tempt us to deny Christ, and persuade us to shrink from those loving chastenings which the tender and compassionate Jesus may visit us with, because He sees that they are for our good. I, for my part, have been used to hear of all these godly martyrs since I was a little child, and they only taught me to understand the better the faithfulness and love of God, and to place a full and cheerful trust in Him, under whatever might happen to me; and after all, what is the worst suffering which they had to bear, compared to the agony in the garden which Jesus, the lamb of God, endured, when the sweat of his body was, as it were, large drops of blood falling to the ground,-what to the anguish of his soul as He hung a spectacle to men and angels upon the cross, and cried out, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? and we should in a manner, my child, desire to know nothing at any time but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Those, indeed, were the worst sufferers," she added, "who were ashamed of Jesus; and, to save their lives, denied the truth, and lost their own souls; and some of those were very wicked men, for they cruelly and wantonly added to the sufferings of the martyrs: but many of them came at last to suffer far more than their victims, for the judgments of God fell upon them, and they suffered not only in body, but in mind. There was one Woodroffe, the cruel sheriff of London, who insulted Bradford at the stake, who had been but a week out of his office, when he was so smitten by the hand of God, that for seven years he was not able to move himself in his bed. And Robert Balding was struck with lightning when he went to seize upon Seaman. And Alexander the gaoler of Newgate was visited with a horrible disease, so that his whole body became a mass of rottenness. And one of the highest in rank of all the persecutors, Bishop Gardiner himself, after waiting for dinner until thẻ news was brought him that Ridley and Latimer had

been burnt to death, when he then sat down and began merrily to eat; he had but eaten a few morsels, when the sudden stroke of God's terrible hand fell upon him, and he lay for fifteen days in intolerable anguish, stricken with a mortal disease, in so fearful a state that it was scarcely possible to get any one to come near him. Frequently he cried out, I have sinned like Peter, but have not repented like him.' And when the Bishop of Chichester sought to comfort him with promises of God's mercy through the blood of Christ, he answered, 'What, my lord, will you open that gap now?' He could receive no comfort, but died as he had lived. These are but a few out of many instances which are proofs of the judgments with which God sometimes in this world visits the persecutors of His people."

As Persis passed from childhood to womanhood, her father saw with delight the fruit of her instruction in godliness, and the effect of that watchful and anxious care which he had bestowed upon her; and above all, of those earnest prayers which he had daily poured forth from his very soul for his motherless child. He saw her walking with God, choosing the one thing needful, laying hold of eternal life, and deeming the service of Christ her chief joy and delight. She took her place with a gentle authority as the mistress of his house, and she became in her sphere as useful as himself in his parish, visiting the fatherless and widows in their afflictions, ministering to the comfort of his flock; and wherever she went, whether among the rich or the poor, the noble in rank or the low in station, she was enabled to keep herself unspotted from the world: a fair illustration of pure and undefiled religion; a bright instance of the fulfilment of that promise to which her father had given an entire belief: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

CHAPTER IV.

THE OLD SERGEANT.

WE are told by a distinguished writer of the present day, that when "the troops of Cromwell were disbanded, fifty thousand men accustomed to the profession of arms were at once thrown on the world: and experience seemed to warrant the belief, that this change would produce much misery and crime; that the discharged veterans would be seen begging in every street, or would be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result followed. In a few months there remained not a trace that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed into the mass of the community. The royalists themselves confessed, that, in every department of honest industry, the disabled warriors prospered beyond other men, that none was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and that, if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability one of Oliver's old soldiers."

Two

Adam Brooke was one of these veterans. years before the army was broken up, he, however, had come back to his native village of Chasefield, and taken possession of the little farm of a few acres which had belonged to his father, and which had been managed in his absence by his aged mother and his one unmarried sister. The old farmhouse, whose black-timbered gables and thatched roof were seen from the vicarage windows, embosomed among the tall and spreading elms at a short distance from the grey church tower, soon became the neatest dwelling in the parish. It had been until then in a sad dismantled state. The few fields, which had been

overgrown with weeds and couch grass, were cleared and cultivated like a garden, and became the admiration of every farmer in the neighbourhood. And the poor old dame, who had fallen, as many thought, into her second childhood, had suddenly brightened up into a cheerful, active old housewife, who sat at her wheel beside her house door, looking with delight from time to time upon the trim plots of gay and sweet smelling flowers, which had now replaced the dirty and half trampled grass which had grown over the yard; and the sister's voice was often heard, no longer rating and railing in the midst of disorder and poverty, but sweetly singing some fine old psalm tune as she moved about with a cheerful step, sometimes among the clean and well rubbed oaken furniture of the changed dwelling, or brought her work or her wheel when the morning toil was over, and took her place beside her mother. And how could it be otherwise? the mother and the daughter would say to their neighbours and to one another, now that Adam had come back; for his looks and his words were enough to put a spirit of hope and of happiness into the heart of every one that knew him: and even if he had not brought with him some broad gold pieces, he was so industrious, and had such order and method in all his ways, and he was so temperate and frugal in all his habits, never squandering his money in drinking upon the ale bench, and never wasting a moment of precious time, as he called it, in vain company or idle doings, of any sort; that they both felt themselves to be like new creatures; and to be sure, he would have every thing done decently and in order: and he had such a kindly way with him that they could never say him nay to anything that he asked. And in the

sweet summer evenings Adam Brooke might also be seen seated upon the same long bench beside the door, with his mother on the one side of him and his

sister on the other, and both their wheels at rest, while he read with a clear grave voice out of the Book of books, as he called it; and he had such a way of explaining and applying what he read, that though his mother could not read a black letter, and his sister Mildred was obliged to spell over her long words, they found that they could always understand him; and his reading that grand and beautiful Book was only to be likened to that of the vicar, or sweet Mistress Persis. And when the light shone through the diamond-shaped window panes of the cottage window, which were now as bright as crystal on a dark evening, and through the broad green leaves of the well pruned grape-vine, which hung round it like a garland; and when all was silent in the orchard and fields around, many a passer by would linger and lean over the white gate, where the hedge of sweet briar smelt so sweet with the dew upon it, and listen to the song of praise which rose strong and clear within the kitchen of the dwelling of the Brookes; and the remark was sometimes made "Who would have thought that Mildred Brooke had so sweet a voice? why, she sings like a mavis !"

And now, too, Mildred sang as sweetly in church when she stood beside her brother looking over the same book; and it was a lovely sight, as every one said, to see the poor old dame leaning upon the arm of her tall, grand looking son, as he guarded her with as much care and tenderness as if she had been the first lady in the land when they walked up the aisle together. And the old woman looked so happy, and what with her walking-stick on the one hand, and the other upon the strong arm of her son, why, she walked as they had never thought to see her walk again; for ten years had passed since she had been able to move from her fireside, and to creep to the church door.