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child an unprotected orphan, the arms of a heavenly F ther are stretched out to receive him, to surround him with love and paternal care: "When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up." And this assurance, which David had found so blessed a reality, when he pronounced these words, is the same to every soul whose confidence is in the Lord. Yes, I have seen the young child returning sad and dejected, after accompanying its father to the tomb, and have heard it ask in the agony of grief-" Who will now be my guide and my support, in this life of misery, upon which I am about to enter, alone, and poor, weak, and without hope?" And then, I have seen the hand of a faithful servant of God pointing upwards, while with accents of tenderness and sympathy he said-" My child! remember that thou has still a Father in Heaven;" and these words, these few words, found the way to that young heart, and never after departed from it; and these few words gave a direction to his whole future life by shedding over it a new light.

An Incident.

THE following passage occurs in the recently published memoirs of Mrs. Hemans:

"It was about this time that a circumstance occurred, by which Mrs. Hemans was greatly affected and impressed. A stranger one day called at her house, and begged earnestly to see her. She was then just recovering from one of her frequent illnesses, and was obliged to decline the visits of all, but her immediate friends. The applicant was, therefore, told that she was unable to receive him; but he persisted in entreating for a few minute's audience, with such urgent importunity, that at last the point was conceded. The moment he was admitted, the gentleman (for such his manner and appearance declared him to be,) explained in words and tones of the deepest feeling, that the object of his visit was to acknowledge a debt of obligation, which he could not rest satisfied without avowing-that to her he owed, in the first instance, hat faith and those hopes, which were

now more precious to him than life itself; for that it was by reading her poem of " The Sceptic," he had been first awakened from the miserable delusions of infidelity, and induced to "Search the Scriptures." Having poured forth his thanks and benedictions in an uncontrollable gush of emotion, this strange but interesting visitant took his departure, leaving her overwhelmed with a mingled sense of joyful gratitude and wondering humility

Henry Martyn.

SOME years since, an English gentleman spent several weeks at Shiraz, Persia. He attended a public dinner with a party of Persians, among whom was one, who took but little part in the conversation. He was below middle age, serious, and mild in countenance. His name was Mahomed Rahem. In the course of a religious conversation, the Englishman expressed himself with some levity; at which Mahomed fixed his eyes upon him, with such a look of surprise, regret, and reproof, as reached his very soul. Upon inquiry, the gentleman found he had been educated as a Mollah, (priest) though he had never officiated; that he was much respected, was learned, retired in his habits, and was drawn out to that party only by the expectation of meeting an Englishman, to whose nation and language he was much attached. In a subsequent interview, Mahomed Rahem declared himself a christian, and gave the following account of the happy change in his views and feelings:

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"In the year 1223 (of the Hegira) there came to this city an Englishman, who taught the religion of Christ, with a boldness hitherto unparalleled in Persia, in the midst of much scorn and ill-treatment, from our mollahs, as well as the rabble. He was a beardless youth, and evidently enfeebled by disease. He dwelt among us for more than a year. I was then a decided enemy to infidels, as the christians are termed by the followers of Mahomet; and I visited this teacher of the despised sect with the declared object of treating him with scorn, and exposing his doctrines to contempt. Although I persevered for some time in this behavior to him, I found that

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every interview increased my respect for the individual, and diminished my faith in the religion in which I had been educated. His extreme forbearance towards his opponents, the calm and yet convincing manner, in which. he exposed the fallacies and sophistries by which he was assailed, (for he spoke Persian excellently) gradually inclined me to listen to his arguments, to inquire dispassionately into the truth of them, and, finally, to read a tract which he had written, in reply to a defence of Islamism by one of our chief mollahs. Need I detain you longer? the result of my examination was, a conviction that the young disputant was right. Shame, or rather fear, withheld me from avowing this opinion. I even avoided the society of the christian teacher, though he remained in the city so long. Just before he quitted Shiraz, I could not refrain from paying him a final visit. Our conversation-the memory of it will never fade from my mind--sealed my conversion. He gave me a book: it has ever been my constant companion; the study of it has formed my most delightful occupation; its contents have often consoled me." Upon this he put into his hands a copy of the New Testament in Persian. On one of the blank leaves was written, "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, HENRY MARTYN.

