copy was given to him in exchange, the Bible was constantly on the and the written one was placed in table in his closet, and the comthe hands of the President of the mentary which he selected for his British and Foreign Bible Society, private guidance, was Matthew as a monument of the desire of the Henry's Exposition. A pious Irish to know the Scriptures. female servant, whose office it was to arrange the library room, was often heard to say, "I love to follow my master in his reading of the Scriptures, and to observe the passages he turns down. I wish everybody made the Bible as much their daily study as my good master does." 58. Priest and Bible.-A woman at Montreal, of the Roman Catholic belief, having obtained a Bible, was visited by her priest, who earnestly endeavoured to prevail on her to give it up. Finding he could not persuade her to relinquish her treasure, he attempted to induce her to sell it; offering first five, then ten, fifteen, and at last twenty dollars. The good woman, after refusing these offers, at length consented to sell it for twenty-five dollars. The priest agreed, the money was paid, the obnoxious volume was given up, and he departed in triumph. But the woman set off immediately to Mon-stand you," said Diderot, “but, in treal, and, with the priest's twenty- truth, what better lesson could I five dollars, purchased twenty-five give her?" new Bibles for herself and neighbours. 59. Progress of Conviction."The process of enlightenment in many unconverted minds," says a Christian worker," is shadowed forth by the experience of one whom I saw but recently. He sat down to read the Bible an hour each evening with his wife. In a few evenings he stopped in the midst of his reading, and said, 'Wife, if this book is true, we are wrong.' He read on, and in a few days later, said, 'Wife, if this book is true, we are lost.' Riveted to the book, and deeply anxious, he still read, and in a week more joyfully exclaimed, 'Wife, if this book is true, we may be saved!' A few weeks' more reading, and, taught by the Spirit of God, through the exhortations and instructions of a City missionary, they both placed their faith in Christ, and are now rejoicing in hope." 60. Royal Bible Student. Of the few books which George III. read, 61. Sceptic's Confession.-One day a member of the French Academy went to see Diderot, an able champion of infidelity; he found him explaining a chapter of the Gospel to his daughter as seriously as, and with the concern of, a most Christian parent. The visitor expressed his surprise. "I under 62. Scholar's Testimony.-Sir William Jones, whose scholarly attainments are so famous, wrote on the blank leaf of his Bible the tion:-"I have regularly and following finely-conceived descripattentively perused these Holy this volume, independently of its Scriptures, and am of opinion that Divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they strained application of them to may have been written. The unevents which took place long after the publication is a solid ground for belief that they are genuine productions, and consequently inspired." 63. Scraps of Paper.-When Dr. Corrie was chaplain of Allahabad, there was no Hindostanee version of the Scriptures extant, and it was his custom to translate on small bits of paper striking passages of Scrip 65. Spiritual Sight.-A Gottingen Professor narrated the following to two gentlemen from London, in the course of their tour through Germany :-"Some years ago I was in great danger of losing my sight, which had become so bad that I could scarcely distinguish anything. The prospect of passing the last days of my life in blindness made me so melancholy that I resolved to make a tour to Bremen to recover my spirits. On this tour I came to Hanover, where some friends took me into the Duke of Cambridge's library, and showed me some Bibles, lately sent by the Bible Society in London as a present to the Duke. Wishing to try whether in my blindness I could ture into that language, and every morning distribute these papers at his door. Twenty years afterwards he received a communication from a missionary at Allahabad, who informed him that a person in ill health had arrived there, and that he had been to visit him. He had come to see his friends, and die among them, after an absence of more than twenty years. The missionary had visited him several times, and was so astonished at his knowledge of Scripture, and his impressions of its great realities, that he put the question, "How is it, my friend, that you are so well informed in the Sacred Books? You have told me you have never seen a missionary in your life, nor anyone to teach distinguish the paper and print of you the way of life and salvation." And what was his answer? He put his hand behind his pillow, and drew out a bundle of well-worn and tattered bits of paper, and said, "From these bits of paper, which a sahib distributed at his door, and whom I have never seen since, have I learned all. These papers, which I received twenty years ago, and have read every day, till they are thus tumbled and spoiled, are passages of Scripture in the Hindostanee language; from them I have derived all the information on eternal realities which I now possess. This is the source of my information; thus I have derived my knowledge." He those from the common ones, I took one up merely for that purpose, without the least intention of selecting any particular passage; and now see what I read." here opened the Bible, and recited Isa. xlii. 16: “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.' I read this verse, and received spiritual sight." At these words he was so much affected that the tears ran down his cheeks. "With a cheerful mind I now journeyed back to Gottingen, and my greatest desire 64. Seeking in Darkness.