memory had begun to fail, she found this the surest way of making straight work of the papers. "Is this you, my bairns, come to wish your old aunty a good Hansel Monday, and tell her all your news? Mary, my little woman, give Annie a cry; she'll be up in the store-room looking after the bun." But it was not necessary to hurry Annie, for she had heard the well-known little tongues in the parlour, and, "Is that the little Seatons?" in her kindly voice, was answered by their running to meet her as she came down the stair, with a beaming face, and a plate well heaped with short-bread and with bun. Annie, the unmarried daughter of Mrs Stewart, was past the age of beauty, if she ever had possessed it; but there was a charm about the whole of the Stewart family far beyond that of beauty, although some of them had been eminent for loveliness, their minds seemed never to grow old. There was within a springing well of warmth and kindliness, of cheerful thoughts and lively fun, which all the cares of this weary world had never checked. They had met with many trials, yet still they saw the bright side of every thing, and their lives seemed but a continual song of thankfulness to God. The children now being seated, the great-coats unbuckled, the cold shoes taken off, and the little feet rubbed into a glow, a drop of Aunty's cordial and a piece of bun was duly administered to each. Then came the display of all the wonderful things which had been bought-the large Hansels which they had got; and how the little tongues did go about all that had been felt, seen, and done since the morning! Oh, what a pity that Hansel Monday should ever end! But Beaty Lawson reminded them that it was getting late, and they had still to visit It was cousin Stewart in his room. not to every one that this gentleman chose to shew himself, and few besides the little Seatons dared to intrude on his Sanctum Sanctorum; but they were always sure of a kind reception. How, with his kindly feelings and lively delight in every thing which looked young and happy, Mr Stewart had remained a bachelor, was like many other wonders, never rightly understood. But there he sat surrounded by his books, the picture of content. His pen seemed never idle, yet what he wrote, or where it went, or if the world was ever the wiser for it, no one ever knew; but at all events he was the busiest and the happiest of men. Himself, his room, and all about him, was the picture of comfort, order, and scrupulous tidyness. He had been a very handsome man, and when dress was more the distinguishing characteristic of a gentleman than it now is, his had still been conspicuous. Regularly as nine o'clock struck was Mr Stewart to be seen under the hands of an ancient barber, who had shaved, powdered, and tied his cue for more than thirty years, discussing at the same time the politics of the day, mourning over the degeneracy of the times, and quitting his master with the daily renewed feeling, that it would be well for the country in general, and his pocket in particular, if there were many such gentlemen of the good old school. The entrance of the little cousins was preceded by a gentle tap from Mary, who, being the decided favourite, was the first to peer in her little head. "Come in, my little FairyGod bless the little creature-it is Queen Mab herself. And where got ye that gown sae gay, I got it in the Fairies' land, Where you have never been.' And where are my little men, Jemmy and Willie?-Will your purses hold another half-crown, boys? God bless their comely faces! Annie, have you given them plenty of short-bread? and Beaty, did you get a glass of wine? Remember, • Christmas comes but once a-year, But once a-year, but once a-year; Christmas comes but once a-year, And therefore we'll be merry.' So sung the old gentleman in the glee of his heart, rubbing his hands in pure "And now, my little Fairy, delight. you must give cousin Stewart his song. The little maid needed no second bidding, for she had sat and sung on cousin Stewart's knee as long as she could remember, and still her song had been, "O gin my love were yon red rose, Into her bonny breast I'd fa'." He had heard her mother sing it when she was somewhat older than Mary; and, perhaps, that might account for the tears that dimmed the good man's eyes when he kissed the child, and said she was the image of her mother. But Beaty must now collect her flock and carry them off; for there was yet one visit to be paid, which her benevolent heart could not omit. It was a visit to the house of mourning. In one of those narrow closes which abound in the old part of the town of Edinburgh, lived a poor widow of the name of Gray. This day of happiness to many, rose to her the anniversary of lasting sorrow. But it had not al ways been thus: No,- -one year ago and not the youngest heart on Hansel Monday had looked for fuller happiness than that of widow Gray. On that day twenty-two years before, she had been made the blessed mother of a thriving boy. He