of wood and straw. When all these preparations were completed, the elector palatine, accompanied by Count d'Oppenheim, marshal of the empire, came up to him, and for the last time recommended him to retract. But he, looking up to heaven, said with a loud voice, "I call God to witness that I have never either taught or written what those false witnesses have laid to my charge; my sermons, my books, my writings, have all been done with the sole view of rescuing souls from the tyranny of sin; and, therefore, most joyfully will I confirm with my blood that truth which I have taught, written, and preached, and which is confirmed by the Divine law and the holy fathers."

The elector and the marshal then withdrew, and fire was set to the pile ! "Jesus, Son of the living God," cried John Huss, "have pity on me!" He prayed and sung a hymn in the midst of his torments; but soon after, the wind having risen, his voice was drowned by the roaring of the flames. He was perceived for some time longer moving his head and lips, and as if still praying, and then he gave up the spirit. His habits were burned with him, and the executioners tore in pieces the remains of his body and threw them back into the funeral pile, until the fire had absolutely consumed everything; the ashes were then collected together and thrown into the Rhine.

HISTORY OF R. M'B

R. M'B. was born in Scotland. From his infancy he was several times under great awakenings, and at such seasons he would for several weeks be led to pray and read the Scriptures and seriously think of his soul; but having no one to instruct him or give him encouragement, conviction wore off, and he became careless as before. It is awful to think how many early buds of grace have thus been nipped, and how much the church and the world have thus suffered. The young have been uncared for; it has not been supposed possible for minds to be devoutly affected which cannot or do not give utterance to their emotions; and if the principle has not been formally held, at least it has been acted upon, that before we can behold the blessed transforming operations of the Spirit upon the soul, we must first impregnate it with a variety of knowledge, and conduct it along a process of training, and bring it under the influence of certain established principles; forgetting all the while that religion is so exceedingly simple, so congruous with mind, and so blessed in its energies, that the youngest child is as competent to its enjoyment as any adult, yea, a far more likely recipient. But to return. R.'s father was a moral man, of irreproachable character, and an elder of the kirk, but destitute of any vital religion; so that at home there was no stimulus to the lad in seeking the salvation of his soul,

no congenial atmosphere in which his early religious feelings could invigorate themselves. In the summer of 1821, his brother, then residing in Malta, died; and this event had such a powerful influence on his mind, that he became more earnest than ever about his soul. In his native town there was then a young man who was very pious, and kept a sabbath-school; to him R. M'B. used to go, and was much with him, receiving with avidity the remarks he made on various subjects of Christian truth and experimental religion. Through him R. was induced to attend the Baptist chapel at those times when the kirk was not open for worship; and as the minister was a very excellent man, he derived exceeding benefit. But here the enmity of the serpent against the seed of the woman was awfully displayed. R. M'B.'s father, though so very upright and righteous to and before men, began to frown upon him for associating with his Baptist friend and for attending the Baptist services. Obstacles were artfully thrown in his way; and thus the early buds of piety were again nipped, and that by even a father's hand. Had that father fostered his son's incipient piety, what sins had never been committed-what agony of soul had been unexperienced-what days wasted, worse than wasted, murdered, had been laid up in glory! But it was as it was foretold: "I am come to send fire on the earth. From henceforth the father shall be divided against the son and the son against the father, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household." It is probable, that had R.'s father been the encourager instead of the persecutor of his son's soul in its heavenward efforts, it might even then have passed into the enjoyment of salvation. He had had a conviction even from his first thoughts, a conviction deep and irresistible, of the necessity of every one being born again previously to admission into heaven: this had been to him a sort of first principle, a central truth, and he had always been as fully persuaded of it as of his own existence; and so thoroughly had this conviction been inwrought into his soul, that he was accustomed to argue it with his companions, that should they or he die in their present condition, they would certainly perish. He was quite satisfied, even at that early age, that if the Scriptures mean anything, or if religion has any reality or excellence, a great change, one affecting the whole heart, must take place in men; and he was as persuaded that those around him, and whose conduct and spirit were so far from agreeing with what he found in the Scripture as delineating the Christian character and as forming the evidence of conversion, that they could have no real religion in them. He was equally certain that he himself was not a Christian.

