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noblemen, on a visit to her. During the last few years, the Countess has been much occupied with the settlement of the sixtythree families of Zillerthal peasantry; who, from reading the Scriptures, and the writings of protestants, became convinced of the errors of popery; and, in the year 1837, were compelled either to return to the Catholic Church, or to leave their native vallies in the Tyrol. The latter painful alternative they chose; and when the late king of Prussia was made acquainted with their sufferings and destitution, by one of their number whom they had sent to him for that purpose, he generously allowed them to settle upon a part of his estate, at Erdmannsdorf, at the foot of the Giant mountains. Their huts are now studding the place, built in the style of their Tyrolese habitations, and to each there is attached a small farm, which they cultivate for their support. The king entrusted the settlement of these exiles on account of their religion to the Countess, who has executed her commission with great success, after having many difficulties to overcome; and the gratitude of the poor people from Zillerthal is marked on every occasion when they meet her: her name among them is changed from the Countess Von Reden to "Our Mother." I visited several of their neat cottages, and found them well supplied with the Scriptures. I was much gratified in conversation with them, to find them really well read in the Bible, and able to quote it with much ease in support of their principles.

ISAIAH lxiii.

Triumphant in a warrior's pride,
What awful form is seen to stride
O'er Edom's wasted plains?
Throned on his brow, is royal might,
Around him, splendour casts her light,
And blood his vesture stains.
Tell us, thou mighty one, thy name;
Thy fearful mission too proclaim,
Nor be thy rank concealed:
"Justice and judgment are my throne,
Mercy and truth have ever shone
In all my acts revealed."

Why are thy garments rolled in blood,
As though in battle thou hadst stood
Foremost amid the strife?

Thy raiment stained as deep a red
As those that in the winepress tread
With purpling juices rife?
"My injured people, long oppressed,
At length have found their wrongs redressed;
My heart with vengeance filled,

Bore me impetuous to the fight,
Where trampling in resistless might
My foes' life-blood I spilled.

"I stood alone; from my right hand Unaided, on the guilty land

The threatened ruin fell.

Though nations join in banded arms,
And shake the world with fierce alarms,
Their fury I will quell.
With scornful pride my impious foes
Dared me their armies to oppose,
But saw, with terror dumb,

The thunder cloud that o'er them past,
And on their darkened spirits cast
The fear of wrath to come.

"In vain they turned to hasty flight,
In vain with mad despairing might,
My fury they withstood.

My flaming sword spread death around,
Their strength I trampled to the ground,
And bathed my feet in blood!
Deserted now their dwellings lie,
Nor echo back one mournful cry.
Destruction reigns supreme!

Their names are blotted from the earth,
No page of history tells their birth,
Their very life a dream."

HYMN FOR THE TIMES.

How long, O Lord! shall Zion mourn,
To see her walls decay?

How long shall thy deluded sheep
From Thee their shepherd stray?
Thy grace can all thy churches rouse-
That grace we now implore;
O let thy saints renew their vows,
And break those vows no more.
Teach them to feel for dying souls,
Who treat the cross with scorn;
And while thy wrath above them rolls,
To wrestle as they warn.

Almighty God! let those who preach
Thy glorious gospel, stand

All radiant with the truth they teach-
Thy champions in the land.

Then shall thy chosen hail the light

Which speeds its saving way,

And more than conquerors in the fight,
Arise to endless day.

A. FOSTER, PRINTER, KIRKBY LONSDALE.

GEORGE.

FRIENDLY VISITOR.

No. 305.

FEBRUARY, 1844.

BRIEF MEMOIR.

VOL. 26.

"O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out."ROM. xi. 33

In relating the lives of Christians, there is a danger of exalting the creature, and of forgetting that it is from the glorious Creator alone that all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; that it is owing to sovereign, free, unmerited grace, that any fallen child of Adam becomes really a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.

"Grace first contrived a way

To save rebellious man;

And all the steps that grace display, Which drew the wondrous plan. 'To his name, then, be all the glory!

