a collie dog, started from Edinburgh on August 15th to walk to London in
eight days, an average of about fifty miles per day, arrived in London
on Sunday evening about eight o'clock. The pedestrian was awaited by a
large concourse of people at Shoreditch Church, and heartily greeted.
The route taken was from Edinburgh via Berwick, Newcastle, Durham,
Darlington, Northallerton, Boroughbridge, Wetherby, Doncaster, Retford,
Newark, Grantham, Stamford, Huntingdon, Royston, Ware, and Edmonton. Mr.
Fraser seemed somewhat footsore on his arrival, but the dog appeared in
no way the worse for the journey. The walk has not been accomplished in
the time originally laid down, as Mr. Fraser's feet gave way owing to
the unsuitability of his boots for the task he had taken upon himself.
After a rest on this side of Berwick he resumed his walk, and finished
the journey in excellent health.
[Illustration: WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE.]
GREAT EVENTS.
The great events which occurred in August, 1588, and November, 1688, are
worthy of our remembrance and grateful acknowledgment before God,
therefore we bring before our young readers, in a special way, the
subjects of the Spanish Armada and the accession of William of Orange,
which are of the greatest importance to all true Englishmen.
The following extracts, taken from an address, by Lord Robert Montagu,
at a commemoration meeting at Leicester, will give our young readers an
interesting and truthful account of the great historical facts referred
to, in a very concise form.
He said there had been many commemoration meetings throughout the
country, and why did they hold them? What were those meetings? Well, if
he were asked that question, he should say that that meeting was a
protest, and it was a commemoration. It was a protest against a
conspiracy which had extended throughout the country, and had lasted a
great number of years--a conspiracy to introduce one Romanizing practice
after another into the worship of the Church of England, and
endeavouring to assimilate, by all means possible, the Church of England
to the Church of Rome. It was a protest against an attempt to reduce
this country again, and bring it under the domination of Rome. It was a
protest against the attempts that all Governments in recent years had
had in hand, and made--no matter whether Liberal, Whig, or
Conservative--to establish diplomatic relations with Rome. It was,
lastly, a protest against an attempt, now a few centuries old, to ruin
the backbone of Protestantism in Ireland--he meant the Protestant
landlords, who were the chief friends of the union between England and
Ireland. On all those points they protested.
But then that meeting was also a commemoration. Commemorations, it was
true, might be good, or they might be bad. No one would ever think of
merely commemorating bloodshed and slaughter, but they often
commemorated the deeds of daring and prowess on the part of their
ancestors, and they did so in the hope that others would follow their
example. He knew not whether that kind of thing was good, because such
commemorations tended to increase and foster national pride; but there
was one kind of commemoration which was absolutely and naturally
good--he meant the commemoration of the signal mercies which God had
vouchsafed to the land. In doing so, they were merely taking the advice
of King David, who, speaking of his own people, said, "They remembered
not the mercy of the Lord, and so they provoked Him at the Red Sea." And
so also the Apostle said, "We have received mercies, and therefore we
faint not." Therefore, what he (the speaker) proposed to do that evening
was to ask them to consider the mercies God had shown to this
country--great and signal mercies--in the year 1588, in the year 1688,
and in the year 1788; and, in doing so, he hoped he should be able to
bring this thought into their minds--that, having received mercies, they
should "faint not."
Now, first, with regard to 1588, the commemoration of the Spanish
Armada--the invincible Armada, as it used to be called. They would
remember, doubtless, from reading history, that King Philip of Spain was
one of the most powerful monarchs that ever existed. The historian,
Macaulay, had told them that on his empire the sun never set. King
Philip counted upwards of one hundred millions of subjects, and he was
by far the wealthiest sovereign that had existed since the days of
Darius, and he was also a cruel and bloodthirsty sovereign. They knew
how many thousands he killed in the Netherlands; how many poor
Protestants he had slaughtered there. He had burnt at the stake every
one he could in his dominions who dared to study the Bible.
