listless voluptuousness of the heathen!— If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.'

t

NOTE - (The pledges of a Redeemer's dying love).

The custom which prevailed in the primitive churches at the admission of young persons to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper on Whit-sunday, (so called from the dress in which the candidates, more especially the female part, appeared on that occasion), is still retained in many of the foreign protestant ecclesiastical communities.

The young women, clothed in white, are seated on one side of the pulpit, and the young men in suitable apparel on the other. They are then addressed by the minister, who explains to them the nature and import of the institution, and sets before them the duties and conversation becoming the avowal of their faith in, and allegiance to, the King of Zion. His discourse concluded, they are admitted alone, without any of the congregation participating in the ordinance, to the public profession of followers of the Redeemer.

The scene is often solemn and imposing, and the effect correspondingly striking, many of the young candidates, particularly the female part, being frequently bathed in tears.

NOTE u (He was instantly overwhelmed.)

The devastations occasioned by the fall of the glacier of Gétroz, and the consequent accumulation of the waters of the Dranse, with its attendant effects, an instance of which is here alluded to, are occasionally found mentioned in the history of Switzerland. In the Conservateur Suisse' an account is preserved of a tremendous inundation, which occurred in the sixteenth century. It is thus noticed by the native of an adjoining canton, who visited the scene of desolation soon after the last of these awful visitations.

"It is beyond doubt, that the Dranse has more than once, in those remote ages of which no memorial has been handed down to posterity, laid waste this beautiful district. Several of our national historians, however, speak of a frightful inundation which took place in the course of the sixteenth century. Though they differ in opinion as to the cause of the melancholy catastrophe, some attributing it to an earthquake,

others to the fall of a mountain which impeded the current of the Dranse, but which was indubitably occasioned, as of late, by the bursting of a lake formed in the valley below, they are unanimous in affirming, that a hundred and forty lives were lost on the occasion, five hundred houses overwhelmed, and all the bridges above that of St. Maurice, where the valley widens, and where, consequently, the violence of the current would be diminished, swept away. To this detail we may add the destruction of the village of Bagnes, with its baths, which were at that time in high estimation, and some galleries which had been just opened into a silver mine in the vicinity. The chronicles of that period disagree with respect to the year in which this inundation happened, some referring it to 1545, others to 1595; but it would seem to be pretty accurately determined by some records which are still in existence. They are as follow:

1st. On a beam in the ceiling of a house in the Cortey de Bagnes, are these letters, with the intervening date:--M. O. F. F. 1595. L. Q. B. F. I. P. L. G. D. G. of which the following explanation is given by Mr. Vaudan, late Mayor of Bagnes:

Maurice Olliet fait faire 1595, l'an que Bagnes fut inondé par le glacier de Gétroz.

(Erected by Maurice Olliet, in the year that Bagnes was inundated by the glacier of Gétroz.)

2nd. In the village of Martigny, these words are still to be seen engraved upon a beam in the house of Mr. Gay, the painter:

Submersio Burgi Martigniaci planitiei, 4 Juni 1595, inundatione aquæ Dranciæ provenientis è valle Bagnarum, loco appellato Mauvoisin. (The borough-town of Martigny and the adjacent plain were inundated by the waters of the Dranse, coming from a place called Mauvoisin, in the valley of Bagnes.)

3rd. In the memoirs of Mr. Ignatius, (still extant in MS.) himself an eye-witness of the circumstance, the following note is found:

1595, die 25 Maii, maxima inundatio aquarum prorumpentium ex valle Bagnearum; submersio Burgi Martigniaci; deletio agrorum pagorumque intra paucas horas. Periére 70 homines noti, de ignotis non fit mentio: cæteris verò juga salutem quærentibus, omni fortuná ablatá. Ditissimi pauperrimi facti. (On the 25th of May, 1595, there was a dreadful inundation, occasioned by waters issuing violently from the valley of Bagnes. In the space of a few hours, the borough-town of Martigny was overflowed, and the fields and villages in the neighbourhood destroyed. Seventy gentlemen

of fortune perished, besides those of inferior rank, of whom no mention is made. Others, who sought shelter in the mountains, have been reduced to a state of the most absolute destitution. Those who were the richest among us are now in the most abject poverty.) The only disagreement observable in these accounts is in the date, which is immaterial, the difference being merely that of a few days. A greater degree of credit, however, appears to attach itself to the latter, as it is related by an eyewitness of the event he records.*

The most recent of these inundations occurred

* Sans doute, l'indomptable Dranse a plus d'une fois dévasté cette belle contrée, dans ces anciens temps dont on n'a conservé aucun souvenir: mais plusieurs de nos historiens nationaux parlent d'une inondation affreuse arrivée dans le cours du seixième siècle. Ils sont tous d'accord à rapporter qu'elle fit périr 140 personnes, qu'elle anéantit plus de 500 batiments, qu'elle entraina tous les ponts jusqu'à celui de St. Maurice; qu'elle détruisit le bourg central de Bagnes, ses bains alors très fréquentés, et les galeries ouvertes depuis peu pour exploiter une mine d'argent. Mais, s'ils sont d'accord sur ces détails, ils ne le sont, ni sur la cause de ce malheur, qu'ils attribuent les uns à un tremblement de terre, les autres à une chûte de montagne dans la Dranse, et qui incontestablement venait, comme la dernière debacle, de l'écoulement subit d'un lac formé au fond de la vallée, ni sur sa date, que la moitié de nos chroniques placent en 1545,