And now to God, in penitence and fear, All ranks return;-His warning voice they hear,

And view, with feelings of delight and awe,

MAGDALENE NISBET,

THE MAIDEN OF THE MERSE:

And all, before the great Creator's shrine, Avert, by special prayer, His wrath divine. Vice, once exalted and enthroned as queen, As a stray vagrant in the streets was seen; And heavenly Virtue with Religion came, Mingling their sacred sweets, their source the same.

Freely the stream of Truth began to flow, And Nineveh was saved from threatened

woe.

J.

AN ALL-COMPASSIONATE SAVIOUR. WERE you told of an almighty Saviour, but had cause to doubt His compassion and grace, the tidings would not be so full of unmingled joy. But this Saviour 'can have compassion,' and is full of love. Go to His manger; what laid Him there, but love? Go to the garden of Gethsemane; what caused Him to endure its agonies and bloody sweat, but love? Go to Calvary; what made Him bear His cross and die upon it, but love? Hearken to His promises: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' What speak these but love? Again, hearken: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. What speak these sweet words of eternal life, but love? Go to facts in His conduct: behold the penitent woman weeping at His feet; the Pharisees reprove Him for His notice of her; but He says, Thy sins are forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee: go in peace.' What spoke that language, but love? See Canaan's widow; she entreats His aid for her afflicted daughter; He seems to turn a deaf ear, but it is that her faith may shine more conspicuous; and at length He says, 'O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.' What spoke those words, but love? O reader, as there are no sins so vile, that He cannot blot them out; so there are none so vile and aggravated, that He is unwilling to take their load away. As there is no heart too hard for Him to soften; so there is none so hard, that, when His help is sought, He is unwilling to bestow it. As there are none so unworthy that He cannot help them; so there are none that He is unwilling to help. And as there are none so weak that His strength is not sufficient for them; so there are none so weak but He is willing to help them till death and to heaven.

Second's Time.

CHAPTER VII.

WHEN the alarm was given on Fogo Muir that the enemy was approaching, James Deans helped Magdalene Nisbet to mount her pony; and having seen her ride towards the east in the company of Mrs Jeffray of Riselaw, with whom she intended to spend the night, he joined the attendants of Mr Veitch, and rode with them to Coagcarle. Magdalene and her companion had not ridden far until they were met by a man on horseback, who shouted to them to turn, for Hogg of Harchars was galloping up in front of them with armed men. Both wheeled their ponies towards the south, and, as they rode rapidly through the darkness, the horseman, riding between them, managed to throw them completely apart from each other; but of this untoward circumstance Magdalene became aware only when she had halted at the distance of several miles, and found herself alone in the company of the horseman. When she had addressed him, and had heard him speak, it struck her that he must be a person who had sat near her at the conventicle, and had often attracted her attention by the sly and inquisitive looks which he took of the multitude, and especially by the conspicuous way in which he acted at the close, when, by his frantic. words and gestures, and by his seemingly designed movements of folly, he caused considerable confusion among the escaping crowd. Distressed at her separation from her friend, and uneasy in the presence of such a man, Magdalene bade him good night, and urged her pony to the east, in the hope of finding the mistress of Riselaw; but the man had clearly no intention of being so shaken off, for he deliberately turned his horse and rode abreast. This conduct began to alarm the timid maiden, alone with such a person amid the tempestuous darkness, and she silently implored the protection of God. rode together for a short time, Magdalene now checking her pony, and now urging it forward; but all her efforts were vain to escape from her unshunnable companion. He was ever at her side, like a goblin of darkness, turn whithersoever she would. Her heart began to flutter like a bird in a snare; her words, with which she intended now to chide, and now to entreat him, froze upon her lips; and tears fell from her eyes. She halted involuntarily, and just then a loud voice rang distinctly on the tempestuous winds from the front: 'Cap

They

tain Corbie's party-halt-form to the east-march.' This new alarm inspired her with courage to speak.

