who, already making but feeble resistance, was now entirely beaten from the field ;" and the mighty invincible hero, who had so often won the fight by his living presence, now, by his very death, gains a last decisive victory for freedom and for truth.

Wallenstein was beaten, his prestige was gone, and soon after he fell by the dagger of the hired assassin. And although this colossal Thirty Years War, as it is called, rolled on in waves of battle and blood for sixteen years longer, yet from that hour, the scale of victory preponderated heavily on the side of the Protestant powers, till, at last, by the peace of Westphalia, in 1648, they obtained the final grant of their rights and liberties.

Surely such a conflict as this, which shook Europe for thirty bloody years, which involved all its various kingdoms and states, which reckoned among its actors so many names of immortal fame, which was marked by such unequalled fortitude, which rolled on to its glorious close through battles and sieges innumerable, which is called by Guizot the greatest of modern events in Eastern Europe, and which left an ineffaceable mark upon Christendom, almost obliterating the old feudal order of vassalage and slavery and ushering in the new and more rational order of modern society;-surely this great event, which saved the Reformation, and in its very nature seems like the first blast of a new trumpet, the dawning of the last era of the Gentile age, could not escape the glance of the prophet; and here we confidently apply the words of John: "AND THE SEVENTH ANGEL SOUNDED;

AND THERE FOLLOWED GREAT VOICES IN HEAVEN, AND THEY SAID, THE KINGDOM OF THE WORLD IS BECOME THE KINGDOM OF OUR Lord, AND OF HIS CHRIST: AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER and ever (a compendious announcement of the result to be finally accom

plished under this trumpet, but requiring some time). AND THE FOUR AND TWENTY ELDERS, WHICH SIT BEFORE GOD ON THEIR THRONES, FELL UPON THEIR FACES, AND WORSHIPPED GOD, SAYING, WE GIVE THEE THANKS, O LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHICH

ART AND WHICH WAST; BECAUSE THOU HAST TAKEN THY GREAT POWER, AND DIDST REIGN.

AND THE NATIONS WERE WROTH, AND THY WRATH CAME, AND THE TIME OF THE DEAD TO BE JUDGED, AND THE TIME TO GIVE THEIR REWARD TO THY SERVANTS THE PROPHETS, AND TO THE SAINTS, and TO THEM THAT FEAR THY NAME, THE SMALL AND THE GREAT (by giving triumph to the cause for which they toiled and suffered); AND TO DESTROY THEM THAT DESTROY THE EARTH (the papal hierarchy and all ungodly organizations).

AND THERE WAS OPENED THE TEMPLE OF GOD THAT IS IN HEAVEN; AND THERE WAS SEEN IN HIS TEMPLE THE ARK OF HIS COVENANT; AND THERE FOLLOWED LIGHTNINGS, AND VOICES, AND THUNDERS,

AND AN EARTHQUAKE, AND GREAT HAIL." A most fitting symbol of the mighty conflicts of the THIRTY YEARS WAR.

WHE

HEN the Christian era was but eight days old there was witnessed in the temple at Jerusalem a scene well worthy of the pencil of a Raphael. An old man with silver locks and wrinkled brow stands in the sacred enclosure, with a look upon his face of intense desire and lively expectation. He has come there this morning under a powerful divine impression, for he is a man of prophetic gifts. For many years he, in common with others of his class, has grieved over the low estate of the people of God. He has wept, he has fasted, he has prayed; an inexpressible longing to see the dawn of a brighter day has swallowed up every other feeling, and at length it has truly been made known to him by the Spirit that he shall be spared to see it. And now by the impulse of the same Spirit he has come to the temple, and is anxiously waiting to know what new light is to be given him.

Not long has he to wait. There is soon a rustle of footsteps at the entrance, and a man of robust frame and frank open countenance enters, followed by a woman, whose fair form and beautiful face fixes his gaze as she turns her eyes, beaming with maternal love and tenderness, upon the features of the babe which she holds