"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 rest." Ps. lv. 6. THE PERSECUTED CHRISTIAN. Lo! where the Christian walks in fore distress, THE engraving shows a poor man in great distress. 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, close 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 sting. On one hand is seen the hungry wolf ravening for prey; on the other, the infidious crocodile waiting to seize 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 sees flying over his head, for then he would escape them all; he would fly away from the foreft of wild beasts to the open wilderness; there would he be at reft. This is an emblem of what the Chriftian often times has to fuffer while paffing through this world to his eternal home. Sometimes persecution, like the mad bull and furious lion seen in the picture, rages, and threatens to deftroy Chriftianity 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 Christians were subjected to ten fierce and bloody persecutions, which terminated not until the Church had lost 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 persons, among whom were 5 bishops, 21 clergymen, 8 gentlemen of fortune, 84 tradesmen, 100 hufbandmen, 55 women, and 4 children. These were all burned alive, besides numerous confiscations, &c. Perfecution, however, exists 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, snarling cur is the most useless of the dog kind: so 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 adversity. Envy is known to plot in secret the deftruction of that excellence she cannot reach; while fraud takes advantage of the unsuspecting child of God, and seeks to draw him into fin and trouble. In the midst of his perfecutions, the Chriftian would fain borrow the wings of a dove, and seek refuge in some vast wilderness, "fome boundless contiguity of shade," or rather, the wings of fome heavenly cherub; then would he fly to mansions of eternal repose, where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are for ever at reft." "When rifing floods my foul o'erflow, When finks my heart in waves of woe, Jesus, thy timely aid impart, And raise my head and cheer my heart. "If rough and stormy be the way, "O wretched man that I am! who shall 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, |