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STORIES OF THE EARLY REFORMERS-ALEXANDER HENDERSON.

A SECOND John Knox:' so Alexan

der Henderson is called. And his friends thought him worthy of the nameand thought, and truly thought, that a second John Knox was needed in this second time of peril and trial for the troubled church of Scotland.

In his early youth he was minister of the church of Leuchars in Fife. What a

curious little church it is. You may see it yet. Old, old, and with piece added to piece, as if many severed centuries had been at the building of it. Here is a low arcade of rude rich ancient carving; here some narrow triplets of windows adorned by no touch of the chisel. The roofs are of unequal heights; the grave-stones clustering round it are bent with their own

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ALEXANDER HENDERSON.

age. And the long, long grass rustles and sings the story which your human ears cannot interpret, which yet makes you sad.

Alexander Henderson was appointed to be minister of this little parish. But the people objected to him. He was very prelatical in his judgment at this time,' it is said. And a prelatical' minister Leuchars would not have. On the day of his ordination, the church doors were shut so fast by the people, that they were obliged to break in by a window.' This was the beginning of the ministry of the Second John Knox.' He preached in the little old church, we are not told how long, to the small, unwilling congregation, till a secret change came over him.

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For Robert Bruce was to preach in a neighbouring parish church. And the minister of Leuchars went alone, and sat in a dark corner, where none could see him or know him, to hear the stranger preacher. And the sermon astonished him. He thought as he had never thought before. "This, by the blessing of God,' says John Howie, and the effectual working of the Holy Spirit, took such hold on him at that very instant, and made such impression on his heart afterwards, as proved the first means of his conversion unto Christ.

'After this he became, not only a most faithful and diligent minister of the Gospel, but also a stanch Presbyterian, and had a very active hand in carrying out the Covenanted work of Reformation, from the year 1638 to the day of his death.'

In the year 1637 a new effort was made to force upon the Scottish people the Church of England service. On July 23rd, in the Greyfriars' church of Edinburgh, the liturgy was read. The people made no protest, only listened with tears and groans. But in St. Giles's church they did not hear so quietly. To understand how the beautiful service roused such warm resistance, one must remember many things which history takes long to tell, and which cannot be told here. The story has often been read and written how, when the Dean of Edinburgh, arrayed in his white surplice, began to read the prayers

for the day, a plain old woman, Jenny Geddes, snatching the stool on which she sat, threw it at the head of the clergyman, and exclaimed:

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Dost thou say mass at my lug?'

And this was but the sign for a general burst of indignation, which spread through the whole of Edinburgh, and across the Braid Hills to the south, and north across the grey Frith, to the very base of the Grampians.

'All that we have been doing these thirty years is at once thrown down,' exclaimed the Archbishop of St. Andrews, when the news of what had happened was brought to him.

Petitions were sent to the king, and petitions were rejected. Then the nation bethought itself of that solemn Covenant, in which once before, in a time of peril (1580), it had bound itself to support and defend its religion against all enemies. And Alexander Henderson was appointed to draw up a new Covenant-like the old one, and yet different-suited to the new innovations which the king sought to force upon the people.

On the last day of February, 1638, this Covenant was spread out in the Greyfriars' churchyard of Edinburgh, and read aloud to the thousands of people who had come, in a fervour of enthusiasm, to subscribe their names to it. 'Some wept aloud; others raised a shout of congratulation; many added to their signatures the words, "till death; " and some, more enthusiastic than the rest, opened their veins, and subscribed it with their own blood.'

This roused the wrath of the king. It was a defiance of his law. All Europe would smile at a prince who suffered one little corner of his realm to enter into covenant against him.

The king sent the Marquis of Hamilton, with high power, across the border. It was in the summer time that he entered the city of Edinburgh, with great state and splendour, to enforce the will of King Charles. And the people met him in crowds, men and women and children, with such entreaty on their lips and in their

THE SPIDER.

faces, as moved the Marquis to tears. But he had not been long in Edinburgh till he saw how stern were his suppliants. They could entreat; but they could not yield. They were loyal by tradition to the king, but still more loyal to the covenant. The Marquis could not move them; and so he wrote to the king.

Then the king proposed a compromise. Scotland should have a covenant, and the royal hand of Charles would be the first to sign it. And the king's covenant was prepared, and read by the king's heralds aloud at the old cross of Edinburgh; and all the king's lieges were commanded, from John o' Groat's to the border, to subscribe it before a certain date.

But when the herald had ceased to speak, Johnston of Warriston stood in front of him and read, in the name of the Covenanters, a protest and a refusal to obey the king's command.

Then there was a general assembly held in the Glasgow cathedral, of which Alexander Henderson was Moderator, and at which the Marquis of Hamilton presided as the king's High Commissioner.

Later, he was one of those Scottish divines who went up to the Westminster Assembly. Later again, he is at Newcastle with the Scots' army, chaplain to the king-when the king is in extremity, his English subjects risen up against him. And then, in the middle of August, 1646, Alexander Henderson came back to Edinburgh, worn out with travel and toil, and died among his own people.

THE SPIDER.

H. W. H. W.

THE clever little artist whose name heads

this paper is greatly to be admired for his industry, perseverance, and skill. There is, however, an ignorant prejudice against spiders, shared not only by boys and girls, but even by older persons, who look on them as ugly, ferocious, and nasty. Even poets have spoken against them, and Bishop Latimer draws a comparison to their disparagement between them and bees. 'Where

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the bee gathereth honey, even there,' he says, 'the spinner gathereth venom.' Had the worthy clergyman been as just as he was good, he could not but have reflected that if a spider has poison fangs, a bee has a poison sting; and that if the spider does not make honey, she weaves the finest and most delicate of all fabrics, surpassing in its delicacy of tissue, and in its regularity of form, even the beauty of the honey comb.

