were informed of her dissolution; her hopes brightened as the solemn time advanced, and the messenger of wo to thousands was to her the minister of peace; she fell asleep in Jesus, and is now among the spirits of the just before the throne of God. "Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, The hero perish, and the sparrow fall." termined never to omit the services of the bbath as long as health and strength should low me to go. My ability to pray increased ily, and oh! how happy have I felt when ith tears I have prayed for my poor husband ad children! I never forgot you, but prayed hat you might be faithful and tell me more When we were all assembled together, after nd more about my state; I often thought you the close of the evening service, I related to ust have been told how careless and thought- the members of my family the particulars of ss I had been, for what you said came home the impressive scene to which I had been an nd often pierced me to the heart. But, my eye witness. What a day of instruction and ear sir, this is not all; God has heard my poor delight has this been! I could wish the emotions rayers, and my dear husband has come with which were excited should never subside; we e for nearly twelve months, has left all his have beheld nature in her gayest attire, ornaad company, and he can pray too; it would mented and perfumed by the exquisite worko your heart good, sir, indeed it would, if you manship of the Deity for the abode of man; ere to hear him pray; and since I have been surrounded by all that can delight the eye and o ill he has been the kindest creature; he ne- gratify the senses, he lives in a terrestrial parer goes to bed at night, or to work in the radise which is filled with abundant proofs of norning, without kneeling down and praying bounty and goodness. And yet how many for me and my poor children who will soon be thoughtless, inattentive observers of these lowmotherless; but God will take care of them-er works are found amongst us, in whom no yes, sir, I am sure he will, and I can resign one sentiment of adoration or reverence is exthem all to him-and die happy now. Christ cited towards Him who made and governs the has died for poor sinners-I ain a poor sinner, worldand all my hope is in that blessed Saviour. İ often think, as I pant for breath, and am burned up with fever, what is all this to what my dear Redeemer suffered, and I can then suffer The moral world, however, is a scene to without murmuring; it won't be long, and if I which the attention is especially directed on am safe, oh how happy shall I be when I see this sacred day, which reminds us at once of Him as he is and live with him in yonder world. our dignity and depravity. We know what I am quite ready to go, but hope patiently to mankind are by nature, and we have this day wait his own time; and now I have had the witnessed the triumphs of religion; how it can desire of my heart to see you and tell you all. subordinate in the bosom of youth all the atYou little thought what good you were sent to tractions and delights of the present, to the imdo for such a poor worthless creature, and I perative claims of the future, and carry the thought you would like to know, and would not "lambs in its arms" safely and victoriously think it a liberty for me to send to you now. through the chilly stream of death; how it can May God Almighty for ever bless you!" she heal the wounds of sorrow, and teach parental exclaimed, her eyes streaming with tears, "and love to weep no more; how it can disperse the make you as useful to others as you have been mist of ignorance, and quicken into new and to me;"-then grasping more firmly the hand spiritual existence all the sensibilities of our she held in hers, she sunk back on her pillow nature; how it can dissipate the awful gloom exhausted with the mental and bodily effort in which poverty and wretchedness envelope she had made, and which had been interrupted many of our species; the contrast of capabiliby many paroxysms of difficult and laborious ties, our feelings, and habits, which it creates, respiration. may well excite our astonishment, while it administers to our joy. Nothing similar is effected in the halls of literature, or the schools of philosophy; water may rise to its level--it can reach no higher elevation but through the agency of superadded power. In the evils of this life, the moralist and the philosopher may propose useful and practical remedies, but for the terrors of death and the solemnities of the future, they have no specific; for the world by wisdom in its best estate, and when science had reached its zenith, knew not God, until "life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel." The glory of the Christian faith consists in its universal adaptation; by its influence coronets, diadems, and sceptres are consecrated and shine with preternatural lustre, while the "short but simple annals of the poor" proclaim its value and record its power. Deprived of all external advantages, it shines My friend was so overpowered by this affecting and unexpected narrative, that he sat for some minutes in speechless admiration, while the tears of delight and gratitude flowed down his manly cheeks. "This is the Lord's doing," he at length ejaculated, "and it is glorious in our eyes; which of us can doubt the reality of divine influence, or the transforming power of saving grace? I came as I thought to instruct and comfort you, my good friend, but what can 1 add to your knowledge or enjoyment? I am a