-A Sowas to possess a Bible in which cinian preacher once said to Mr. this verse stood on the same page Newton, "Sir, I have collated and in the same place. Shortly every word in the Hebrew Scrip- afterwards, I was visited by a tures seventeen times; and it is friend from London, to whom I very strange if the doctrine of related the occurrence, and immeatonement which you hold should diately received his promise to send not have been found by me." Mr. me a Bible as soon as possible, which Newton replied, "I am not sur- he did." This copy he continued prised at this; I once went to light to esteem as his greatest earthly my candle with the extinguisher treasure. on it. Prejudices, from education, learning, &c., often form an extinguisher. It is not enough that you bring the candle: you must remove the extinguisher.' 66. Stray Verses. In a City missionary's narrative of his experiences we read: "On board a vessel at Horselydown, I found only an old shipkeeper. I asked him whether he could read; he replied that he could. On asking him what books he read, his reply was, 'The Bible.' I then gave him two tracts, and remarked that I had sometimes seen parts of the Bible in cheesemongers' shops, which I thought very wrong. He said he differed from me. On asking his reason, he stated that he was formerly a great smoker, and on going to purchase some tobacco it was put up in a part of the Bible. One verse struck him very forcibly; and he was induced to purchase a Bible, and has read it daily to the present time; and, said he, 'Blessed be God, I would not part with it, and the hopes I have of salvation, for ten thousand worlds."" did not want to read any more," says he; "nor was there any need; every doubt was banished." The morning star had risen in his heart. "You 68. Testimony of Prophecy.Pains had been early taken by some of the Prince of Conde's supposed friends to shake his belief of Christianity; he always replied, give yourselves a great deal of unnecessary trouble; the dispersion of the Jews will always be an undeniable proof to me of the truth of our holy religion." 69. Torn Leaves.-A young shopman once took up a leaf of the Bible, and was about to tear it in pieces, and use it for packing up when a pious friend said, "Do not some small parcel in the shop, tear that it contains the word of eternal life." The young man, folded up the leaf, and put it in his though he did not relish the reproof, pocket. Shortly after this, he said within himself, "Now I will see what kind of life it is of which this leaf speaks." On unfolding the leaf, the first words that caught 67. "Take and Read."-In the spring of the year 372, a young man in the thirty-first year of his age, in evident distress of mind, entered his garden near Milan. This was no other than the afterwards eminent Augustine. The sins of his youth-a youth spent in sensuality his eye were the last in the book of and impiety-weighed heavily on his soul. Lying under a fig-tree, the end be: for thou shalt rest, and Daniel: "But go thou thy way till moaning and pouring out abundant tears, he heard from a neigh-stand in thy lot at the end of the bouring house a young voice saying days." He began immediately to and repeating in rapid succession, inquire what his lot would be at "Tolle, lege! Tolle, lege!" (Take of thought thus awakened led to the end of the days, and the train and read! Take and read!) Receiving the formation of a religious chathis as a divine admonition, he returned to the place where he left his friend Alypius, to procure the 70. Translators Converted.-A roll of St. Paul's epistles, which he German clergyman at St. Petershad a short time before left with burg once engaged two Mongul him. "I seized the roll," says he, Tartar chiefs to assist him in in describing this scene; "I opened preparing a translation of the it and read in silence the chapter Gospels into the language of on which my eyes first alighted." their country, and they spent It was the thirteenth of Romans. some time every day in study. "Let us walk honestly, as in the At length the work was completed, day; not in rioting and drunken- the last correction was made, and ness, not in chambering and wan- the book was closed on the tablo tonness, not in strife and envying. before them. Still they sat, serious But put ye on the Lord Jesus and silent. The minister inquired Christ, and make not provision for the cause, and was equally surthe flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." prised and delighted to hear them All was decided by a word. "I both avow themselves converts to racter. the truths of the blessed volume. "At home," they said, "we studied the sacred writings of the Chinese, and the more we read the more obscure they seemed; the longer we have read the Gospel, the more simple and intelligible it becomes, until at last it seems as if Jesus was talking with us." When Queen 71. Truth. Elizabeth rode through London, on her way from the Tower to be crowned at Westminster Abbey, at one stage of her progress a beautiful boy, intended to represent Truth, was let down from a triumphal arch, and presented her with a copy of the Bible. This was received by the Queen with a most engaging gracefulness of deportment; she placed it in her bosom, and declared "that, of all the endearing proofs of attachment which she had that day met with from her loving subjects, this gift she considered as the most precious, as it was to her, of all others, the most acceptable." 