was her only child, -long wished for, and granted when He seemed to hope was almost dead. bring a blessing with him, for every thing had thriven with Agnes Gray since George's birth. Hansel Monday had been to her the happiest day of her life, it was the birth-day of her child; and though she had since mourned over the grave of a kind husband, yet, when the day came round, the heart of Agnes still renewed her hymn of gratitude to God. That day twelve months past had been the day which the mother had fixed upon for the wedding of her son. "It was the happiest day of my life, George," said she, "and I would have it the happiest day of yours; and if God spare me to see your Peggy as blest a mother as I have been, then may I say, 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace."" Thus, with his mother's blessing warm at his heart, and happiness brightening every feature, did the youthful bridegroom quit his parent's roof. He was to return in the evening with his bride, who was henceforward to be the inmate of his mother's dwelling. The widow had no fears or misgivings as to the worth or excellency of George's wife; for she had known and loved her from a child; and the first wish of her heart had been, that George should marry pretty Peggy Burns. The daylight had long passed away, and more than once had widow Gray trimmed the fire, and looked with pride and pleasure at the well-furnished room which was to be the abode of her new daughter. The hours pass ed by, and still they did not come; The mother asked not a question, but the facts were soon made known by those around her. Her son had arrived within a few paces of his father-in-law's door, when his attention was attracted to the opposite side of the street, by the screams of a young girl, apparently struggling to disengage herself from the rude attack of two young men. He stopt for a moment, but persuading himself they were only claiming the privilege of Hansel Monday, to obtain a kiss from a pretty girl, he prepared to hurry on to his own appointment. A second appeal for help, however, in a voice of unequivocal terror and supplication, rendered him ashamed of his momentary selfishness, and thinking of his own Peggy, he flew to the as sistance of the poor girl. Forcibly seizing the arm of the most troublesome of the two ruffians, he enabled the girl to make her escape; but at that moment, the other young man turning upon George, threw him head foremost with all his force against the iron lamp-post. The blow was fatally severe, and he lay at their feet bleeding and senseless. A party of the wedding guests were the first to observe him, and come to his assistance; he was carried into the house of his Peggy's father, and it was some time before he uttered a word. At last he opened his eyes; and as Peggy hung over him, he pressed her hand, and faintly uttered, "Let them carry me to my mother." After a while, how ever, he recovered so far, as to be able to give some account of what had happened. The surgeon who had been call ed in, having now made his appear ance, the poor young man again petitioned to be taken to his mother's house; and seeing that quiet was not to be obtained where he was, the surgeon agreed to his immediate removal. All now having quitted the house of Mrs Gray, except the surgeon and poor Peggy, the mother, with trembling hands, assisted to undress her son, and stood by while he was bled. The doctor now saw him laid quiet, and proposed to leave them for the night. He had given no hope-he had said nothing; and the unhappy widow dared not to ask a question, for she read in his face the sentence of her son's death. Next morning, George desired to see the surgeon alone, and after conversing with him for some moments, he sent for Peggy. They remained for some time together, and when the mother entered the room, the poor girl was seated by the bed, holding the hand of her lover, paler if possible than before, but still, and silent, as death itself. "Mother, I have been telling Peggy, what I need not tell you, for I saw you knew how it would be, when you laid me on this bed. And now, dear mother, I have only one wish, and that is to see our good minister, and once more hear his voice in prayer.-Oh! I hoped to have seen him perform an office far different from this! but the Lord's will be done." The good man came, and after a few words to the afflicted mother, he seated himself by the bed of her son. Peggy now rose VOL. XXV. for the first time, and taking the widow aside, she said some words in a low and earnest voice, but at that moment the minister called to them to kneel round George's bed, and then he prayed aloud with all the fervour of a feeling and a pious heart. His were indeed the words of eternal life; and as he poured out his spirit in prayer, this world, with all its sins and its sorrows, faded from their eyes. The holy man now arose, and would have left them, but Peggy, starting forward, laid her hand upon his arm with a look of earnest