Stranger,' she said, 'I beseech you to deal kindly with me, and guide me to the farm-house of Riselaw.'

'Risely farm-house!' exclaimed the man, 'ye no maun gang there, lass, unless ye want to fa' into the hands o' thae dragoons-ye hear they're gaun easter. Winna ye follow me? ye dinna need to be glifft at ane o' yer ain Covenanting folk, surely. Follow me, then, and I'll bring you to grand quarters, and a braw uppittin' for the nicht, and ye can gang to Risely wi' the morning sunshine, when there'll be nae danger frae the dragoons, that are every where the nicht scouring the Merse.'

Hope is easily kindled in a young heart; and Magdalene, though she felt an aversion to the man, nevertheless took heart from his words, and followed him. They had ridden a considerable distance, when she became aware, from the increasing gloom, that they had entered a wood. Under the shelter of the overtopping trees, she heard more distinctly the roar of the warring winds above her brangling with the sturdy branches, and before her chasing the agitated streamlet to chafe against its banks, and to plunge with redoubled fury over the rugged rocks that surmounted the basin of the boiling linn. They came to an opening in the wood, and before them, on a rising ground, frowning giant-like from the darkness, stood what seemed to be a castle. The guide rode up to a postern, and knocked loudly. Immediately a light was seen passing from window to window, and descending to the door where the wanderers stood. Ere the door was opened, a small covering was withdrawn from an opening, through which light was made to stream on their faces, for the purpose, evidently, of revealing them to the eye spying from behind. The door was opened, and Magdalene shuddered as she saw a negro of prodigious stature standing on the threshold, and holding a lamp in such a way as to flash illumination on his own face, as well as on those of the persons who stood before him. She tremblingly dismounted, and saw her pony led away by her guide, who bade her fear nothing, but follow the negro, who, so soon as she had entered, let the door return to its place with an ominous bang.

The negro conducted her to a large and splendid room, in which the softest carpets covered the floor, and the richest tapestry adorned the walls. All round hung pictures by the great masters, in portrait and landscape; some beaming with the sunny colours of Titian, some

displaying the gorgeous designs of Reubens, and some the life-like figures of Vandyke. There stood in the remote parts of the room marble statues of the Graces, holding in their hands blazing lamps fed by aromatic oils; and, pendant from the central roof, which was fretted with figures of silver and gold, shone a lamp, which

'Yielded light as from a sky.

Near the chimney, south the chamber, on an elevated chair hung with crimson velvet, sat a singular person; and, stretched at his feet, lay a noble dog, the counterpart of which may still be seen in an old painting in Marchmount House. The person was of slim form, was very old, was blind, was so diseased in his feet that he could not walk, was of a sharp and fiery countenance, in which, amidst his gusts of passion, his sightless eyeballs glared like burning coals. A snowy beard, which he, like other fanatical Royalists of his time, had suffered to grow from the day of the execution of Charles the First, descended upon his bosom; and he wore a crimson skull-cap of Genoa velvet, tightened around his head by a belt of gold-cloth, held fast by a silver buckle, in the centre of which flamed a precious stone. He was a man of strange and dark history, which it is now needful to unfold to the reader, for his better understanding of our story.

Sir Brian Berwick of Castle Tweedaledum, was a Berwickshire baronet of Norman descent. In his youth, he went abroad, and sought distinction as a soldier in the Continental wars of the early part of the seventeenth century. These wars were between Protestants and Papists; and Sir Brian, both from his religious and political training, was favourable to the Popish party. From 1620 down to 1628, he served in France under Louis the Thirteenth, during those bloody contests which raged between French Papist and French Protestant. Afterwards he fought under the banners of the Imperialists in Germany, in their happily unsuccessful efforts to defeat the Protestant armies led by the great Gustavus. He was present at the siege of Negreplisse, and in the slaughter of the Huguenots there, no sword did its work more remorselessly than the sword of Sir Brian Berwick. The horrors of the French School of warfare prepared him for becoming an active and ruthless instrument in the plunderings and butcherings perpetrated by the Austrians under both Tilly and Wallenstein; and when he had returned to his own country, and had joined the king's side in the wars between Charles the First and his Parliament, Sir Brian found ample

