mitiveness. Why need the National many open encounters, of the dreadAssembly meddle here, and bring ful "Passage of the Loire," of the their horrid cruelties to the peaceful true heroism shown forth by many valleys of the Loire? But they did; of the men, women, and even childand after several vexing measures ren; of their leaders, Cathelineau expelled the loved pastors who re- the carter, Stofflet the gamekeeper, fused to take the revolutionary or those of nobler birth, Lescure, oaths, and put strangers in their and D'Elbée, and La Rochejaquelein. places. It was this severe measure But with the end came more sorrow. that so roused the indignation of all Carrier formed the Revolutionary in La Vendée and Brittany. In Tribunal at Nantes, and commenced March, 1793, the revolt broke out his more than Nero-like atrocities, in earnest. In the country peculiar giving to death the fairest and best to the Bocage and the Marais they by hundreds, mothers and children for a time had many advantages; and friends drowned together in around the small farms were planted these dreadful "noyades." Not rows of bushy pollards; stationed fewer than 18,000 perished in this behind these were the concealed way, or by the guillotine, in Nanranks of the royalist army, who tes alone, during Carrier's fearful from their safe hiding-places kept reign. up a murderous fire. The republicans heard the shots all around, but saw no foes. And brave were the deeds of many unsoldier-like peasants.

He called these noyades, the "republican baptisms;" and over the baptized dead the cold waters of the Loire flowed on: baptized most truly, for we know that many of these poor

But we have no space to detail | persecuted ones had been baptized the incidents of that time, of the with the baptism of faith.

"ABIDE WITH US."

LUKE xxiv. 29.

ABIDE with me when night has passed away;
Give Thou Thy presence through the opening day;
Without Thy help, though clouds and darkness flee,
I can do nothing; Lord, abide with me.

If I should fail beneath the noontide's heat,
As on my head the sultry sunbeams beat,
Thou as the shadow of a rock shalt be;
O spotless Lamb of God, abide with me.

When silently draw near the shades of night
I fear no foe, protected by Thy might.
Far from my couch all powers of darkness flee;
I rest secure if Thou abide with me.

As Thou hast led me through this vale of tears,
So guide and help me on in future years;
Whate'er my lot, where'er my path may be,
Thy promise stands, Thou wilt abide with me.
If dark temptations gather round my way,
Be Thou my Guide; let not my footsteps stray
From off the path marked out in love by Thee;
Jesus, my all in all, abide with me.

Give me Thy strength in faith's good cause to fight,
Clad with Thy armour, trusting in Thy might,
My loins girt round with truth, pure, holy, free,
And Thou, my Saviour, to abide with me.

In all my ways throughout this present life,
In all my hopes and fears, in calm, in strife,
Till the last struggle ends in victory,
Do Thou, O Lord my God, abide with me.

When on the earth my last expiring sigh
I breathe, O Lord, be then, as always, nigh;
Take me to that blest home whence sorrows flee,
Where Thou for ever wilt abide with me.

R. W. W.

GATHERED PEARLS.

"For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out."-1 Tim. vi. 7.

One of Archbishop Trench's sermons on the subject, "What we can and cannot carry away when we die," commences thus appositely :-" Alexander the Great, being upon his death-bed, commanded that, when he was carried forth to his grave, his hands should not be wrapped, as was usual, in the cere-cloths, but should be left outside the bier, so that all men might see them, and might see that they were empty." Common talk records men "dying worth so many thousand pounds." But, alas! we must enter the grave poorer in this world's goods than the poorest inmate of a workhouse. We die "worth nothing." But there are treasures which we may lay up for ourselves, and which will not be left behind when we cross the river of death. Faith, and hope, and love, the knowledge of God, the friendship and presence of Christ-these are possessions over which the grave has no power, but which will pass with us into the heavenly world, and last throughout eternity.

GATHERED PEARLS.

"A servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ."-Jas. i. 1.

The great work of life is to bring our will into subjection to the will of God. If we had no will but His, if we could say from the heart, as our Saviour hath taught and commanded us to say, "Thy will be done," we should be happy. It is the standard at which we ought to aim: in the strong language of Archbishop Leighton, "our will should be rooted out, and the will of God should be put in its stead." It was the standard which our Saviour reached: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do : for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." It is quite evident that these words, taken in their full extent, are a proof of our Lord's divinity, but we also see clearly that in His humanity His will was to do the will of Him by whom He was sent.

MEN OF THE MONTH.

BY COUSIN WILLIAM.

MOST of those who are fond of studying our English poets know well that April was the month which ushered into the world Britain's great dramatist, WILLIAM SHAKSPERE; a name which is, and should be, a household word among us. True it is that hero-worship has fairly run mad at times in its zeal for the honour of the Stratford bard. Persons to whom all re

ligious fervour is " cant or "rant,"

pressed in words and phrases which have become, as it were, a vital part of our every-day conversation. Nor can we fail to admire and reverence the mind which could thus instruct humanity, even while most we regret that such pages should be scarred and defaced by impurity of thought and language.

Shakspere lived in an evil time, and his early life shared the contaminating influence of the age in have ranted and canted about "the which his lot was cast. Born in divine Shakspere," and his stupen- 1564, at Stratford-upon-Avon, in dous influence as a moral regene- the house which is well depicted rator, in a style which proves them on the opposite page, he seems to to be very capital devotees, if not have received at the grammar school very sober thinkers. To hear such of his native town all the learning folks talk, no stranger would ima- he ever acquired. This does not gine that some of the deified poet's appear to have been very great,best and greatest productions needed "small Latin and less Greek," acextensive "expurgation," in order to cording to his friend and contemrender them admissible for family porary, Ben Jonson. But his reading. No one would suppose reading must have been vast, though that so much of moral corruption perhaps indiscriminate; for his alcould be found in those pages. Yet lusions to law, medicine, and seaso it is, and the men who everlast-manship are generally so accurate, ingly chant the praises of Shak- that different critics have concluded spere well know it. Shakspere to have been connected in some way with those professions. He may have assisted his father in the trade of a glover, but even of this there is no certain evidence.

Then why introduce his name here? Because we would be just, not blindly partial; broad, and not cramped and narrow-minded. Above all our poets, Milton alone excepted, the genius of Shakspere towers like a colossus; in his profound knowledge of human nature he stands without a rival. Less sublime than Milton, for his themes were less sublime, his works abound with the noblest lessons of life, embodied in the most exquisite figures, and ex

A hasty and ill-advised marriage, before he had reached the age of eighteen, was followed by as hasty a removal to London, the immediate cause of which is said to have been by no means creditable to the poet. He, with some other young men, had engaged in the then common freak of deer-stealing, and got into