supplication, and tried to speak; but the effort was too much for her, and the mother then advanced to explain her wishes. "If you think there is naething wrang in it, sir, Peggy wishes to be made the wife of my poor boy," The minister looked at the dying man, and shook his head. Peggy knows that, sir," said widow Gray; "she knows he has not many hours to live, but yet it is natural for her to wish- -And then her father could let her live with me." "And then," said Peggy, rousing her self to speak, "Oh! then, sir, I would be laid in- She could not say the word, but George, clasping her hand, added, "In my grave, Peggy! it is that you would say. God bless you, dearest, for the wish." The good man made no further objection, and their hands were now joined in wedlock. George's strength supported him through the sacred ceremony, and when the clergyman pronounced them man and wife, he opened his arms, received her to his bosom, and saying, "God bless my Peggy," he expired. " Such was the story which the children had heard from their nurse soon after it had happened. Since then they had frequently visited the widow and her daughter, for Peggy had never left her mother-in-law. Though poor now, they were not altogether destitute, and the young widow added to their little stock, by taking in plain work. This was all she was able for. She had always been a delicate girl; and now sorrow, though quietly endured, was making deep inroads in her feeble frame. The cold of winter had borne hard upon Peggy; and when Beaty now saw her seated by the poor old woman, she felt that it would be difficult to say whether the ripe fruit or the blighted flower was likely to be soonest taken. The children, with inD stinctive feeling, had hid their toys in Beaty's mantle as they ascended the stair. "Do not let poor Peggy see our play-things, to put her in mind of Hansel Monday," said little William. Poor things, it was kindly meant; but Hansel Monday was written in Peggy's heart in characters too deep to be ever effaced from it. As they softly entered, they found the widow seated by the fire, her wheel, for that day, was laid aside, while Peggy sat beside her with her open Bible upon her knee, apparently reading to her. "Do not let me interrupt you, Peggy," said the nurse; "our visit must be very short; but my bairns have brought Agnes and yourself some little things to shew their good-will, for they well know it is not what this world can now bestow that is any thing to you.""That is true," said Peggy, clasping her Bible to her breast, "this book is my best treasure; and oh! may these dear bairns feel it to be such, even in their young days of happiness and joy! So may God spare them the sore lesson He saw fit that I should learn; yet sweet are the uses of adversity.”— "Yes," said the old woman, “Peggy doesna mean to murmur. And do not, dear children, amongst all the happy faces you have seen to-day, think that God has forgotten us. No; he has made his face to shine upon us in all our sorrow, and filled our hearts with peace, and hope, and joy! Poor Peggy had but one care when she rose this morning, and felt how weak she was; and even that is now removed, for both our good minister, and your dear mother, have been here to-day, and they have promised Peggy that if it pleased the Lord that she should join him that's gone, before his poor old mother does, they will take care of her. So now her poor heart is at rest, and we can both wait for God's good time in peace." The children now be stowed their little gifts, and received the blessing of the widow and her daughter. Their little hearts were full, and the tears stood in their bright eyes when they departed. But at their age, such tears may purify, but do not long sadden, the heart. LUTHER. THE ways of Providence are mysterious, but it works by ordinary means. It seems a Divine law, that there shall be no waste of miracle; for miracle disturbs, to a certain degree, that activity of human agency which it is the obvious purpose of the Divine government to sustain in its vigour. Where the work can be effected by man, it is done by man; where it partially transcends human powers, a partial aid is given. The unmingled power of Heaven is alone displayed where the faculties of its creatures are incapable of influencing the great design; where man is the dust of the balance, unfelt in the swaying of the mighty scales. When an empire was to be founded, a daring Soldier was summoned to break down the barriers of surrounding realms, and crush resistance with the sword, while a succession of tranquil sovereigns followed, to form the religion, laws, and manners of the people. Where the magnitude of the design partially transcended the powers of man, the assistance was given up to the due point, and no further. The Apostles required the possession of miraculous gifts, to ensure the public be What St Paul was to the first century, Luther was to the sixteenth. The Apostolic age has yet had no second, and no similar. The