One day a little book was left without previous careful perusal. In it there was a single sentence, strongly condemnatory of the Church of Rome, which had escaped her notice. When she next called, the woman returned the book, having first drawn her attention to the words, and said

"I cannot take any more papers from you. So long as we only talked of good things, and my belief was not written against in the books, I was glad of them. But never again will I receive one, though you will always be welcome."

The visitor was really sorry, and told the woman so, but the old happy talks were never resumed, though the two met and were on kindly terms always.

Here was an instance of good work spoiled, and perseverance and tact nullified, just through a little want of care in the giving of a tract. My own impression is that no good is ever done by thoughtlessly attacking other people's religious views, or wounding their feelings, even though they savour of superstition. Better try to make the Truth plainer and more beautiful, and leave to it the task, under God, of ousting error and false doctrine.

District and hospital visitors should never imagine that the poor are not extremely sensitive on the score of good manners. A long intercourse with them enables me to say that in their mode of helping one another they manifest equal delicacy and generosity. Their kindnesses are kindly done as if from and to members of the same great family. She who offers the aid does it as if she felt that the other would do the same for her were their circumstances reversed, and the receiver accepts the service in a like spirit.

If there is sickness in one home the neighbours look on it as a matter of course that they should divide the work amongst them, though their own daily labours are heavy enough without this addition. One will go and light the fire and get breakfast ready, perhaps carrying with her a ready made cup of tea for the invalid's refreshment. Another will wash and dress the baby, if there is one, and so on through the day, often through the night, should constant watching be necessary. Articles which will add to the comfort of the sick are generally common property, and only found in the owner's house when not wanted elsewhere.

The lowest class of all, the clamorous and degraded, who try to get as much as possible and care not how or from whom, are outside the people I am considering, though even the worst are often wondrous kind one to another. But the respectable working folk and the decent, poverty-stricken ones are sensitive as to the manners of their so-called "betters."

A clergyman, with a girl friend as his companion, made a round of visits in the poorest part of a city parish. He told her he had never entered one particular court before; he did not know any of it inmates, but he did know they were all Irish and Roman Catholics. Nevertheless, in order to give his companion a glimpse of an interior in the slums, he threw open the door of a dwelling without the ceremony of knocking

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and showed the family at dinner. There were the parents, two youths and some younger children in the midst of the meal. The girl's account of the visit was as follows

"I never felt more ashamed in my life than I did at that moment, and should have been inexpressibly thankful had I possessed the power to become invisible, as the family one and all rose from their seats and turned inquiring looks upon us.

"I was just passing with this lady and I thought I'd ask how you are all getting on,' said my companion.

"Thank ye kindly,' said the head of the household. We're doin' well, and the boys an' me are workin'.'

"What a contrast did the manners of these homely folk, master and mistress of a tworoomed cottage, present to those of their visitors! Instead of bidding us shut the door and begone,' or rating us roundly for our vulgar intrusion-for it was no less-they rose to receive us and offered us places at their table and a share of the best they had.

"I did not wait for my companion to speak, as perhaps I ought to have done, but exclaimed, Please forgive us for having been so rude as to open the door.'

"Sure it's not often that it's shut,' replied the master, only at meal-times one likes a bit o' quiet, for the neighbours' childer, poor things, are in an' out the day through.' There was just a suggestion of reproof in this answer, but, as if to make amends for it, the man added-'We'd all ha' been sorry if the shut door had kept you from calling. Never stick at the sight of it, if ye should be hereabouts another time.'

"Thank you very much,' I said. "I hope I shall see you all again.' Then I shook hands with them all rʊund, and kissed the forehead of the child on the mother's knee, its rosy lips being unapproachable owing to their being smeared with potatoe, flavoured with bacon fat. As to my companion, I noticed that his colour was a good deal heightened as he bade the family good day. I think the man's remark about quiet at meal-times' was not lost; for no more doors were opened without a preparatory knock whilst I was with him. For myself, I can say that I have never forgotten the lesson in good manners taught by the humble inmates of that home in the slums."

As a rule the poor, the burdoned, sick or sorrowing, are only too glad when a "visiting lady" will listen patiently and sympathise. In fact, such are almost too confiding. Young visitors especially find it no light trial to hear particulars of the various bodily ailments under which the mothers and their belongings are suffering. Occasionally these experiences have a ludicrous side.

leaves we have turned over in the book of life; all omens pointed to it, all paths led to it." He, whom the Council that day adjudged worthy of the death of fire, had borne on his hand, probably for more than thirty years, a scar of fire.