learner here, and all that remains is to join with you in grateful acknowledgment for such distinguishing mercy, and in imploring that support which you may yet need in passing through the valley of the shadow of death."" We knelt beside the bed, and my friend offered up a suitable prayer, in which the poor sufferer fervently united; and having taken our leave tive lustro nd read a word; not by imitation of excellence in others, for no such examples were presented; not through the performance of external ceremonies, for these had for years been useless and ineffectual. No; her religion came from above, and it was amply sufficient, under the most unfavourable circumstances, to form her character, and prepare her for death and immortality. Remembering that it is to the in stitution of the Sabbath we owe the means which are capable of producing such changes as these, and that this is a day made especially for the benefit of man, we owe a large proportion of our blessings to the due observance of it; not in mere cessation from the common business and amusements of life, but in availing ourselves of those advantages which it presents of learning the things "which belong to our peace," and looking forward with cheerful hope to that eternal Sabbath of holy rest, which awaits every good and faithful servant in that high world, where "mortality shall be swallowed up of life." In these, and similar reflections, we indulged till the accustomed period of family devotion; a day thus profitably spent was closed in earnest entreaty for that measure of divine grace, which can alone ensure the accomplishment of our heart's desire, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." W. From the Spirit and Manners of the Age. THE VALE OF TEARS. "IN visions which are not of night, a shadowy vale I see, The path of pilgrim tribes who are, who have been, or shall be; At either end are lowering clouds impervious to the sight, And frequent shadows veil, throughout, each gleam of passing light; A path it is of joys and griefs, of many hopes and fears; Gladden'd at times by sunny smiles, but oftener dimm'd by tears. Fancy still paints the future bright, and hop the present cheers, Nor can we deem the path we tread lead through a vale of tears. But soon, too soon, the flowers that decked ou Have drooped and withered on their stalk: There's thunder in the torrent's tone, an Fancy is but a phantom found, and hope dream appears, And more and more our hearts confess th life a vale of tears. Darker and darker seems the path! how s to journey on, When hands and hearts which gladden'd ou appear for ever gone, Some cold in death, and some, alas! we fa cied could not chill, Living to self, and to the world, to us see colder still; With mournful retrospective glance we lo to brighter years, And tread with solitary steps the thorny v of tears. Then wasting pain and slow disease trace f rows on the brow, The grasshopper, alighting down, is felt a b then now, The silver cord is loosening fast its feel slender hold, The fountain's pitcher soon must break, a bowl of purer gold; Oh! were it not for that blest hope wh even death endears, How weary were our pilgrimage through dark vale of tears." From the Amulet. THE ALBIGENSES. BY THE REV. W. S. GILLY. ALBI, an inconsiderable town in Langue has had the honour of giving the name of A fade-geois, or Albigenses, to the Protestant France, who were distinguished in the Green leaves are there, they quickly bright flowers, but soon they die; Its banks are lav'd by pleasant streams, but teenth century, by their determined oppos soon their bed is dry; And some that roll on to the last with undiminished force, Have lost that limpid purity which graced their early source; They seem to borrow in their flow the tinge of dark'ning years, And e'en their mournful murm'ring sound befits the vale of tears. Pleasant that valley's opening scenes appear to childhood's view, The flowers are bright, the turf is green, the sky above is blue; A blast may blight, a beam may scorch, a cloud may intervene, But lightly marked, and soon forgot, they mar not such a scene; to the usurpations of the Pope; but whose tire history occupies little more than ha century. The term Protestant is here use a general sense, to designate those, who fessing the faith which became better know the Reformation, have at any time refus acknowledge the supremacy of a univ pontiff. The pretended right of the bisho Rome, to be lords over God's heritage, a give spiritual laws to Christendom, has uniformly resisted by one Christian comm or another; and at all periods of history, have been some few at least enlight enough, and bold enough, to dispute the thority of any, who should presume to call self the supreme head, or infallible guide d church. As St. Paul withstood St. Pet the face, so have the successors to the al imacy of St. Peter, been withstood from age age by some holy champions of the truth, hen they would have substituted error for uth. It is difficult therefore to prove, that Proestantism had its origin either here or there, r to assign the reputation of being the founder f the Protestant churches either to this man r to that. The light has indeed been preerved in greater purity, and Apostolic Christinity has been defended with greater perseveance in some provinces of Christendom, than others. For example, the valleys of Piedont have never wanted defenders of the true aith, and the inhabitants of the South of France ave witnessed more terrible scenes of religious bloodshed for the truth's