engaged to free the uncle by obtaining a mortgage on his property and so purchasing his release. But a declaration of the King had appeared, forbidding Protestants to borrow money. The uncle truly had abjured, but his after repentance made that null and void. Then his nephew sought advice as to how the matter could be effected. He would have sold his own property for his uncle's sake, as he was now of age some time back. But on inquiring of a notary he found that an edict also forbade any Protestant to sell his own property without permission of the royal inspector and then only after many very difficult formalities. Ambrose then conceived the noble resolution of giving away the property entirely to his uncle, but he found that by edict no Protestant could give away even what was his own. These edicts were passed in order to render the flight of Protestants from the kingdom more difficult. At length. this noble nephew found means under pretence of debts he had to pay (though he had none save debts of love) to sell his property for an unworthy price in order to set his uncle free from the galleys. He set off himself to Marseilles to fetch him home, and was enabled to effect his liberation.

On the journey home they saw many scenes of shameful violence and persecution, one of which fixed itself deeply on their memory. They beheld a great riot of people around a bier on which lay a dead body attended by the officer of justice. The people surrounded the bier and pelted the corpse with stones and mud, while they shouted, "Hang them— the Huguenots deserve it-hang them all on the gallows." It was the body of a Protestant who in the dying hour had refused to receive the last offices of the Catholic Church, and who by royal edict was therefore refused an honourable burial. With difficulty they escaped into a house whose door stood open, lest they should be recognized and persecuted as Huguenots.

There too soon a new and worse sorrow occurred. One evening Ambrose came home and found his mother still out. His heart was full of woe and. unrest. Not till midnight did she return, supported by a friend. She could. scarcely crawl along; her person was covered with bleeding wounds, and she fell swooning into her son's arms. When she a little recovered, she told him. what had happened. She had long yearned to hold a meeting with some who held the same faith, for worship and religious comfort. Such a meeting was arranged in a neighbouring wood, where the Protestants occasionally had. met in seclusion. The mother had secretly gone there. The assembly was. betrayed, soldiers surrounded the wood, and pressing to the part where the gathering took place, discharged their weapons into the defenceless group. Borely's mother was wounded, and one wound in the side was mortal.

In haste a doctor was fetched, who at once announced the fatal nature of the hurt, and then he urged the dying mother and the sorrowing son before all things to send for the priest, in order to give the last sacrament. He spoke of the King's edict of a penalty of 300 livres against the doctor if he failed to give such a warning. In vain did Borely implore delay, the doctor hurried away himself to fetch the priest. Now came the fearful choice between two evils, to allow the dying mother to be forced to receive the

sacrament, or to leave her corpse to a destiny like that which shortly before he had seen pelted by the crowd to a dishonoured grave. Neither one nor the other could filial love endure. Borely resolved on a deed of courage which despair and self-sacrificing love suggested. He covered the dying body

as well as he could, and bore it out of the house. But he could not carry it more than a short distance to the door of a friend's house which had often been open to him in necessity. Alas! this door was now closed against him by the iron bolt of a royal edict. The friend made a thousand excuses, and assured him of all sympathy; but 500 livres was the penalty for whoever, under the plea of humanity, received a Huguenot under his roof.

The son took up again his precious burden, and managed to bear it to a street corner, where, under a straw shed they found refuge, and there the poor mother, after giving her last blessing to the darling of her heart, soon expired.

Borely was now alone in the world-an orphan-deserted of all friends and surrounded by foes and spies. So soon as he had himself dug a grave in the dead of night, where the dear body should be safe from all persecution, he resolved to leave his fatherland for ever. Yet his relatives who had been confined in convents lay on his heart. He first visited them, and vainly sought to urge them to join his flight. Then he resolved to fly alone to Switzerland, and from thence to Holland, where he had relations. It was at the close of the year 1698 that he came to this resolve. Just then a fresh royal edict appeared, "ordering all parents to have their children baptized in the Catholic church within twenty-four hours of their birth," under heavy penalty. This edict occasioned a fresh migration, so that Borely found plenty of fellow exiles. He joined a party of twelve, who only journeyed by night, to avoid not only the suspicion of the police, but also of all the Catholic people, who aided the police. On this journey they had opportunity to see the miserable condition of the kingdom, and the shady side of the much-lauded age of Louis XIV. Borely said :-"While Louis the Great in Paris admired Moliere's comedies and Quinault's touching dramas, with their flattering prologues, the smaller folk in his provincial towns lived daily tragedies in their reality. To-day they beheld a long chain of galley slaves who received the insults of the populace; to-morrow the public flogging of Huguenot men and women; next day, again, the execution of five or six victims ;-such were the ordinary occurrences witnessed by travellers in France during that wretched time."

