In addition to meditation in the chapel, washing, and gardening, we listened for several hours every day to lectures taken from the most absurd productions of the cloister, consisting mainly of horrible stories of youths, who met with a miserable end because they quitted their convents during the time of probation. Some, so these lying lectures declared, had become robbers or murderers; others had died in prison, or fallen by the hands of the executioner; others, again, were tormented during the whole of their lives by dreadful diseases, sores, cancers, ulcers, and the like; and others, after leading a wicked and licentious life, were struck by sudden death, destroyed in the midst of their sins by a thunderbolt, or carried alive, body and soul, by evil spirits, to flames of torment! had given him more than a common | actually chewed it when he was comshare of drowsiness, and persisted in manded to desist. asserting her sway. At the end of his novitiate he passed to another convent in which he acted as sacristan; but many a midnight hour passed by with the hour of service, and the monks were all on their straw beds, for the sacristan was fast asleep! He was worth his weight in gold to the friars. Without any fault or negligence of their own, they could often sleep through the night, while the poor sacristan was made the scape-goat for their shortcomings. But to return: the matins and litany, occupying an hour, were repeated in tones so deep, slow, and sepulchral, that no wonder the poor novices felt drowsy; but the next hour's occupation was the hardest to go through-the hour of meditation. The lights were extinguished, and the friars remained in the choir in the dark. The church is all in darkness, save that a faint glimmer shines from the small lamp burning on the high altar, which serves to people the dreary edifice with dense and gloomy shadows. The novices kneel before a long form which they may not touch, either while kneeling, or to help them up. Three hours of rest are allowed after this, and at six every novice commences the daily exercises. Novices not only make but wash their own clothes. In writing out the list of the articles for the wash, the only occasion on which a novice is allowed the use of a pen, I one day inked my fingers, and to avoid detection, wiped them on my sandals, then nearly new. The master saw it, and thinking it a piece of vanity, I had to eat off the floor. Another novice, for accidentally breaking off a fine carnation in the little plot of garden that he had to dress, like the rest of us, the master ordered him to eat it, kneeling on the refectory floor, and brother F had The consequences may be easily fore seen. Credulous, superstitious, and timorous, the novices are deeply impressed by these tragical tales, and dare not entertain the remotest idea of returning to the world, however distasteful to them the monastic life may be. If the novice, disgusted with the severe discipline, resolves to leave, and applies for his secular dress, the master plies him, now with honied words about the saintliness of a Capuchin's life, and now with threats of endless torment, until the youth gives way; and then, double rigour, double penance, and double exactions, in order that he may reimburse himself for the gentle words lavished so prodigally. On this point I speak feelingly. Notwithstanding all my devotion, all my fanaticism, and all my dread of eternal torment, three several times did I present myself before the master and demand my clothes, and three several times did his blandishments overcome me. There is dew in one flower and not in another, because one opens its cup and takes it in, while the other closes itself, and the drops run off. God rains his goodness and mercy as widespread as the dew, and if we lack them, it is because we will not open our hearts to receive them. MODERN MARTYRDOM. Man is his own star, and the soul that can THOMAS CARLYLE somewhere says-on Jesuitism, and then the one on the But stop! what am I doing, dear Nigger Question. The first will make reader and editor? I have dared to him a joyful heart, the latter will tend open my remarks by the mention of a to make him of very sad spirit. But name which to many is associated with we must not delay longer in these blackest atheism and boldest scepticism. somewhat straggling remarks about the I am afraid that I have greatly shocked great author: suffice it to add, that in my staid old friend Obadiah Orthodox, the long course of time all men get and that I have wrinkled with dis- their due. There is a wonderful pleasure the serene forehead of good law of retribution at work everySimeon Straitlace. I fear that I have where; and the writer in question set them a thinking of the degeneracy will eventually get the benefit of it as of