The Little Gleaner Part 14

Alas! alas! poor Boyle! Like many a youth, he was ashamed to avow his convictions, and his endless ruin followed.

From the annual meeting he shrank with an instinctive horror, and made up his mind _utterly to avoid it_. Well aware of this resolve, his tempters determined he should have no choice. How potent, how active, is the spirit of evil! How feeble is _una.s.sisted_, _Christless_, _unprayerful_ man! Boyle found himself, he could not tell how, seated at that table on that very day, where he had sworn to himself a thousand and a thousand times nothing on earth should make him sit.

His ears tingled, and his eyes swam, as he listened to the opening sentence of the president's address--"Gentlemen, this is leap year; therefore, it is _a year and a day_ since our last annual meeting."

Every nerve in Boyle's body tw.a.n.ged in agony at the ominous, the well-remembered words. His first impulse was to rise and fly; but then--the sneers! the sneers!

How many in this world, as well as poor Boyle, have dreaded a sneer, and dared the wrath of an almighty and eternal G.o.d, rather than encounter the sarcastic curl of a fellow-creature's lip!

The night was gloomy, with frequent and fitful gusts of chill and howling wind, as Boyle, with fevered nerves and a reeling brain, mounted his horse to return home.

The following morning, the well-known black steed was found, with saddle and bridle on, quietly grazing on the road-side, about half-way to Boyle's country-house, and a few yards from it lay the stiffened corpse of its master.

Reader, the dream is horrible--truly horrible--yet not half so horrible as the reality. Ah! no. No dream can picture the full, long misery of "the worm that dieth not," "the fire that is never quenched," the woe that never ends.

Oh, reader, if, under the poison of infidelity, you have been led to doubt the existence of h.e.l.l, I pray G.o.d you may believe the awful reality ere you are in it!

If G.o.d did not punish sin, His indifference to it would encourage it. If G.o.d did not punish sin, where were His holy abhorrence of it? If G.o.d did not punish sin, His kingdom would be a moral chaos. But His Word declares that "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. v. 10).

Reader, as in the days of Noah, so now. Death threatens all who are out of Christ, and, therefore, in their sins. There was then only one place of safety; there is only one place of safety now--that is, in the Ark, Christ. "YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN." The horror you have felt in reading this dream will be no benefit to you if it is not made, in the hands of the Spirit, the means of your flying to Christ for refuge.

Oh, that in some hearts, the reading of this sad narrative may prove the means of producing the earnest cry, "Deliver me from going down to the pit!" and "What must I do to be saved?" To such G.o.d's free invitation to the heavy-laden sinner to come to Christ for rest is given, and Jesus Himself declares, "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out"

(John vi. 37).

THE SCOTCH THISTLE.

Why the Scots chose the thistle for a national insignia is told in this legend. It was at the time of an invasion, when the destinies of Scotland hung upon the result of a battle soon to come. The invaders knew that the Scots were desperate, and availed themselves of a dark, stormy night, and planned to fall upon the Scottish army on every side at the same moment. Had they been suffered to execute their plan undetected, they would certainly have succeeded in destroying the Scots; but a simple accident betrayed them. When near the Scottish camp, the foremost of the invaders removed the heavy shoes from their feet, so that their steps might not be heard, and thus stealthily advancing barefooted, a heavy, quick-tempered soldier trod squarely upon a huge thistle, the sharp point of which gave such sudden and exquisite pain that he cried out with a bitter curse. His cry aroused the outlying Scots, and apprized them of their danger, and meeting the foe widely divided for the purpose of encompa.s.sing the camp, they were enabled easily to overcome them with great slaughter. When the Scots discovered that it was to a thistle that they owed their victory, they adopted the p.r.i.c.kly plant as their national emblem.

COUSIN SUSAN'S NOTE-BOOK JOTTINGS ON THE LIFE AND WORK OF FATHER CHINIQUY.

"BELOVED, BELIEVE NOT EVERY SPIRIT."

We have often wondered why any one should believe that a bit of consecrated bread was the true body and soul of the Lord Jesus, and that, as such, it should be reverenced and adored. But our surprise abates, though our sorrow increases, when we trace the steps by which a Roman Catholic reaches that point of folly and superst.i.tion, as the interesting narrative of Father Chiniquy brings them to our view.

When he was eleven or twelve years old, he met with a cla.s.s of lads about the same age, to be prepared for his first communion; and there he was taught that, just as his mother punished him more seldom and less severely than his father for his faults, and just as his mother often interceded for him and saved him from punishment altogether, so Mary was more pitiful, more tender, than Jesus, and when He was righteously angry, His mother--the mother of all who pray to her--turned away His anger, and averted the strokes He was about to inflict on the sinner.

