58 HEART BREATHINGS. [MAY, who will come forward to take up the part of the faithful men who have laid down their lives on the field? Perhaps some one who reads these lines may be led to ask himself this question, "Why do not I go?" HEART BREATHINGS. ZWINGLE had laboured so arduously in his parish in the Canton of Zurich, that it became necessary for him, in order to recruit his health, that he should visit the waters of Pfæffer. This he did in August 1519. But his quiet was soon disturbed by the alarming intelligence that the plague, which was traversing Europe from the East, had broken out amongst his people. He hastened to their help, visiting the sick and dying, and comforting them with the blessed truths and promises of the Gospel. A few weeks, and he was struck down himself by the "great death," as the sickness was called. When first taken ill, he expressed his feelings in the following hymn ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF HIS SICKNESS. My humble prayer, O Father, hear, With heavy foot grim Death draws near, And thunders at my gate. O Thou, who in the stormy fight, Did'st hold in check his power; Stand, Christ, I pray Thee, by my side, And help me in this hour. My Father, if it be Thy will, Do Thou ordain once more, That the destroying angel still Pass me in safety o'er. O cause mine agony to cease, Pull out the dart that burns, But if my sun is to descend, At mid-day to the tomb, What doom? Thou shalt then from Withdraw me in Thy love, As in the potter's forming hand My soul in resignation "Do all Thy pleasure" saith, His complaint increased, his strength left him, but his heart sought and found consolation in God through Jesus Christ, and he again sings, in the midst of his calamity ON HIS SICKNESS INCREASING. Comfort, O Lord, I seek in Thee, The pains they are increasing, With comfort from Christ's Yes, Great Redeemer! at death's gates With undismayed persistence, 1863.] THE ENGLISH BIBLE THE ACCEPTED STANDARD, &c. 59 My tongue is withered and dumb, 'Tis time Thyself the contest grand I see, indeed, with dreadful rage, The faithful, as Bullinger mentions, were deeply distressed at the sickness of their dear pastor, and called on God in earnest prayer that He would be pleased to raise him up again. The Lord heard the prayers of his people, and raised his servant from his bed of sickness, that he might further contend for the honour of God and the salvation in Christ Jesus. The joyous feeling of gratitude which filled his bosom on his recovery he gives expression to in the following hymn of grateful praise THE following extract on this subject is taken from the closing paragraphs of an excellent tractate on "The Bible as an Educating Power among the Nations," by John S. Hart, LL.D., Editor of the "Sunday-school Times," and Principal of the Model Department of the New-Jersey State Normal School "If any one would appreciate fairly the influence of the English Bible, in keeping the language from drifting away from its standards, let him reflect that, in this respect, now, at the end of two centuries and a half, we are not farther from Shakespeare, whose writings were contemporaneous with King James's Version, than Shakespeare was from Spenser, who was only some twenty years his predecessor. The change in two hundred and fifty years since the publication of the English Bible has not been as great as it was before in less than a single generation. it not been for the influence of this marvellous book, Shakespeare might, even now, be to us the almost sealed book that Chaucer is; and Dryden's translation of Chaucer would itself need to be again translated into more modern English. In fact, down to the time of James I., the language was in a constant state of flux. The authors of one generation became Had 60 AN EARNEST COLPORTEUR. [MAY, obsolescent to the next generation, and obsolete to the third. But, all at once, this onward and downward tendency was arrested. "To this benign result there can be no doubt that our English Bible has contributed more than all other causes combined. It has done for the English what no societies of the learned, no autocracy of letters, or of science, has been able to do for any other tongue. It has given to our language a fixed point, immoveable as the everlasting hills, a solid, granitic formation of rude, homely, elemental Saxon. No floods of change can ever disintegrate or wear away this enduring mass. Whether our race shall survive for two centuries or for twenty centuries, all the grand old terms by which the heart still continues to tell its joys and sorrows, will still be the same that our forefathers have used for more than ten generations. No legislation, civil or ecclesiastical, can ever weed out from the heart, or banish from the tongue, of the English-speaking race, the words of its English Bible. While infancy still continues to learn at its mother's knee, in its first lisping accents, to say, Our Father which art in heaven,' or old age with its last expiring breath shall say with Simeon, 'Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation ;' while the lyric pathos of David, the lamenting wail of Jeremiah, the trumpet notes of Paul, or the subdued majesty of John the Divine, shall find an echo in the devout believer's