TRANSFORMING GRACE. ONE of the most affecting comments perhaps ever made on a well-known portion of the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, was given by a poor African woman, a newly awakened convert to the Christian faith. She had come from the interior of the country of the Bechuana tribes, and was one of the first thirty disciples of our blessed Lord in that once dark and barren wilderness. She had been but during two months an enlightened and converted believer, but she realized the description given by the sacred historian of the gentle Lydia-" whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” 66 She came to the missionary on the morning after one of the missionary prayer-meetings-she came and said, "I have somewhat to say." Her teacher encouraged her to speak. She hesitated; her modest diffidence needed more encouragement, and she received it. She said, "I was going to talk to you about the Word of God-I could not understand yon last night. I never heard the Word of God as I did last night." I asked," said the missionary, "what struck her particularly." "O," she replied, "I could not understand it; it was not what I had heard before."-The eleventh chapter of Isaiah was altogether a new subject to this young woman. She said, "I have been thinking about it all night. I could not sleep." "I asked," he continues, "whether it was that portion which I had expounded, or that I had only read?" She replied, "What you unfolded, I understood; I could not go wrong, because you put words into my ears. It was that which you did not expound." He had only expounded the first five verses of the chapter. He asked: "What was it?" A tenacious memory enabled her to repeat nearly the very words she had heard-"The wolf shall lie down with the lamb.' I do not know," she said, "what kind of wolves they are in your country, but I know our wolves will not lie down with the lambs till they have devoured them all. The leopard shall lie down with the kid.' I do not know what leopards they are in your country, but ours will not lie down with the kids, till they have eaten them up. Again : The calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.' Now that is like bearing the point of one needle on another; it cannot stand there: this is puzzling a person, and I know God does not intend to puzzle us. It makes things altogether in confusion; it makes darkness; I cannot understand it. 'And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.' This is surprising! I do not know what kind of lions you have, but I know that our lions will not eat straw, till they have first eaten the ox. But what makes me wonder the most," she continued, "is this: 'The sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den.'" He had translated the cockatrice by the word shueshuane, a little deadly-biting serpent. "The idea," she said, "of a man, or a woman, or a child, putting their hand into the hole of the shueshuane, and living! How can these things be? This is puzzling: I cannot understand it! He begged her to tell him what she had been thinking about, for he saw she had been thinking. He wished her to state the exercises of her mind, and the conclusion to which she had come. "You will only smile at me," she replied. He said, "I will not smile.' "How can you ask me," she added. “The light shines upon you from this side, and that side, and behind and before you are surrounded with light; but as for me, it is only the rays of the sun just rising, which light on me. Ah! you would only smile at my simplicity!" "No, I will not smile. Tell me what were your thoughts?" After some hesitation, [she said: "Do the leopard, and the lion, and the shueshuane, mean men and women of such and such a cha racter? men like lions who have been changed into the nature of lambs, and put into the Church of Christ?" Pressing her hand to her bosom, the tears trickling over her cheeks, she said, "Was not I like a wolf? Did not possess the very nature of the lion, and the poison of the shueshuane, until the Gospel changed this heart of mine? Ah! she was a noble com I mentator! 66 But we need not go to Africa; we need not turn to some newly-awakened savage for an illustration of the glorious prophecy of the transforming influence of the grace of God, on hearts as hard, and natures as fierce, as those of the lion of the desert. In the bosom of our own Church, in the most blessed and civilized of Christian lands, the same wild passions, the same unholy violence, may too often be found; and here, where we have light on every side," to use the words of the African woman, there can be also no light within, till the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, hath shined on the heart, and the transforming power of the grace of God hath renewed the spirit after the image of Christ. Scenes in a Clergyman's Life. VINCENT, A SPANISH MARTYR. THIS Christian hero was a native of Saragossa, and the son of a distinguished magistrate. His learning and eloquence carly introduced him to the notice of his diocesan, Valerius, whose deacon he became; and as that prelate was afflicted with an impediment in speaking, on him devolved the duty of addressing the congregation from the episcopal seat. His popularity reached the ear of Dacian, who summoned both bishop and deacon before him, and who committed both, heavily fettered, to the dark dungeons of Valencia. Having passed some time in this horrible abode, with food scarcely sufficient to sustain life, both were again brought before the tyrant, who, on observing their cheerful countenances, which exhibited no marks of suffering, angrily demanded of the guards whether they had not disobeyed his commands. On hearing that his orders had been punctually performed, he artfully