adoration, one on the one side and the other on the other of the Shekinah, their white wings folded, and their eyes closed, as if blinded by the excess of the brightness. The flame on the hearth, which, while Bertram continued to gaze on the picture, had been giving a more or less steady light, now became obscured, and for the third time he began to turn the leaves. The comparative darkness lasted some time, and at last he paused, and gave himself up to thought. He recalled the two pictures on which he had been gazing, and all through his meditations he kept repeating, as one repeats some familiar refrain, the words which had met his gaze on the first page of the volume : "Awake thou that slepest And stande up from death And Christe shal geue thee lyght." Suddenly the fire brightened again, and threw a gleam across the page. At the same moment Bertram looked up, and cast a glance towards the lamb on the opposite side of the hearth. Was it a dream? or had the unseen made itself visible? He passed his hand across his eyes to clear his sight.. He looked again. It was no dream. The chair, which evening after evening had been set for the reception of any chance wayfarer, was at last occupied. On it sat a figure clad in white raiment, and in His bosom lay the rescued lamb, nestling as if in sleep. Bertram glanced from the figure to the door, which had been noiselessly unlatched and still stood open, and back again from the door to the figure, sitting there in silent majesty. He recalled a representation of the Good Shepherd, which he had often seen in the volume upon his knee, and as he gazed on the calm figure before him, still holding with a tender grasp the timid lamb, the thought stole silently into his heart like the dawn of light, that the guest was none other than the Heavenly Guest, with whose hitherto-unseen presence he had been satisfied. Was it a trance, into the depths of which his soul had slipped? Under a sense of wonder and reverence he sought to rise, but could not quit his seat. Overcome by awe, he clasped his hands, and bowed his head in adoration. The air around him became vocal. Words which he had never heard before fell upon his ear in tones of enthralling melody, and above and around him he heard strains of celestial music. He raised his eyes and looked. He still saw the Heavenly Guest, but lo! He was changed. He had arisen from the chair, and seemed to have drawn nearer. His right hand was raised, as if in benediction, and from His face was shed a gleam of ineffable glory. Then He spoke, and Bertram heard the words uttered, "Thou hast tarried for Me. Behold I have come unto thee, that thou mayest be with Me for ever." The Heavenly Guest seemed to beckon him, and, lost in wonder and delight, Bertram rose from his seat. Hardly knowing how, he found himself at the door of the cottage. A fragrance met his sense. He gazed without. The night was passing away amid the splendours of the dawn. The snow was vanished. The spring had come, and the time of the singing of birds. The night passed away, and as the chill light of the Christmas morning began to steal across the white. levels of the snow, a weary traveller knocked for admission at the closed door of the cottage. Receiving no answer, he lifted the latch and crossed the threshold. There, nestling close to the dead embers, he beheld a lamb, which, raising its head, bleated feebly at the sound of his entering, and seated on the other side of the blackened hearth, with head bent over an open book, he beheld the lifeless form of an old man. Before men awoke, to hail once more the advent of the Christmas sunshine, the spirit of Bertram had passed through the gates of death, to celebrate the old festival anew in the Eternal Kingdom. SUNDAY TALK. Sing unto Him, sing psalms unto Him; talk ye of all His wondrous works. The organ peals, and swells in grandest strains! Swift to the Throne, and is accounted dear! MARION. Margaret: Saint and Queen. SU By the Rev. R. HERBERT STORY, D.D., Rosneath. UPERSTITIONS about the Lord's Supper, which linger in the Highlands to this day, were rife among the Celtic priests. Some would not celebrate the Holy Sacrament at all, on the plea of dreading to communicate unworthily; while others celebrated it with uncouth and slovenly rites. Against these abuses the Queen testified with good result. The loose system of marriage also felt her correcting hand; and it was no longer possible for a man to wed his stepmother, his brother's widow, or within the like prohibited degrees, as hitherto. Reforms, such as these, touching so closely ecclesiastical usage and domestic life, must have been as difficult as they were necessary and called for no common firmness, wisdom and tact in their execution. But what Margaret, as a Churchwoman, most desired was to do for the