The rabbi, who was ostensibly opposed to him, but who in reality secretly favoured him, at once commenced the controversy, and managed so adroitly that after some hours of earnest argument, the audience were divided concerning the prisoner, some demanding his liberation and others clamouring for his death. Finally his enemies prevailed, and led him off to a solitary wayside house on the outskirts of the town. Here they took from him his Bible and his Hebrew New Testament and burned them before his face.

"My Bible," exclaimed he, "you have indeed destroyed, but you cannot deprive me of the treasures I have culled from it and stored up in my memory."

"Return to Judaism," was the fierce retort, or we will

burn thee also."

Meekly, Eliezer replied that even if they carried out their threat, they would only be releasing him from suffering and sending him at once into the presence of the Saviour he loved.

The meekness and calmness of the young sufferer touched some of his persecutors; but the majority of them were enraged beyond measure and seemed inclined to do him personal violence, but were restrained by the others.

Space will not allow us to detail the different persecutions to which Eliezer was subjected. At one time his enemies wrote to the military authorities and informed them that a deserter from the army was in their midst. He was immediately arrested, but on investigation being made the affair was dismissed.

Foiled in this attempt, and determined to work his ruin in some way, the infatuated Jews bribed the police to wink at their proceedings; and endeavoured to take his life, but in this they were foiled. Little did they remember that the God whom they professed to serve was not only an allseeing but an almighty God-it was He who watched over Eliezer, and preserved his life.

Again a plot was laid to have him tried by court-martial as a deserter, but failed.

Baffled from time to time, Eliezer's enemies persecuted him in many petty ways; yet he still remained firm in his devotion to his Saviour and the religion He taught.

On one occasion his life was in imminent peril, but again the good hand of God was stretched out to save him. He had been taunted as a follower of the despised Nazarene, when he seized the opportunity of declaring the Messiah, quoting passage after passage from the Old Testament bearing upon the first coming of Christ. This so exasperated those who heard him, that, with one consent, they seized him and throwing him into a cart hurried him away to the nearest river, all the while beating and ill-using him; their intention was to drown him, but before this could be accomplished he was rescued by some of those whose better feelings prevailed over their bigotry.

Many other persecutions followed those already mentioned; but the bitterest blow of all had yet to fall upon him. Eliezer was allowed his liberty, on the one condition, that he would enter the army as a volunteer; to this he consented only under pressure; but having consented he was set at liberty, not, however, until he had taken the oath enrolling him in the army, which he soon joined at headquarters, where for six months he was drilled and prepared for active service. This continued strain upon him, his enemies hoped would prove fatal to him, but in this they were disappointed. Day by day he gathered strength, and rendered himself so useful in the medical department, that it was determined he should study medicine and surgery, and prepare himself to hold the position of staff-surgeon. When he had obtained his diploma he was sent to join a regiment in Russian Poland, as one of the surgeons to the military hospital.

Prior to his reaching Poland, however, the painful incident to which we have alluded transpired.

On his way to Poland his regiment stayed in the town where resided his father-in-law, who received him with open arms and invited him to his house to spend his evenings.

Here he met his wife, who implored him with tears and sobs, to give up Christianity; but despite her entreaties he remained unyielding.

For four years Eliezer continued in the army, when at the expiration of that time his discharge was obtained.

Freed from the galling military yoke, he joined the ranks of the Church militant, here, on earth, and entered on a course of preparation for missionary work to which he purposed to devote himself as the work of his life, and for which he possessed those natural and spiritual qualifications which do not render special training and instruction unnecessary, but without which all human education is vain. He became a missionary of the Free Church of Scotland, and was appointed to labour in Roumania, where he still carries on his work.

G. H. S.

N.B.-The materials for this sketch have been derived chiefly from a memoir of the subject by Charlotte Elizabeth Stern, with introduction by Rev. Prebendary Churton. London: S. W. Partridge, 1877. An autobiography was published last year by Eliezer, 'The Modern Hebrew and the Hebrew Christian.' London: Nisbet.

On Solway Sands; or, the Wigtown Martyrs.

N the month of May, 1685, Margaret McLauchlan, an aged widow, and Margaret Wilson, a girl of eighteen, were fastened by Grierson of Lag and

other persecutors to stakes driven into the sands of the Solway, within tide-mark near the mouth of the Bladnock, and there left to drown amid the rising waters. The aged woman was the first to perish, she being fastened farthest out in the sea. As the tide rose and death drew near, the young girl sang a part of the 25th Psalm, and when tempted alike by loving friends and by her cruel persecutors, she replied as the ballad narrates, her last words being, "I am one of Christ's bairns; let me go."

"Upon which," writes Wodrow, "she was thrust down again into the water, where she finished her course with joy."

N Solway sands the tide flows fast,
The waters swiftly rise;

Alas! for him when lingering there

The rushing waves surprise.

Full quickly must he hurry hence,

Full swiftly must he ride,

Who tempts his fate on Solway shore,
And races with the tide.

Past Wigtown borough to the sea
The Bladnoch river goes;

With many a pool and shifting shoal
Across the sand it flows.

Ah! Bladnoch stream and Wigtown bay
Have sights of sorrow seen,

When ships were stranded on the shore,
And boats have shipwrecked been.

There many a time has woman wept,
And wrung in grief her hands,

When loved ones longed for have been found
Dead on the Solway sands.

But sight so strange was never seen

As when those martyrs died,

Who gave their life on Wigtown shore,
And perished in the tide.

Two hundred years ago 'tis now,

'Twas in the month of May,
The level sands were dry, the tide
Was out in Wigtown bay.

'Twas then the brother of fierce Graham

Of Claverhouse rode down,

With Windram, Strachan, and Coltron,

The provost of the town.

And cruel Grierson of Lag,

The persecutor, came

To do that day by Bladnoch's bank

A deed of sin and shame.

At ebb of tide, two stakes of wood
Were driv'n into the sand,

And fastened there two prisoners were
At Grierson's command.

An aged widow one of them,
And one a maiden young;
And thus amid the rising waves
The virgin martyr sung:

"To thee I lift my soul, O Lord;
My God I trust in thee.

Let me not be ashamed, let not
My foes triumph o'er me."

The aged widow was the first

Drowned by the rising tide.

"What think you of her now?" in scorn The persecutors cried.

"What think I of her? In that saint Whose soul is on the wing,

I see but this," the maid replied,
"My Saviour suffering."

Still ever deeper flowed the tide,
The billows higher rose,

As there that young defenceless girl
Was tempted by her foes

To buy her life by breach of faith
To Him who was her Lord.

O she was young, and life is sweet,
And it was but a word.

Yet was temptation vain. She chose
For Christ to suffer wrong,

And still amid the rush of waves
The men could hear her song:

"Let not the errors of my youth,
Nor sins remembered be;
In mercy, for Thy goodness' sake,
O Lord remember me."

By this the waves rose to her lips,
The voice that sung was still;

They raised her head, "Pray for the King." "God save him if He will,"