One winter evening, in Prague, a group of boyish students were gathered round the hearth where the logs were blazing. A "poor scholar," the widow's son from Hussinetz, who earned his bread by singing in the church choirs, sat amongst them. After his wont, he was absorbed in his book, which told of the martyrdom of St. Laurence; suddenly he stretched out his hand to

And Isaac went out into the field to meditate at eventide; and he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold the camels were coming."-Genesis xxiv. 63.

the flame, and held it there unmoved and silent, until a companion by force pulled it away.

Questioned as to the reason of this extraordinary conduct, he answered simply, "I was only trying if I could bear any part of what St. Laurence did."

The ardent boy grew to manhood, as strongly moved by heroic deed or purpose, as careless of self, sometimes perhaps as impulsive. Amidst abounding iniquity, he wore "the white flower of a stainless life." His contemporaries have drawn his portrait for us in words that deserve to be remembered for their beauty as well as their truth: "His life glided on before our eyes from his very infancy, so holy, so pure, that no man could find in him a single fault. Oh! man, truly pious, truly humble, who wast conspicuous by the lustre of such great virtues, who wast wont to despise riches, and succour the poor, even to the experiencing of want thyself, whose place was by the bedside of the unfortunate, who didst invite by thy tears the most hardened hearts to repentance, and didst soothe rebellious spirits by the inexhaustible mildness of the Word, thine it was to extirpate vice from every heart by the old remedy of the Scriptures, which sounded new from thy lips."

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But these labours, in which he delighted, were not the only ones to which God called him. Along with His word, which He put in his lips, He laid upon his heart a great burden; it was the same burden which He laid upon His prophets of old-upon Isaiah, upon Jeremiah, upon Ezekiel, when His Spirit "lifted him up, and took him," and caused him to behold the "wicked abominations" which were done in the house of the Lord. These men had great honour, but they had also great sorrow; to them the word of the Lord was "like a fire," which burned within them, bringing agony as well as illumination. The cry "Woe is me!" was often on their lips. So has it ever been, so will it ever be, with those who are called by God to look down into the awful depths of human iniquity, to confront the world's sin with His message of "righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come." The sins against which John Hus was especially raised up to protest, sat enthroned in what called itself the Church, though in reality it was the world. To have exposed the avarice and the licentiousness of the clergy was the real crime of this man, of whom they said in their bitter hate, "When thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers." "Woe then to me," he cries, after one of his energetic pictures of the evils that were eating out the heart of the church"Woe, then, to me, if I do not preach against these abominations! Woe to me, if I do not lament; woe to me, if I do not write!"

The sight of terrible and hideous evil is apt to awaken a fierce wrath and indignation, a passion of rage and scorn. Even the tenderest heart (and the more, perhaps, because of its very tenderness) may be lashed into fury, tossed with

1 From the letter addressed by the University of Prague to the Council of Constance.

wild storms of anger, by this bitter "hate of hate." It was not Dante alone who

Hated well because he loved well,

Hated wickedness that hinders loving.

The Bohemian Reformer "hated well" not the sinners indeed, but the sins. In his fiery and vehement denunciation of the evils which wrung his soul, he may, perhaps, sometimes have forgotten that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

But, with the burden laid upon him, a great gift was given him. It is the best and greatest gift that God has for any of us-that for which all other gifts were well and wisely counted loss. He knew Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. "For in writing these things," to use his own words, “I confess nothing else to have moved me thereto, but only the love of our Lord Jesus crucified, whose wounds and stripes (according to the measure of my weakness and sinfulness) I desire to bear in myself; beseeching Him so to give me grace that I never seek to glory in myself, but only in His cross, and in the most precious ignominy of His passion, which He suffered for me." They who have seen this vision of the cross of Christ cannot choose but turn away from all else and gaze upon it-and as they "gaze they advance, and are changed into His likeness, and His Name shines through them for He dwells in them."

Those advance the most, and draw the nearest to Him who follow Him in the path of suffering. Or rather, He draws nearest to them. John Hus (innocent though he believed himself of the charge of heresy) had come to Constance, not knowing what would befall him there, and prepared to suffer "temptation, reviling, imprisonment or death." Only praying, and asking his beloved congregation to pray for him, that he might abide stedfast, and be found "without stain." But even the stainless crystal may take a finer and yet finer polish from the master's hand. During those long months of cruel imprisonment, all that there might have been in earlier days of mere human wrath and passion, more and more passed from him; and "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness," grew and strengthened day by day.

When, after the final examination, he was led forth from the hall of Council, one man from the Kaiser's suite arose and followed him out. He was Johan von Chlum. Putting the guards. aside, he drew near and grasped the fettered hand of the prisoner with a few brief words of hope and comfort. It was only a little thing to do -a moment's work-yet will it not be forgotten when the King shall say unto them on His right hand, "Ye have done it unto Me." It was tenderly and gratefully remembered as long as the tried heart he sought to cheer could feel any earthly joy or pain. "Oh how comfortable was

the touch of the hand of the lord Johan von Chlum unto me!" wrote John Hus-"who was not ashamed to reach forth the hand unto me, the miserable heretic, in fetters of iron, cried out upon by all men."