scope for his restless and cruel temper in the brilliant victories and savage spoilings and burnings of the armies of Montrose. When Charles the Second was defeated at Worcester, Sir Brian fled to the Continent; and while proceeding with the notorious Sir Thomas Dalziel, to seek employment under Alexis Romanoff, in his wars with the Poles and the Swedes, Sir Brian was seized in Bohemia by that fearful plague, which many years afterwards passing through Holland to England, so swept the streets of London, in 1665, by emigration and death, that the chief thoroughfares of the mighty city were overgrown with grass. He escaped with his life, and, under God, owed that life to the care with which a Bohemian Jewess, braving the deathful pestilence, ministered at his sick-bed. The Jewess was neither young nor beautiful, but, what was of far more importance to a poor Scottish baronet, she was immensely rich, and far less from gratitude for her kindness, than from covetousness of her wealth, Sir Brian offered her marriage, and they were married, and then began the sorrows of poor Olympia Carinthia. Soon after their marriage, the husband came to know that his wife had renounced the religion of her race, and had embraced those Gospel tenets, of which Huss had centuries before sown the seed in Bohemia; and Sir Brian, who could have borne with his wife as an unbelieving Jewess, could not bear with her as a Protestant Christian. From the day in which he became acquainted with her religious sentiments, Sir Brian's countenance was changed towards his wife; and not all the spoils of her wealth, nor the sweetness of her temper, nor the kindness of her heart, nor the ministrations of her hands, nor the birth of a daughter, could win an affectionate smile from the husband to his wife, from the father to his child. Savage, morose, relentless, he prowled through his family the destroyer of its peace. This was more particularly the case, when at the restoration of the Stuarts, he returned to Tweedaledum Castle with his wife, and daughter, and negro servant. Then, with his wife's wealth wholly in his power; then, the sworn friend of a King and Government that spurned and persecuted religion; then, often in the company of the Duke of York, of Lauderdale, of Sharp, and Dalziel, the furnace of his fiery nature became seven times heated, and the torment of his household proportionally increased. His poor wife soon began to pant and sink in the scorching wilderness. There were, indeed, moments spent in her closet, where her dove-like spirit could uninterruptedly ascend in devotional exercises to God-moments spent in the society of a loving daughter, im

bued with the religious sentiments of her mother, which moments became to the sinking victim like hallowed spots shaded by celestial palms and refreshed by ethereal springs. Again, however, the scorching fire returned, and again she sank; ay, she sank, for she was far from the land of her birth, far from the home of her childhood, far from the heart of her husband, far from the public worship of her God; mingling, when she could mingle with society, with those who neither understood her language, nor sympathized with her sorrows; and though her daughter shone beside her to the last as a brilliant taper, still the light was not such as could charm the heartbroken wife to live, but only such as could reconcile the affectionate mother to die. She died, she fell from the branch of human life, like fruit which the sun of autumn is not permitted to golden; but what then? did not the spirit of this Christian daughter of Abraham ascend into the presence of that Divine Lamb, who, as the Sun of Righteousness, the Light of the heavenly city, shall engolden His redeemed people for ever with the splendours of His glory?

The death of Lady Berwick made no salutary impression on her husband. As he had persecuted her, he now continued to persecute his daughter, till she mysteriously disappeared. Then the judgments of Heaven began to descend upon him, on both his body and mind. He lost the power of his limbs, he lost the sight of his eyes, a demon of melancholy possessed him; and he would sit for weeks together in a stupor of idiocy, from which he would suddenly awaken into fits of terrible mental activity, in which he became the same keen and fierce persecutor of religion as ever; and anon he would decline away into moods of sullenness, which, ever and anon, were broken by wailings of grief and cries of madness, which turned his castle, notwithstanding all the wealth and splendour within, and all the beauty of nature without, into a scene of terror. Servants fled from the face of this man, till at last his castle, left to himself and his Herculean negro, became a gloomy and ominous place into which few cared to enter, and none seemed to enter, but those miscreants who, in Sir Brian's fits of activity, were needful to execute his plans of persecution.