sake, than any elsewhere. But the Waldenses were the depositories, rather than the founders of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches; and the Albigenses were the witnesses and the martyrs, not the first preachers of a Protestant Confession. In fact there never was wanting, either in the dioceses of the North of Italy, or of the South of France, a succession of devout men, who "offered themselves willingly among the people," and "jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field," or at the stake, rather than follow the corrupt example, or submit to the tyrannical exactions of the Church of Rome. But though the true light continued to shine in those regions through the dark ages, yet the distinction of Vaudois, or Waldenses, and Albigeois, or Albigenses, as Christian communities protesting against Papal corruptions, is not recognizable in any annals, previously to those of the twelfth century. The former were so called from their impregnable valleys, (vaux, French -ralli, Italian) and the appellation first occurs in a manuscript still extant, of the date 1100, A. D. The latter derived their name, as I began by observing, from a town in Languedoc. Not that the principles of Protestantism were espoused more steadily in Albi, or at an earlier period than in any other part of the South of France; or that men first suffered under the hands of Romanists for their religious faith at Albi; but that here a celebrated public conference was held between the opponents and the adherents of the Church of Rome. It was this conference at Albi, in the year 1176, which gave the name of Albigenses to all such as avowed the principles then and there publicly advanced against the superstition and abuses of the Romanists. The conference at Albi, in 1176 was the prelude to the bloody drama, which commenced at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The popish bishops, priests, and monks, who took part in that conference, finding that they could not persuade their ad versaries to join in communion with themselves, tried to compel them, and began by ascribing false sentiments to the advocates of the cause, against which they could not prevail in fair argument. They branded them with the name of Arians and Manichees; they preached against them in the cities and villages, and charged them with atrocities of which they never were guilty. But as the innocent victims of the calumny were not to be silenced by such means as these, and as they still persevered in spreading their doctrines, the arm of power was invited to crush them, and thousands perished in the flames, or in indiscriminate massacre. Raymond, Count of Thoulouse, (and sovereign of the provinces, where the doctrines propounded at Albi, and from thenceforward styled Albigensian, had long taken deep root,) was solemnly invoked by the Pope, to exterminate the heretics by an armed force. But Raymond was too well convinced of the value, which his state derived from the enterprising and industrious spirit of his nonconforming subjects, to comply with this demand. His refusal drew down fresh denunciations from the Pope, and renewed charges of scandalous proceedings against the Protestants. To refute these slanders, the Protestants consented to hold another conference with the Romanists, at Montreal, in the year 1206. The same opinions were freely professed, as before, at Albi, and soon afterwards a general crusade was preached, not only against the impugners of the Papal authority, but against all who should protect, or refuse to destroy them. Count Raymond himself was involved in the edict of excommunication; and the term Albigenses was indiscriminately applied to all such of the natives of the South of France, as had incurred the resentment of the Roman pontiff, either by questioning his infallibility, or refusing to persecute those who questioned it. But before I proceed to relate some of the enormities committed by the Romanists during the crusades against the Albigenses, and to vindicate the sufferers against the aspersions of their enemies, I must recur to the statement with which I set out, and repeat, that the tenets which Protestants then held, and now hold in opposition to the Church of Rome, had been maintained in the South of France from the earliest period of the establishment of the Christian Church in that country, to the epoch of the Albigensian contest. Allix has distinctly explained this in the ten first chapters of his "Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses." I cannot, however, agree with Allix in his opinion, that Papal ascendancy What our heavenly Master said of the was not felt by the prelates of the Gallic kingdom of God, is strictly true of Protestant-churches before the 12th century. In the tenth ism. "It cometh not with observation: nei- century the Popes began to carry their point, ther shall they say, Lo, here! or Lo, there!" and to exercise that undue influence over civil n heads of secs. The provincial prelacy and clergy, who had hitherto been independent of a foreign pontiff, found themselves obliged to go with the stream, and with their independence they lost their self-respect and integrity. Abuses, which at former periods would have been checked in the beginning by a timely application to the metropolitan, or to the provincial or national synod, now became inveterate, owing to the long interval which occurred before the matter could be decided by a hearing at the seat of the Papacy. A distant tribunal, or a court of appeal, remote