for our evangelists and missionaries.

We have churches

at Pignerol, at Turin, at Milan, at Genoa, at Leghorn, at Florence, at Naples, and at several other places all through the peninsula. Ten years ago, nothing of the kind was to be seen. And what a surprising sight does our mission-field present to the eyes of all who pray for the spread of the Gospel among our priest-ridden countrymen! For we are Italians, are not we? And the salt of Italy, too? Yes, God will most assuredly establish our valleys as a Zion from which the light will go forth that shall dispel the mists of Popery and superstition."

My friend's eyes beamed, and we could not help feeling his enthusiasm reflected in ours. We continued talking on, and if we did agree that there was much good to be done still, we also agreed that there was much good achieved to rest our hopes upon.

Candle in hand, the flame of which he protected with his palm, our host guided me across the balcony to my bedroom. Its glass door was at the same time its front window. Another window was in the opposite wall. It was an oblong square apartment. Its walls were whitewashed, the wooden floor was without a carpet, and the wooden ceiling without plaster. But all was perfectly clean. A bedstead of chestnut-wood, nicely polished, soon received me as an addition to its featherstuffed contents. I slept like a child's top, and when early in the morning I awoke, I found, much to my satisfaction, that the sun, which peeped merrily through the back window, promised a beautiful summer day.

I stepped out of my room on the balcony. What a sight! The farmhouse was built upon the summit of a

projecting portion of the hill, and commanded the whole picturesque valley below. The wide landscape seemed to be a psalm in colours and figures, praising the wonderful Creator who makes the hills to leap before His face and the valleys to exult with pleasure. The morning dew rising up before the rays of the sun seemed to be incense of gratitude and adoration ascending from the altar of creation. All the treasures that can beautify a panorama were strewed beneath me with a lavish hand, green pastures teeming with flowers, little groves of chestnut-trees, rows of apple-trees (which have given its name to Pomaret), smiling hills, the slopes of which were dotted with cottages and farmhouses, footpaths here and there winding up the elevations, browsing cattle, purling streams tracing figures of silver across the emerald velvet of the meadows. How could I but be absorbed in wonder and adoration, offering up a hymn in the unutterable music of heart-born ejaculations.

I was interrupted in my meditations by the voice of William, who stepped out of the sitting-room. The family was assembled for morning worship. Our host conducted it with true patriarchal solemnity. What to my ears was lacking in dignity in the sounds of the French language, was made up by the grave tone in which the holy page was read. William closed with prayer. His last words were, "Set up, Lord, a flag of salvation on the top of our mountains, to which the whole of Italy will turn."

Our breakfast, which consisted of cafe au lait, bread, butter, and fruits, was well calculated to prepare us for a walk to the Balsille, which we had in prospect. I could

write a book were I to give a full account of that trip, and of all William and his cousin told me while we were passing through the picturesque district, so rich in recollections of the great deeds of the Waldensian martyrheroes. When that evening I found myself back at my hotel at Pignerol, I only regretted that I could not expand the twenty-four hours I had spent among those excellent people into as many days; and I solemnly promised myself that my next summer ramble should be among the Waldensian valleys.

JOHN DE LIEFDE.

ΟΝ

VIII.

A PEEP AT THE NETHERLANDS

AND HOLLAND.

N the evening of a lovely day in May, not a hundred years ago, three friends started from London viâ Harwich for Antwerp, to take a peep at the Netherlands and Holland. About a hundred years ago, two persons, better known in the world of to-day, travelled by the same route; one being on his way to Utrecht, the other keeping him company as far as Harwich. The intending traveller was James Boswell; the friend who accompanied him to bid him farewell, was Samuel Johnson: the former, a far less man than he ever suspected himself of being; and the latter, a far greater man than his bio. grapher, who enables others so well to understand him, could possibly comprehend. It was lucky for the small planet from Auchinleck that, in the mysterious movements of the heavens, he happened to rise above the horizon in company with that "great rolling sun,” in whose reflected light he shone, until he began to think himself a luminary. What an amusing account Boswell

gives of their trip to Harwich in the stage-coach, with the young Dutchman and gentlewoman! He tells us how Johnson read Pomponius Mela, and rebuked him for giving a shilling instead of sixpence to the guard; and how he shocked the passengers by defending the Inquisition against the violent attacks of the lady upon that famous Church institute; and how he defended torture in criminal cases in Holland, to the horror of the Dutchman; and then how, after supper, he descanted upon the glories of eating, laying down the maxim, "that he who does not mind his stomach, will hardly mind anything else," which leads "Bozzy" to give a long dissertation upon the gastronomy of the great moralist. But what was more true and real to his convictions than all those opinions defended for the sake of argument, and much more worthy of the man than his eating propensities, was the fact that when in the church at Harwich, he sent Boswell to his knees, saying, "Now that you are going to leave your native country, recommend yourself to the protection of your Creator and Redeemer." "As the vessel put to sea," adds his biographer, "I kept my eyes fixed upon him for a considerable time, while he remained rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner; and at last I perceived him walk back to the town, and he disappeared!"

These illustrious travellers occupied two days in journeying from London to Harwich. How long Boswell lay in the packet, pitching and tossing in the North Sea, before he reached Helvoetsluys, he does not inform us. Our journey and voyage from London to Antwerp viâ Harwich, did not occupy more than sixteen hours; and