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loped off. Such was the ignominious fate of the man who, had his views been followed, would have found for France the foremost place among the kingdoms of Europe. Sixteen years and four months after (Dec. 16, 1588), this same Henry of Guise lay dead in the Castle of Blois, and Henry III. kicked the corpse in its face. "Thy judgments are a great deep."

As the massacre went on, Charles IX. appears to have become maddened with excitement. During the three dreadful hours which intervened between his consenting to the massacre and its outbreak, the drops of sweat stood on his brow; but now he gathered courage, and he and his mother went out upon the palace balcony and viewed the scene. He saw some of the Huguenots trying to escape by crossing the Seine, and seizing an arquebuse, he fired at them as they struggled in the river. Liking the sport, and making a servant load the piece, he continued the amusement. Two hundred and twenty years later, Mirabeau brought forth from the dust the arquebuse of Charles IX., and pointed it at the throne of Louis XVI. "Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children."

The massacre was not confined to the capital. It extended to the provinces, embracing, in short, in its horrors, the entire area of France. In all the great cities the Huguenots were slaughtered, and with like horrible barbarities as in Paris. In Lyons, not a Protestant was left. In Orleans, the slaughter amounted to twelve thousand; some say, eighteeen thousand. The massacre extended to villages and even chateaux. It went on during

six dreadful weeks. Every succeeding day the poniard reaped a fresh harvest of victims, and the rivers bore to the sea a new and ghastly burden of corpses. The exact number which perished will never be known. Mezeray computes it at 25,000; De Thou, at 30,000; Sully, 70,000; Perefixe, at 100,000.

If we take into account the coolness with which the St. Bartholomew massacre was planned; the violation of treaties and oaths which paved the way for it; the perfidies and hypocrisies that were employed to cover it; the numbers it doomed to destruction; the character of its vie tims, which formed the flower of the French people; the rank of the conspirators-princes, magistrates, and clergy; the public thanks offered to God in the churches of France for its successful execution; and the solemn Te Deum sung in its celebration at Rome ;-we cannot but feel that it is one of the greatest crimes on record, and illustrates the truth that human wickedness can reach its fullest development only under the sanction of a false religion.

What did the St. Bartholomew massacre do for the cause which loaded itself with the guilt and infamy of this terrible crime? Did it establish Romanism? Did it extirpate Protestantism? No: it accomplished neither of these ends. But it drove the Protestants from France, leaving a mighty void in the country, which it filled with the Atheism of the eighteenth century and the Commune of the nineteenth; and these have not yet spoken their last word on Popery.

As the guardian of his writings* Who hath found a nameless tomb.

Yes; a nameless grave, surmounted
Later by a simple stone,
Shows the spot where lay all mortal
Of a mighty spirit, flown
To its resting-place in Heaven

Some three hundred years agone!

Mark the man!-note well his aspect ! Pale, emaciated, worn ;

In his breast a star-soul shineth,

Herald of the Church's morn; Destined, when set free, t' illumine Generations yet unborn.

That frail, perishable casket

Held a gem of priceless worth; Scorned by proud, high-minded sinners, Spirits earthly, of the earth; Dreaming+ they were full, while dying 'Mid our fallen nature's dearth.

Now they're dead! The offered treasure
Spurned! In JESU's crown it glows;
But its brilliant hues are mirrored,
Like the sun's at evening's close;
On the left behind the spirit

Back its parted glory throws.

And where'er, in undimmed brightness (Token of a Saviour's ruth), Fed by oil direct from Heaven, "Golden candlesticks" of truth Shed their healing rays-lo! Calvin, Eagle-like, renews his youth!

Faith beholds the noble bearing

Of the trembling form that trode Tirelessly through vales, up mountains, Where in tears he thickly sowed Precious seed, ere, soaring upwards Higher still, he "went to God."

Brilliant light-track, still expanding Till it reach time's latest hour, Left his spirit in its rising,

As its last and choicest dower To his own and future ages, Lighted by its mystic power!

More than once, amid severe sufferings, Calvin was seen dragg himself slowly over the works of the Genevese Academy, set foot by his exertions-encouraging the workmen, and conplating with joy the progress of the building whose classins now contain his library, and which has been for centuries shrine of memories sacred alike to all the children of the Re

Tation

La xxix. 8.

