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ANY a curious as well as tragic scene in

MAN

the history of Popery has occurred in little nooks and corners of the world, leaving no record but some painful or amusing recollections in the minds of surviving witnesses. Among reminiscences that have now and then proved, to one mind at least, both entertaining and instructive, here is one. A Popish priest, who had looked out from his retreat among a few refugee nuns in the West of England, and had marked, as he thought, the favourable points for a quiet invasion of Protestant territory, came to a small fishing town on the coast; and after cautiously feeling about for an open door, he caught an opportunity at last of gathering a number of fishermen and a few of their bettermost neighbours in a long boat-loft. He had got an insight into the character of his audience, and before he entered on the purpose of his mission he complimented them on their fame for hymn-singing; and knowing, as he said, that they were better prepared than he for selecting what was suitable, he begged them to choose a hymn and sing it. A stalwart boatman rose, and announcing a common metre," gave out :

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"Jesu, the word of mercy give,
And let it swiftly run;

And let the priests themselves believe,
And put salvation on."

It need not be said that a waggish grin was seen on many a weather-beaten face. The priest evidently felt that his situation was critical, but seemed to keep good humour till the singing was over, then he gently and smoothly guided them into the subject of his lecture, the infallibility of his Church. There was a watchful Protestant pastor in the midst of the flock, and he wished to put a question or two. "At the close of the lecture, if you please," said the priest, who then talked against time; but the querist was patient, and at length inquired, "Where does the infallibility dwell, is it in the Pope?" "No," was the reply, "not in him alone, it is in the Church." "Is it in the College of Cardinals then?" "Not exclusively." "Would it be in a General Council?" "No, not alone in any one council." "Is it in the priesthood?" "Not exclusively; it is in the Church, as I said." "Well," remarked the good pastor, "I can see that you make a subtile distinction; but the people here, for the most part, are not used to your method. I will put the question in a way which, perhaps, they will under

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stand. Now, friends, we will suppose that we have here a basket of fish. Take up any one fish, and it is not quite good; but while any one fish by itself is poor, put them all together in the basket, and it is a basket of good fresh fish. That is just what this gentleman wants you to believe about his Church. No one part of it is quite right, but as a whole it can never be wrong. Do you see what he means?" Yes, yes," was the cry, we see through him, he is not going to hook us in that fashion." Then there arose a swell and a murmur as if the men were imitating the rise of a storm at sea. There were whisperings, too, about paying off the priest for his trouble with a basket of not very fresh fish. "No, no," said the kind pastor, "you must not touch him, he is now under my care. He has shown us that he is not a good fisherman, at any rate, not a true 'fisher of men ;' but you will, I am sure, let him go, that he may have a chance of finding out his proper calling. If he will promise not to disturb us again with his slippery questions, let him go. The promise

was made, and the priest escaped.

This passage in the history of that little seaside town occurred but a few years ago; and yet, since that time, what a change has come over the condition of the infallibility argument! Pius IX. has now taken to himself the responsibility of claiming to be the one only impersonation of infallibility on the earth! Well, let him alone to "sit in his cave's mouth biting his nails!" The basket of fish will, by and by, prove itself rotten from top to bottom.

The manner it which that good country pastor dealt with the priest on one side and with his own people on the other, suggests to every Protestant his course of duty. It is that of charity towards the papist's person, but war to the knife against his system. The danger now-a-days is that English protestants mistake liberalism for charity, and fail, therefore, to guard their own dearly bought interests against the snake-like movements of a power, whose very breath is fatal to freedom of mind, social health, and national vigour. The true Protestant's principle, and the true feeling is Christian love; love which makes him ready to give a reason of the hope that is in him" with "meekness and fear," while it strengthens him, for truth's sake, to crush the false pretensions of unscriptural error when it comes across his path.

A

LIGHT AT THE

BOUT the middle of January, 1665, a kind of miniature "broad-sheet" or "little paper," printed, as modern taste would say, in a somewhat rude style, was found passing from hand to hand among the scattered people whose homes nestled singly or in clusters on the wild clifts, breezy downs, and moorland hollows of far-west Cornwall. The words upon it were remarkable. They were these:

"The mighty day of the Lord is come, and coming wherein all hearts shall be made manifest, and the secrets of every one's heart shall be revealed by the light of Jesus, Who lighteth every man that cometh into the

LAND'S END.

world,' that all men through Him might believe,' and that the world might have life. through Him Who saith, Learn of Me,' and of Whom God saith, 'This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him.' Christ is come to teach His people Himself; and every one that will not hear this Prophet which God hath raised up, and of which Moses spoke when he said, Like unto me will God raise you up a Prophet, Him shall ye hear-every one, I say, that will not hear this Prophet, is to be cut off. They that despised Moses's law died under the hand of two or three witnesses; but how much greater punishment' will come upon them that neglect' this great