The thought of _this_ Christ--terrible, angry, unapproachable--was dark and chilling in the extreme. He seemed a Being to be feared, but not beloved.

And then the false Church presented another Christ to view--a G.o.d made with hands, not of wood or stone, but of wheaten flour. The priest's servant girl or attendant takes the dough, bakes it between two heated irons, on which are graven the letters, I. H. S., and the figure of a cross. These wafers, about four or five inches large, when well baked, are cut with a pair of scissors into smaller ones, about one inch in size, and then the priest, taking them to the altar, and p.r.o.nouncing Latin words for "This is My body," is supposed to turn each of these into the Christ who lived and loved and suffered here, a gentle, tender, loving Saviour; and the poor deluded creatures who tremble before Christ in heaven, bow down and adore, when they do not eat, the paltry wafer which the priest has blessed.

Chiniquy himself pa.s.sed whole hours, in biting wintry weather, in a church never warmed by a fire, worshipping this wafer G.o.d. He was yearning for divine sympathy and love, and hoped he had it then.

And yet, though he tried to "believe a lie" so earnestly, his faith was often shaken by what he saw and heard.

In a company of priests, a strange story was told of a drunken curate and his deacon, who, called to go a long journey in snowy weather, to carry the sacred wafer to a sick person, had a dispute with a traveller as to which should lead his horses into the deep snow, the cleared path being too narrow for the vehicles to pa.s.s each other. A terrible fight took place. The priest's horses took fright and returned home, breaking the sleigh all to pieces, and the little silk bag containing their "G.o.d"

was lost in the snow. It was carefully sought in vain, and not till the month of June was it found, and then the wafer inside the little silver box had melted away! And the priests laughed boisterously when they heard it. Did they believe what they taught the people?

At another time, a blind priest had been adoring the bit of bread he had just consecrated, but when he went to eat it, it was gone. In alarm, he sent for Chiniquy, who was hearing confessions not far away, and as it could nowhere be found, he knew that a rat had taken it, for the rats were both numerous and bold in that place. The old priest was inconsolable, though he blessed another piece and then concluded his devotions. But his lamentations were so deep and long that Chiniquy at last lost patience, and said a word or two which greatly shocked the superst.i.tious priest, who severely rebuked him, and ordered him for a penance to kneel every day before the fourteen images representing "the way of the cross," and say a penitential psalm before each for nine days, and on no account to tell the story of the rat to any one. He complied with these requests, and received a very gracious absolution.

But on the sixth day he pierced the skin of his knees while kneeling, and the blood flowed freely, causing him great pain whenever he knelt or walked, and all because he for a moment had doubted the right of Rome to call that a G.o.d which a priest could professedly create and a rat destroy!

Alas! for those who follow such pernicious teachings! Let us pity and pray for them, and more than ever cleave to that Gospel which tells us that "there is only one name given under heaven by which we must be saved"--"one Mediator between G.o.d and men, the Man Christ Jesus," who lives in glory, no more to suffer or die, but who is "Jesus of Nazareth"

(Acts xxii. 8), still tender and loving as when He dwelt below, while He is eternally mighty to "save to the uttermost all that come unto G.o.d by Him."

Oh, that all our hope and confidence may rest on Him--entirely on Him alone!

THE DIRGE OF AN ENGLISHWOMAN.

And ought the Queen of England's land A gift to send by Norfolk's hand To the old Pope of Rome, His Jubilee to celebrate, With Popish pomp, in grandest state, In his Italian home?

Chalice and basin, richly made Of shining gold; to him conveyed By one of his trained band.

He used them both at his High Ma.s.s, And proud of such a gift he was From our dear native land.

Our own Victoria should be free, True to "the rights" she swore when she Sat in the abbey old; And crown was placed upon her head, And coronation oath she said Over G.o.d's Word, we're told.

Up, English men and women all!

To the red beast[2] ne'er bow at all, But leave him to his fate; For Babylon will surely fall,[3]

And with her, nations great and small, Who follow in her wake.

In days of yore she sat a queen,[4]

On seven hills,[5] so vile, unclean, And shed the blood of saints.

"Come out of her, My people"[6] all, Nor of her plagues receive at all, Or listen to her plaints.

The Ritualists are helping fast To bring us now, as in times past, Beneath the sway of Rome.

You silly men and (silly) women[7] all, Oh, why take heed to them at all Who creep into the home?[7]

Alas! alas! for England's Queen, And English nation too, I ween, If e'er the Pope gets sway!

True Christians ne'er will bend the knee To kiss Pope's toe so impiously, Nor pence to Peter pay.

N. P. W.

_Southsea._

NOTHING doth more hurt in a State than that cunning men pa.s.s for wise.

[2] Revelation xvii. 3.