back-said he was prepared to diein a short time his sufferings would end, and he should be at rest in heaven. But they could not be prevailed on to leave him again. Seeing a little opening, Mr. H. said he would go and procure some assistance. He went on, and as he approached the road he saw a man driving a cart. His heart almost failed him; but he went for ward. As he drew near, he said, "Good morning,' ""Good morning.' was the reply, "Art thou travelling?" "Yes sir." "Didst thou come from D?" "No, I came from." From his saying thee and thou,-from his broad brimmed hat and straight coat Mr. Henson concluded the man was a Quaker, and soon ventured to open to him his soul--told him all about the sick man, etc. Well, said the Quaker," bring him to me and let me see him." So he speedily returned, and carried the news to his companions. But they were afraid to venture, and said the man designed to deceive them. But Mr. H. said, "No, he is an honest Quaker." Finally he prevailed on them to go forward, and as they approached with the sick man, the Quaker said, "Poor fellow! poor fellow!" He looked up and down the road, and seeing that no one was coming, took them into his cart, and driving through a by-way, carried them all safely to his large farm house. As they entered the yard his wife and three daughters came out, kindly received and entertained them. Those that were well hastened on their way, leaving the sick man to be nursed by this good Samaritan. In a few weeks he recovered, came to them in vigour of body and mind, and is now a successful minister of the gospel to the refugees in Canada.

"I WONDER IF MY MOTHER IS IN HEAVEN."

Some time ago, it was the lot of a Christian minister to preach in a beautiful little chapel not far distant from one of the largest cities in the world. It was a Wesleyan chapel, situated in the midst of a dense population, and had been but newly built. Yet the attendance was very small; in a place that would have contained'

two hundred, not more than from twelve to twenty were usually found. Ichabod seemed written there. Things had been better: there had been a flourishing society, and a large congregation, by whose united exertions this chapel had been raised. But a disagreement arose, and led to the total loss of the congregation, and the greater part of the society. Only a few remained steadfast in the hour of trial, and they were truly devoted Christians. On the day to which we refer, there were so few persons present that everything particular would of course attract the minister's eye. As he looked round upon the empty pews, thinking of the painful circumstances of the small flock, he saw an elderly man enter, on whose face deep thoughtfulness seemed imprinted. The old man knelt down solemnly. Into every part of the service he entered with evident fervour. He heard the sermon as if it had been a message from God to him. It was evident that he could say, "I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth." All present were attentive, but there was a particularity about him which could not escape notice. The service over, the minister asked of his host who the old man was, and if he could tell him anything of his history. In reply, the following narrative was in substance given:

Only a few years previously, that old man bitterly hated and despised Christianity. He was an avowed Deist, and his time, money, and worldly influence were employed in the cause he had espoused. Being a man of considerable powers, he was a sort of champion, a leader among his companions, and had thus attained an unenviable dignity. He rarely read the Bible, and never but with a view to cavil. It was a settled point with him that the Scriptures were not divine; and therefore he treated them with contempt. His favourite authors were those who opposed revelation: with the arguments of others he did not trouble himself. Of course, he never attended any place of worship.

He was married, and had one child, a girl, whom he desired to train in his own principles, and carefully kept her from all religious influence. He was

very fond of his child, and allowed her to have considerable influence over him. Her wishes were generally consulted he could not easily deny her. She got an idea that she should like to go with some of her companions to the Sunday-school, and mentioned it to her father. He objected; but she was firm, and succeeded in gaining a reluctant consent. To the Sabbathschool she went, nor was any more regular in attendance than she. Weeks rolled on, and months, and things remained as usual: the child learning religion in a Wesleyan Sunday-school, the father an infidel. Providence now interfered: the wife, the mother, sickened and died. He wept, his heart bled, (for though a Deist, he had loved his wife most tenderly,) and he knew of no balm to heal his spirit. On the following Sabbath after the funeral of her mother, the child was at the school and her teacher kindly strove to impart to her such instructions and consolations as the mournful circumstance demanded. She bent her steps homewards, thinking of her mother, and greatly. concerned about her eternal condition. Her little heart beat with intense anxiety as the thought passed through her mind, "I wonder if my mother is in heaven." In the evening of that day, as she sat by her father, down whose cheeks the big tears often rolled, she looked up in his face, putting her soft little hand in his, and gently said, "Father!" He awoke as from a reverie, startled by the voice of his child, and by a sullen look seemed to say, "6 How cruel to disturb my silent grief! Let me alone: it is better for me to die than to live." But he did not utter a word. "Father!" again said the child; "father! do you think my mother is in heaven ?" O, what words were these, what piercing words! He eyed the flowing locks, the rosy countenance, the tearful eye of her who spake; it was his child, his only child, whom he loved as his own soul; but reply he made none. Again she demanded, "Father, do you think my mother is in heaven?" He now re plied evasively, and strove to divert attention from that to another subject. They retired in thoughtful mood: the child slept, but not so the father. For as he laid him down, strange feelings