His constant and intense desire, therefore, was to undergo this great change, to personally experience the renewing of the Holy Ghost, without which he saw as clearly as in noonday light that all his efforts to please God would be in vain, and all his hopes of heaven delusive. Without being born again he felt in his inmost soul he must remain a sinner all his life, and at last perish everlast

ingly. Hence he strongly argued with his associates, that they and he were in sin and ready to perish; even while himself living in sin he earnestly contended with all, "that except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It should seem that through ignorance and sin he was at this time acting as if conversion were to be waited for as some miraculous operation, towards which no human efforts have the least relevance or adaptation; and perhaps it was in part owing to this, as well as to his father's frowns, that the impressions which his brother's death had wrought upon his heart were partly effaced, so that gradually he cooled down into a settled listlessness. Still, however, he had no rest in his spirit; and when he left Scotland to go to Malta, he began in earnest to inquire after God and seek for salvation. After embarking for that island, he felt that as he had now been parted from his old companions and scenes of temptation; as he was then to himself, with no one to prevent him doing what he thought needful for his soul's salvation; then, if ever, he was to seek God; and that if he did not do it then, he never should; and, through grace, he wisely made choice of the good part. He hated sin; he felt he hated it as his enemy, and he set his face against it, earnestly and agonizingly imploring the pardon of his past sins, deliverance from their thraldom, and a new heart. His sister had given him "Boston's Fourfold State," and of this book he became an earnest and anxious reader; and during the whole of the voyage he persevered in giving himself to prayer and in fleeing from the wrath to come. The sabbath after his arrival, not knowing where to attend Divine worship, he was much distressed. His relatives with whom he was residing were quite worldly men, and rallied and derided him as being "blue," and made a mock of all vital godliness, railing especially against the Methodists, as being a set of fools. To R. M'B. all this was very trying; but, through Divine mercy, it only served to make him more anxious than before about salvation, and it drove him to the throne of grace. It also tended to endear to his heart the people whom he heard so shamefully libelled; so that he mentally vowed that he would associate with them, and to profess his attachment to religion by being numbered with these Methodists. But on the sabbath, not knowing where to find the chapel, and being earnestly pressed by his relatives to accompany them in an excursion into the country, he consented and went. But he was unspeakably miserable-wretched beyond endurance; and so this artifice of the enemy only served to render the wickedness of the children of the evil one the more hateful to him, and his own efforts to obtain salvation more determined. Satan thus overreached himself; this profanation of the sabbath to which he had been forced, had the effect of deepening his convictions, strengthening his resolves, and causing him to flee farther and farther from the world and sin. Raillery and persecution, hatred and opposition, thus sometimes prove invaluable blessings; and so convinced is R. M'B. of this in his own case, that