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salvation, Christ Jesus, Who saith, 'Learn of Me;'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,' Who 'lighteth every man that cometh into the world;' and by His light lets him see his evil ways and his evil deeds! But if you hate this light and go on in evil, this light will be your condemnation. Therefore, now ye have time, prize it; for this is the day of your visitation, and salvation offered to you. Every one of you hath a light from Christ, which lets you see you should not lie nor do wrong to any, nor swear, nor curse, nor take God's name in vain, nor steal. is the light that shows you these evil deeds, which if you love and come unto it and follow it, it will lead you to Christ, Who is the way to the Father from Whom it comes, where no unrighteousness nor ungodliness enters. If you hate this light it will be your condemnation; but if you love and come to it you will come to Christ; and it will bring you off from all the world's teachers and ways, to learn of Christ, and will preserve you from the evils of the world and all the deceivers in it.-G. F."

It

These sentences were written at an inn in a quaint little town, which, it is said, had witnessed dealings in metals with ancient Jews, Jews who "remembered Zion" even in that distant old British market, Marazion, in Saxon times known as Market-Jew. From this Marazion in Mount's Bay, the "little paper," or proclamation of "Messiah the Light," was issued by that faithful witness for Christ as "the True Light," that bold champion for the claims of the Holy Ghost, that discerner of spirits, that suffering confessor, that consistent son of peace, that honest reprover of an unspiritual, double-minded age, the sturdy, outspoken, unconquerable George Fox.

But as it had been with many heralds of truth, so it was with George Fox. His written words were abused, and made the pretext for an unlawful interference of both civil and military officers. He was seized and handed over as a prisoner to an escort of dragoons. A valorous generation was that! A troop of horse must turn out to keep one Quaker quiet! The man of peace was bravely marched off amidst drawn swords and loaded holsters to Launceston jail, and there left to sicken in the filth of a dark prison-hole called "Doomsdale." His winged thoughts and words, however, were still free. They had gone forth to the souls for whom they were sent. They went, first like whispers creeping along the shore of White-sand Bay, and calling up tremulous echoes from the consciences of

hardy fishermen; then swelling into tones which rivalled the voice of the Atlantic as it uttered to the dark headlands its foreboding of storm; then mysteriously mingling with the ominous wail of the night wind, awakening strange fears at the cottage hearth, and bringing an uneasy feeling of some Divine presence to the family circle at the hall, or to the kitchen inmates of the farm-house on the hill. Indeed, wherever the "little paper" came living voices seemed to issue from it, quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow," and discerning "the thoughts and intents of the heart." Here and there, in the hamlets and lone dwellings of the extreme seaboard there were, as the primitive Quaker would say, "great commencements." One witnessing name has come down to us. Among the first fruits of Fox's earliest written appeal to the western parishes was "John Ellis from the Land's End." John Ellis, of Treveare, like some earlier converts to Christ, opened his house as well as his heart to the truth and to those who preached it. About four years after the issue of the "little paper" from Marazion, Fox, having been delivered from a long and painful imprisonment, found his way to John Ellis's family "Barton," and there, as he tells us, was an honest fisherman convinced, who became a faithful minister of Christ. I took notice of him to 'friends,' and told them he was like Peter." He met the faithful fisherman again in the same house after another interval of years. "We passed," says the record, "to the Land's End, to John Ellis's, where we had a precious meeting. Here was a fisherman, one Nicholas Jose, that was convinced. He spoke in meetings, and declared the truth among the people, and the Lord's power was over all. I was glad that the Lord had raised up His standard in those dark parts of the nation, where since there is a fine meeting of honest-hearted Friends, many are come to sit under Christ's teaching; and a great people the Lord will have in that country." The prophetic Friend was right. His words, in his own sense, were happily fulfilled. For the Divine light that had been kindled at the Land's End by truth from his lips and pen continued to shine upon the homes of those who loved it during the course of several generations. After the lapse of a hundred years, long after Fox and his first Cornish converts had passed away, there were Friends to be found still assembling in their little room at Sennen by the sea, who might keep the centenary of the first Land's

End meeting with utterances as devoutly cheerful as those of Fox, when, in moments of exultation, he was "moved in the everlasting power of God to sing." But it may be said that what the prophetic Friend foretold came to pass in a sense much wider than his foresight.

A Methodist preacher, who visited the Land's End for the first time about thirty years ago, tells of the "Meeting House then remaining on the most western point of England, where the last of the Land's End Quakers worshipped for the last time alone with her God. A few people remembered how the solitary relic of primitive Quakerism used to pass to and fro on "First Day" morning. It was a custom to look for the well-known figure in that distinctive guise, never seen now a-day, nor, perhaps, within the power of modern art to produce. The lone woman might be taken as an indicator of times and seasons, so true was she to the

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hours. Going in to worship and coming out as punctually as the flow and ebb of the sea at the foot of her native headland. Whether the walls of her weekly retreat ever answered to her devout murmurings, or whether she and they were always silent, is not told. Whether the worshipper enjoyed a peaceful nearness with those who had been "delivered from the burden of the flesh," or whether the light into which they had passed fell around her at times, so as to make her spirit one with theirs, was never revealed. Certain it is, however, that a "First Day" morning came when she failed to appear. She had

gone to wander hither and thither with her message of spiritual power. The lone "Meeting House" of her fathers was forsaken for ever; and the dust of her ancestral "Friends" was left to repose in silence under a few nameless hillocks by the wayside, near "Sennen Green."

"Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to Thy Word."-PSALM CXIX. 9.

JOHN

JOHN WESLEY made such progress at the Charter-House that he was qualified to enter Christ Church College at Oxford when only sixteen. Here he was shocked at the foolish and even wicked habits of the young men who were preparing to be clergymen. Instead of attending to their studies, they wasted their time and injured their bodies and souls by reckless and immoral living. Bishop Burnet complained that many of the young men who came to him for ordination "seemed never to have read the Scriptures, and were unable to give a tolerable account even of the Catechism; and then they think it a great hardship if they are told they must know the Scriptures and the body of divinity better before they can be trusted with the care of souls." Such ignorant preachers could not raise their hearers out of their sin and ignorance, and the consequence was "the people of England had lapsed into heathenism, or a state hardly to be distinguished from it."

John Wesley was naturally serious and steady, and his training, excellent as it had

been, was backed by the wise and affectionate letters of both parents.

He did not allow himself to be led away by the evil examples around him, but studied diligently. Still, he was not converted, and as the time for his ordination drew near, his mother wrote, earnestly entreating him to seek religion for himself before he undertook to teach it to others.

He learned languages very quickly, and had some acquaintance with seven, at least. He had early resolved that he would never argue against his convictions. Frequently

in debating clubs a subject might be taken for discussion on which all were agreed, so that in order to make an argument some one must take the wrong side, and exercise his ingenuity in trying to prove what he did not

himself believe.

This Wesley never would do, though it was not for want of skill, for he soon became noted for his knowledge of logic, and was chosen moderator, or umpire, of the debates.

This practice was of great use to him in after life, when attacks were constantly made upon his doctrines. He saw at a glance the weak point in his enemy's reasoning, and his

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answers are remarkable for their clearness and sense.

He was elected "Fellow of Lincoln Col

lege" in 1726. On removing from Christ Church College to his new home he became associated with new companions, and was more careful to choose pious and orderly friends than he had been when he first came to Oxford.

His father's health had been failing gradually, and in 1727 John became the curate of Epworth, and for two years assisted his father.

His religious views at this time were very unsatisfactory; he had not realized that doctrine of justification by faith, which he was destined to proclaim through the length and breadth of the land. His mother's advice was calculated

to give him strict ideas of duty, but not to teach him the simple plan of salvation,-"repentance from dead works, and faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ."

His favourite books, Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying," A Kempis' "Imitation of Christ," and Law's "Serious Call to a Devout Life," however valu

of idleness and pleasure would not differ much from the general idea of fair work.

When he did settle down in real earnest, he planned his time so as scarcely to leave a moment unemployed. Two or three of his friends joined him in a sort of "Mutual Improvement," or "Literary Society," which would be a good model for some of the modern ones. Besides their diligence in study, they agreed to keep all the rules of their college. As it is "rubric" that the collegians should take the sacrament every Sunday, these friends began to do so, thereby earning the nickname of " the Holy Club."

a

When John returned as a tutor, he joined the club, which then consisted of the two brothers and Messrs. Morgan and Kirkham. The direction of affairs was soon given into of the hands John Wesley, who afterwards brought a few of his pupils; and as the club became known, other serious young men joined it, till it numbered about five and twenty. Among these were Ingham, so long a friend and companion of the Wesleys; Hervey, the author of "Meditations," and other devout books; and Whitefield, a poor young man who was supporting himself at Oxford by waiting on his fellow-students. He was as anxious to improve his time, and as zealous, as the Wesleys; indeed he outstripped them in some of their acts of self-denial.

able they might be to a believer, were rather injurious than otherwise to one who was not converted, as they were likely to lead him to trust in good works rather than in Christ alone.

In 1729 he yielded to his own wishes, and to the request of the authorities at Lincoln College, and once more settled at Oxford, as a tutor.

During his absence at Epworth, Charles (who was about five years younger than John) had removed to Oxford from the Westminster High School, to which he had been sent rather than to the Charter-House, because his eldest brother, Samuel, was a Westminster tutor.

His first year at college was spent in carelessness, according to his own account; but probably after the habits of industry and seriousness which he had formed, his notions

The name of "Methodists" was given at first because of the orderly, methodical way in which these young men disposed of their time, and because they attended to the method of study and behaviour laid down in the university rules.

Their private rules, as drawn up by John Wesley, bound them to communicate weekly, to fast twice a week, to practice strict selfexamination, to save all they possibly could from their own expenses that they might have money to give away, and to meet three or four evenings each week to read the Greek Testament, together with other Latin and