SURPRISE. OLD HUMPHREY ON BEING TAKEN BY | ground with a brook at the bottom, and a tangled hedge and ditch, gorgeous with plants and wild flowers, where you may at once enjoy separately, severally, collectively, and generally, bees and brambles, knolls, moss and heath flowers, furze bushes and broom in all their glory, butterflies and blue skies, blackberries and sunshine, thistles and shaggy donkeys, warbling birds, balmy breezes, and grateful scents. Had I one of his epistles at hand, long enough for a paper, it might serve me in good stead; but this not being the case, and being left completely to my own resources, I will see what I can say on being taken by surprise. Nor five minutes have passed since the double rap of the postman rang in my ears. The man of many messages has brought, among other communications, a request for a paper "forthwith from Old Humphrey, for the number of the Visitor already in the hands of the printer." Now it happens, although I have a score or two of papers on different heads partly written, that not one among them is on a subject which suits my present mood of mind, so that the request altogether takes me by surprise. It would be idle, in two senses, to spend a moment in useless regrets. To the printer the Magazine is gone, and to the Magazine a paper from Old Humphrey must go also; so that, you see, the subject chosen by me, being taken by surprise," is a most appropriate one. 66 on Reason have I to cry out for Speed with his flying finger, Wit with his ready tongue, Fancy with her creative power, and Wisdom with his learned stores ;and if I had any expectation of their obeying my call, with a voice like that of a town-crier would I summon them to my assistance. As it is, I must proceed without such an invocation. How natural it is, when we are in need, to look around us for help. Had I a good friend at my elbow who is now among the buttercups, seeking that health which I hope he will abundantly find, my difficulty would vanish, for he would soon touch some chord that would make my pulse throb, and set me scribbling away in right earnest. Some absorbing subject, some pithy sentence, compressing much meaning in little space, or some striking lesson, not hitherto sufficiently estimated, would be set before me, to excite my fancy, quicken my sluggish faculties, and animate my heart. How subtle are the viewless links that bind, I have a talented friend, whose epistolary communications are at times such a delightful confusion of sudden thoughts, happy phrases, humorous suggestions, classic allusions, Scripture texts, rushes of feeling, proud imaginings, child-like simplicity, and various other disjointed qualities and qualifications, that reading them is like roaming, not in a garden where the beds are laid out with monotonous regularity, but in a patch of broken The first thought that strikes me is this. There will come a time when the Visitor will be published without containing a paper from Old Humphrey. For years that useful publication has made room for my lucubrations; yet will it, in all probability, some day go forth on its Christian errand without my homely name appearing in its pages. This prosy, prating pen of mine, And this warm heart and active hand The weighty consideration that this involves should not be lost sight of by me. It should induce me, first, to resolve that, while mercifully permitted to use my pen, no idle and worthless expression shall fall from it; and secondly, to take care that when called upon to lay it down, I may not be taken by surprise. A week or two ago I was listening to Dr. Wolff, who went to Bokhara to rescue, if possible, from captivity and a cruel death two British officers. Honour be his on earth, and happiness in heaven, who jeopardises his life, whether successful or not, in an errand of humanity! I was listening to the Doctor's vivid description of Aleppo. There were the people, gay and light-hearted, dressed in all the bravery of their many-coloured flowing robes, sitting and walking, and exulting and singing on the tops of their flat-roofed houses; when suddenly the earthquake came upon them, changing their laughter into mourning, and their joyous songs into bitter lamentations. Multitudes were overwhelmed with sudden destruction; alive they went down into the pit, or were crushed by the falling ruins. Try for a moment to realize this fearful scene! The people of Aleppo were, indeed, taken by surprise! Y This subject of being taken by surprise seems, as a coming tempest, to grow while I gaze upon it. Look at London as it was some two centuries ago, in health, peace, and prosperity. The south side of Cheapside, between Bread-street and Fridaystreet, then called Goldsmiths'-row, glittered bright with the precious metals; so that if the street was not paved with gold, the shops blazed with its abundance. A range of proud palaces then occupied the south of the Strand, connecting the city with Westminster; and those goodly mansions bore the names of the high and mighty nobles who inhabited them Norfolk, Essex, and Arundel, Exeter, Worcester, and Salisbury, Howard, Hungerford, York, and Northumberland. London was healthy, and wealthy, and proud; but her health was to be abated, her wealth to be diminished, and her pride to be humbled. The plague came upon her, leaping over her gates, entering the portals of her palaces, and the doors and windows of her habitations; so that the dead became too numerous to receive the rites of sepulture. Men went about with carts, ringing a bell, and crying out dolefully, "Bring out your dead." Large pits were dug