Well, he it was whom the Pope commissioned to make a crusade against
this country, to conquer it, and reduce it, so that it might again come
under the domination of Rome. He was like Pharaoh of old; he had let the
children of Israel go, and he repented himself of having done so, and
sent an army to bring them back to the slavery of Egypt; and so the
Pope, not having an army of his own, told Philip, who had the most
powerful army and navy in the world, to pursue those English who had
escaped from the tyranny of Rome and become Protestants, and to bring
them back again under the domination of the Pope; and the Pope, in order
to encourage the monarch, promised him certain indulgences and two
hundred thousand golden crowns as payment at the beginning of the
expedition, and the payment of another two hundred thousand golden
crowns as soon as he set foot in England. And the Pope also, in order to
make the task easier, set the Jesuits in this country to stir up
disaffection in England and Scotland, and with the same object sent a
special messenger to Ireland in order to cause a rebellion there, and so
call off the forces of England.
Philip at once sent to the Duke of Parma, his governor in Belgium,
instructions to prepare an army and fleet to co-operate with the Spanish
force as soon as the Armada should arrive in the English Channel. The
Armada consisted of 136 galleons, and forty smaller vessels, manned by
twenty thousand marines; and there was also something else sent. What
was that something else? The Chief Inquisitor, and 150 other
inquisitors--Dominican monks--to act together, and to use every possible
engine of torture, and in that way to convert the people of England to
Rome. Besides these, Philip sent the very pick of his army, thirty-one
thousand men and four thousand officers, over-land to Dunkerque to
assist them in England as soon as he arrived. Here was the invincible
Armada, and it was thought that such an Armada could not be withstood by
that little puny England, for England was then but a small State, and
had no colonies. The whole population of England then was not much
larger than the population of London at the present time. Now, as for
the Royal Navy, it consisted of twenty-eight ships; and how were they to
cope with the 176 ships which composed the Spanish Armada? Why, it was
impossible, unless the hand of God should come down to protect the
Protestantism of England.
Well, on the 30th of July, the Armada appeared off Plymouth, and Drake
and Frobisher, and Seymour and Hawkins, and Lord Howard, High Admiral of
England--who was not a Catholic, whatever might be said to the contrary,
but a Protestant--determined to oppose the Armada.
It was on Sunday, the 7th of August, that the Armada anchored in the
roadstead of Dunkerque, and there waited for Parma's fleet. In the
night, a light southerly wind sprung up, and eight ships were selected
from the crowd of volunteer vessels that followed the fleet; their masts
were smeared with pitch, and their hulls filled with powder and all
kinds of explosive and combustible materials. These ships were set fire
to, and sent down on to the Armada. What the Spaniards ought to have
done, and what could have been very easily done, would have been to cut
their cables and allowed the fire-ships to pass them; but the Spaniards
seemed to have lost their presence of mind.
However, at length they cut their cables and ran into the North Sea; but
the English followed them, and there was a tremendous battle. The
Spanish ships were so full of soldiers and sailors that every English
shot told ten-fold. Five thousand of the Spanish were killed and not
one hundred English wounded. A hasty council of officers was held on the
Duke Medina's ship as to whether they should return to their anchorage
off Dunkerque, or go back to Spain by way of the Orkneys, and they
determined, like craven cowards, to run round by the north of Scotland
and Ireland, and so on to the coast of Spain, because they dared not
face the English in the Straits of Dover. Admiral Seymour watched them.
They could not all pursue the Armada. A small squadron only went, and
when they came to the Firth of Forth, Seymour ran short of ammunition.
Now what he wanted to show them was, that it was not Seymour that was
protecting England, but the Almighty Himself. Seymour had no sooner put
into harbour than a hurricane rose up, and subsequently the shores of
Ireland were strewn with the bodies of the dead, and the wreckage of the
galleons. Only a few reached Spain to give mournful tidings of the
disaster, and then it was found that there was not a family in Spain
that was not in mourning for the loss of relatives. As the Egyptians
were overthrown in the Red Sea, so the Spaniards were overthrown in the
North Sea; and it was God that did all. Queen Elizabeth and the English
people knew that well, for Queen Elizabeth struck a medal in
commemoration of the event, and the motto on the medal was, "God blew
upon them with His winds, and scattered them." She took no credit to
herself, no credit to her navy, no credit to the English people; for it
was God who did it all. From that day the power of Spain had dwindled
and waned, until Spain had sunk to a fifth-rate power, and nobody
thought of Spain in the councils of Europe. But what was the case with
little England, then with hardly any colonies? God said, "Thou hast been
faithful in little things; be thou ruler over ten great cities"; and now
we had ten great colonies.