Scotch, what Wilfrid had done for the Anglo-Saxon, Church-to release it from the Columbite tradition, and to complete its union with Rome. The lax orders of the Culdees were letting Church property slip away to secular use and possession. The absence of recognised authority was engendering an easy and worldly mode of life. Norman feudalism was close at hand, ready to "grip greedily" the abbey or convent lands, which had lapsed or were lapsing to laymen. The old tribal episcopacy, or jurisdiction of the Columbite abbots, was incapable of ruling a church into which Saxon and Norman ideas had begun to penetrate. The only plan for keeping the ecclesiastical property together, and for providing a regulated government in the Church, for the security both of discipline and faith, was to weld it into the Catholic unity, at the head of which stood the successor of St. Peter. Moreover, under a monarchy which year by year was surrounding itself more formally with the orderly gradations of rank associated with feudalism and chivalry, a reverend hierarchy tended to lend more dignity to society and support to the throne, than the simple grades of the Culdee communities, which knew little of a threefold ministry, and still less of the lordly titles of archbishops, bishops, and deans. Not improbably, besides all this, Margaret, like most pious women, had that secret love and reverence for spiritual authority, which delights in exalting its possessors. Educated too, as she had been, in Hungary, and not unfamiliar with English life, she could not fail to see how widespread and how potent was the influence of the Roman hierarchy and system, and how much a national Church must lose which kept aloof therefrom. Roman ecclesiasticism was destined to mould and govern the Western Churches for the next 300 years, and Margaret was determined that Scotland should be weaned from its Celtic isolation. Neander laments the sacrifice of local freedom involved in universal submission to the central power; but the loss was fully compensated by the more uniform order and discipline. -the healthier energy-the wider sympathy and community of interest, which were attained by union. Here, too, Margaret's sons, and David specially, perfected the work she initiated. The regular establishment of the Church-the division of the country into dioceses and parishes--and the institution of diocesan episcopacy, and of the parochial system—all in unity with the Roman Catholic Church, were her ideas, realised in part by herself, and in whole by her sons Alexander and David. No other queen has ever been a nursing mother to the Church of Scotland so truly as was Margaret. after Amid these high aims and noble works year year of her life fleeted past; while her husband now was beside her for counsel or co-operation, or again was in the field, crushing the unruly, and menacing independence of the Northern Mormaors, or carrying fire and sword into Northumbria, either on his own account or in the interests of his ineffective brother-inlaw, who long hovered between Scotland and the Continent, covetous, but incapable, of dominion. William the Conqueror was provoked into an invasion of Scotland in which he penetrated to Abernethy, on the Tay, where, however, peace was made on the condition that Malcolm should receive a sum of money with the grant of certain manors in England, and do homage as holder of these the Conqueror taking Duncan Ingebiorge's son, as a hostage for his father's good faith. This treaty was the root of many subsequent calamities. The Conqueror's successor, William Rufus, after refusing to fulfil its conditions on his accession, made it the excuse for demanding a feudal homage from Malcolm, which the Scotch king indignantly refused. He had gone to England expecting to exchange with Rufus in person a renewal of the treaty, but having been denied access to the English Court, except on terms dishonourable to himself and his kingdom, he returned to Scotland, and for once, and fatally, in despite of Margaret's dissuasion, assembled an army wherewith to avenge the insult. He crossed the Border early in November, 1093, "harrying with more animosity than ever behoved him ;" and on the 13th he advanced to attack the Castle of Alnwick. He was encountered by Robert de Moubray, Earl of Northumberland, and in the melée he was borne down and slain by Morel of Bamborough, who had in other days been his familiar friend. So fell gallant Malcolm of the big head, in the 36th year of his reign. The Queen's health had for some time been failing, enfeebled, it was said, by her fastings and austerities. She was waiting anxiously for tidings from the King in the "Castle of Maidens," where she had built her oratory on the pinnacle of the rock. Turgot, her confessor, was with her, and helped to soothe her