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Tertullian boldly challenges his adversaries as follows: "Bring forth before your tribunals a man who is well known to be possessed by a demon. The evil spirit, at the bidding of a Christian-any one you like will as truly confess himself to be a devil as elsewhere he will falsely proclaim himself a god." He then calls on them to confront a Christian with some of the pagan seers, and offers to let the blood of the Christian answer for it, unless the demons are again forced to acknowledge themselves. "What more trustworthy," he asks, "than proof like this? Truth in all its simplicity is manifest before you." Origen bears the like testimony. "Even nowadays among Christians there are tokens of the presence of the Holy Ghost, who came down in the form of a dove. For they cast out devils, they heal diseases, they foresee the future. . . . Many have embraced the Christian religion, as it were, in spite of themselves, being suddenly seized by some spirit, whether in a vision or in a dream; so that setting aside the hatred that they had conceived for our faith, they were resolved in its defence to lay down their lives. We ourselves have known many such cases; but were we to record them, though we were eye-witnesses of the facts, we should merely afford matter for pleasant mirth to the skeptical." Minutius Felix adds his confirmation: "These things, as many of you know, the devils themselves confess, as often as, by our torturing words and by the fire of our prayers, they are drawn forth from men's bodies. As a last specimen, hear the words of Lactantius: "At the name of Christ the demons tremble, and cry out that they are burning or being scourged; asked who they are, and when they came and entered into the man, they declare everything; and being tortured and tormented by the power of the Divine Name they depart."*

* Vide Migne. Curs. Theolog., tom. iii.

At all these testimonies it is easy to scoff; it is harder to explain how, on the hypothesis of their worthlessness, so many excellent and able men have acted the part either of knaves or of fools. But it is not attempted to upset our witnesses by strict logic. There is a sad truth in Professor Tyndall's words, that there is " "a logical feebleness" in science, and that science "keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation." Let it keep down superstition by all means; but let it beware lest, under the name of superstition, it keep down something that cannot with impunity be suppressed. It is something of an admission to allow that science overturns religion-for to the writer of the above words all religion, ordinarily so called, comes under superstition-not by reasoning, but by the special habit of mind that it generates. St. Paul has his description of this habit of mind; and if St. Paul is any authority, his words are most alarming. At least they should prompt a man to serious inquiry. Otherwise, if he should happen to find himself face to face with God after death-and many adversaries allow this to be at least a possible contingency-it would be an awkward question to be asked, Did you strive as earnestly to come to the knowledge of the Deity as you did to make acquaintance with some branch of science that very much interested you? And if specially interrogated on the subject of miracles, it would be a sorry reply to have to say, "Lord, I assumed miracles to be a priori impossible. Hence I despised any one who spoke to me of them; and it would to me have been an occasion of intense shame had I been discovered, by one of my scientific brethren, to have entertained for a moment the idea of seriously taking up the investigation of a matter which we all so much ridiculed."

THEN AND NOW.

I SAID, "Thy will be done."

It meant for me, just then, but feeling sure,
My little baby's soul all white and pure
Its home with God had won.

It meant, her sweet, sweet heart

Could never now with woman's sorrows ache,
Nor bleed to know the dear dead hopes that make
Of life so sure a part.

It meant, her little mind

Could never grow to feel the web of care
Entangled round it, making darkness there
Till it no light could find.

It meant, her tiny form,

So dear, so dear, from suffering was free,
And in its lovely sleep so tenderly

Removed from earthly harm.

The little face so fair

With peace, the hands so softly clasping flowers,
They ne'er had clasped aught else, and Earth's dark powers
Could now place naught else there.

The baby's wordless cries

Of pain forever hushed, while near the Throne
In Heaven's language prayed my little one,

That I, to it, might rise.

It meant, the royal name,

An Angel's Mother, now on me bestowed,
Winning me honor in the Court of God
Surpassing earthly fame.

And so to that dear God

To say, "Thy will be done," was but more deep
Within my bruised heart the prints to keep

His feet made as they trod.

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And that, forever, I

Must miss the pretty, eager search for food,
The hands stretched out in sweet, impatient mood,
The little, wistful cry.

The joy no words could tell

To watch her draw my life into her own,
That priceless joy to mothers given alone,
By mothers loved so well.

It seems to mean, the sight

Of little white robes, useless laid away,
Dear little white robes! to my heart, they say,
"Not us, but robes of light."

It seems to mean, a part

Of my own life into that grave has gone,
Where in her pale sleep lies my little one,
Whilst for it calls my heart.

It seems to mean, the loss

Of what that heart can never find again,
Must long for, and must seek, but all in vain.
Instead, it finds the Cross.

It seems to mean, the years
That I, presumptuous, laid out for her life,
Dreaming I with all good could make them rife,
Must now be marked with tears.

Upon thy white couch laid,

Whilst brightest flow'rs around thy sweet form smiled, Thou wert a lovely sight, my own, own child,

I scarce could think thee dead.

But now, when time has flown,

The time they said would heal, and all in vain
I long to press thee to my heart again,

I feel, indeed, thou'rt gone.

But though thus bitter now

The pain of this heart-wound, I know that still 'Tis but the working of the dear God's will, And so I still can bow

Beneath the bleeding feet,

Fast to the Cross of Calv'ry nailed for me,
And there, I still can say, my God, to Thee-
Knowing that, far more sweet

Because from suff'ring won,

My prayer will be unto Thy list'ning ear,
And, for its sorrow, to Thy heart more dear-
"Thy holy will be done!"

LOVE'S CONQUEST.

