PREFACE. As the weights of a clock run down slowly but surely to their lowest point, and remind the owner that another day or week has nearly ended, so our Magazine, having once more completed its annual course, reminds both its editor and its readers that another year has well-nigh reached its close. The monition is a serious, though it needs not be a saddening one. It is a fact of solemn interest, whenever another link is struck from the chain of life, leaving it shorter than ever it was before, and therefore able to compass so much less. The oil in our life-lamp was never so low as it is to-day. The light may long continue to burn with bright and steady flame, or it may soon grown dim and expire. We cannot tell; we only know that there is less to sustain it than when this year began. We have planned and imagined and desired many things, but space and opportunity for their realization are daily and hourly becoming less. The foundations of character have been already laid, and a noble structure may yet be reared upon them; but the day of labour is swiftly speeding on; the night, though still perhaps distant, is surely approaching; and with some of us, though all unconsciously to ourselves, the shadows of the evening are stretched out and the sun is hasting to his going down. As the editor looks at the long array of twenty-two volumes of this Magazine for youth, and more particularly at the twelve which have been issued under his supervision, he is impressed with the fact that work, like time, is irrevocable. The years are the volumes are closed; and that which each contains ended; is beyond all human power to recall or modify. Should not the reader as well as the writer ponder this? Each year as it closes passes from our grasp, and like the roll in the prophet's vision, is "sealed up until the time of the end.” The editor would in these parting words affectionately ask all his young friends, if they are so living as that they can contemplate that time without fear? Are they shaping their course according to the principles of the gospel of Christ, while looking to His finished work as their only ground of acceptance with God? Many and varied are the subjects which this Magazine brings under their notice from time to time; all are designed to be instructive and profitable; but the editor and his co-workers will feel that it has fallen short of its highest object if the young people, who read its pages with so much acknowledged interest and pleasure, do not earnestly seek to realize by happy experience that "the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding." To all who have aided him by their sympathy, their counsels, or their contributions, the editor tenders his heartiest acknowledgments; and asks an enlarged measure of this friendly co-operation on behalf of those who shall hereafter guide the onward, and he trusts increasingly prosperous course of the Bible Class and Youth's Magazine. December, 1869. THE Bible Class & Youth's Magazine. LAKE CONSTANCE AND ITS MARTYRS. BY JAMES CROWTHER. HE purifying fires of the Reformation which burst forth in Germany in the year 1521 were first kindled in England in 1360. Smouldering for nearly a century and a half, they were revived in Bohemia in 1405; but, unquestionably, they are of English origin, and are amongst the many remarkable events which made the reign of the third Edward one of the most notable in the long list of kings. During his life there were fifty years of military successes, the great battles of Cressy and Poictiers both belonging to that period, when the kings of France and Scotland, and many other illustrious men, were amongst his prisoners. Nor were the achievements of the time confined to military prowess alone, for commerce was greatly extended, and there was a general revival of literature, good taste, and intelligence amongst the people. It was during the year 1505 that Luther, then in his twenty-third year, was passing through the fields in the neighbourhood of Erfurt, JANUARY, 1869, wrapped in contemplation, when a violent storm came on which threatened him with destruction. With death and judgment before him, he vowed that if his life were spared he would consecrate it wholly to God; nor was he unfaithful, he was alarmed by the terrific outbursts of nature, and awakened to newness of being. Exactly at the same time of life, in the twenty-third year of his age, about a hundred and fifty years previous to this event, another young student was equally busy in his search after truth in one of the rooms of his college at Oxford. His application of the Word of God, and his views of the good news of the kingdom of heaven, had earned for him the honourable appellation of "The Gospel Doctor," and he, like Luther, was startled into activity and decision by a national visitation which equally affected his after life. The reign of Edward the Third, so distinguished for military daring and success; for the heroism of the Black Prince, the king's eldest son, and for his death; B for the birth of English poetry by Chaucer, who courageously broke through the Latin language, in which most scholars of the age were accustomed to write, and who was the first to give to posterity English poetry in the vernacular language, — also was remarkable for the prevalence of a pestilence, the most destructive in the annals of the world. Originating in Tartary, it spread through Asia, ravaged the greater part of Egypt, decimated the inhabitants of the Grecian Islands, and finding its way along the shores of the Mediterranean it visited every city, falling with terrible force upon Italy. It crossed the Alps and scourged almost every nation in Europe. After wasting the inhabitants of many lands, for two years it was accompanied in its desolating work by a succession of earthquakes which shook the Continent to its very foundation. It was during this period of convulsions abroad and the rapid spread of the plague at home-when the weakest and the strongest were falling down together; when the cattle were affected; when all agricultural employment was suspended, and the courts of justice closed; when the land groaned under the desolating hand of the black feverthat John de Wycliffe resolved that, if his life were spared, the remainder of his days should be devoted to God in proclamation of the truth of His word. The pestilence subsided in England in 1348, and soon after Wycliffe's first work appeared, and from that time till 1384, when he died, like Luther, his whole life was devoted to preaching the gospel and publishing invectives against the abomina tions of the papacy both at home and abroad. The German Reformer was surrounded by heroic friends and companions in the grand work abroad; but Wycliffe stood, like a giant oak, alone in his works; while the results were spreading all over the civilized world. They reached the shores of the glorious old Danube, and the German youth became a thoughtful disciple of the English Reformer, when the storm of 1505 decided him for life. Who would have thought that the "Gospel Doctor" of Oxford would be the forerunner of John Huss, the "John the Baptist" of the Lutheran Reformation? About this time there was a general outcry in the European nations at the enormities of the "Holy Roman See," and no wonder; true bits of Noah's Ark; soot from the burning fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar; hairs from saints' beards; breath of St. Joseph as it was caught in a globe; and thousands of other equally ridiculous relics were exhibited to the people or hawked about the streets for their inspection and adoration, by one whose head was adorned with a large feather taken from the wing of the Archangel Michael.* Besides all this, the immorality of the clergy and their wholesale traffic in indulgences stirred up the people; while the fires of the Reformation were smouldering on. In the meantime, the doctrines and writings of Wycliffe had spread from Oxford throughout Christendom, having made the greatest way in Bavaria * D'Aubigné. |