spirit with the consolations of religion, amid the mental disquiet and the severe bodily pains which she was suffering. The last time he was beside her she spoke of her children. "" My life draws to a close," she said, "but you may survive me long. To you I commit the charge of my children. Teach them, above all things, to love and fear God! And, whenever you see any of them attain to the height of earthly grandeur, oh ! then, in an especial manner, be to them as a father and a guide. Admonish and, if need be, reprove them, lest they be swelled with the pride of momentary glory -through avarice offend God-or by reason of the prosperity of this world become careless of eternal life. This, in the presence of Him who is now our only witness, I beseech you to promise, and to perform!" Her pains increased until it seemed impossible that she should be able to endure them. During a short interval of ease she was carried into the Chapel and received the Holy Sacrament, and for the last time distributed lavish alms to crowds of the poor; after which, the agony returning, she lifted up her failing voice in fervent prayer, in the words of Psalm li. "Have mercy upon me, O, God! according to Thy loving-kindness: according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my iniquities." She had just cried with a thought, no doubt, of her beloved Church-"Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion: build Thou the walls of Jerusalem !"-when the door was thrown open, and Prince Edgar stood before her. news. : Three days since he had seen his father fall at Alnwick, and had then extricated himself from the rout that followed, in order to bring his mother the fatal "How fares it with the King and my Edward ?" asked the Queen. Edgar made no reply. "I know all-I know all !" she cried. The "Black Rood" was in her dying hand. She tried to hold it up-" By this holy Cross," she said, "by your filial affection, I adjure you tell me the truth!" Then said Edgar"Your husband and your son are both slain." Margaret raised her eyes and hands to heaven and said— "Praise and blessing be to Thee, Almighty God! that Thou hast been pleased to make me endure so bitter anguish in the hour of my departure: thereby, as I trust, to purify me in some measure from the corruption of my sins and Thou, Lord Jesus Christ, who through the will of the Father hast enlivened the world by Thy death-O, deliver me !" As she uttered the words "Deliver me "" she gave back her saintly soul to Heaven. She was carried to Dunfermline to be laid within the Abbey Church, which she had founded, and beside the Tower, where she had spent the early years of her married life. Thither, too, Malcolm was borne, after having lain for a time at Tynemouth. A costly shrine was prepared by King Alexander III., their great-greatgreat-grandson, to receive their ashes, in the year 1250, and to this they were transferred from the tomb which had first received them. Eighty years later the Great King Robert was consigned to a sepulchre hard by, under the same hallowed roof. Legend and fable gathered round a memory so noble and saintly as Margaret's, and after her canonization by Pope Innocent IV., in 1251, superstitious devotion invested her remains with unwonted value, and even ventured to violate the silence and sanctity of the tomb. Her head is said to have been removed at Queen Mary's desire, who wished to have it near herself, and to have been finally intrusted to the charge of the Scots' College, at Douay. The other remains were conveyed to Spain, where Philip II. enshrined them in the Church of St. Laurence, in the Escurial. All these precious relics have, in the lapse of time and amid the revolutions of kingdoms, disappeared. But the good work wrought in the rough Scotland of the eleventh century, by the fair Saxon exile, has not disappeared-it exists still at the deep foundation of a nation's moral and material welfare, and of a Church's faith and life. As we look back across the centuries which separate our days from hers, our eye rests on no nobler figure deserving more gratitude and reverence for what she was and what she did, than that of Margaret: Saint and Queen! SONNET. TO DR. JOHN BROWN. Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed, The night of death's sweet sleep, wherein may be From the Poems of ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. The Personal Life of Martin Luther. L PART II. UTHER left Worms on the 25th of April, 1521, and the old Castle of Wartburg received him into half-voluntary half-enforced confinement. There he gave up wearing his monk's gown and lived as a layman. He was free to do whatever he liked within the walls of the Castle, and sometimes he would go hunting expeditions on the hills. An incident of one of these days reveals at once his tenderness and the direction of his thoughts. A hunted leveret took refuge by his feet. He sheltered it in the sleeve of his coat, but the dogs tore it in pieces. "So," he said, "rages the Pope and Satan to destroy those I would save.' The Devil seemed constantly to haunt him, and many stories are told-some authentic and some not so of the manner in which Satan came to him, and of the colloquies he had with him. Here, too, he commenced his great work, the translation of the Bible into German. By the Spring of 1522 the New Testament was completed, and what he believed to be the "sole infallible authority, where every Christian for himself could find the truth and the road to salvation, if he faithfully and piously looked for it," was for the first time in the hands of the German people. Two years later the Old Testament was completed. In March, 1552, he found it was safe for him to return to Wittenberg, and began at once to reduce to something like order the chaos which he found existing. It was no easy task, and he found himself in the most difficult of positions-a moderate man seeking to keep within certain limits the results of his own teaching. He had confined his reforms to spiritual matters, "but the spiritual and the secular were too closely bound together to be separated." Fanatical exponents of his teaching had aroused the downtrodden peasantry, and we find them in 1524-25 in revolt, with Munzer at their head-an "Army of the Lord," as they called themselves "marching through the country on errands of vengeance upon the Lord's enemies." He felt his position acutely-he knew that the peasants had many just causes of complaint against the nobles, yet he could not approve of their unwise actions. His enemies taunted him with their excesses being the result of his teaching, and he knew the truth contained in the taunt. The Catholics said of him, "He kindled the flame, and he washes his hands like Pilate." He was misunderstood he was comparatively helpless, and yet it is said with truth of him that "he is nowhere greater than at the great crisis in the history of the Reformation, in the manner in which he threw himself between the opposing parties," and endeavoured to bring about a reconciliation. His efforts were ineffectual, but they were, nevertheless, great, heroic, and sagacious efforts. At the same time his relations with the literary and humanistic party in the Reformation, with Erasmus at its head, were becoming strained. Too moderate for Munzer and the peasants, he was not moderate enough for Erasmus and his friends. A bitter controversy, into the merits of which we need not enter, was the result. Amid all these controversies, on Trinity Sunday, on the 13th of June, 1525, Luther took that step which created so great a storm, and exposed him to so much hostile criticism. He married Catherine Von Boraone who had been a monk married one who had been a nun. It was a nine days' wonder. His friend Melancthon trembled at the step. Luther himself for a little time was frightened, but he strengthened himself by the conviction that in this matter he was following the will of God, and that he was bound to show an example to his followers. "The wonder passed off, in the town there was hearty satisfaction and congratulation." It was well for Luther that he did marry, and well for the world too. Never has there been presented to it a more beautiful picture of domestic happiness, than that revealed in his letters to his wife and children. Mr. Froude calls this letter of his to his little Hans, then four years of age, "the prettiest letter ever addressed by a father to a child." Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little Boy I am pleased to see that thou learnest thy lessons well, and prayest well. Go on thus, my dear boy, and when I come home I will bring you a fine "fairin." I know of a pretty garden, where are merry children, that have gold frocks, and gather nice apples, and plums, and cherries, under the trees, and sing, and dance, and ride on pretty horses, with gold bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man of the place where the garden was, and whose the children were? He said these are the children who pray, and learn, and are good. Then I answered, I also have a son, who is called Hans Luther. May he come to this garden, and eat pears, and apples, and ride a little horse, and play with the others? The man said-" If he says his prayers, and learns, and is good, he may come; and Lippus and Jost* may come; and they shall have pipes, and drums, and lutes, and fiddles; and they shall dance and shoot with little crossbows." Then he showed me a smooth lawn in the garden, laid out for dancing, and there the pipes, and drums, and crossbows hung. But it was still early, and the children had not dined, and I could not wait