the modern pulpit, the modern plat sure as he exists. So let neither his form, the modern magazine, and, in friends fear, nor his foes fume. All will fine, almost the modern everything. be right in the end. No one knows Perhaps if they had actually read the this better than the biographer of works of the writer to whom I allude Cromwell, and we suspect he is tolerably at the beginning, they would entertain at ease about it. at least a modified notion touching his worth and unworth, heterodoxy and orthodoxy. But it is not to be sup posed that they have so far committed themselves, for, I have often observed that the bitterest foes and most virulent critics of the Chelsea philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others like them, are generally utterly ignorant of their writings-which fact, of course, qualifies them in an eminent degree to pronounce judgment upon the said books. Not that I am a disciple of the author of Sartor Resartus. No. But I am, I must confess, an admirer of much that he has written. His volumes are such as one may love as a mother, and at the same time hate as a edevil, for they do the work alternately of both personages. As a parent fondles and protects her fair-haired, blue-eyed, cheek-dimpled child, so they give birth to, and array in no mean apparel of excellent speech many great great and nobler thoughts: and as the devil is ever the sworn foe of all good, so they really seem to aim at the destruction of much that the world ought to prize. As proofs of this, let auy one read the Latter Day Pamphlet Well, to make another start; Thomas Carlyle somewhere says, 'affectation is the bane of literature, cant the bane of morals.' Of both assertions we are doomed to abundance of proof in the present age. As far as literary affectation is concerned, no observant man can fail to see enough and to spare' of it. What a host of literary Pharisees there are! In nothing is there more pretence and hollow hypocrisy than in the book-world. There are fashions in poetry, for instance, as well as in dress, and what numbers adopt the prevailing cut and trimming of their mental garb, not from admiration, but merely because it is the thing to do so, and because they dare not be out of order. It is the fashion to beland Wordsworth and Tennyson. Both are bards, whose beauties and meaning do not in any wise lie on the surface, like shells on the sands at Scarborough or Southport. By no means. They are rather like pearls that must be dived for. Down with you, my good sir, in the diving-bell of thought, if you would appreciate either the author of Peter Bell, or the writer of Maud. But we venture to say that nine out of every Modern Martyrdom. ten of the loudest eulogists of these men are utter strangers to the diving-bell, and have never been in one, but that at the Polytechnic, in London, which, by-the-bye, is not particularly fitted to produce the appreciation of which we speak. If you are well acquainted with Wordsworth, try the experiment. The next party you are at will give you a fine opportunity. The young lady in pink gauze, and arrayed in all the magnificence of artificial-flowers, will be delighted if you turn the current of conversation into the chanuel of poetry. Mention the bard of the Lakes. She will go off into raptures of applause, and exhaust her vocabulary of adjectives in the superlative degree when speaking of him. But, put a few questions to her, and marvel not if you discover that she has never managed to get through the Excursion. So of Alfred Tennyson. If you were to go to the book-shelves of half his muchtalking devotees, you would most probably find that In Memoriam and Idylls of the King were just cut open, and that is all-not well-thumbed and often read, like Mr. James's last novel, or the current number of All the Year Round Just as this affectation is 'the bane of literature,' socant is the bane of morals. The latter is as abundantly demonstrated to-day as the former. To the thinking of the present writer, who, though he is to fortune and to fame unknown' still has an eye to what is going forward,-there is an immense deal of cant canted by professed cant haters. One manifestation of this is the course pursued by some in respect of the working classes. For example, there is our immaculate young brother, the Rev. Nathan Newlight. Habited in superfine black broadcloth, cassock waistcoat, and virgin white tie, it is astonishing how eloquent his homilies are on what he pleases to call the great social questions of the day,' and the elevation of the masses.' He makes the working-man the modern martyr. According to him the artizan is being what Mr. Samuel Weller would denominate wictimized. He is perpetually trodden beneath the iron hoof of oppression. He is daily hunted by · 293 fierce