MRS. JOHN ROLANDSON, sitting in solitary state at her handsome breakfast-table, read with curiously mingled emotions a foreign letter, just received. Time, place, and education must be seriously weighed, to comprehend her state of mind. It was anniversary week, so dear to Boston Protestants. In plain view from the windows of her suburban residence lay the old Puritan city; above the green trees of the Common rose the steeple of Park Street Church, and behind it, hidden from sight, but clear and dear in Mrs. Rolandson's memory, was the "Old South," of which her father and her father's father had been members.

Mrs. Rolandson was an orthodox Congregationalist of the straitest sect. Had the Old South come under the hammer in her day, she would have taxed tongue and purse and influence to save it, but no dream of such a disaster had ever crossed her mind. She was an influential member of Bible Society, Tract Society, Dorcas Society; it was more than rumored that some widely circulated tracts were the work of her active brain. When one by one her husband and her children died, leaving her at forty a widow with an only son, Jaspar, she threw herself more ardently than ever before into religious works, thus to dull the heartache, and quiet the haunting memories of the past.

She had always planned that Jaspar should become a minister, but he himself crushed all such hopes. Not only did he refuse to study for so high an office, but he scorned the thought of any profession whatever, rebelled against a collegiate course even amidst the classic shades of Harvard, developed a decided business talent, and entered a store en

gaged in the foreign fruit trade. Bringing to his work not only money and name, but a hearty liking for the occupation, he rose steadily and quickly, and while still a very young man was admitted as junior member of the firm.

In spite of the disappointment he had caused her, he was the very pride and joy of his mother's heart. She was a tall and stately woman, but she looked small beside her son's broad shoulders and unusual height, while her brunette locks, early and beautifully white, were in striking contrast to his tawny hair and beard, blue eyes, and Saxon color. He was a pattern son in his devotion to his mother; no other lady had ever shared her place in his heart, his evenings were given to her, she knew all his friends, pleasures, and occupations, and thought his life, morally, as spotless and honorable as that of any man she had ever met. But, religiously, Jaspar failed her. Once a week, upon "the Sabbath," he went with her to meeting, stood in the pew with his arms folded upon his sturdy chest, and his eyes raised to the soundingboard as if it possessed some charm to hold them until the final amen released them, listened to the sermon with unflagging attention and a gaze as steady upon the preacher's face as it had been upon the sounding-board one half hour before; then he came home, and picked prayer and sermon to pieces with a withering sarcasm which from anybody else would have roused Mrs. Rolandson's utmost ire, but from him was received with grief indeed, but also with admiration, for what was in truth a very clever mind. Sometimes she lamented, for his sake, that they were not living in the city, where they could go to the Old South as his forefathers had

done, or to some other place of worship where the finest preachers were to be heard; but Jaspar scouted the idea.

"I tell you, mother," he would say, but the words would be accompanied by a smile and a tone which charmed half their bitterness away, "it's not the man that can make any difference with me, nor the eloquence. I'm no logician and no theologian, but there's a root idea wrong somewhere in your Puritan system.

So Jaspar Rolandson never gave a penny to the Foreign Missionary Society, which was his mother's favorite benefaction. "It only teaches the heathen how Christians hate one another," he said; and he made fun of her tracts, and took a wicked pleasure in drawing her attention to the irreverent witticisms which decorated the pages of the Bibles left by her beloved Bible Society in steamboat saloons and railway stations. But Mrs. Rolandson knew that the old applewomen on the Common, and the newsboys on 'change, and downtrodden needlewomen, and clerks in straitened circumstances, thought, and had good reason to think Jaspar the prince of merchants, in his unfailing daily thoughtful kindness; so she buoyed her heart with texts about him who shows mercy to the poor and needy, and hoped for some future day when her Jaspar surely would be converted. By and by he had to leave her for awhile; he was sent to Italy on business. Mrs. Rolandson lamented his lack of serious interest in spiritual matters, for he might have sent her, she said, such a good account of the religious destitution of that benighted and superstitious land; his one scholarly talent had been for languages, and he had carefully cultivated it; it would have given him great influence for good over the misguided people whom he was about to meet.

"I will do my best, mother,"

Jaspar promised. "If I cannot influence them after your fashion, at least I will let you know their condition faithfully. It won't be the first thing of the kind that I have done, and in fact I am glad of any change in the present style of religion.'

From that time Mrs. Rolandson lived in a kind of dream. She used to say afterwards that she seemed to herself like a target, against which one arrow after another was sent by a marksman whose unerring aim it was impossible to foresee or escape. She dreaded and she longed for the letters which came each week with unfailing regularity across the sea. From the outset her boy was in the enemy's camp, and from the outset he appeared to feel, and not to hate, the enemy's deadly fascinations. A Catholic priest had the stateroom next his own. Four Sisters of Charity were among the passengers, and even occasionally to be seen in their quaint garb.

"These sisters, poor, misguided beings," Jaspar wrote to his mother, "shun all intercourse with us who could teach them the better way. We have had a great scare on board, although, fortunately, only a few of us know of it. There is a case of spotted fever, an old negro who was employed by the steward. They have shut him up in some safe out-of-theway hole, and one of the sisters is nursing him, as pleased with the chance, so the surgeon expresses it, as if she were in heaven. How I long for some of your tracts to send to her. She might profit by them in her solitude."

And again: "This priest is really a capital travelling companion. He is actually a scholar and a gentleman, and sometimes I could almost fancy him a Christian, only of a different sort from any I ever saw before. is certainly very accomplished, perhaps the most thoroughly educated man I ever met, and yet, so far as I can see, he believes thoroughly, and

He

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