endeavoured to seduce, by an affected moderation, those on whom severity had produced no visible effect. He exhorted them to comply with the decrees of the world's great masters, who insisted that the dignity of the ancient worship should be restored, and the gods everywhere honoured by sacrifices. Valerius attempted to reply, but seeing his embarrassed utterance, his young friend said; "Father, dost thou permit me to answer this judge?" The other replied, "My son, I have long trusted thee with the office of speaking, and I leave thee now to justify the faith for which we are standing here." In a discourse of surprising energy and eloquence, the deacon then vindicated the unity of God, and the divinity of Christ, and contrasted the sublimity of the doctrines he professed with the puerile absurdities of paganism. He concluded, by asserting that entreaties no less than menaces would be unable to make them guilty of idolatry. The intrepidity of the advocate filled Dacian with fury. "Let this bishop," he exclaimed, " be removed hence; as he has disobeyed the imperial edict, he is justly exiled: but for this fellow, who to disobedience adds insult, a heavier punishment is reserved. Apply the torture, dislocate his limbs, and let him feel a rebel's punishment.' The order was promptly obeyed, and Dacian had both the gratification to witness, and the barbarity to deride the agonies of the sufferer. The latter, whose cheek blanched not, and whose lips uttered not one word of complaint, regarding his persecutor with that calm composure which proved that his heaven was already begun, 66 merely replied, "I have always wished for an opportunity of proving my attachment to the religion of Christ; thou hast given it me, and I am content!" Mad with rage, the governor struck the executioners, because they could not force a single groan from their victim. What," exclaimed the sufferer, with the most provoking coolness, "dost thou too wish to avenge me of these brutal men ?" Dacian now foamed at the mouth, and roared, rather than spoke, to them-"Cannot you extort one cry of pain from this man, ye who have so often bent the most stubborn malefactors? Is he thus to triumph over us?" Sharper instruments were now brought, the flesh of the Christian was torn from his bones, and his whole body represented the appearance of one vast wound. For a moment even the savage Dacian was, or appeared to be, softened. "Young Christian," said he," hast thou no pity for thyself? In the flower of thine age, canst thou not be persuaded to avoid a horrible death by one act of submission ?" "Thy feigned sympathy," replied the other, with the same unshakened tranquillity, "affects me as little as the exquisite torments thou causest me to feel. Í will not deny my Maker for thy idols of wood and stone. Thy perseverance will fail sooner than my constancy." The victim was next laid on an iron bed, the surface of which was covered with sharp projecting points, and a slow fire placed under it. His body was pressed against the spikes, boiling liquids were poured into his wounds; his bones were crushed by blows with iron bars; in short, every species of torture was employed that hellish cunning could devise. Still the heroic sufferer murmured not. At length, his mangled limbs having been dashed on a bed of sharp flints, he felt that the moment of his deliverance was at hand. In vain did the tyrant order him to be laid on a comfortable couch, and every effort made to restore him, that, on his recovery, human ingenuity might be taxed for the invention of new torments; in a few hours he expired. His corpse was carried out to sea, and plunged into the waves; it was soon washed on shore, was found by some Christians, and secretly buried. The report of his superhuman constancy was rapidly spread throughout Christendom; and in the time of St. Augustine his festival was celebrated in every Christian place. History of Spain and Portugal. DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. DIVISIBILITY is that property of matter by which its parts may be divided and separated. Thus, as matter cannot be annihilated by division, so, however small the particles into which it is divided, each will have an upper and under surface. 1. A grain of gold, melted with a pound or 5,760 grains of silver, and a single grain of the mass dissolved into diluted nitric acid, the gold, though only the 5,761st part of a grain, will fall to the bottom, and be visible; but the silver will be dissolved in the acid. 2. A grain of silver may be beaten till a microscope shows 1,000 distinct parts: if one of these be then dissolved, it will tinge 18,000 grains of water; a grain is therefore divisable into 18,000,000 sensible parts. 3. A pound of cotton has been spun so fine, that it would extend 168,000 yards, or 95 miles. 4. A grain of gold may be hammered by the goldbeater, so that the naked eye can see the two millionth part of the grain. Also till it will cover 50 square inches, and is only then the hundred thousandth part of an inch in thickness. 5. In addition to these experiments, there are animalculæ so small, that many thousands together are smaller than the point of a needle. Mr. Lewenhoeck says, there are more animalcula in the milt of a codfish, than men on the whole earth; and a single grain of sand is larger than four millions of these. Moreover, a particle of blood of one of these animalculæ has been found, by calculation, to be as much less than a globe of 1-10th of an inch diameter, as that globe is less than the whole earth. He states, that a grain of sand, in diameter but the hundredth part of an inch, will cover 125,000 of the orifices through which we perspire; and that of some animalculæ, 3,000,000,000 are not equal to a grain of sand. 6. The natural divisions of matter are still more wonderful. In odoriferous bodies a surprising subtilty of parts is perceived; several bodies, in a long time, scarcely lose any sensible part of their weight, and yet continually fill a very large space with odoriferous particles. Dr. Keill computes the magnitude of a particle of assafoetida, to be only thirty-eight trillionths of a cubic inch, Óne grain of musk will diffuse its odour for many years.