magnificent fabric of the Roman empire, the mightiest ever raised by man, was at its height. The arts of war and government, the finer embellishments of genius and taste, volumes from which even modern refinement still draws its finest delights, works of art that will serve as models of excellence and beauty to the latest hours of the world, the finest developements of the human mind in eloquence and philosophy, were the external illustrations of the first age. The moral empire was more magnificent still. The dissonant habits, feelings, and prejudices of a host of nations, separated by half the world, and yet more widely separated by long hostility and barbarian prejudices, were controlled into one vast system of submission; peace was planted in the midst of furious communities, agriculture reclaimed the wilderness, commerce covered the ocean and peopled its shores. Knowledge unforced, and thus the more productive and the more secure, was gradually making its way through the extremities of the great dominion; intellectual light spreading, not with the hazardous and startling fierceness of a conflagration, but with the gentle and cheering growth of dawn, over every people. But the more magnificent character istic still, was Christianity; the diffusion of a new knowledge, as much more exalted, vivid, and essential, than all that had ever been wrought out by the faculties of man, as the throne from which it descended was loftier than the cradle and the tomb; the transmission of new powers over nature and mind, over the resistance of jealous prejudices and furious tyranny, and over that more mysterious and more terrible strength that in the rulers of darkness wars against the human soul. And above all glory and honour, the presence of that Immanuel, that being whom it is guilt lightly to name, that King of Kings, whom the Heaven, and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain-God the Son, descending on earth to take upon him our nature, and, by a love surpassing all imagina, tion, submitting to a death of pain and ignominy, that by his sacrifice he might place us in a capacity to be forgiven by the justice of the Eternal. The glories of that age throw all that follow into utter eclipse. Yet the age of Luther and the Reforma tion bear such resemblance as the noblest crisis of human events and human agency may bear remotely to the visible acting of Providence. The empire of Charles the Fifth, only second to the Roman, was just consolidated. A singular passion for literature was spreading. Government was gradually refining from the fierce turbulence of the Gothic nations, and the headlong tyranny of feudal princes, The fine arts were springing into a new splendour. The power of the sword was on the verge of sinking under the power of the pen. Commerce was uniting the ends of the earth by the ties of mutual interest, stronger than the old fetters of Rome. A new and singular science, Diplo macy, was rising to fill up the place of the broken unity of Roman dominion, and make remote nations feel their importance to each other's security. The New World was opened to supply the exhausted ardour of the European mind with the stimulus of discovery, and, perhaps, for the more important purpose of supplying, in the precious metals, a new means of that commer cial spirit which was obviously des◄ tined to be the regenerator of Europe. Force was the master and the impulse of the Ancient World. Mutual interest was to be the master and the impulse of a world appointed to be urged through a nobler and more salutary career. To crown all, arose that art of arts, by which knowledge is preserved, propagated, and perpetuated; by which the wisdom of every age is accumulated for the present, and trans mitted to the future; by which a single mind, in whatever obscurity, may speak to the universe, and make its wrong, its wisdom, and its discovery, the feeling and the possession of all; that only less than miracle, the art of printing. But in this expanse of imperial and intellectual splendour, there was one lingering cloud, which, though partially repelled, must have rapidly res turned and overspread the whole. As in the ancient Roman empire, idolatry degraded the natural understanding of the people, and finally corrupted their habits into utter ruin, idolatry had assumed the paramount influence in the rising European empire,-with the same seat, the same ambition, and still deeper and more corrupting arts of su❤ premacy. To rescue Europe, one of those great instruments that Providence re serves to awake or restore the hopes of nations, was summoned. Martin Luther was born on the 10th day of November 1483, at Eisleben, a small town in the county of Mansfeld and electorate of Saxony. His father, John Luther, was employed in the mines, in which he had raised himself, by his intelligence and good conduct, to property and respectability, and held the office of a local magistrate. To his mother, Margaret Liudeman, a woman of known piety and |