heart, the words to which these glorious thoughts have been wedded shall live, and shall be a common medium of thought to all the unborn millions who shall speak this dear English tongue of ours to the end of time, "Thank God, then, my friends, for the Holy Bible! Thank God, especially, for our good old ENGLISH BIBLE!" AN EARNEST COLPORTEUR. Ar Baghchejuk, in Turkey, there is a colporteur, of whom Mr. Parsons, the Missionary, says "He is ever active. At one time he cries, with a clear loud voice, after the manner of a public crier, through the market and the crowded streets and the lanes, what he has for sale, 'The Holy Book,' and the description of it in the words, 'By God, the Father, given, brought by the Son, and inspired by the Holy Spirit-the precious Gospel;' which, in his language, is poetry metrical and with a sweet rhythm. At another time he is found in the barber's shop and coffeehouse, preaching and praying. He says he used to talk awhile in these places, and then bolt the door, and say, 'Let us pray;' but upon the people complaining of the impropriety of it, saying, 'This is not a church,' and refusing to be attentive, he changed his course, and now preaches, and tells them how to act. He says, 'In order to avail yourselves of this precious Gospel, unto the salvation of your souls, you must do so and so: you must repent and come to God' Of those who, two years ago, used to stone him, and throw him down and trample upon him, and seek to kill him, together with the three or four fellow-worshippers in the caves of the mountain, some have already been subdued by his love-the love of Christ in him; and many others, there is reason to hope, will yet be saved through his instrumentality." ALTHOUGH, within the boundaries of so vast an empire as that of Hindostan, there is a great diversity in the appearance as well as in the manners and customs of the people, the natives of the northernmost part of the peninsula, for instance, being fairer, better formed, and more ener 62 DELIVERANCE OF ABBEOKUTA FROM [JUNE, getic than those to the south, who are in general of small stature, darker, effeminate, and cunning; and although there is likewise a great variety in the occupation of the various classes, the communities of most of the towns being composed of bankers, traders, Government officials, and bazaar-keepers, while those of the rural districts consist chiefly of agriculturists and the village headmen and officers of the Government; yet throughout the whole empire the life of the Hindu women of the lower class, such as those represented in our engraving, presents everywhere the same monotonous aspect. Theirs is a life of constant drudgery, of toil uncheered by the light of intellect, unsolaced by the comfort of Gospel truth. They have no social status, no education. Their hopes, their fears, their occupation and influence, are bounded by the walls of their miserable huts, which, consisting seldom of more than two small rooms, formed of stones and mud rudely thrown together, protected from the heat of the sun and the deluge of tropical showers by a simple roof of jungle-sticks and leaves, and usually without any garden-fence about them, present a striking contrast to the tastefully-finished mansions of their wealthy countrymen. But poor as the exterior of a Hindu hut is, its interior wears not a more cheering aspect. A handful of rushes for a carpet covers a part of the mud floor, a few earthen vessels for water or purposes of cooking, a bamboo stool, a rush mat rolled up in one corner, which at night performs the office of a bed-these make up the household inventory, so poor, so mean, so small in value, that were the insatiate tax-farmer to distrain for his rent, no coin would be found sufficiently minute to purchase them. Glass and crockery are mystic articles to the Hindu villager. He may have heard of such things at the next town on festival days, but the banana leaf forms his only supply of dinner-ware. Our engraving represents some Mahratha women clad in the native dress of long white cloth. There are, of course, classes superior to the above scattered over the land, heads of villages, district functionaries, and dwellers in small towns, who pretend to somewhat of Hindu gentility, whose wives and daughters dwell in distinct apartments, whose sleeping cotton mat is a little more showy, whose waistcloth is whiter and more copious, whose drinking-vessels, instead of being earthen, are of brass; who dine off real plates of clay, and do not tremble at the names of Zemindar and Burrah Sahib (great, or English master). But even under these more advantageous circumstances Hindu women are usually without education. It is, however, a cause of thankfulness that, under various influences, the prejudice against female education is beginning to give way, and that Christian instructions are welcomed into the zenana. DELIVERANCE OF ABBEOKUTA FROM THE ATTACK OF THE DAHOMIANS. THE prayers of the church of Christ, offered up in his name on behalf of Abbeokuta, have been heard and answered, and this in so remarkable a manner that we feel sure that here is as manifestly a Divine interposition as when, at the prayer of Jacob, the heart of his brother Esau was changed towards him, and as when, in answer to |