from the scene of dispute, cannot but be the means of extending mischief; prejudice, favour, corruption, imperfect evidence, delay, and misunderstandings are but few of the impediments in the way of justice and amelioration, when a question of right or wrong has to be determined by a foreign judge. The evil was thoroughly felt at the period to which I have made allusion. The bishops of France, assembled at Rheims in 991, did certainly protest strongly against the encroachments of the Popes, and their pretended primacy; but the principal resistance was thenceforward made by individuals, rather than by assemblies of protesting divines; and it was found to be much easier to brand the opinions of individuals with the name of heresy, than the declarations of synods or councils. About the year 1010, there appeared symptoms of the Manichean heresy in the South of France. This was a great advantage to the Popish party. All who opposed themselves to the corruptions of Rome, were thenceforth exposed to the charge of Manicheism; and though nothing could be more conflicting than the opinions of Protestants and of these real heretics, yet the Romanists succeeded in deluding the unwary, and confounding the preservers of pure Christianity with the propagators of an abominable error. Mezeray, author of the Chronological Abridgment of the History of France, was no friend to the Albigenses; but he candidly admits, that not all whom the church stigmatized as heretics, were Manichces: "There were," said he, "two sorts of heretics; the one ignorant and loose, who were a cast of Manichees; the other more learned, and free from the charge of impurity, who held nearly the same opinions as the modern Calvinists, and were called Henricians, or Waldenses, though the people ignorantly confounded them with the Cathari," &c. &c. In portion of the inhabitants of the southern p vinces had continued to adhere to the opini of their ancestors and to profess those pu forms and principles of Christianity, wh Berengarius, Peter de Bruis, and Henri been instrumental in transinitting to their co trymen. The Council of Tours, held in year 1163, speaks thus to the fact country about Thoulouse, there sprung up, l ago, a damnable heresy, which, by little little, spread like a cancer as far as the nei bouring province of Gascogny, and hath alrea infected many other provinces." The Abbo Clairvaux, quoted by Hoveden, in his annal the year 1178, calls it, "A plague that had m great head in that country." The Monk Vaux Cernay, the historian and eulogist Simon de Montford, the grand persecutor of Protestants of Thoulouse, made an ackn ledgment to the same effect, namely, that principles of the Albigenses were of imme rial standing in the provinces of the Sout France. "This treacherous city of Thoulo from its first foundation," said he," hath sel or never been clear of this detestable pla How difficult it is to pluck up a deep-ro evil! This poison of heretical depravity superstitious infidelity has been necessarily fused here from father to son." Here, then, we have the very concession quired. I have proved elsewhere that the manists of the thirteenth century admit high antiquity, in Piedmont, of the prine avowed by the Waldenses, and now evid is produced out of their own mouths, that tenets of the Albigenses were of high anti in the South of France, and may be trace to the primitive churches of Gaul. I shall proceed to show that the enorm committed during that period of history, the Albigenses occupied the attention of rope, were committed against them and n them. The Popish writers of every age have a ed, that there was a period when the prof of the Roman Church, from the popes do the lowest clergy, was such as to call universal reprobation. At this period, who rejected or renounced her comm were desirous of exhibiting a striking co in morals and conversation, between selves and the members of that corrupt ch against whose debauchery and superst they protested. This, in all probability, Berengarius, and those who were not ashamed the adoption of some extravagant, but ha of being called after his name, were the great-customs among the opponents of Popery est upholders of truth of whom France could boast in the eleventh century, and especially in their able confutation of the doctrine of the Real Presence. In the twelfth century, before the term Albigenses came into use, first the appellation of Petrobusians, and afterwards that of Henricians, was substituted for Berengarians, to designate the impugners of Popery. The former were so called after Peter de Bruis, who was brought to the stake at St. Gilles, in 1126, upon the charge of burning a cross to boil his meat on a Good Friday; and the latter after Henri, a celebrated preacher of Languedoc, who was burnt at Thoulouse, in 1147. It is evident, even upon Popish testimony, that a great pro the over-acted and literal obedience to s ral precept professed by a few of ther converted into an exaggerated charge a the whole body, when the Roman see su ed in persuading or compelling the F bishops to surrender their independenc found itself strong enough to make head a the Reformers. Thus, because some Protestants of the South of France forced construction upon the command, shalt not kill," and questioned the ri magistrates to inflict the penalty of death because others, wishing to abide by th letter of Christ's precept, "I say unt swear not at all," refused to be sworn the tribunals of the civil authorities, maliciously urged against all such as were called