furies, and hourly haunted by ghostly wrongs. He is a martyr to doubt. Mr. Newlight pictures to you the working-men as a body of earnest, patient thinkers, hungering and thirsting for truth, but unable to find it. They would give anything to attain to a sure foundation for an enlightened faith, but they cannot discover one. Theirs is the Everlasting No.' He is a Political martyr. He wants suffrage universal, ballot, and nobody knows what beside, but he cannot get them. No. He is tied down to the rock of despotism and can't move because of the bloodthirsty aristocratic vultures, that seek his life to destroy it.' He is a social and commercial martyr. Between him and his wealthier fellow-men there is a great, impassable gulph. The rich care nothing for the poor. His employer grinds his face, robs him at every turn, and his life is a constant misery. So the working-man is catalogued and labelled in the museum of many. To them he is the modern martyr. Now we appeal to our readers, and ask whether this is actually the case? Is all thus predicated of the artizan fact? No. There is some truth in it, but a vast deal more fiction. No doubt many operatives have a hard time of it; no doubt there wants more political privilege for them; no doubt they don't get better pay than they ought. But to make it out that they are all poor, sleek, meek, innocent lambs, pounced upon by legions of wealthy foxes and patrician wolves is what Mr. Carlyle would call 'transcendental moonshine.' The working classes seeking for truth but not finding it! Believe it not for a moment. Would that they did seek it; we venture to predict a somewhat successful issue to their search. A large number of them care a good deal more for Bell's Life in London than they do for the afore-mentioned truth. As to political rights, hundreds care very little about them, and would sell their vote for a glass of stout or & sixpennyworth of brandy and water. It is simple matter of fact, whatever be our theories, that the martyred masses' tax themselves far more heavily than their rulers do, and pay endless levies to the publican and maltster without a word of complaint. Nor are they such 294 Scripture Illustrated.-Disciples called Christians first in Antioch. social and commercial victims as Mr. Newlight would have us believe. Stand in the warehouse-streets of Nottingham, when the girls employed in the lace trade are going home for dinner or tea, and you'll not see such a fearful display of misery in their faces; you won't indeed. Come into one of our cotton-spinning, calico-making Lancashire towns when the six o'clock bell has rung at night, and you won't get the impression that the occupants of the mills are on the verge either of despair or death. As the women trip along in their wooden clogs and the shawls over their heads, you will find that happiness is possible even in connexion with looms and spindles. The truth is, no one class is the martyr class. Not at all. This rubbish about the working-people being eternally wronged and perpetually miserable really wont do. Let us all-his Reverence of the Newlight order included -do what we can to help the people, but let us not be guilty of exaggeration in speaking of their wrongs. Pain and pleasure, weal and woe are more evenly distributed than carelessness is prone to think. No one class monopolizes sorrow, none gladness. Earth was meant to be neither a monastery, nor a casino. Life is not a constant wedding feast; life is not a constant funeral ceremony. There is Cana with its purple wine, as well as Bethany with its solemn dead. David has both to mourn over Absolom and dance before the ark. Let us thank God that it is so. Let us bless Him that the garment of existence is of many colours, dark and light, grave and gay. Take life as you find it, and try not to complain over-much. Grumbling children are punished. Do the best you can with what you have, and avoid playing the small martyr. T. R. S. Scripture Illustrated. AND THE DISCIPLES WERE CALLED CHRISTIANS FIRST IN ANTIOCH.' Acts xi. 26. SOME of the Jewish Christians who fled from Jerusalem during the persecution that arose about Stephen, came as far as Antioch. All the cities of Palestine must have seemed to them little better than villages or garrison towns, in comparison with the size, strength, and beauty of this so-called 'Queen of the East. There were then only two other cities in the world larger, Alexandria and Rome. Its founder, the greatest builder of antiquity, Seleucus, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, erected thirtyfour cities: three named after his first wife, Apamea, six after his mother, Laodicea; nine after himself, Seleucus; and sixteen after his father, Antiochus. A builder of cities, Seleucus often found great difficulty in peopling them