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came over him, and new thoughts filled his bosom. Fain would he have buried his griefs and reflections in slumber, but that was denied. Of one thing chiefly did he think that night,-the query of his child. It was constantly sounding in his ears. He strove to forget it, but in vain. It had reached his soul: he was deeply wounded. He began to yield to conviction. "The Bible may be true," he said: "there may be a heaven, for which I am unprepared; and a hell, to which I am hastening." He rose to pray; his infidel heart was broken, and he offered it to God.

In the morning he was an altered man: he took up the long neglected Bible, and began in earnest to seek for mercy. He gave up all evil company, destroyed his vile books, and being truly penitent, soon obtained a knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins. Now he came every Sabbath to the house of God with his dear little girl, whom he regarded as the instrument of leading him to the Saviour; and having given himself to God, gave himself also to the church by the will of God. From the period when his membership commenced to this day, he has been a most exemplary Chris

tian

What became of this interesting old the minister never heard; and whether man, and his not less interesting child, either is living he knows not; but the incident beautifully illustrates the blessed truth, that God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."-Christian Miscellany.

A PUNGENT REBUKE.-One evening Mrs. and her little daughter attended a meeting, and while the minister was speaking of the neglect of family duties, of reading the Scriptures, and of family prayer, the little daughter, who listened attentively and perceived that the preacher was describing a neglect that she had herself noticed, whispered to her mother, "Ma, is Mr.

talking to you?" This was powerful preaching to the mother; she was immediately brought under deep convictions of sin, which resulted in her hopeful conversion to God.

INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By G. G. GERVINUS, Professor of History in the University of Heidelberg. From the German. London Bohn's Shilling Series.

TRUTH unnerves tyrants as the vision did Eliphaz. They see, or fancy they see, some antagonist form before them. They hear a voice which thrills them into momentary silence. They strive in vain to preserve calmness in its presence, while they quake inwardly with fear. They grasp at the shade, but it mocks their material attempts to seize hold of its ethereal spirit. It escapes unhurt when they think it wounded. Its power is widened by what was meant to effect annihilation.

When will men learn that to attempt to extinguish the light afforded by scientific enquiry is vain and useless? When will they discover that though the press be under a censorship, thought can never be chained? When will they answer rather than burn the arguments of their real or supposed opponents? When will they cease "to fight against God?" The cardinals of Rome made Galileo recant; but the earth did not cease to move. The present pope interdicts the Bible; but Italians still obtain them. The Grand Duke of Baden arraigns Providence, or rather Gervinus for showing its workings; yet not one second does its machinery stop. He may order whole editions to be burnt; but the "Introduction" remains. His blunder has awakened attention, where he wished for indifference. He has secured for the author a larger number of readers among the German people, and a certain introduction to the home of every right-hearted Briton and Ameri

can.

George Gottfried Gervinus, the author of the book which has awakened these reflections, was born in HesseDarmstadt, in 1805. While serving his term of apprenticeship to a mercer in that town, a taste for reading led him to the study of history. Having accumulated sufficient money, he entered the University of Heidelberg, studied with success, and ultimately became a teacher and lecturer. Careless, however, in his delivery, and indistinct in his articulation, his lectures were but