And now they would pass away from that subject, and see what happened at
the end of the next hundred years--in 1688. He must first remind them
what was the state of things in 1687. There was then a Roman Catholic
king upon the throne of England. He was not only a Roman Catholic, but
was an avowed and sworn Jesuit--James II. There was then, also, a
conspiracy all over England--favoured by some of the bishops and many of
the clergy--to introduce the ritual of Rome into the English Church.
There was then, as there is now, attempts to open up diplomatic
relations between the throne and the Vatican. There was then an attempt
to ruin the landlords of Ireland, so as to get rid of Protestantism, and
separate Ireland from England. To whom did England look at that time for
help? There was then no great Protestant Germany; but there was a small
State, smaller than England--he meant Holland--but it was not similarly
yoked. It was here that the hand of God first began to show itself in
the year 1685. On account of the action of Louis XIV., who was the
mainstay of Roman Catholicism in Europe, all the best soldiers,
generals, and artisans in Paris left France and went to Holland. In
England James II. gradually deposed Protestants and substituted Roman
Catholics in all positions of importance and influence. The people,
becoming alarmed, sought the aid of William, Prince of Orange, who had
married a member of the English Royal family; and on the 1st of
November, 1688, William sailed on his mission to this country. A strong
wind was blowing, which took him gaily on his journey; and that wind not
only sent him gaily on his mission, but prevented Lord Dartmouth, who
was on the Thames, from getting out. God was determined to show that
success had not been arrived at by man; and on November 6th, in a fog,
William and his friends arrived at a distance beyond Torbay. When the
fog lifted, and the sunshine beamed forth, William gaily sailed into
Torbay. Then there were two days of calm weather, during which William
landed his army and his stores, and James's forces could not attack,
owing to the stillness of the wind. Still James might have struck a
blow, as his troops had converged at Salisbury; but God struck fear into
his heart. He dressed himself as a fisherman, got into a fishing-boat,
and went to France. But our forefathers did not say to William, "Please
take the crown and govern." They said, "We have certain rights; will you
promise always to observe those rights? If so, you may sit upon the
throne." And William promised that he would do so, and, as they knew,
they had now the Act of Rights. One of the clauses of that Act was that,
if the sovereign became a Roman Catholic, the throne should be instantly
vacated. It was settled that no communion should be held with Rome; that
was to say, that no diplomacy should exist between England and Rome.
That Act was passed, and remained the same to this day. He would read
them what Lord Macaulay said of the two events to which he referred:--
"The weather had indeed served the Protestant cause so well that some
men (_e.g._, Bishop Burnet), of more piety than judgment, fully believed
the ordinary laws of nature to have been suspended for the preservation
of the liberty or religion of England. Exactly a hundred years before,
they said, the Armada, invincible by man, had been scattered by the
wrath of God. Civil freedom and divine truth were again in jeopardy; and
again the obedient elements had fought for the good cause. The wind had
blown strong from the east while the Prince wished to sail down the
channel, had turned to the south when he wished to enter Torbay, had
sunk to a calm during the disembarkation, and, as soon as the
disembarkation was completed, had risen to a storm, and had met the
pursuers in the face. Nor did men omit to remark that, by an
extraordinary coincidence, the Prince had reached our shores on a day on
which the Church of England commemorated, by prayers and thanksgiving,
the wonderful escape of the Royal House, and of the three Estates, from
the blackest plot ever designed by Papists."
Now they had seen God's mercy in 1588 and in 1688, and now let them turn
to 1788. It was not so striking, he would allow, as the other events,
but it was not less real. And why was it not so striking? In former days
men knew very well what the Government did, as there was no secrecy
about it. In these days nobody knew what were the views and the
intentions of the Government. It was all done underhanded, secretly, and
no one knew anything about it. They gathered a little from the
newspapers and tried to put it together as well as they could;
consequently, that system having been in vogue in 1788, they did not
know exactly what took place.