after they were erected. Premiums were offered to those who would become citizens, and equal rights with the Greeks, a temptation which many Jews of that day were not slow to accept. Antioch in Syria, the Antioch by pre-eminence, lay about 300 miles north of Jerusalem, on the south bank of the river Orontes, where the river, stopped in its flow northward by the mountain range of Amanus, makes a sharp angle and flows westward down a broad valley to the Mediterranean, some twenty-three miles distant. river formed the protection on the north side of the city, and the rugged hills of the Casian range, crowned with lofty walls, the southern defence. The Antioch possessed peculiar attractions. The beauty of its situation, its salubrious climate, its magnificent temples and villas, its circle of cultivated society, its thousand wants, its luxurious manners, the passion for spectacles, gratified at an immense Scripture Illustrated.-Who through Faith obtained Promises. 295 annual expence, the nearness to Daphne, a village embosomed amidst groves of laurel and cypress, and celebrated throughout the pagan world for its sensual rites, drew together the poet, the artist, the man of letters, the merchant, the man of fashion, and the jaded voluptuary. No populations have ever been more abandoned than those of Oriental Greek cities under the Roman empire; and of those cities Antioch was the greatest and the worst. Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, splendour of dress and furniture the only distinction among its inhabitants. Serious and manly virtues were subjects of ridicule, and contempt for female modesty and reverent age, announced the universal corruption of the capital of the Roman provinces in the East.' Yet even here, so manifestly was it the power of God, the gospel spread rapidly among the Greeks. No apostle proclaimed it; not even any one in any official position in the church at Jerusalem; but simple fugitives from persecution; and Barnabas, sent by the mother church of the Jews to the mother church of the Gentiles, literally came, saw, and was conquered. He found nothing to rebuke, but everything to commend. Work, however, multiplies on his hands in the great city. Who shall help him? The thought of Saul of Tarsus, of his call to this special work of preaching to Gentiles, and of his eminent fitness, arose in his mind, doubtless suggested by the Spirit of God. At once Barnabas fetches Saul from Tarsus; and these two great and noble men, work together for a whole year in corrupt Antioch. Now occurs the giving of the new name to the disciples. Among themselves they had been hitherto known as the disciples of the Lord, of Jesus, the brethren, the believers, the saints, the elect, and the faithful, and these terms were long afterwards used. By Jews they had been contemptuously styled, the Paupers, the Nazarenes, the Galileans. But the Greeks in Antioch began to recognize broad differences between the Jews as such, and those who were adherents of the new faith. These men talked about Christ, gloried in his cross, spoke of him as risen from the dead, sang praises to him as to a God, invoked his aid, and sought to live after his pattern; and the pagan Greeks of Antioch, with their accustomed fondness for satire, called the disciples Christians. No clearer proof could be given of the independent development of the church, the church, that is, freed from Jewish trammels, than that its members should be thought worthy of this distinct and significant nickname. It is, however, worthy of remark, that there are only two other places in the New Testament where the term Christian occurs, and in both these the notion of shame is obviously associated with it; once in Acts xxvi. 28, when Agrippa cries out to Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian,' or as Neander prefers to render the passage, Truly in a short time thou wilt make me a Christian;' and once in 1 Peter iv. 16. If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.' WHO THROUGH FAITH OBTAINED PROMISES.' Hebrews xi. 33. AND THESE ALL RECEIVED NOT THE PROMISE. Hebrews xi. 39. THE promises, says Andrew Fuller, which were obtained by faith, refer to those which were fulfilled during the Old Testament dispensation. It was promised to Abraham that he should have a son; to Israel, that they should possess the land of Canaan for an inheritance; to David, that they should return from the Babylonish captivity, &c.; and by faith each of them in due time obtained the promise. But there was one promise which was of greater importance than all the rest; namely, the coming of the Messiah. In the faith of this the fathers lived and died; but they saw not its accomplishment. To see this was reserved for another generation. Hence the words of our Saviour to his |