thinly attended. In 1835 he proceeded to Göttingen, where his literary and historical attainments were first acknowledged. The arbitrary conduct of Earnest Augustus, king of Hanover, wellknown in this country as a tory of the old school, drove him away from this place, after a residence of two years. Seven years were now spent in retirement, from which he emerged in 1844 to take the post of Honorary Professor of History, in the University of Heidelberg. His presence raised the fame and increased the attractions of that University. He had not now, as formerly, to pour forth his suggestive lectures into an empty hall. Youth and age were alike eager listeners in his crowded lecture-room. Applying the experience of history and the philosophy of criticism to the age in which we live, Gervinus did more than any of his contemporaries to rescue Germany from visionary schemes, and lead his countrymen to seek for moderate and apparently practical reform. During 1848 he was elected a member of the German Parliament, which met at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Though no orator, his influence was great. He had, with others who were anxious for German unity, taken deep interest in the constitution drawn up by the Assembly. But the king of Prussia refusing the crown, the constitution became impossible. Gervinus thereupon withdrew again to Heidelberg, and applied himself afresh to his historical studies. But the unhappy condition of his fatherland; the encroachments of absolutism on its freedom; the humiliation of Prussia to Austria, and of Austria to the Czar, filled him with anguish. His views underwent a radical change; and soon after, the "Introduction sued from the press. He had not studied history in vain; for though that study had made him less sanguine than many, he saw that there was yet hope, not only for Germany, but for all the oppressed peoples of continental Europe.

is

It was in the autumn of last year that this work appeared. The celebrity of its author at once secured it an extensive sale. The truth it enunciated was, however, unpalatable to the despot who lords it over the Grand

Duchy of Baden; and a charge of treason was preferred against him by the public prosecutor. The law faculty at Göttingen, whom Gervinus had consulted, thought the charge too ridiculous to be proceeded with; not so the Grand Duke and the Manheim jurists. The trial was fixed for Feb. 25th, 1853. The event attracted general interest. Professors and scholars from Heidel. berg, and eminent jurists from the Palatine, Würtemberg, and Hesse forced their way through snow-drifts to be present. The Hofgericht was opened; but to disappoint many. The chamber selected, in preference to others larger, could barely hold three hundred people. Every inch of ground was speedily occupied. On the bench sate Judge Woll and two assessors. Gervinus was within the bar, beside M. Soiron his counsel. After the customary formal questions, the indictment was read. The public prosecutor prayed the court to find the defendant guilty of high treason and hatred of constitutional monarchy, and to sentence him to four months solitary confinement. Incriminating passages from the "Introduction" were then read; and, at the request of Gervinus, other passages, the counterpart of the first. The public prosecutor then opened the case. He struggled hard against the imputation that the government was prosecuting science, or wished to fetter it; while he declared that it could not tolerate that a writer should encourage downstricken parties to new attempts.

M. Soiron then addressed the court on the law and the facts of the case, and Gervinus continued the defence. He spoke with considerable vigour and to the point. Consciousness of right made him brave, while he forgot not to apologise for the egotistical strain in which his accuser had compelled him to indulge. "To attack heaven through me," said Gervinus, "is neither pious nor wise. You may silence my voice, but history proclaims louder than I can the facts of ages, and this you cannot put down. To believe that the philos ophy of history can be silenced by persecution, argues an entire ignorance even of the external mechanism of philosophy. A political pamphlet, intend ed to serve a particular purpose at a particular period, may be suppressed.

The author of such a pamphlet, bent on agitation, can console himself for its suppression. It has cost him little time and trouble. It is only a means to an end-one means out of many means, any of which, when this is lost, will serve the author as well. But it is not thus with philosophical works. It is not thus with the book before me. This book is deeply rooted in the vocation of my whole life, and is the end of my philosophic research. I have prepared myself for it by the labour of years, and the labour of years will be necessary for its completion. I have reached a time of life when I can neither change my vocation if I would, nor would I if I could. I may be hindered in the prosecution of this work for four months; BUT ON THE FIFTH I

SHALL RETURN TO IT.

But

Thus nobly spoke Gervinus. all was unavailing. The charge might be absurd, but the Grand Duke must have his pleasure. The clock of time might, by adhering to the letter of the law, have been put back two hundred and fifty years, but Shilock must have his "pound of flesh." The tutor shall suffer for daring to think, for the pupil is now Grossfürst. Accordingly, nine days after, March 2, the sentence was pronounced against Gervinus, and his work ordered to be publicly burnt! Verily, O Grand Duke, thou hast earned for thyself no enviable fame.

The Professor tells us that this "Introduction" is a portion and the commencement of a great work; and that it is intended to demonstrate a law of historical development, laid down two thousand years ago by Aristotle, the result of observations on the history of the Grecian States. The same law, Gervinus contends, may be observed in the history of the whole human race. In substance the law appears to be:"That government is necessarily progressive. Oriental despotism leads on to aristocracy, and aristocracy to mixed constitutions. When, however, states have completed their term of existence, that is, are worn out, there is a descent in civilization, freedom, and power, from the highest point in this ascending scale of development, from the many to the few, and from the few again to the one alone."

"In the oldest times, as Homer de