Such was Sir Brian Berwick, in whose presence stood Magdalene Nisbet, with mingled surprise and apprehension. She became painfully aware of the circumstances in which she was placed, when her guide, having entered the room, strode up to her side, and thus addressed Sir Brian:

'Sir Brian, I hae brocht you, as I engaged to do, a bird frae the Fogo Muir conventicle. She's ane o' the risin' gene

ration o' the Covenant; and I thocht a hair o' gude advice thrae you, and a bite o' yer blazin' matches, micht do her a gude turn, and mak her leave the error o' her ways. Will ye pay me for my trouble, Sir Brian, and let me see the sport o' the matches before I gang? It's a lang ride to Otterhole, and my gudewife and the bairns shall be wearying for me. Speak to the wench, Sir Brian, for she's lookin' dirks at me, as if she thocht that I, wha hae been a douce, canny conventicle hearer o' the great and godly Mr Veitch this day, hae beguiled her, by bringin' her to sich gude quarters as Sir Brian Berwick's castle o' Tweedaledum.'

'Traitor!' said Magdalene Nisbet, 'you have betrayed me! And so thou art one of those men who, under cover of religion, go about to conventicles to deceive the people of God? Unhappy man! how shalt thou answer to God for such evil doing? In betraying me, thou hast injured an orphan girl; and dost thou not know that God is the Father of the fatherless; that He has said, "ye shall not afflict any fatherless child ;" and, moreover, has said, "If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless!"

'Hear till her, Sir Brian! Hear till her! Isna she gran' at the Bible! how she gars the verses play thud upon my crown! But Ringan Jakes no cares a preen huther or no.'

'I'll Bible her,' shrieked Sir Brian, with a crankling voice, which sounded as harshly as the rusty hinges of his castle gates. 'Girl! who are you?'

'My name is Magdalene Nisbet.'
'Whence come ye?'

'From Primrose-Brae, on the banks of the Whiteadder.'

'Were you at the conventicle on Fogo Muir to-day?' 'I was.'

writing, message, or otherwise, under pain of being repute and esteemed art and part with them in the crime foresaid, and to be pursued therefore with all rigour ?""

'I am aware that something of that kind is in the Bond of Conformity; but I have not signed that Bond: and I acknowledge no right of either King or Council, to restrain me from going to hear the Gospel preached, or from relieving the wants of those whom I believe to be faithful servants of God.'

'You do not? Eh? Is that what you say? Then you are an audacious young rebel, whom I am bound to apprehend and punish; and punished you shall be, unless you forthwith sign the Bond of Conformity.'

'I will sign no such Bond.'

'You will not? then a truce to mammering longer with you.-Jorello, put the matches to her fingers.'

The negro brought from the fire a vessel full of burning pitch. He placed it in the hands of Jakes, who stood forth with a cruel interest in his face, to see the matches dipped in the pitch, inserted between Magdalene's fingers, and set on fire. He was, however, fortunately disappointed, for just then, the negro, making a rapid and unexpected turn, struck against the hand of Jakes holding the vessel, and emptied its burning contents upon the spy's throat and bosom! He gave a loud yell of agony, and fell rolling on the carpet; the dog sprang forth and barked furiously; Sir Brian swore; Magdalene stood pale and trembling; and Jorello, with anything but looks of regret, stooped down over the shrieking Jakes.

In the midst of this uproar a trumpet sounded at the gate, and Sir Brian commanded Jorello to answer the summons. He went out, and immediately returned followed by a military officer.

'I am Captain Lundie, Sir Brian,' said the officer, 'sent forth to scatter a conventicle, but I have come somewhat too

ever, that the preacher must be lurking in the neighbourhood, and I delay a moment only, to ask, if so loyal a subject as Sir Brian Berwick can help me to a guide, who may set me on the preacher's trail.'