in the suburbs of the city as promiscuous graves. Grass grew in the very Royal Exchange, and Whitechapel was as a green field. In six months a hundred and sixty thousand human beings were swept away by the pestilence. Well may we say that the people were taken by surprise! "Mute was the voice of joy, The sweet engagement of the feeling heart. What a sudden affair was the great fire of London! It broke out at midnight, coming at once on the prayerful and prayerless, the godly and godless, putting them to sudden flight, and devouring their habitations. On came the roaring flame-house after house, church after church, and street after street, falling before it. It was as though the day of judgment had arrived, and angels of destruction were commissioned to wrap the doomed city in remediless ruin; clouds of smoke, sheets of fire, and rushing flames prevailed on every hand. London bowed down before the all-devouring fire, as before an idol. The effigied kings at the Royal Exchange broke their sceptres, and leaped from their pedestals, prostrating themselves in the dust; and towers and spires humbled themselves to the ground. The rich were suddenly made poor; the poor were deprived of their all. The householder became houseless, and hundreds leaped from their feather beds, to sleep, if sleep they could, on the bare ground. Confusion was abroad; and fear and horror, and cries and shrieks, and loud lamentations, added to the general consternation. Churches by scores, streets by hundreds, and houses by thousands and thousands, were consumed by the fiery scourge, that went about like a raging demon, seeking what it might devour. London was asleep, but it was awakened!—it was tranquil, but it was agitated with terror!-it feared no evil, but it was taken by surprise! To You have read, no doubt, of the frightful accident which took place so recently at Yarmouth. A clown from a company of equestrians undertook to proceed up the river Bure, a certain distance, in a washing tub, drawn by four geese, elegantly harnessed and caparisoned. get a peep at this trumpery spectacle, many of the people of Yarmouth rushed to the suspension-bridge, which, not being able to sustain the unusual weight pressing unequally upon it, gave way. The suspending chains snapped, one after another, and crash came down the bridge into the water, where nearly a hundred human beings, most of them in the bloom of childhood and youth, found an instantaneous death. The suddenness, as well as the destructive havoc, of the dreadful calamity smote the heart of every spectator with horror. Fear stood still with blanched cheek! Amazement held up her hands! Terror shrieked aloud! and Rumour, with her hundred tongues, hasted abroad to magnify the catastrophe, and multiply the number of the victims it had destroyed. This was indeed to be taken by surprise! To pass, as it were, in a moment from pleasure to pain, from ease to agony, from life to death, from time to eternity! The consideration of these greater calamities may be made useful, by leading us to reflect on our own individual perils. Every hour, ay, every moment, we are surrounded with danger; temptation may creep upon us, and calamity may leap upon us. Sin may waylay us in our path when abroad, and sorrow may, unknown to us, be awaiting our homeward return. How know we but sickness or death may be at the door? Surely, then, we should be prayerful and watchful. A worthy friend of mine, a Christian minister, writes me these beautiful and appropriate expressions in contemplating his retiring from the field of his ĺabours : "How I long, or, as poets write, 'sigh' for the quietude of the country! There should be an interval, some time, between fighting and dying!-a time of pause, of review, of revision, which is more than review, of prayer, and of holy aspiration! Well, there remaineth a rest to the people of God.' Now, this interval, this pause for review, revision, prayer, and holy aspiration is very desirable for us all; and well is it for us, if our hearts yearn for it; but well it will be, also, to remember that we cannot calculate upon it. No, no! To-morrow may not be ours. 'To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts!' Need have we, among many prayers, to put up one to the Father of mercies that neither sin nor sorrow, sickness nor death, may take us by surprise." But while this prayer is zealously preferred, we should be the willing agents, in Holy hands, for its fulfilment, by fostering in our hearts a higher estimate of eternal things, and a stronger confidence in our heavenly Father. If we would not be taken by surprise, we must not be found slumbering at our post. To sleep at his post is to a soldier a very serious thing, as will be seen by the following words in the articles of war:-"Any officer or soldier who shall be found sleeping on his post, or shall leave it before regularly relieved, shall, if an officer, suffer death, or such other punishment as by a general court-martial shall be awarded; and, if a soldier, shall suffer death, transportation, or such other punishment as by a general court-martial shall be awarded.' A Christian soldier, whose weapons are love, and whose banner is that of the cross, may profit by this quotation, and resolve, in the strength of the Captain of his salvation, whatever may be his duties and his hardships, never to give way to lethargy-never to be taken by surprise. I hardly need ask you, reader, if you are ever taken by surprise? because in one case or other-in great things or in little things-this must of necessity be the case; but depend upon it, that