Ambrose and his comrades slowly pressed through along their dismal way, often stilling hunger with the roots and vegetables in the woods, till they arrived at the bank of the Rhone opposite Lyons. They offered a boatman money to ferry them across. But the unhappy people were observed by the inhabitants of a village near. The storm bells rung out, and a crowd of armed peasants rushed to seize on them as they set foot on shore. Ambrose and his company bravely defended themselves, and put these peasants to flight. They were, however, soon observed and taken by the police on the border of Dauphigny.

The whole party was now joined to a body of thieves and sent away to

the galleys. In the same company were men of rank-nobles, scholars, venerable old men-all enduring the same rough treatment. They had coarse, poor food, and so much the more blows if they sank from fatigue, and from the weight of the iron fetters on their necks. They marched on to Valence, where news came that the galleys were already full, so they were ordered into a prison of the district. Ambrose and two of these sufferers were thrust into a dungeon. Their chains were never taken off, and prevented them from sleeping. In the night they heard tones of wailing and woe from their fellow prisoners. But also soon again this would be changed for the pious chant of holy psalms which in various directions of the prison came as love tokens from those of their own faith, with which they joined heartily in spite of their heavy distress. Yet, soon were these songs interrupted by terrible shrieks of female voices in another part of the prison. On the next morning Ambrose did not escape a smart corporal punishment because he had joined in singing the psalms. Some of these galley punish

ments were so severe as often to be fatal in their effects. The captives were presently marched on towards Marseilles. Then Ambrose found that he and his companions by special favour were not to be sent to the galleys, but to be shipped off to America. A shameful attempt of the captain during some arrangement of the ship to get rid of his prisoners by a watery grave in reality gave Ambrose his life and freedom. He and a prisoner from Rochelle had clung to a board to save themselves, and were ready to perish when they were picked up by an English vessel on her way to Gibraltar. These Protestants heartily welcomed them, and listened with pity to their adventures, so that they returned in the sequel with their deliverers to London, where Borely entered into a French merchant's house, and soon obtained considerable wealth.

It need only be told how Ambrose once returned to his fatherland in the time of the revolutionary illumination of Voltaire's friends, but found his condition there as a Protestant no better for the change. The old law of intolerance still reached him as before, notwithstanding this much-lauded liberty had the upper hand. He had married, but not according to Catholic rites. Protestant marriages were still regarded as illegitimate. His wife died in her confinement. Her son was denied his just inheritance, and the deceived "Cévenol" again returned disappointed through his lost lawsuit to his new Protestant fatherland, in England, where he lived free, prosperous, and happy to a good old age.

Borely's narrative bears the aspect of a personal experience, and there is no doubt that in substance it is the real history of a true sufferer. Undoubtedly its facts were the trials and sorrows, in other forms, of thousands at that time, and they give a lively idea of what multitudes bore bravely for Protestantism, and for the true faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.

ANDREW REED.

LOVE.-When we are fullest of heavenly love we are best fitted to bear with human infirmity, to live above it and forget its burden.

TRUST AND OBEY.-God makes no promise to those who hold back. But He gives strength to the obedient, and light to those who determine to trust Him.

Dr. Norman Macleod.*

DR. MACLEOD was a Highland genius, and having inherited a geniality and exemplified a piety, which do not always accompany brilliant talents, he has left behind him many fragrant memories. His parents were born and reared among those romantic clannish associations which are still fondly remembered, but which have now entirely passed away. The house of Mr. Maxwell, chamberlain to the Duke of Argyll, and father of Agnes, Norman's mother, stood on the island of Mull. Opposite to this, on the Argyllshire coast, was "the manse of Mr. Macleod, minister of Morven," this being that "Highland parish" whose beauties and quiet life were, long years after, sketched in the "Reminiscences." Norman's father was one of a family of sixteen, and the passing glimpse we get of everyday life in the Morven manse is a delightful picture of old Scottish manners and customs :