481

"Calvin

* " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. cxi. 10). Paved that is, underlaid: such is the foundation. could not conceive of instruction in any degree whatever apart from religion"-the religion of the Bible, the Word of God.

His expression was one of peace and triumphant anticipation.
Gen. xxxv. 18.

§ "Towards eight o'clock in the evening Calvin expired; and so it was, that on that day, at the same moment, the sun set, and the greatest light on earth in the Church of God was withdrawn to Heaven."

ceived him very cordially, and explained to him, with much affability and condescension, the important part he intended him to perform in spreading the faith amongst the Indians of his new diocese. For this work he conceived him eminently fitted by the zeal and the talents he had observed in him during his novitiate; and no doubt he would find the Indian youth, whom he had with so much Christian charity redeemed from slavery, baptized, and educated, an efficient interpreter. For the Indians of Chiquisaca had, fortunately, been subjects of the Inca, so they all spoke the "lengua general."

He then proceeded to display before the eyes. of Fray Fernando a vista of future usefulness combined with peril and adventure, and showing at the end some far-off glimpse of a possible crown of martyrdom. If he had been dealing with a Churchman of an ambitious, worldly temper, he would have substituted the more material attraction of a bishop's mitre; but he told himself that he knew his man.

It was soon evident, however, that he did not know his man at all. Fray Fernando stood before him-paler, more fiery-eyed than ever, and with some traces in his raven hair of the snows he had dwelt amongst. He was respectful, for that was his duty; obedient, for he had sworn to obey. He thanked the prior for his remembrance of him, his commendations, and his confidence; for he could do no less. But his thanks were too plainly words of course-withered flowers, out of which the sap was dried and the colouring faded. He only acquired a little animation of manner when he went on to say that, while prepared to obey his lord the prior in everything, he would yet make his very humble supplication that the duties of a preacher might not be imposed on him, as he did not feel himself capable of fulfilling them.

"Some scruple of conscience, no doubt," thought the half-offended but still patient and considerate Fray Tomas. "Poor man! he has had little to do on that lonely mountain save to set up scruples and to knock them down again, else he might have died from sheer inaction. I ought to deal gently with him."

Scruples are weeds that luxuriate in the soil of monasticism. It is full of the elements that

minister to their growth- idleness, solitude, introspection, and the habit of magnifying trifles. Don Fray Tomas was well acquainted with every variety of the species-foolish scruples, morbid scruples, honest scruples, and the not uncommon kind that may truly be called dishonest, since they are used to lead the thoughts away from some real sin which the heart is not willing to surrender. As he abounded both in tact and kindness, he was quite an adept in the art of uprooting these troublesome weeds; and he had no objection to use his skill in the service of Fray Fernando.

But the younger monk was impervious to his well-meant hints: he would neither give confidence nor receive consolation. He even turned a deaf ear to the intimation that his superior would be quite willing to become his confessor. Fray Fernando had not confessed once for the last sixteen years without believing that he committed mortal sin by abusing a sacrament of the Church. He neither wished to do this oftener than he could help, nor to impose an incomplete and therefore invalid confession upon a man so astute as the prior.

So the patience of Fray Tomas came to an end at last. He thought Fray Fernando brain-sick and conceited, both in the old and the modern sense of the word. He regretted the trouble he had taken in summoning him from Cerro Blanco, and made up his mind that he would get the Indians converted without his help. Yet he was too benevolent to send him back, or to consign him to his monastery under circumstances that might leave a slur upon his character in the eyes of his brethren. He procured for him therefore the office of attending to the spiritual wants of the seamen who frequented the port of Callao; and Fray Fernando, really grateful for this undeserved kindness, addressed himself to his new duties with diligence and zeal.

But the extreme heat of the climate told upon his constitution, hitherto accustomed to a bracing mountain air. It was not until he had had the calenture severely more than once that he yielded to the longing, often felt, for the presence of his adopted son; and, as we are already aware, the letter that summoned José to his side lay unclaimed at Cuzco for nearly a year. When at last