to you, and to me also, an humble, watchful, prayerful, grateful, and trustful spirit will ever be the best protection against unlooked-for occurrences, unexpected calamities, and sudden surprises. We are all liable to lose, in a moment, our earthly possessions; but the loss of property, health, and life, may well be borne by him who has laid up treasure in heaven, and who looks forward to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus have I done my best, on the spur of the moment, to fling together a few suggestions, likely, I hope, to prove profitable; and if you, on your part, will promise to endeavour to turn them to account, I, on mine, will undertake never again, if I can possibly avoid it, when a paper is requested from me for the pages of the Visitor, to be taken by surprise. THE SAVIOUR. THE Rev. Watts Wilkinson says, in a letter to a friend,On what topic shall I enter? What topic more pleasing to a Christian than "Jesus Christ and him crucified?" St. Paul, in the course of his acquaintance with the Corinthians, determined to know this among them, and nothing else save this. They who are most of the same mind, most resemble this great apostle. Jesus is a name, I know, that is precious unto you, because, as I firmly believe, God has favoured you with a sense of sin all who know what sin really is, feel their need of a Redeemer. The blessed name, Jesus, means a Saviour; as such, he must be precious unto you. I have another reason: I hope you are one of those who have fled for refuge unto him, and am sure that unto those who believe in him he is precious, with emphasis-precious, infinitely so, beyond the utmost possible expression. I think I hear you question whether you really love him? You must excuse me if I differ from you-if I determine not to credit your suspicions, until warranted by your conduct, which I hope and trust I never shall be. Does not your heart recoil at the very thought, and say secretly, God forbid you ever should? This is an evidence that you do love him. You are so condescend ing as frequently to solicit my advice. I hope I am not arrogant; I know you will not think me so, if I give it—it is, Live on Christ for all you want. It is here, I think, you fail: your uncomfortable frames, I apprehend, proceed from a secret wish unmortified, to find something in yourself to admire, if not in a measure to confide in. If you were but more dead to the world, more frequent and fervent in prayer, you think you should feel greater confidence; whereas you will never enjoy solid and permanent comfort until you come simply to Christ as a guilty sinner, and live upon him as a helpless sinner. You must come to him, not only for pardon and justification, but for grace to die unto the world, and to be conformed unto his will. And remem ber, your sanctification is not the ground of your acceptance, but the evidence: you are not accepted in Christ because you are holy, but you must become so, in some measure, because you are his. guilty, thou art righteous; I am a sinner, thou a Saviour; I am weak, thou art strong; I am nothing, thou art all-sufficient! Oh, save me from the guilt and power of sin!" Here I am constrained to live every day. I can find no comfort, nor have I any hope, but as I lie still at his feet, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" If he is pleased to smile in the dark hour of death, how light will it be! If not, here I still must lie, for I have no other hope. EXPOSURE OF ROMISH MISREPRESENT- 14. THE name of the duke of Alva is connected with bloodthirsty vengeance and cruelty of the most appalling chathe war in the Low Countries, he had racter. The wretch boasted, that during delivered 18,000 persons to the executhe field of battle. Wherever he went, tioner, besides those who had perished in tion followed his steps. But he was a good terror marched before him, and desolaPapist, and the victims of his barbarity were godless heretics. This redeems him Lingard can sketch the history of the revofrom censure, in the eyes of some. Dr. So long as you strive in your own strength to do what is right, or look to your own attainments for consolation, you must be uncomfortable. Your own strength will prove weakness, ever disappointing your expectations, and your own attainments, too small at the greatest. You must de-lution in the Low Countries, without once sire to consecrate yourself to the glory of adverting to the abominations which have such a compassionate Redeemer; but consigned their author to infamy; and you cannot do this without his grace. and execrate "the sanguinary vengeance Dr. Milner, while he affects to condemn Live by faith upon him for it, and you of the Spanish governor," seeks to exshall find that grace sufficient for you, and shall know, by happy experience, tenuate his guilt by referring to the that his strength is made perfect in your the "seditious" Protestants; labours to "provocations " he had received from weakness; and so be brought, in a degree, to adopt the language of the great make it appear that his violences were apostle, "Most gladly therefore will I reprisals for deeds of a similar kind; and rather glory in my infirmities, that the quotes a "celebrated biographer," who power of Christ may rest upon me; for says that Vandermerk, one of the genewhen I am weak then am I strong;" and rals in the service of the prince of Orange, so go on your way rejoicing. Remember those texts, think of them, pray_over them—John i. 16; Habak. ii. 4; Rom. i. 17; Gal. iii. 11; Heb. x. 38; and St. Paul's description of his own experience in the latter part of his second chapter to the Galatians. Other Christians experience as great perplexities as yourself: how do they gain the victory, and obtain courage to proceed? If I may be so bold as to answer for one-and few know much more of discouragements than I do-I am happy only so long as I lie prostrate at the feet of Jesus, and by faith contemplate him hanging on the cross; while this is my language, "Lord, I am 66 'slaughtered more unoffending Catholic priests and peasants in the year 1572, than Alva executed Protestants during The intent of his whole government."