, but the seventh and eighth chapters have been my delight. I have found my own case so exactly and so clearly described in the seventh, and have been so much comforted by St. Paul's description of his own feelings about sin and Christ, as I can never express. And then the eighth crowns the whole. Oh, what a chapter is that! Every word has given me instruction, strength, and comfort.' "I here said, 'And can you make men, no book is better known than his Latin Testament, which, at an earlier day, was the instrument of no ordinary good. The facts of his his Theodore Beza was born in 1519 at Vezelay, a small town of Burgundy, of a noble family. He was confided to the care of the celebrated professor, Melchior Wolmar, who taught him the Scriptures, and by his example, as well as by his precepts, planted in his soul the first seeds of piety. Thirty years after, Beza testified his gratitude, calling him by the name of father, when he sent him his Confession of Faith. an inward application of the latter part of that chapter to yourself?' 'Indeed, papa, I hope I am not deceiving myself, but I do think I can. It lifts me up with such hope and, tory are few, and may soon be told. confidence, the language is so sublime, and the doctrine SO convincing. It sometimes seems too much for a sinner like me to say; but all things are possible with God, and he whom God saves has a propriety in all things.' He then went through the whole subject of the chapter, making a variety of sensible and solid remarks upon it, and entreating me to examine him as to his personal application of these glorious and gracious truths to his own heart. After he had made some animated observations on the concluding part of this chapter, he said, 'But now I want to add one sentence from another part of the epistle to wind up the whole, and that is, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen." "I shall ever retain a vivid recollection of the tone of his voice, and the sparkling look of his eye, which accompanied the utterance of these words." THEODORE BEZA. But these pious instructions seemed at first smothered under the passions of youth. Surrounded in Paris with all that could lead astray, amiable, rich, and full of spirit, he lived as a man of the world, published a volume of light poetry, under the name of "Juvenilia," and contracted a secret marriage. He wished to conceal his marriage, because one of his uncles, who was in orders, had bequeathed to him the revenues of some ecclesiastical benefices. A severe sickness awakened his conscience. "Hardly had I strength to rise," he writes to Wolmar, "when, breaking all ties, and packing up my small effects, I left at once my country, parents, friends, to follow Christ. I exiled myself voluntarily, and retired to Geneva with my wife." His marriage was publicly consecrated in the Church, and he renounced all his youthful sins. This occurred in the month of November, 1548: he was then twenty-nine years and four months old. The Jesuit Garasse, the Jesuit Maimburg, and what surprises us more, Cardinal Richelieu, seize on the poetry of the student only twenty years old, to attack the memory of the Reformer. Do they not understand, then, the sacred rights of repentance? Being reduced to poverty, because he had sacrificed all to his convictions, Theodore Beza, the elegant and accomplished gentleman, resolved to become a printer, by joining with John Crespin, author of the " History of Martyrs." But if he was humble enough to take this position, he had too much merit to remain there. He was appointed professor of the Greek language at Lausanne, and afterwards professor of theology, rector of the academy, and a pastor in Geneva. It was in Geneva that he formed his intimate acquaintance with Calvin. Both lived by the same faith and the same hope; both showed the same zeal to propagate in France the doctrines of the Reformation. Calvin had a more masculine and a vaster genius, a closer logic, a more penetrating glance, a more profound learning, and a stronger will. He was the guide and master of Theodore Beza. But the latter had a more copious and fluent expression, more amiable manners, and was better adapted to the relations of social life. The one was fitted to rouse and govern men, the other to treat with them. It has been sometimes said, that Beza was the Melancthon of the new Luther. There is truth in the comparison. But the German Reformer would seem to have had much more need of Melanethon than the Genevese Reformer of Theodore Beza. Melancthon was the counsellor, the support of Luther, and his complement; Beza was only the most illustrious of Calvin's disciples. We love to see with what modesty he places himself behind the Reformer, listening with deference, and seeking no other honour than that of showing his master's picture. "He was so strongly attached to Calvin," says his biographer, Anthony de la Faye, "that he hardly ever quitted him. The conversation of this great man was so profitable, that he made incredible progress, both in doctrine, and in the knowledge of ecclesiastical discipline." He composed many writings, mostly of a polemical character. His largest works are commentaries on the New Testament, collections of Sermons, the translation into French verse of a part of the Psalms, and the history of the Reformed Churches of France, to 1562.