Albigenses, that they disowned the jurisdiction of magistrates and princes altogether, and that they propagated “disorganizing tenets," hostile to society. Almost all that we know of the Albigenses, is collected from their enemies. Monks and churchmen were the historians of the day, and that is the reason why we have so few anecdotes of individual heroism, and are so sparingOne false report was as easily spread as ly supplied with those traits of devoted affecanother. The Protestants maintained that no tion and generosity which are required to throw persons, whether clergy or laity, ought to be a charm over the history of communities. bound by vows of celibacy, and for this they Whatever would have raised our admiration is were accused of decrying the virtue of conti- withheld or distorted, and we are left to infer, nence, and of preaching and practising all man- from the numberless public sacrifices, which ner of impurity. It was thus that the Romanists this unhappy people made in the cause of civil blackened the characters of those who were and religious freedom, that instances of private more rational in their forms of worship, and and domestic worth were as common among more pure in morals, than themselves; but we them. Raymond the Sixth, and Raymond the do not find any thing specific in their allega- Seventh, Counts of Thoulouse, the powerful tions. We have nothing but railing accusa- Counts of Foix and Carcassone, and the Vistions, unsubstantiated by proof. There are no count of Beziers, (omitting all mention of inwell verified facts adduced in Popish annals, in ferior lords,) suffered themselves to be deprived evidence of the vices which they attribute to of their principalities and territories, for the Althe Albigenses. The Albigenses have been bigenses' sake. If the Albigenses had really branded as sanguinary, ferocious and cruel mis-rendered themselves formidable or suspicious creants, who delighted in bloodshed. But where have we any examples of their cruelty? If they had been such as to justify the representations of those Popish writers who speak of "the ferocity of their proceedings," and "the enormities to which their principles led," we should possess detailed accounts of the rapine, slaughter and devastation, which are laid to their charge. We should have the time and the place, where such things were perpetrated, the names and the number of their victims. The Romanists record, as meritorious deeds, instances of carnage and spoliation committed by their own people, and do not disguise that the forces opposed to the Albigenses, massacred the inhabitants of whole towns and villages; that they twice put "sixty thousand" to the sword; that they burnt "three hundred" in one castle, "and eighty in another." At the siege of Marmande, Prince Louis induced the inhabitants to deliver up the town, upon his sacred promise that their lives should be spared. But all the men, women, and children, five thousand in number, were massacred, in order that this human holycaust might bring God's blessing upon the arms of the crusaders. The slaughter was in direct opposition to the will of Louis; but the counsel of the Bishop of Saintes prevailed. "My advice," said that prelate, "is, that you immediately kill and burn ail these people, as heretics and apostates, and that none of them be left alive." Romish authors record this fact. The Albigenses are accused of being "equally hostile to church and state." Of their hostility to the Church of Rome there is no question; but where are the proofs of their being obnoxious to the state? There is nothing in history which can establish such a charge; on the contrary, it is manifest upon the face of every document that is come down to us, that the Albigenses were virtuous, peaceable and to the existing temporal authorities, by "their tenets on civil power and property," is it likely that these princes and seigneurs, and all the influential classes of society, would have espoused their cause and avowed the same sentiments? The only enemy they had was the Roman Church, and when their legitimate prince, the Count of Thoulouse, after being reproached for indulging pity for the heretics, and saving them from punishment, was solicited by the Popish clergy to carry the sentence of the church into effect against them, he pleaded that "he could not and dare not undertake any thing against them." And why? Because," said he, "the majority of the lords, and the greatest part of the common people, have drunk the poison of their infidelity." The Count of Thoulouse was writing to the Abbot of Cisteaux, and therefore he spoke in language which that churchman would understand. It was heresy, and not crime-it was an ecclesiastical, and not a moral or political offence, which occasioned the animosity of the church. William of Puylaurens is one of the chroni clers of the thirteenth century, who relates the history of the extermination of the Albigenses, and Innocent the Third was the Pope who fulminated the bull which armed 500,000 needy adventurers against the rich plains of Languedoc. Now, the chronicler has left upon his pages, that "their outward show of godliness acquired for them the veneration of the people;" and the persecuting pontiff himself recorded, in an epistle which is still extant, that "they were free from many of the vices imputed to them." In the celebrated conference at Albi, which gave name to the Albigenses, where the leaders of the Protestants were met face to face by their accusers, the burden of the lay, which |