In the little village of C, near Dublin, there lived an aged couple of the name of P. They had known better days. Mr. P. had a small farm in a northern part of Ireland; but owing to the failure of his crops, and other losses, he had become much reduced, and at the time I first knew his wife, he was in the employment of a family in whose service he had lived for nearly twenty years, and who valued him for his strict integrity. Mrs. P., at the time I allude to, had numbered "three score years and ten," and had walked in wisdom's pleasant paths and peaceful ways for forty years. The placid cheerfulness of her countenance, which retained the traces of great beauty, added to the simplicity and neatness of her attire, combined to render her appearance extremely pleasing. "Cleanliness is next to godliness," was her favourite saying; and truly her practice kept pace with it. In her, the poet's assertion, that "true piety is

C

It

cheerful as the day," was completely verified.
was impossible to look at her without feeling assured
that real happiness had taken up her abode within her
bosom. Although owing to her age, and her many
infirmities, she was nearly confined to the house, yet I
never heard a murmur escape her lips. She would
constantly exclaim, "I am as happy as a queen!"
"My chief wish is, that my will may be lost in His.”
"Infinite wisdom cannot err." What a precious gem
is simple faith ! it is the true philosopher's stone, which
turns all it touches into gold. Yet it is more frequently
to be found in its purity in the cottage of the poor, than
in the more sumptuous dwelling of the rich.
"Hath
not God made the poor of this world rich in faith ?"
This holy Christian often reminded me of Cowper's
beautiful lines, which exhibit in so striking a light the
contrast between the much admired but most wretched
French poet and philosopher, and the humble lace
maker-who

"Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;
And in that Charter reads, with sparkling eyes,
Her title to a treasure in the skies.

"O happy peasant, most unhappy bard
His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;
He praised perhaps for ages yet to come,
She never heard of half a mile from home;
He, lost in errors, his vain heart prefers-
She safe in the simplicity of hers."

The loss indeed which she most deeply felt was that owing to the weakness of her sight. She was unable to read God's holy word for herself; and her delight at seeing any of her Christian friends cross her humble threshold, was greatly increased by the assurance that they would read to her out of that Book, which she prized more than gold, yea, than much fine gold. Indeed her extreme love for the Bible exceeded any thing I have ever witnessed. It was truly to her "a balm for every wound, a cordial for her fears." Her thirst for this refreshing spring suffered no abatement while

life lasted; for I well remember on her last day here, when suffering acutely from disease, on my desisting from reading to her, remarking that she was too ill to bear it, she gasped out, "Oh! read on! read on! that is the only comfort." She would often speak to me of the time when she was brought out of darkness into his marvellous light, and from the power of Satan unto God.

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Perhaps some one may ask if she had previously been an immoral character, since so mighty a change was needful. Far from it! She had always maintained a strictly correct and upright character, and had been excellent in the social relations of life. But God had hitherto not been in all her thoughts; he held not the first place in her affections. She had loved the creature more than the Creator, and had sought for happiness in earthly objects, rather than in Him "in whose pleasure is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore. Alas! every mouth must be stopped, and all the world plead guilty before God, in this as well as every other respect. "Be astonished, O heavens, and be horribly afraid, and be very desolate, saith the Lord: for my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water." (Jer. ii. 12, 13.) Priding herself on the fair character she held in the world, she saw not her exceeding sinfulness in the eyes of a heartsearching God, nor her absolute need of the Redeemer's all justifying righteousness. The absolute necessity of regeneration, or a new birth unto righteousness, to every son and daughter of fallen Adam, is a solemn and important fact, imparted to us from the lips of truth itself; and let us remember, that heaven and earth may pass away, but His words never. But many a timid and weak believer is distressed because he cannot point out the precise time when this glorious change has taken place in his mind. Now, this is by no means necessary, provided he is enabled to say with the excellent Hooker, "I was in times past dead in trespasses

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