"Confess," ," "said the Inquisitors, that you have been deceived by Luther."

"As the apostles," they replied, were deceived by Jesus

Christ."

"We declare you to be heretics," was the rejoinder, “worthy of being burnt alive, and we deliver you over to the secular arm."

Lambert was silent; the prospect of death terrified him; distress and uncertainty agitated his heart. "I request four days' respite," said he, in stifled emotion.

He was taken back to prison. As soon as this respite was expired, Esch and Voes were degraded from their priestly office, and handed over to the council of the reigning governess of the Low Countries. The council delivered them bound to the executioner. Hochstratar and three other inquisitors accompanied them to the place of execution. Arriving at the scaffold, the young martyrs contemplated it with calmness. Their constancy, their piety, and their youth drew tears from the inquisitors themselves. When they were bound to the stake, the confessors drew "Once more we ask you, if you will receive the Christian

near.

faith?"

"We believe,” said they, "in the Christian church, but not in your church."

Half-an hour elapsed. It was a pause of hesitation. A hope had been cherished that the near prospect of such a death would intimidate these youths; but, alone tranquil of all the crowd that thronged the square, they began to sing psalms, stopping from time to time to declare that they were resolved to die for the name of Jesus Christ.

Be converted! be converted!" cried the inquisitors, "or you will die in the name of the devil." "No," answered the martyrs, "we will die like Christians, and for the truth of the Gospel." The pile was then lighted. Whilst the flame slowly ascended, a heavenly peace dilated their hearts, and one of them could even say, "I seem to be on a bed of roses." The solemn hour was come. Death was at hand. The two martyrs cried with a loud voice, "O Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon us." And then they began to recite their creed. At last the flames reached them, but the fire consumed the cords which fastened them to the stake before their breath was gone. One of them

feeling his liberty, dropped upon his knees in the midst of the flames, and then, in worship to his Lord, exclaimed, clasping his hands, "Lord Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us."

Their bodies were quickly wrapped in flame. They shouted "Te Deum Laudamus." Soon their voices were stifled, and their ashes alone remained.

This execution had lasted four hours. It was on the 1st July, 1523, that the first martyrs of the Reformation laid down their lives for the Gospel.

Lambert found no peace in his dungeon, terrified at the prospect of death, but still more by conscience, which reproached him with his cowardice, and urged him to confess the Gospel. Delivered, ere long, from his fears, he boldly proclaimed the truth, and died like his brethren.-D' Aubigné.

POPISH RELICS.

AMONGST the lying wonders of Romanism, few things stand forward more prominently than their religious relics, and the silly and wicked legends associated with them. Few, or none of these relics were really what they purported to be, but were manufactures and inventions of the monks, or of other interested parties. Had they been genuine remains connected with saints of real excellence, or even with our blessed Saviour himself, we are not authorized in believing that any supernatural power would have attached to them; but when we regard the large majority of them as belonging to such questionable individuals as Folquin, or Erkenbode, or Oswald, or Blase, or Decumanius, our feelings must be those of astonishment and reprobation of the system of popery; and pity for its deluded slaves. The following are a few of the items in an inventory taken in the year 1465, of a vast collection of reliques belonging to the abbey church of St. Bertin, at St. Omer :

Item de vestimento quo fuit induta Elizabeth quando salutavit beatam Mariam, matrem Domini. Part of the dress worn by Elizabeth, when she saluted the blessed Mary, mother of our Lord.

Item de columpna Domini ad quam ligatus et flagellatus fuit. A piece of our Lord's pillar to which he was bound when scourged.

Item de terra in qua Dominus stetit, cum ad cœlos ascendit. Some of the earth on which our Lord stood, when he ascended to heaven.

Item de pulvere sancti Johannis baptiste. Some of John the Baptist's dust.

Item Reliquie quorum nomina ignorantur. Relics, the names of which are unknown!

Surely after this, we may expect to meet with St. Paul's thorn in the flesh; the shadow of St. Peter; or some of the eloquence of Apollos!

EASTERN DESPOTISM.

"I am Pharoah, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot, in all the land of Egypt "—Gen. xli. 44.