-Natural and Experimental Philosophy. CHRIST ON THE CROSS. 66 FROM the third hour, or nine o'clock in the morning, until the ninth hour, or three o'clock in the afternoon, hangs our Saviour in mysterious anguish, upon the cross. At noon, the sun hides his face. From that time, three whole hours, enveloped in the darkness of an eclipse, or in that sullen gloom which usually precedes an earthquake, breathing heavily, and becoming fainter and fainter, he suffers unutterable pangs; when, finally, his earthly nature, giving way, he cries out with a loud voice: Eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" words of profound anguish and ineffable import, which it were presumption, perhaps, to interpret. One compassionate hand raises a sponge of vinegar, or weak wine, to cheer the pale sufferer, but it is instantly arrested by the bystanders, who, willingly misunderstanding his words, command him to wait and see whether "that great and certain sign of the Messiah, the appearance of Elijah, would take place." But, no! he is manifestly dying. Yet how calm and self-possessed! While the human nature yields to the pressure of agony, we see the divinity which that nature enshrines, assuming the mastery, and voluntarily resigning all of the perishable in his mysterious person to the stroke of death. "When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said, 'It is finished;' and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." Beholding the scene, the Roman Centurion, as if expressing the testimony of nature, exclaimed. "This was a righteous man this was the Son of God!" Even Rousseau, uttering, so to speak, the extorted conviction of scepticism, declares, "that if Socrates died like a philosopher, Jesus died like a God!" while a great genius of the nineteenth century speaks of the event as a mystery," in which the divine depth of sorrow lies hid.” But, O! what a descent is here. The Son of God crucified like a felon! The Sovereign of the Seraphim expiring on the cross! The Messiah dead! Is he not divine? Is he not omnipotent? Was he not before Abraham? Is he not the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever? Dead!-how is that?— why is that? It cannot be-it must not be! For then Life itself is dead! Yes, and that is the very wonder of the cross-the very mystery of redemption. "For, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." 66 One died for all, for that all were dead." All this was done, that "through death, he might destroy him that hath the power of death, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage." "Bound every heart! and every bosom burn! O what a scale of miracles is here! Its lowest round high planted in the skies; Will give thee leave,) my praise! for ever flow; And all her spicy mountains in a flame." WORKS OF GOD AND OF MAN. THERE is a contrast between the works of God and the works of man, which plainly distinguishes the divine and human. Raise your meditation to the system above us, with its central sun, and wheeling orbs. How symmetrical! How simple! How majestic! How changeless! How adapted in all its variegated parts to the perfection of its stupendous whole! Then sink your contemplation to the proudest work of man. How diminutive! How imperfect! How indicative of the little shafts of artifice! How prone to derangement, to the vicissitudes of change, and to the decrepitude of age! Each aspect of the heavens bears on its face the impress of divinity. Nor are the sublunary works of God less distinguishable from the works of his creatures. It requires no elaborate study to discover that the house is the production of mortal hands, and that the architect of the mountains is He who "hath weighed them in the scales, and the hills in a balance." The bridge that spans the stream is palpably of human structure; the flowing stream below proclaims the workmanship of Him who makes "rivers in the desert." Earth's petty master claims as his own the curiously-wrought watch; but the observer perceives at a glance that it is the pencil of the Almighty which paints the lilies of the field. God imitates not the works of mortals; nor can the barrier between the human and divine be passed by the brother of the worm. To the authorship of the meanest production of omnipotent power, mortality dare not lay claim; nor will the loftiest production of manhood rashly contend for heavenly origin. A SPEECH BEFORE BEING BEHEADED. THE REV. C. Love, minister of Lawrence Jewry, in London, was beheaded, on Tower Hill, August 22nd, 1651, in the time of Cromwell, for being suspected of plotting against the Government. While standing on the scaffold he uttered the following most pathetic and weighty remarks:-" Although there be but little between me and death, yet this bears up my heart, there is little between me and Heaven. It comforted Dr. Taylor, the martyr, when he was going to execution, that there were but two stiles between him and his Father's house; there is a lesser way between me and my father's house; but two steps between me and glory. It is but laying down upon that block and I shall ascend upon a throne. I am this day sailing towards the ocean of eternity, through a rough passage to my haven of rest; through a red sea to the promised land. I think I hear God say to me, as he did to |