Besides being entitled to a place among the most industrious and hardworking of God's creatures, spiders may claim the merit of a contented disposition, exhibiting, in the ingenuity with which they construct a home for themselves in the most unlikely places, skill and genius that are truly admirable. To man they are of the greatest service, preying as they do on the hordes of the insect tribes. Few of our young readers, I suspect, realize that both as regards the circulation of their blood and their respiration, spiders far surpass the gay and beautiful butterflies, which flit about in the sunshine, and glorify the summer's day. In both respects they are allied to vertebrate animals, and are immeasurably raised above the insects. No British spider has less than six eyes, and the great majority have eight. These are sometimes placed flat on the head, which is truly, however, head and chest combined in one mass, and sometimes raised on tubercles. One spider, whom we may call the Astronomer Royal, has four of his eight eyes situated in a horn which springs from the centre of his head. The most wonderful organs, however, are the spinnerets, whence the material for the web comes. These are usually four or eight in number, and they occupy a large part of the abdomen. They may be regarded as screwplates or tubercles which can be drawn out or in like telescopes, ejecting in their movement a cloudlike vapour. This is composed of threads of an infinite thinness. Each tubercle secretes a thousand such threads: at the distance of about one-tenth of an inch the 4000, or, as the case may be, 8000 threads unite, forming what may be regarded as a cable, and of this the web is constructed. But these

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PRIZE BIBLE QUESTIONS.

guide these little creatures in their work from generation to generation.

Let no one despise the spider. Solomon holds her up as an example of perseverance rewarded. The spider,' he says, 'uses her hands, and is in kings' palaces.' Yes! in the monarch's cabinet there are unseen eyes which regard his every movement. In our most secret hours we are not alone. And is there not a King's palace into which by the hand of faith all may find entrance? But it must be true trust that we put in Jesus, else is our hope but the trust of the hypocrite, a spider's web that shrivels at the slightest touch, and is destroyed by the passing breeze. The trust of the child of God is firm and unmoved, and Jesus gently leads the children who give him their hearts by the still waters of love and peace to the green pastures of abiding and never-ending joy and gladness.

SABBATH EVENING FIRESIDE BIBLE CLASS

CHRIST IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
May 7.

WHOM did Isaiah behold in vision? Isa. vi. 1.
What proves that this was a vision of Christ?
John xii. 37-41.

Mention a very striking name that was to be

given to the Saviour. Isa. vii. 14. Where is this applied and explained? Matt. i. 23. What other names does the prophet assign Him? Isa. ix. 6, 7.

Was Christ announced as a Prince to Mary? Luke i. 32, 33.

To what part of a tree is He compared? Isa. xi. 1, 10.

Does He bear this name in the New Testament? Rev. v. 5; xxii. 16.

May 14.

What are the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit that are to be Christ's? Isa. xi. 2, 3. Where do you find reference to the Holy Spirit in His sevenfold perfection? Rev. i. 4. Give some examples of seven as the symbol of perfection.

To what are the blessings of Christ's kingdom compared? Isa. xxv. 6.

Does the Saviour make use of this emblem? Matt. xxii. 1. Luke xiv. 16; xxii. 19. What is to follow His victory over death? Isa. xxv. 8.

Where is this fully fulfilled? Rev. xxi. 4.

May 21.

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Name the characteristics of Christ as a foundation stone. Isa. xxviii. 16.

Where is He called by this name in the N. T.? 1 Cor. iii. 11. Eph. ii. 20. 1 Pet. ii. 6. What are the emblems of Christ in the thirtysecond chapter? Isa. xxxii. 2.

Give some illustrations from His life showing that this was true of Christ.

In what part of Isaiah's prophecy is Christ compared to a shepherd?

Does Christ apply this to Himself? John x. 11; xxi. 15.

Is this a favourite emblem of Christ in the Scripture? Heb. xiii. 20. 1 Pet. ii. 25; v. 4. Rev. vii. 17.

May 28.

Name the characteristics of Christ as the
Father's servant. Isa. xlii. 1-4.
What event more particularly fulfilled this
description? Matt. xii. 14-21.

Find the place in Isaiah where Christ is set forth as the righteous, the only, and the world-wide Saviour.

What is the mouth of Christ compared to? Isa. xlix. 2.

Do we find this anywhere else in Scripture? Rev. i. 16.

What is Christ compared to with respect to captives? Isa. xlix. 24, 25. Who is the Mighty One from whom He rescues? Matt. xii. 22-28.

PRIZE BIBLE QUESTIONS.

SENIOR DIVISION.

13 Give the names of a mother, of her son, and of her great-grandson, all distinguished by their love for, and by their proficiency in, "sacred music.

14 Give the names of three teachers of psalmody who were also prophets.

15 Which of the Psalms may be called a lyrical epitome of the book of Job?

JUNIOR DIVISION.

13 In which verse from the prophets are six expressions used to describe the Lord's kindness to His people?

14 What question is put by an apostle to show that God's past goodness assures the believer of every blessing in the future?

15 In which verse of an epistle are four names given to believers to show the high honour God puts upon them?

By mistake the authorship of the Prize Essays in the March and April Nos. was transposed. Please correct as follows: How Children can make home happy,' Maggie E. Moody. 'What Children can do for the cause of Christ,' Emily Ada Guy.

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