"My foul is among lions."-Ps. lvii. 4. "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then I would fly away and be at reft."-Ps. lv. 6. THE PERSECUTED CHRISTIAN. Lo! where the Chriftian walks in fore diftrefs, Slander, grown bold, in form of wolf appears, And works in fecret with its fting of death; When naught but blood his cruel heart can glad; THE engraving fhows a poor man in great diftrefs. Far from home, and apparently unprotected, he is beset with enemies on every fide. He knows not which way to turn. Behind, he fears the bellowing of the furious bull, maddened with rage, threatening to overtake and destroy him; while the daftard cur yelps after him, clofe at his heels. Before him is the ferocious lion, gloating himself with the blood of its innocent victim; while the adder coils itself about his path, ready to pierce him with its deadly fting. On one hand is feen the hungry wolf ravening for prey; on the other, the infidious crocodile waiting to feize upon him, and drag him down to his den of rushes. In this hopeless condition, he longs for the wings of the dove which he fees flying over his head, for then he would efcape them all; he would fly away from the forest of wild beafts to the open wilderness; there would he be at reft. This is an emblem of what the Chriftian often times has to suffer while paffing through this world to his eternal home. Sometimes perfecution, like the mad bull and furious lion feen in the picture, rages, and threatens to deftroy Christianity itself, and to blot out the remembrance of it from the earth. The prophet Daniel was thus affailed, and cast into a den of lions. The early Chriftians were fubjected to ten fierce and bloody perfecutions, which terminated not until the Church had loft its character for holiness. G In the short reign of the bloody queen Mary, (about five years,) of fire and fagot memory, persecution in this form devoured 277 perfons, among whom were 5 bishops, 21 clergymen, 8 gentlemen of fortune, 84 tradefmen, 100 hufbandmen, 55 women, and 4 children. These were all burned alive, befides numerous confiscations, &c. Perfecution, however, exifts very frequently in a different form from the above. The backbiter plies his mean, cowardly trade, in order to injure the character of the righteous. The barking, fnarling cur is the most useless of the dog kind fo the backbiter is the most despicable among men. Yet is he able, oftentimes, to vex the foul of the pious. Sometimes, flander, grown bold, like a hungry wolf, attacks the reputation of the man of God, as Shimei affailed David in the day of his adverfity. Envy is known to plot in fecret the deftruction of that excellence fhe cannot reach; while fraud takes advantage of the unfufpecting child of God, and feeks to draw him into fin and trouble. In the midst of his perfecutions, the Christian would fain borrow the wings of a dove, and feek refuge in fome vaft wilderness, "fome boundless contiguity of fhade," or rather, the wings of fome heavenly cherub; then would he fly to manfions of eternal repofe, where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are for ever at reft." “When rising floods my foul o'erflow, When finks my heart in waves of woe, Jefus, thy timely aid impart, And raise my head and cheer my heart. "If rough and ftormy be the way, "O wretched man that I am! who fhall deliver me from the body of this death."-Rom. vii. 24. THE SOUL IN BONDAGE. Horror of horrors! what a fight is here! 'Tis thus the foul, enlighten'd by the word, He fees the caufe, but oh! he cannot fly. Who, who he afks, with trembling, ftruggling breath, Will fave me from this fearful mafs of death? |