THE following anecdote is a specimen of the despotic influence which Baitina, the famous chief of the Assassins, a people of Phoenicia who were in possession of twelve cities in the neighbourhood of Tyre, exercised over his followers. When Sultan Jelalo'ddaula sent an ambassador to the Elder of the mountains to require his submission, he thus received him. When the ambassador appeared in his presence, he called before him some of his people, and giving the signal to a young man among them, said to him—"Stab yourself!" and he did so: he then ordered another to precipitate himself from the castle, which he did, and was dashed to pieces. Then he said to the Sultan's ambassador, "Of subjects such as these, seventy thousand are thus observant of me let this be the answer."-Richardson.

;

"WHO HATH BEWITCHED YOU?”

It would be impossible to express so well in other words, this question which Paul puts to the foolish Galatians. They were enchanted, entranced, mesmerised, so to speak, by the imposing rights of Judaism; and thus placed beyond the pale of candid reasoning or calm discussion. And yet these ceremonies which led them astray from the simplicity of Christ, were originally of divine appointment. Well then may we tremble at the fervid denouncements of the apostle, whilst we consider with what a godly jealousy he looked upon the scheme of salvation by Christ

alone; if there be in any of us a lingering adherence to mere human ordinances, and to sacraments, observances, or articles of belief, originating only in the corrupt hearts of men-to notions which came into the world we know not how; and which will leave it all the better when expelled from it.

THE GODS OF EGYPT.

"AMONGST the embalmed bodies of Egypt are found various idols. Some of these are in great, some in little portraitures, formed either of potter's earth baked, or else of stone, or mettall, or wood or the like; in all which kinds I have bought some. One of them for the rarity of the matter and for the illustration of the Scriptures, deserves to be here mentioned; being cut out of a magnes (loadstone) in the form and bignesse of the cantharis or scarabæus, which, as Plutarch testifies, was worshipped by the Ægyptians, and was by military men, engraven as an emblem on their seales. To which sorte of idols, it may be, Moses alluded when speaking of the gods of Egypt, he calls them gillulim, rendered in the margin of Deut. xxix. 17, 'dungy gods,' (an epithet exactly describing the habits of this insect.) That which is remarkable of it in nature is this, that the stone, though probably two thousand years since taken out of its naturall bed, the rock, yet still retains its attractive and magnetical virtue.-Greaves.

THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT.

THERE is at this day, a poisonous root well known in Ireland by the name of dahoe which signifies death; by partaking of which, no less than three persons in one family, were very recently destroyed.-See 2 Kings iv. 40.

THE COMET.

"I WISH my brother was here to see the splendid comet which lights us to bed every night. Its tail extends over nearly fortyfive degrees of the heavens, and along with the earthquakes, has frightened us all very much."-Extract from a private letter, dated, Jamaica, 28th March, 1843.

"THE GOOD WINE."

THE Arabs bury jars of wine at the birth of their children, on Mount Libanus, and other places, till they are grown up, married, and settled in life, when they draw it out, and give it to the bride and bridegroom at the celebration of their wedding feast. There are allusions to this custom, which was of great antiquity, in the New Testament." (See John ii. 10.)—Fragments of Oriental Literature.

CURIOUS PARAPHRASE.

A CURIOUS specimen of circumlocution, common to the poets of Northern Europe, is given by Dr. Von Troil, the Swedish traveller. An Icelandic author, wishing to express the phrase "I put a ring on my finger," writes it thus-"I hang the round, beaten, gaping snake on the end of the bridge of the mountain bird, at the gallows of Odin's shield."

The round gaping, beaten snake, is a ring-a snake with his tail in his gaping mouth representing a circle; and the metal of which the ring is formed, having been beaten into rotundity.

The bridge of the mountain bird, or falcon, is the hand, and the end of that bridge, the finger.

The gallows of Odin's shield is the arm on which it is slung. This curious paraphrase illustrates many of the more figurative passages of scripture, such as that well-known expression, (Job v. 7.) "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward;" which, literally translated, reads -"As the sons of the burning coal lift up to fly." "The eyelids of the morning" is in a similar manner used to express the dawn; and the greater part of the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes is an allegory of similar construction, though transcendantly surpassing every merely human composition. The same paraphrastic form is used also in Isaiah V. 1. " My beloved hath a vineyard, the horn of the son of oil." The horn here is a small abrupt hill, which is designated a son of oil, on account of its fruitful character: so that our authorized version gives the true sense when it renders the whole expression fruitful hill;" to which Lowth adds the epithet "high," to convey an idea of its peaked or conical character, which assimilates it to a horn.

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a very