—D'Aubigne. DEATH OF ZWINGLE. ZWINGLE was at the post of danger, the helmet on his head, the sword hanging at his side, the battle-axe in his hand. Scarcely had the action begun, when, stooping to console a dying man, says J. J. Hottinger, a stone, hurled by the vigorous arm of a Waldstette, struck him on the head and closed his lips. Yet Zwingle arose, when two other blows, which struck him successively on the leg, threw him down again. Twice more he stands up; but a fourth time he receives a thrust from a lance-he staggers, and sinking beneath so many wounds, falls on his knees. Does not the darkness that is spreading around him announce a still thicker darkness that is about to cover priest to confess yourself?" asked they. Zwingle, without speaking, (for he had not strength) made signs in the negative. "If you cannot speak," replied the soldiers, "at least think in thy heart of the mother of God, and call upon the saints!" Zwingle again shook his head, and kept his eyes still fixed on heaven. Upon this the irritated soldiers began to curse him. "No doubt," said they, "you are one of the heretics of the city!" One of them, being curious to know who it was, stooped down and turned Zwingle's head in the direction of a fire that had been lighted near the spot. The soldier immediately let him fall to the ground; "I think," said he, surprised and amazed, "I think it is Zwingle!" At this moment Captain Foekinger, of Unterwalden, a veteran and a pensioner, drew near. He had heard the last words of the soldier: "Zwingle!” exclaimed he," that vile heretic, Zwingle-that rascal! that traitor!" Then raising his sword, so long sold to the stranger, he struck the dying Christian on the throat, exclaiming, in a furious passion, "Die, obstinate heretic!" Yielding under his last blow, the reformer gave up the ghost. He was doomed to perish by the sword of a mercenary. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." the Church? Zwingle turns away Popery. THE DUKE AND THE LADY. THE merciless system that could subject to its inquisitorial barbarities the starry Galileo, and compel him, on his knees, to swear a solemn lie, and renounce the truth of his valuable scientific discoveries, -the long result of fifteen years' study; the "holy savans," that could manacle, cabin, crib, and torture the lofty seeming revenge for the loss of his genius of the noble Tuscan, because prey, seizes upon another victim, he published to the world the truth and that a delicate lady! In his of our planet's circuit through the Catholic zeal for "Holy Mother heavens; that elaborate lie, that could Church,"-in the true spirit of the so chain secular knowledge, mani- "Mother of Abominations," who has festing that it loves the darkness been drunk for centuries with the rather than the light, has again given blood of the saints, and is ever filling the world a specimen of its "Chris- her cup with the tears of the prisoner, tian clemency," by casting a truly pious and gentle lady into the prison of Lucca,-Miss Margaret Cunninghame, so well known around the home of her fathers as an exceedingly interesting and exemplary character, so that the most zealous "Sister of Charity" in the Romish Church is a mere shadow to what she is in reality; so well known in the church of which she was so worthy a member, for her "works of faith and labours of love," in the chambers of the sick, and the cottages of the poor, for "whatsoever is lovely, and of good report," that it were an insult to the truth to associate her name with the term imprudence. Is it according to the genius of that charity which is kind, which commands its professors to "do violence to no man," whose disciples “exercise themselves to have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man;" is it according to the name of a church calling itself Catholic-which term implies universal charity-to fasten down, like another ravenous beast, on "a lamb of God's flock," circumscribing her liberty to a few feet of damp stone floor, in a fetid prison? That floor, so lately watered with the tears of the Madiai, is scarcely swept, when the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 66 he adds another blot to her long, dark catalogue of crime, and for sowing the seed of the Word, shuts up from light and air, in a felon's cell, one of Scotland's fairest daughters! Is it according to the "Veni Sancte Spiritus," imploring the Spirit of peace on all; is it according to her Litany of Saints, that pleads for "peace, true concord, and unity to all Christian peoples and kings," to shut up what she, too, calls the 'light of life," the only true "story of the cross," the Word of truth, the Gospel of salvation, from her own children, who sit in darkness and the shadow of death? But why does she make her "shadow as the night in the midst of noon-day," not in protecting and dealing kindly with the stranger, but by this two-leaved door of Papal intolerance, shutting out the light of truth from the heart, and the light of heaven from the eye; taking away the key of heaven from sinners shut out under wrath? The despot law lately passed in Tuscany is "A political bridle, the people to check, When the priest or the prince choose to ride o'er their neck. By the prince and the priesthood Divine right is given, A sceptre to sway, both in earth and in heaven." Out of her own mouth we will |