'A guide! Captain Lundie,' replied the baronet, 'that you shall have; there is Jakes, who knows the whole country side. He has met with an accident, but, I dare say, is better now, and able to do your service.-Get up, Ringan, and follow Captain Lundie, and I will make the payment of your night's work worth your while.-A word more, Captain Lundie, ere you go. Could you take that red-hot young rebel with you to Edinburgh, with my compliments to Sir Thomas Dalziel

and Archbishop Sharp? She is ripe for tortures sharper than I can help her to.' "What? the girl there!'

'Ay! the girl! for, girl as she is, she is what Bishop Sharp calls a she-fanatic, a young Sataness. Have her away with you!'

'I have not a moment to spare, but I shall leave you a dragoon, who, along with your black fellow there, shall bind her, and he can wait for us at Greenlaw or Gordon. Adieu! Sir Brian.'

Captain Lundie, accompanied by the still agonizing Ringan Jakes, casting dagger-looks at the negro, departed; and soon the soldiers, amid trumpet-note and clanging hoof, were heard leaving the court-yard. A few minutes afterwards, Magdalene was conducted by Jorello to the postern, through which she had entered the castle; was lifted behind the mounted dragoon; was bound to him by a rope passing round the waists of both; and had finally her hands bound together, but so gently, that she perfectly comprehended the purpose of the negro enclosing a small clasp-knife between her palms. This circumstance, and that of the emptying of the pitch on the spy, encouraged her to believe that she had a friend in the African; that she was indebted to his dexterity for her escape from the burning matches; and that he meant to lay her still further under obligations to him for her escape from the soldiers. Cheered by these thoughts, she silently repeated, as she was borne away a captive through the storm and darkness, these beautiful lines of the lady in Comus

'O welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,

Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings,
And thou, unblemish'd form of Chastity!
I see ye visibly, and now believe

That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill

Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistering guardian, if need

the good opinion of those about them, and prevent them from acquiring such a ineasure of influence in society as they might otherwise have. But, when this happens, it affects them with many painful emotions, and becomes a motive to more frequent, humble, and penitent applications to God for pardon and peace, for grace and strength, to uphold and guide them aright in time to come. The more they feel that they have gone astray, and have hurt their means of usefulness and comfort, so much the more sensible they become of their own weakness and need of Divine direction and support; so much the more fervently do they pray to be kept, henceforth, in the true and the living way;' and so much the more watchful over themselves they grow, and zealous in their endeavours to live in newness of lite,' and to be perfect. When the world sees them thus acting, it pronounces them hypocrites, and treats them with contempt, as if they had been guilty of something disreputable, even in attempting to renounce their sins, and to change from evil to good. But, according to this view of the conduct of penitents, there is nothing but discouragement held out to those who may attempt to amend their manner of life, however faulty it may be; and saints on earth, and angels in heaven, if it were to be invariably adhered to, would never have an opportunity of rejoicing over one sinner that repenteth.' Whatever the world may say, therefore, they feel it to be their duty, their interest, and their honour, 'to cease from evil,' and to be 'zealously affected' in every good thing, and that, too, in proportion to the multitude and greatness of the sins and follies they may have committed, and to the overflowing mercy of God by which they have been preserved and brought to repentance. They have a deep and abiding conviction in their minds, that they, to whom 'much is forgiven, should love much,' and that when they are converted they should strengthen their brethren,' and be thoroughly furnished unto every good work.' It was in this spirit that the penitent Earl of Rochester said-'If God should spare me a little longer here, I hope to bring glory to His name, proportionable to the dishonour I have done Him in my whole past life; and, particularly, by endeavours to convince others of the danger of their condition if they continue impenitent, and by telling them how graciously God has dealt with me.' By thus abounding and persevering in well-doing, they are often enabled to overcome the prejudices which their former manner of life excited, to recover the portion of character they may have thereby lost, to rise to higher attainments in reputation than they