"Without

he blesses God for having been exposed to ridicule and difficulty, and compelled to commence his religious history with taking up his cross and forsaking all for Christ. The next sabbath, rising early on purpose, he walked out before breakfast to find the chapel;―he succeeded; and there, at the morning service, he was so happy as to meet with one of his own age, with whom he immediately commenced a friendship which proved of incalculable benefit, and which became most sweet and intimate. They used to rise early and walk abroad, conversing together on things pertaining to the kingdom of God and concerning their peace, their hearts burning within them as they went along. By this friend he was introduced to the missionary, who lent him books suitable to his state of mind, prayed for him, and further instructed him in the way of righteousness. For some weeks he continued praying and longing and weeping, hating sin and avoiding every appearance of evil, but still feeling he must be born again. He most deeply felt, that do what he would and be what he could, he should after all perish, unless born again. His keen and unslumbering conviction, the cry, the groan of his heart was, "I must be born again-I must be born again." Although labouring hard to do all God's commands, he felt he was a sinner, helpless, and sold under sin, the wretched vassal of Satan, and, as such, exposed to God's righteous wrath; his heart groaned out, "O wretched man that I am, who," &c., Rom. vii. 24. shedding of blood there is no remission ;" and he saw clearly that unless the blood of the incarnate Saviour were applied to his soul, he could never be happy, he could not be saved. He saw in the Scriptures, and he learned from living Christians, that there is a peace and a love and a joy in a Christian heart which pass understanding; and as he was a stranger to these emotions, he was convinced he could not be one. But he longed, he panted to be one, and would have gladly died to attain his desire. So intense was his love to divine things, so great his reverence of God, and so fixed his hatred to sin in all its forms and ways, that he wished to die; he hoped the climate would prove fatal to him, as it had done to his brother; he preferred death to living among the ungodly and hearing the profane language which daily filled his ear. Yet with all this dread of sin and hatred to it, he felt certainly persuaded he was no Christian; he had not the love, joy, peace, and faith of a Christian; and he felt that without them he was nothing. But the hour of deliverance drew nigh. On June 1st, (0 glorious day!) as he was going up stairs to dinner, he felt he could cast himself upon Christ and rest upon him, and that God, for Christ's sake, had accepted him. He felt this, and therefore was sure- -(is not consciousness the strongest of all evidences? "Cogito ergo sum")—and henceforth he could love and rejoice in Christ as his exceeding joy -as his all! He had for some time been desiring Christ and longing to believe; he had been saying in his heart," Who knows if by this time next week I shall not find peace?" He had been setting

a time at which he hoped to find mercy, and to which he therefore looked forward with unutterable anxiety. Now he felt he had Christ. Christ was formed in his heart the hope and pledge of glory, and in him he was enabled constantly to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now his peace flowed as a river, and his joy was unbounded. Every morning as he awoke Christ was in his earliest thoughts, and every evening Christ was the theme on which his mind lingered, as if begrudging the necessity of any interval of forgetfulness in sleep. Every hour was winged with bliss. His expanded soul was filled with love and praise. Life was to him an intense felicity, because it was Christ that lived in him; and the life he lived was a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved him, and gave himself for him.

A short time after this he wrote home, telling how happy he was, and exhorting his friends to seek the same happiness. Of this letter he took a copy; but afterwards, on the hasty suggestion of the moment, he tore it in pieces, in order that it might not discover to his ungodly relatives on what subject he had written. One of these pieces afterward happened to meet his eye, and on taking it up and reading the name of Jesus on it, he was struck with horror, thinking that he had been ashamed of his Lord, and had denied him before his relatives. The thought of this drove him nearly distracted; he could neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep. The following night was a night of wretchedness; he feared he should never see the morning; he dreaded lest he should put an end to his life; he wished his razor was not in the room. To have been ashamed of Christ-afraid of his relatives seeing that he had written about Jesus-this was agony. But happily he was not left to himself or to the cruel artifices of the enemy who thus had got an advantage of him. Christ, pitying the distress of his servant, came by his Spirit, and enabled him to seek and find refuge and peace where he had first found it— at the opened fountain-side-and then he went on his way rejoicing.

So far the sketch of a Christian's experience. And now, my dear reader, does aught in your history tally with what has been described? Are you sure you have believed on the Lord Jesus? Has your belief been of a sort that brought perfect peace of conscience, exalted joy in your Lord, and a power to go and do God's will? He of whom you have read wonders-often have I heard him express his exceeding wonder that a man cannot trust upon Christ for salvation. So simple is the act of faith, and so necessary is it for a sinner to believe, and so infinitely worthy does he see the Lord Jesus is of being relied upon with unbounded confidence, that to him it is natter of inexpressible wonder and grief that any one, feeling himself a sinner, cannot, does not at once and without hesitation, and with all his heart, trust in the same Saviour; and so does every real believer. The church of Christ marvels at the world's impenitence and unbelief-it is a mystery of guilt and sin to it. Reader, have