In the year 1787, Charles Edward Catesby was a pretender to the throne,
and the Pope was again anxious to bring England under him, and he made
secret allies of all the Roman Catholics to put this Charles on the
throne of England. A body was to land in Scotland, and L20,000 was to be
given to the Highlanders to rise in rebellion. The French had an army
ready, and they were to land on the south coast of England and march to
London, so as to prevent the troops going forth to put down Edward.
In that same year the Prince Regent did that thing which, according to
the Act of William, made him vacate the throne for ever. He married a
Roman Catholic in 1787. Notwithstanding the fact that he tried to keep
it a secret at first, it afterwards leaked out through the indiscretion
of a member of the House of Commons. Pitt said at first that the Prince
Regent had denied it stoutly; but there were those present in the Roman
Catholic Church at the time he was married; and when it was proved,
Pitt then said the Act of Parliament prevented any one of the Royal
family being married without the consent of Parliament, and argued that
the Prince was not married. He married a German princess, and put her
away, and came to the throne as George IV.
Then came 1788, when God struck that Charles with death; and then an
alliance was made between Protestant England and Russia to support each
other against any Roman Catholic emperor. This was not so striking a
display of God's mercy as was shown in the case of the Armada; but in
them all they saw the hand of God. They saw great mercy in 1588, in
1688, and in 1788, for the protection of Protestantism; and what cared
they whether in 1888 ministers should try to bring them under the
domination of Rome? They knew that God was a tower of strength, and that
they could rely on Him. Let them think and meditate on His mercies, and
then they would not fail.
THE FISH THAT SWALLOWED JONAH.
"_Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah
was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights._"--JONAH i.
17.
Upon the question as to what was the fish that swallowed Jonah, Dr.
Raleigh remarks ("The Story of Jonah," p. 148):--
"The Bible does not say that a whale was the prophet's jailer. The
infidel has said that, and then has enjoyed the easy triumph of proving
the natural impossibility of it. Jonah says 'a great fish' swallowed
him. Our Lord uses a phrase exactly similar. He uses a generic term,
which includes the whale, but is never applied to the whale
particularly. The dolphin, the seal, the whale, the shark, are all
included in the term that is used, and there is strong probability in
the supposition that the white shark is the creature designated as the
'great fish.' Sharks abounded in the Mediterranean at that time. They
have been found there ever since, and are found there still. In length
some of them have attained to thirty feet and upwards, of capacity in
other ways sufficient to incarcerate Samson of Zorah, or Goliath of
Gath, as well as the probably attenuated prophet of Gath-hepher.
"It is related that a horse was found in the stomach of a shark, and
there are many instances of men being swallowed alive--not fabulous and
doubtful stories, but instances well authenticated. One, of a soldier in
full armour. One, of a sailor who fell overboard, and, was swallowed in
the very sight of his comrades. The captain seized a gun, shot the fish
in a sensitive part, which then cast out the sailor into the sea, who
was taken up, amazed and terrified, but little hurt.
"Every one knows that the shark is a most voracious creature. Its teeth
are only incisive. It has no power of holding. It can snap and sever
limbs, or trunk, or head, sheer and certainly as though its jaws were a
guillotine. But in that case it secures only what is within the jaws.
The rest is apt to be lost. Its habit, therefore, is to swallow the prey
alive, that it may lose nothing. Thus God made the voracity of the fish
the means of protection and safety to His servant."
HEART-WORK must be God's work. Only the great Heart-maker can be the
great Heart-breaker. If I love Him, my heart will be filled with His
spirit, and obedient to His commands.--_Baxter._
THE great design, both in judgments and mercies, is to convince us that
_there is none like the Lord our God_; none so wise, so mighty, so good;
no enemy so formidable, no friend so desirable, so valuable.--_Matthew
Henry._
TALKING WITH A MAN SEVEN THOUSAND MILES OFF!