"Never was a simpler or more loving household. The minister delighted to make all around him happy. His piety was earnest, healthful, and genial. If the boys had their classics, and the girls their needlework, there was no grudging of their enjoyments. The open seas and hills, boats and dogs, shepherds and fishermen ; the grim height of Fingal's Hill; the waterfall roaring in the dark gorge, had lessons as full of meaning for their after-life as any that books could impart. The country was closely inhabited by an intensely Highland people. The hills and retired glens, where now are spectral gables of roofless houses or green mounds concealing old homesteads, watched by some ancient tree standing like a solitary mourner for the dead, were then tenanted by a happy and romantic peasantry. There were many men then alive in Morven who had been out with 'bonny Prince Charlie.' Among such influences as these Norman's father grew up, and became thoroughly imbued with their spirit. Full of geniality, of wit, and poetry-fired with a passionate love of his country-wielding her ancient language with rare freshness and eloquence-he carried into that sacred ministry to which his life was devoted a broad and healthy human sympathy, and to his latest day seemed to breathe the air imbibed in his faith on the hills of Morven."

When in the natural course of events Norman's father and Agnes Maxwel became man and wife, their household regimé was similar to that which had found favour with the old people. "They were both so real and human," their son himself wrote; "no cranks, twists, crotchets, issues, or systems of any kind, but loving, sympathising-giving a genuine blowing-up when it was needed, but passing by trifles, failures, infirmities without making a fuss. The liberty they gave was as wise as the restraints they imposed. Their home was happy-intensely happy. Christianity was a thing taken for granted, not forced with scowl and frown. I never heard my father speak of Calvinism, Arminianism, Presbyterianism, or Episcopacy, or exaggerate doctrinal differences, in my life. I had to study all these questions after I left home." If the good old pastor's discipline was a wise one, we fail to perceive its wisdom. We deny that any man is a gainer in after life by not receiving in youth some definite instruction concerning Christian doctrine

'Memoir of Norman Macleod, D.D." By his Brother, the Rev. Donald Macleod, B.A. Daldy, Isbister, and Co. 1876.

66

and ecclesiastical polity. An unscriptural indifference to doctrines in general may indeed become a crotchet," while the bigotry of far-gone unsectarianism may be a "twist." As a religious teacher Norman's father was of the broad evangelical type, and as such preached to a large congregation at Campbeltown, where his son was born June 3, 1812.

Campbeltown was an old Scottish settlement, the quaint society of which was the society of a bygone age-a town wherein smugglers and revenue cutters may have been able to shake hands without any breach of etiquette. All denominations, down to the very Romanist priest, loved the Macleods, and were welcome at the manse, where the leading difficulties of life were represented by a scanty stipend and sixteen children. Norman was sent for a time to Morven to learn Gaelic, and in 1825 the family removed to Campsie, Stirlingshire, the lowland surroundings of which strikingly contrasted with those of the former parish. During his college days at Glasgow and Edinburgh Norman was never a systematic student, so that in subsequent years he made no pretensions to accurate classical scholarship. Yet he was a close reader, fond of argument; but while pure in life, his overflow of humour and animal spirits drew forth some plain-spoken parental reproofs:"I rejoice to see your companions, if you would conduct yourself with calmness and seriousness on the Sabbath day," wrote his father in 1829, "and cease your buffoonery of manner in tone of voice and distortion of countenance, which are not only offensive, but grievous. You carry this nonsense by much too far. Imitation and acting a fool is a poor field to shine in." At Edinburgh Norman won the esteem of Dr. Chalmers, and through the Doctor's recommendation obtained a tutorship in the household of Mr. Henry Preston, High Sheriff of Yorkshire. The greatest trial experienced by the young scholar during those early years was the death of his brother James, and from this date his religious impressions were deeper and more earnest.

Mr. Macleod spent some time with his pupil, young Mr. Preston, in the little capital of Saxe-Weimer, and his surroundings there were anything but favourable for a young man who was looking forward to a ministerial life. What religion there was was made up of far-gone Rationalism, and the daily life of the place, so far as the elite were concerned, consisted in a round of gaieties, Sunday being the chief day for receptions and dinners. Yet the young Highlander passed through the ordeal apparently unscathed, and returned to Glasgow with at least an enlarged view of men and

manners.

His first settlement in the ministry was at Loudoun, whose "bonny woods and braes," we are told, "stretch in picturesque variety for about six miles along the banks of the Irvine Water." In a worldly sense, a young minister seldom enters on a less desirable sphere; or, in other respects, one that afforded less promise of evangelistic and pastoral success :

"The population numbered upwards of four thousand, of whom a small proportion were farmers and farm-workers, and the rest hand-loom weavers, residing in the large villages of Newmilns and Darvel. Both farmers and weavers were of a most interesting type. Not a few of the former were Covenanters, and some were on lands which had been tenanted by their families since the twelfth century. The