Nor indeed could any earthly lot have been more "miserable" than that of the condemned heretic, when weary and exhausted and so ill "that he could scarcely stand," he reached his gloomy dungeon once more, and was left there alone, face to face with his awful doom, the terror and anguish of the death of fire.

What the first hour of conflict and agony may have been we do not know, and we will not guess. Let silence hide, and darkness veil it. Yet, very soon, the darkness passes, the silence is broken. That same evening, the evening of the 8th of June, we see the prisoner again. Already thoughts of self have gone from him, and the concerns, the interests, the welfare of others fill and occupy that large and tender heart. All he has suffered, all he has yet to suffer have faded into distance. He sees no more the furious Council, the dungeon, the flaming pile-he sees instead that dear "chapel of Bethlehem" where he had so often preached the word of God, and the well-known, beloved faces of the flock to whom he ministered. Believing then that his time was very short, that the next day, or the day after, might bring the end, he hastened to write to them his parting words of counsel and farewell. In that letter "no one was forgotten, great and small, poor and rich, priests and laymen, masters and servants, teachers and scholars," each had some special word of kindly remembrance, of exhortation or encouragement. All were entreated to serve God faithfully, each in his own vocation; and to keep and "stick fast to" the truth he had taught them out of the Holy Scriptures. But they were only to follow him in as far as he followed Christ. He was keenly conscious that he saw "through a glass darkly," that others might understand the things of God more perfectly than he did. "I desire," he says, "that if any man either in public sermon or in private talk heard of me anything which is against the verity of God that he do not follow the same. Albeit I do not find my conscience guilty of any such thing. I desire of you moreover that if any man at any time have found in me any levity in words or acts that he do not follow the same, but pray God to pardon me." He asks their gratitude for the Bohemian lords who had stood by him so nobly, especially for Von Duba, and the well beloved Von Chlum. He beseeches their prayers for their king and for their queen (whose confessor he had been), and also for the king, Sigismund, who had just abandoned him so basely, "that God in His mercy would abide both with them and with you, now, and henceforth in everlasting life."

He adds: "I write this letter in prison, with my fettered hand, expecting my sentence of death to-morrow, but with a full and entire confidence that God will not abandon me, nor suffer me to

1 The letter quoted above bears date the 8th of June. Of the letters of Hus in general, L'Enfant, the able and impartial historian of the Council of Constance, speaks thus: "Neither Catholic nor Protestant, neither, I dare to say, Turk nor Pagan (could, refrain from) admiring the grandeur and piety of his sentiments, the delicacy of his conscience, his charity towards his enemies, his tenderness and fidelity towards his friends, his gratitude towards his benefactors, but above all, a greatness of soul, accompanied by a modesty and a humility quite extraordinary."

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deny His truth, nor to confess what false witnesses have maliciously alleged against me. When, with the help of Jesus Christ, we shall meet again in the most sweet peace of the future life, you shall learn how merciful God has been to me, and how he has supported me in all my temptations and trials. I know nothing of Jerome, my faithful and beloved disciple, except that he, too, is held in cruel chains, awaiting death, like me, on account of his faith. Alas! it is by our own countrymen that we have both been delivered into the hands of our enemies. I ask for them your prayers. Remain, I entreat of you, attached to my chapel of Bethlehem, and endeavour to have the Gospel preached there as long as God will permit. I trust in God that He will keep that holy church as long as it shall please Him, and in the same give greater increase of His word by others than He hath done by me, a weak vessel. Love ye one another. Never turn any one aside from the truth of God, and watch that the good be not oppressed with violence."

But the next day did not bring the sentence of death that he expected; it brought instead a form of retractation which he was invited to sign, and live. This was studiously mild and favourable: it had evidently been drawn up by a friendly hand, we know not whose, but it must have been by one of the leading members of the Council, probably a cardinal. Ever sensitive to the least touch of kindness, Huss began his firm, though gentle refusal with these words: "May the most wise and righteous Father Almighty deign to grant eternal life and glory to my father' for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Reverend father, I am very grateful for your pious and paternal favour."

The " father," who ever he may have been, responded by a really tender and beautiful letter, in which he addressed the condemned heretic as his "most loving and beloved brother." He sought to remove his scruples by every argument he could devise; even saying that if his retractation were a perjury, the sin would not be his, but that of those who required it. And he concluded with these remarkable words: "Still greater contests will be given you for the faith of Christ."

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