for the dance. So, I said, "Dear Sir, I will go straight home and write all this to my little boy; but he has an aunt Lene,† that he must bring with him." And the man answered, "So it shall be as you say." Therefore, dear little boy, learn and pray with a good heart, and tell Lippus and Jost to do the same, and then * Melancthon's son Philip, and Jonas's son Todocus. + Great-aunt Magdalen. you will all come to the garden together! Almighty God guard you. Give my love to aunt Lene, and give her a kiss for me. Your loving father, MARTIN LUTHER. Then, what can be more touching and pathetic than "Here do I, Lena, Luther's daughter, rest; In sin and trespass was I born For ever was I thus forlorn : But yet, I live! and all is good Thou, Christ, redeem'st me with Thy blood!" In 1527 he was dangerously ill. In 1529 he held conference with Zwingli and the Swiss party of Reformers, in which he appeared "nowhere less admirable, not indeed for the opinion he defended, but for the spirit, at once irate, violent, and dogmatic, in which he defended it." But we cannot pause over this or the other controversies in which, during the closing years of his life he was engaged; nor can I linger, as I would like, over his love for nature; nor quote his sayings about the flowers and fruits in his garden; the fish in his pond; the birds in their nests; nor even his love for music, and his sayings about it and the many other subjects of which his Table-talk is full. "No such table-talk in literature," says Mr. Froude. When he reads it he ceases to wonder how this single man could change the face of Europe. Amid much that was dark in his outward lot-amid anathemas against popery-amid, thank God for it, much calm and peace in his domestic life-the end drew near! In January, 1546, we find him writing from Eisleben, where he had gone to settle some dispute, that he was 66 old, spent, worn, weary, cold, and with but one eye to see with." "When I come back from Eisleben I will lay me in my coffin, the world is weary of me, and I of the world; pray God that He will mercifully grant me a peaceful death." He was never to return from Eisleben-but there, where he was born, he was to find the peaceful death which he craved. Becoming unwell, some premonition of the approaching end was given him. "I was born and baptised here in Eisleben-what if I am likewise to die here?" On the 17th of February he was very ill. In the evening, at supper, he spoke a great deal about death. He was asked if he thought we would recognise one another in the next world? And he replied that he thought we would. Then he said, "I feel very weak, and my pains are worse than ever. If I could manage to sleep for half-an-hour I think it would do me good." He slept for an hour and a half. On awakening and seeing his friends still watching by him, he exclaimed, "What, are you still there! Will you not go and rest yourselves?" They said they would remain, and as they did so they heard him cry with fervour-" Into Thy hands I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth! Pray all of you, dear friends, for the Gospel of our Lord; pray that its reign may extend, for the Council of Trent and the Pope menace it round about." He slept again, and on awakening said, "I feel very ill. I think I shall remain here at Eisleben, where I was born." Getting very restless, he rose and moved into an adjoining room, and lay down upon a sofa, and they covered his poor body with clothes, and placed his weary head upon cushions. To God he went in his sore trouble, and this is how he prayed :-"O, my Father! Thou, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ! Thou, the Source of all consolation! I thank Thee for having revealed unto me Thy well beloved Son, in whom I believe— whom I have preached and acknowledged, and made known-whom I have loved and celebrated, and whom the Pope and the impious persecute. I commend my soul unto Thee. O Thou Lord Jesus Christ. I am about to quit this terrestrial body. I am about to be removed from this life, but I know that I shall abide eternally with Thee!" His two sons and his friend Dr. Jonas were with him :- "It is death!" he said to them, "I am going. Father! Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." He fell into a swoon. Regaining consciousness for a little while, Dr. Jonas asked him, "Reverend father, do you die in the faith of Christ, and the doctrine you have preached?" Opening his eye he looked at them fixedly and replied"Yes!" He never spoke again. He grew paler and paler. His breathing became fainter and fainter. His body got colder and colder. At length he drew one last, long sigh, and MARTIN LUTHER was dead. "The body lay in state for a day. A likeness was taken of him before the features changed. A cast from the face was taken afterwards. The athlete ex |