God, no less characterized by its uncompromising boldness than by the eloquence of style in which it was delivered. God has therefore not yet forsaken Geneva nor its national church. For there the gospel net ceases not to be cast, and on the right side of the ship too; and there still is an Elisha found, to direct leprous Naaman to the waters of Jordan: aye, and the little maid too, in the midst of families sunk in scepticism, indifference, or superstition, who, in her contracted sphere of opportunities for usefulness, is ready to confess her belief in the ears of her master that there is a prophet in Israel. I was much delighted to find that all the eminent divines whom I met and with whom I conversed at Geneva, among whom I would not omit to mention that good man and faithful evangelist, Dr. Malan, all hold in the strongest manner the view so ably defended by Mr. Carson, of the verbal inspiration of scripture. Ideas, they say, unclothed with words are but a mist of confusion; or rather they vanish altogether, and become nonentities; and they observe that it is not ideas which God gave unto his church, but tongues. Here then is the true infallibility in doctrine of the church of Christ; of which the synagogue of Antichrist, when she forfeited it by taking mere unwritten traditions, instead of written verities, for her rule of faith, has been driven to the necessity of fabricating a counterfeit, which is nothing better than a vile caricature.

I am happy to add, that prophetical subjects are not regarded by all the evangelical ministers at Geneva (as they seemed to be at the place from whence I last wrote) as only perplexing and profitless: they have been made even the subject of public lectures for children at the Oratoire. I am not, however,

aware that any there have yet arrived at any certain conclusion upon the point of the nearness of our Lord's second advent. I have only room to add, that a professor and some of the students, chiefly Germans, at the theological academy attached to the Oratoire, some time since were deceived by the pretensions of Irvingism. This calamitous event at first much distressed, and was a sore trial to its soberminded conductors: but the prompt measures that were taken at once nipped the evil in the bud, and it exists no more.

Once more farewell, dear friend, may God bless abundantly your useful labours.

D.

How little is all this varied scene of things regarded as the stage on which the Supreme Being is exhibiting his attributes, and guiding all the movements, however complicated, however minute or obscure, and causing them to effect the purposes that he has fore-ordained! How thankful should we be that he has pointed out to us the means whereby, whatever may become of our temporal interests, our eternal concerns may be placed beyond the reach of danger! -Wilberforce.

THE MARTYR'S FIELD.

MY DEAR MADAM—I lately visited a spot in which you and many of your readers would take a deep interest. It is the scene of a Protestant martyrdom, which took place during the reign of Henry VII., and was attended by circumstances of greater cruelty than marked most of even those atrocious ceremonies.

I believe the name of William Tylsworth is not among those recorded in your late abridgment of Foxe's Martyrology. He suffered in the year 1506, at Amersham, in Buckinghamshire, a spot which was wont to receive the light of truth from no less a luminary than John Knox himself, and where the principles of the glorious Reformation had been adopted by a large congregation as far back as the year 1495.

Tylsworth was the first of a band of martyrs who were burned there in the cause of Protestant truth, and his sufferings were distinguished by the peculiar barbarity of his own daughter being compelled to set fire to the pile which was to consume her persecuted parent.

I stood on the scene of this unnatural atrocity a short time ago. It is a sunny, extensive field, sloping down the side of a hill, and overlooking a lovely woodland country. The quiet sunset was gleaming over the adjacent church and the forest trees; all was smiling and peaceful, and no apparent trace remained of the fiery cruelties once perpetrated there.

But those traces are not erased-they are indelible— and they are perhaps already visible to every passerby; for though, in the early spring, the low green corn seems to hide the exact spot of the martyr's death, yet no sooner does the crop rise to a moderate height, than the fatal ring appears among the surrounding verdure. The grain that grows within the circle is stunted and withered, and never rises to the height of that around it.

A former profane owner of the field once swore that the corn within the ring should be as fine as the rest, and manured that spot with double diligence, but in vain; the blighted ears appeared again, as they were wont to do, and to this day all the tillage bestowed on that part of the field fails to amend its produce.

I have seen a similar judgment upon another blood-stained place, at Gloucester. Before the door of St. Mary de Lode's church, within the cathedral precincts, appears a blasted circle, upon which Bishop Hooper suffered martyrdom by fire in 1555. It lies as bare and withered, amid the surrounding green grass, as is the Amersham corn among the luxuriant grain of the field.

Such standing monuments of the divine displeasure are not to be beheld without deep emotion. Our Protestant blood boils up at the sight, and we feel a new dread as we think upon the crafty encroachments, which these same heretic-burning Papists are making in our own days.

I enclose you a slip of green corn, which I plucked from the spot of Tylsworth's martyrdom. I do not know whether you will think it worthy of a place in your cabinet of Protestant relics.

A. F.

GRIEVANCES.

WE have so many communications suitable to be ranked under this head, that we have sometimes thought of setting apart a space in each number for their especial consideration. At present we select one, the subject of which touches us so nearly that we are impelled by sympathy to give it the preference.

'MADAM-As the comforts of life mainly depend on matters small in themselves, I hope your philanthropy may plead for an aggrieved class of your friends; or, perhaps I should rather say, may interpose a check to the proceedings of an aggressive class. From your writings, madam, I picture you to myself a person of warm character; one who, in extending the right hand of fellowship, would not deem the tips of three or four fingers greeting enough for a friend-one who does not like to come into contact with that cold, dead, repulsive touch that chills the kindly feeling it is meant to reciprocate.

But, madam, I almost tremble to ask, whether you run into the opposite extreme-whether you practise or patronise the custom of betraying the confidence of such as, entrusting their fingers to a friendly pressure, find them wedged within a vice, and subjected, ere they escape, to torture little short of that inflicted by the thumb-screw. My brothers,