The longest wire in the world extends from 18, Old Broad Street, London,
E.C., to 29, Cable Street, Calcutta, over seven thousand miles. A
telegraphic expert, who visited the London end of the wire, says:--
We have often heard of the wonderful line between this country and
Teheran, the capital of Persia, a distance of three thousand eight
hundred miles, but we scarcely realized the fact that good signals were
obtainable through so great a length of wire until recently, when we
availed ourselves of an invitation from Mr. W. Andrews, the managing
director of the Indo-European Telegraph Company, to make a visit of
inspection.
It was between seven and eight o'clock when we reached the office. In
the basement of an unpretentious building in Old Broad Street we were
shown the Morse printer in connection with the main line from London to
Teheran.
The courteous clerk in charge of the wire, Mr. Blagrove, informed us
that we were through to Emden, and with the same ease with which one
"wires" from the City to the West End, we asked a few questions of the
telegraphist in the German town.
When we had finished with Emden, we spoke with the same facility to the
gentleman on duty at Odessa. This did not satisfy us, and in a few
seconds we were through to the Persian capital, Teheran.
There were no messages about, the time was favourable, and the
_employes_ of the various countries seemed anxious to give us an
opportunity of testing the capacity of this wonderful wire. T.H.N.
(Teheran) said, "Call Kurrachee," and in less time than it takes to
write these words we gained the attention of the Indian town. The
signals were good, and our speed must have equalled fifteen words a
minute.
The operator at Kurrachee, when he learnt that London was speaking to
him, thought it would be a good opportunity to put us through to Agra,
and to our astonishment the signals did not fail, and we chatted
pleasantly for a few minutes with Mr. Malcolm Khan, the clerk on duty.
To make this trial of telegraphy complete, Agra switched us on to
another line, and we were soon talking to a native telegraphist at the
Indian Government Cable Station, Calcutta.
At first the gentleman at the other end of the wire could not believe
that he was really in direct communication with the English capital, and
he exclaimed, in Morse language, "Are you really London?"
Truly this was a great achievement. Metallic communication, without a
break, from 18, Old Broad Street, London, to the telegraph office in
Calcutta! Seven thousand miles of wire! The signals were excellent, and
the speed attained was no fewer than twelve, perhaps fourteen, words per
minute.
ANSWER TO BIBLE ENIGMA.
(_Page 235._)
"_Jesus wept._"--JOHN xi. 35.
J otham Judges ix. 5.
E glon Judges iii. 14.
S apphira Acts v. 1, 2.
U zzah 2 Samuel vi. 7.
S amuel 1 Samuel i. 14.
W ater Exodus xvii. 3.
E noch Hebrews xi. 5.
P otiphar Genesis xxxix. 1.
T homas Acts i. 13.
RUTH CROWHURST
(Aged 9 years).
_Hastings._
MEMOIRS OF ELLEN AND HENRY HOAD.
"Around the throne of God in heaven
Thousands of children stand;
Children whose sins are all forgiven--
A holy, happy band."
Of the truth of these lines there can be no doubt in the minds of God's
people, and a very blessed truth it is. There is a heaven of joy and
love, and in this heaven there is the throne of God, and many dear
children are standing around this throne, singing praises unto God and
the Lamb. Their sins forgiven, their sorrows gone, their sufferings
ended, death past, joy, and peace, and glory eternal now begun, who is
there that could not desire to be with them, and to be as they are?
Among this happy band we hope the two young ones--brother and
sister--Ellen and Henry, whose names are at the top of this page, are
now standing; and to give some reason of this hope is now our object in
writing these few lines.
Many, alas! have hopes of salvation and heaven for which their life and
testimony can afford no solid ground for them to rest upon, and whose
hope will one day make them ashamed, and, like the flickering lamps of
the foolish virgins, will go out when the Bridegroom comes.
Ellen and Henry were the children of praying parents, and, both of them
being members of the Church at Bodle Street, their children attended the
Sabbath School connected with that cause. The mother died in 1882, of
consumption, and some of the children soon manifested symptoms of the
same disease. An elder sister kept house, and as the younger ones grew
up, they had to go out to earn their bread.
Ellen was sent to service soon after she was twelve years old, and not
living far from the school, she was permitted still to attend; and
certainly she was a girl that needed no constraint in this matter, for
if her duties kept her on Sundays until too late for the lessons, she
would even then take her seat with the class while she listened to the
sermon.