* this falsehood is to persuade us that Alva was a slandered man, and that Protestantism is more barbarous than Popery. No These are positions too monstrous to require exposure and refutation. well-informed person has any doubt on the subject, nor would it have been introduced in this place but for the pertinacity with which such statements are still brought before the public. Let it be understood, then, that the insurrection in Tracts of the Catholic Institute, No. 13, p. 5. principles. Whether adopted by Papists or Protestants, it is an impious thingthe first-born of hell. 15. Romanists are justly charged with intolerance, in treating all persons as heretics who differ from themselves, and invoking the aid of the civil power, whenever practicable, to put down alleged heresy. But "we know of no such doctrine, "observes a writer in the Dublin the Low Countries, which were at that time in the possession of Spain, was caused by the tyranny and extortion of the government, by which the unhappy people had been for years most grievously oppressed. They did not resist till they were stung to madness by their wrongs. The rising was not an exclusively Protestant movement, though the deliverance of the Protestants from persecution was one of its objects. All classes and Review; 66 we repudiate it as a calumny persuasions united in resolving to shake of the most malignant description." Dr. off the Spanish yoke, and after many a Kelly, then titular archbishop of Armagh, hard struggle succeeded in the attempt. gravely asserted before a committee of It is not to be denied that, on some occa- the House of Commons, that "in order sions, the victorious soldiery copied the to constitute a heretic, contumacy in example of their popish predecessors, and error concerning matters of faith is necesmassacred unoffending persons. But that sary. By contumacy," he added, "I such actions were approved by the leaders mean a refusal on the part of an indiof the enterprise is notoriously false. As vidual to embrace doctrines necessary to soon as the prince of Orange was inform- salvation, after having had a sufficient ed of the excesses of Vandermerk, he opportunity of being convinced of their ordered him to be dismissed from the truth." And "how are we to know," it is service, nor could he ever appear again asked, "who is, or who is not, contuin the country which he had polluted macious? Who of us has the power to with his deeds. His agent, a man who dive into the heart of his fellow-man, to seems to have taken pleasure in works of read his thoughts, to discover whether, blood, was delivered up to the vengeance if we sought and found what we believe of the law, and publicly executed. to be the truth, he would obstinately reject it? Without this power, which belongs to God alone, no man who is not rendered vicious by an extraordinary degree of presumption, can venture to say of another, 'That man is a heretic.'"* All this sounds very charitable and kind. We have been mistaken, no doubt. The awful word "heretic was never meant to apply to us. True, we reject the novelties of Rome, and brand the whole system as anti-Christian. But "who has the power to dive into the heart of his fellow-man?" Brandt has some sensible remarks on this subject. He says:-"Four things are to be observed. (1.) The Protestants were not the aggressors. It is certain that the [Roman] Catholics began by treating the reformed in a most barbarous manner: they hanged them, beheaded them, drowned them, buried them alive, burned them. (2.) For one [Roman] Catholic put to death by Protestants, hundreds, or rather thousands of Protestants were slain by [Roman] Catholics. (3.) The cruelties exercised among the Protestants resulted from the brutality and fury of the soldiers; the magistrates and divines had nothing to do with them. Not so with the cruelties of the [Roman] Catholics: the magistrates and the clergy were the authors of those cruelties. (4.) The Protestant magistrates, so far from approving the violence of the soldiers, did all they could to repress it, and even punished with death several persons, simply for having killed [Roman] Catholics."* To this it may be added, that persecution is the cherished child of Popery; but whenever Protestants have availed themselves of the dark alliance, it has been in opposition to their avowed Histoire Abregée de la Reformation des Pais Bas, i. 211. It seems a pity to unmask this apparent charity. Yet we must not be deceived by fair words. Nor can we allow modern Papists to substitute their own individual opinions or interpretations for the published doctrines of their church. "A person is not to be called a heretic," say the compilers of the Cate chism of the Council of Trent, "so soon as he errs in matters of faith," well knowing that if this were done, many would bear the name who are still permitted to retain their communion: "then only is he to be so called, when, in defiance of the authority of the church, he maintains impious opinions with unyielding * Dublin Review, No. 2, p. 506. |