72. Unconscious Instrumentality. -The Bishop of London, in order to suppress Tindal's Bible, regularly bought up the copies as they were imported. Of this purchase, the following fact is related :-Sir Thomas More, being Lord Chancellor, and having several persons accused of heresy and ready for execution, offered to compound with one of them, named George Constantine, for his life, upon the easy terms of discovering to him who they were in London that main tained Tindal beyond the sea. 73. Wonderful Preservation of Judson's Burmese Testament.Wien first translated, the Testament was taken to Ava in MS., and when Dr. Judson was thrown into prison it was secretly sewed up by his wife in a cushion, too hard and unsightly to tempt the cupidity even of his close of seven gaolers, and used by him as a pillow. When, at the months, he and his fellow-sufferers were so rudely thrust into the inner prison, the old pillow fell to the share of one of the keepers; but, finding it probably too hard for his use, he threw it back, and it came once more into its owner's hands. It was again lost when he was driven to Oung-pen-la; and, being stripped by one of the attendants of the mat which was tied round it, the roll of hard cotton was again flung back into the prison. Here it was found by Moung Ing, who took it home, as a memorial of his teacher, without suspecting its priceless contents. Several months afterwards, the manuscript, which now forms a part of the Burmese Bible, was found within uninjured. CHARITY. Prov. xxii. 9; Psalm xli. 1; Zech. vii. 9; Romans xv. 1; 1 Cor. xiii. 2, 4, 13; 1 Tim. i. 5; James i. 27. 74. Charity Suffereth, and is Kind. | his episcopal residence, and had gone -It was Archbishop Sharpe's (John | a mile or two before the carriage, a Wesley's friend) custom to have a decent, well-looking young man saddle-horse attend his carriage, that in case of fatigue from sitting he might take the refreshment of a ride. As he was thus travelling to came up to him, and, with a trembling hand and faltering tongue, presented a pistol to his lordship's breast, demanding his money. The have forgotten the circumstances My marriage alienated his Archbishop with composure turned about, and, looking stedfastly at him, desired he would remove that dangerous weapon, and tell him fairly his condition. "Sir, sir!" with great agitation cried the youth, "no words-'tis not a time —your money instantly!" "Hear me, young man," said the Archbishop, "and come on with me. You see I am a very old man, and my life is of very little consequence. Yours seems far otherwise. I am named Sharpe, and am Archbishop of York; my carriage and servants are behind. Tell me what money you want, and who you are, and I'll not injure you, but prove a friend. Here, take this, and now tell me how much you want to make you independent of so destructive a business as you are now engaged in." "Oh, sir!" replied the man, "I detest the business as much as you. I ambut at home there are creditors affection, and my brother withwho will not stay. Fifty pounds, my lord, indeed would do what no tongue besides my own can tell." "Well, sir, I take it on your word; and, upon my honour, if you will in a day or two call on me what I have now given shall be made up to that sum." The highwayman looked at him, was silent, and went off, and at the time appointed actually waited on the Archbishop, and assured his lordship his words had left impressions which nothing could ever efface. Nothing more of him transpired for a year and a half, or more, when one morning a person knocked at his Grace's gate, and with peculiar earnestness desired to see him. The Bishop ordered the stranger to be brought in; he entered the room where his lordship was, and had scarce advanced a few steps before his countenance changed, his knees tottered, and he sunk almost breathless on the floor. On recovering he requested of his lordship a private audience. The apartment being cleared, "My lord," said he, "you cannot at drew his love, and left me to sorrow and penury. A month since my brother died a bachelor and intestate. What was his is become mine; and by your astonishing goodness I am now at once the most penitent, the most grateful, and happiest of my species." which 75. Cup of Cold Water.-A young Englishwoman was sent to France to be educated at a Huguenot school in Paris. A few evenings before the fatal massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, in nearly all the Protestants residing in Paris were butchered, she and some of her young companions were taking a walk in a part of the town where there were some sentinels placed. It is known that when a sentinel is on duty he must not leave his post until he is relieved, that is, till another soldier comes to take his place. One of the soldiers, as the young ladies passed him, besought them to have the charity to bring him a little water, adding that he was very ill, and that it would be as much as his life was worth to go and fetch it him |