Books of Fiction and the Bible.

THE Bible contains the literature of heaven-of eternity. It is destined to survive in human hearts every other book, and command the ultimate veneration and obedience of the world.

When Sir Walter Scott returned, a trembling invalid from Italy, to die in his native land, the sight of his "sweet home," so invigorated his spirits, that some hope was cherished, that he might recover. But he soon relapsed. He found that he must die. Addressing his son-in-law, he said, "Bring me a book."-" What book?" replied Lockhart. "Can you ask," said the expiring genius, whose fascinating novels have charmed the world, but have no balm for death-"Can you ask what book? there is but one."

No, there is but one book, that God has given to us-et us give that one book unmutilated to the world.

Anecdotes respecting the Bible.

THERE are a few anecdotes relating to the publication of the first authorized translation of the Bible, which are well worth recording, as demonstrative of the temper in which our first ancestors received the blessing, and the use they made of it. A command was issued that every church should be provided with one of these folio Bibles. It was done; but the anxiety of the people, of such as could, to read the precious volume, and of such as could not, to handle and turn over the pages of that book, which they had been in the habit of regarding as a thing of mystery and prohibition, was so great, that it was found. necessary to chain them to the desks. In a country church, I have seen the very Bible, and the very chain preserved as relics, which three hundred years ago, attested the popular feeling on this subject. But so deeply rooted were the old prejudices of the governing authorities, that it was four years after the Bible was placed in the churches, before the king could be persuaded to revoke the decrees which forbade his subjects to have it in their private possession. At last, they were graciously permitted by royal license, to purchase Bibles for their own reading at home. Then it was that every body who could afford it bought a copy of the Scriptures, such as could not buy the whole, purchased detached passages. A cart load of hay was known to be given for a few chapters of St. Paul's epistles. And many there were, who, having learnt to read in their old age, that they might have pleasure in poring over the written word, and reading with their own eyes the wonderful things of God, exclaimed with the prophets, "Thy words were found and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." The crosses and public places often presented the moving sight of men, women and children, crowding round a reader, who was rehearsing the Songs of Zion, and the prophecies of the

seers of Israel, or the tender discourses of the Redeemer of mankind.

One poor man, named John Marbec, was so desirous of making himself master of a Bible, that he determined to write one out, because he had not money enough to buy one; and when he had accomplished that laborious task, he set about the still more trying toil of making a concordance.

"They would hide the forbidden treasure under th floors of their houses," says Mr. Blunt in his admirable "Sketch of the Reformation,' " and put their lives in peril, rather than forego the book they desired; they would sit up all night, their doors being shut for fear of surprise, reading, or hearing others read the word of God; they would bury themselves in the woods, and there converse with it in solitude; they would tend their herds in the fields, and still steal an hour for drinking in the good tidings of great joy.

Such being the avidity, with which the Scriptures were cherished, let the reader imagine the consternation which overwhelmed the pious of his country, when the capricious Henry reversed his former decrees in favor of biblical learning, and threatened his people with imprisonment, confiscation and fire, if any below the privileged classes should presume to search the scriptures. This terrible stretch of royal prerogative was confirmed by act of parliament in 1543; and it seemed like a seal of human folly and infatuation forced upon a tyrant king and a subservient Senate, to refute future calumnies against Protestantism, and to be handed down to posterity as proof, that the Reformation was carried on, not by the cold mechanism of State politics, but by the fervent zeal and undaunted devotion of holy men, in spite of kings and parliaments. Our protestant forefathers would have been crushed, and their names and their labors forgotten, if the will of their temporal and spiritual rulers could have been accomplished. This proclamation of 1543 set forth that no books were to be printed about religion, without the king's consent; none might read the scriptures in an open assembly, or expound it, but he who was licensed by the king or his ordinary. Every nobleman or gentleman might cause the Bible to be read to

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