to those who were present. In this last and most solemn scene on the stage of life, in this closing drama of his extraordinary career, at once so transcendently brilliant and so horribly gloomy, he found himself "having no hope and without God in the world," his sun going down in utter darkness and despair. So died the learned and distinguished Voltaire, the champion of French infidelity and practical atheism, the elegant poet, philosopher, and essayist. No one wishes to die as he died. Let us now look at another picture, nearer home and more pleasant and cheering. In the year 1853, gently departed and "fell asleep in Jesus a little child, infant son of the Rev. Dr. Schaff, after eight weeks of almost unparalleled suffering on the part of a child only about two and a half years old. With his own consent the painful operation of tracheotomy was performed, in order to extract a chestnut huli from his wind-pipe; and for three weeks the patient little sufferer breathed through the incision. During his protracted sufferings he would often, in childlike simplicity, say, "Heaven is a beautiful place; God is there, Christ is there, the angels are there, all good people are there." Near the close of his sufferings, in allusion to a child's hymn, which he had been taught, he said to his mother, "Ma, ma, I will fly up, up, up to heaven, like a 'little diamond in the sky.'" So died the little martyr, the gentle, submissive, patient sufferer, two and a half years old, who had been taught a few simple lessons in Christian piety. Who would not wish to die like that martyr lamb?

One scene more and we have done. Please, then, accompany me to a dark and dismal dungeon in the City of Rome, the mistress of the world. There on the damp, stony pavement, and chained to a rude and unfeeling soldier, sits an aged and venerable-looking man, small in stature, of dark complexion, with diminutive and deep-set eyes, stooped, sad, and care-worn, with an expression of deep and most earnest concern depicted on his countenance. We view him for a moment in silent awe and amazement, and then say, "Are you not Saul of Tarsus, the distinguished disciple of the learned and amiable Rabbi Gamaliel, at whose feet you sat, many a day an

admiring pupil? He answers, "Once, sir, I was; but now am Paul, called to be an apostle, a disciple of the meek and lowly Saviour, Jesus of Nazareth." "Indeed, and did you not formerly denounce, in unmeasured terms, the religion of Christ, and persecute even unto death the disciples of Jesus?" "Once, sir, I did," calmly and ingenuously answers the aged and illustrious herald of the cross, "but I did it in ignorance; and now I preach the faith which once I destroyed, and deem it my highest honor and sweetest employ to be engaged in the service of my Divine Lord and Master, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." "But did you not make a sad mistake in exchanging the established and popular religion of your illustrious ancestors for that of Jesus, the despised Nazarene?" "Not at all," is his ready reply; "I did, indeed, make heavy sacrifices in passing from the one to the other, but what things were gain to me, those I counted loss; yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith; that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." "But will not your present deplorable situation and your prospective sufferings, in the cause which you have espoused, shake your confidence and despoil you of your present peace and of your future joyous anticipations? "Nay, verily, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of

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"But what, if you

God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." should fall a victim to the malice and fury of your implacable enemies, and your life be thus sacrificed to your excessive zeal and fidelity in the cause of Christ, will not this blast your fond hopes and disappoint, sadly disappoint, all your bright and glowing anticipations? "Not at all. For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." "Are you, and your companions in tribula-tion, and in the Kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, then prepared to undergo all these immense sacrifices, to be subjected to untold privations, persecutions, sufferings, and death even, if need be, for the love you bear to Jesus Christ and His blood-bought Church?" "Yea, truly; we are indeed troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. And so the Holy Ghost witnesseth, in every city, saying, that bonds and afflictions abide me; but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the Grace of God." Thus speaks Paul, the apostle. Such a hero infidelity has never produced, and what is far better still, such a hero infidelity never can produce.

When, for instance, has an infidel philosopher shown the noble and ingenuous spirit and heroic courage of Paul in the matter of humbly confessing his past errors, and cheerfully embracing the truth? A thousand times over have the corrupt principles of infidelity been confuted, and their legitimate tendency shown to be degrading and ruinous to men, and dishonoring to God; but in spite of all this, the advocates of these pernicious principles have remained unmoved. Verily such men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil," and consequently they continue in their wickedness.

the whole range of infidel Such entire, disinterested, welfare, is a virtue which

Again, when has an infidel or atheist, a free-thinker of the modern school, devoted himself, in the use of his moral and intellectual powers to the good of his fellow-men, and generously offered up, as Paul did, his life for the public welfare? Such an instance is not to be found in activity and skeptical philosophy. loving self devotion to the public adorns none but the Christian character, a jewel that sparkles only in the martyr's crown. Determined and persistent attempts at revolutionizing human society and elevating man in the scale of being were indeed once made by the French illuminati; but, alas, instead of benefiting mankind, their efforts brought in their bloody train only desolation and ruin―utter ruin. During that fearful period of bloodshed and violence, very properly called the reign of terror, society became perfectly disjointed, law and order subverted, the sacred soil of France drenched in blood; all sense of security, both private and public, was lost, every sentiment of humanity and religion. banished from the breast, human nature degraded, and God dishonored and insulted, and the whole country, as some one says, "resembled one vast slaughter-house, slippery with blood and pollution."

And, finally, what infidel has ever deliberately faced danger and persecution in the defense of his cause, and sealed his testimony to the truth with his blood, as did St. Paul and a host of others, men who joyfully died for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus? In the early ages of the Church such heroism and fidelity to the cause of truth were quite common. "The blood of martyrs flowed in torrents. The heroism of confessors braved every danger. Bishops ruled at the peril of their lives." Men eminent in wisdom, piety, and station, joyfully gave up their lives for the wreath of immortality. "All the Bishops of Rome, for three hundred years, with only two or three exceptions, suffered martyrdom, and received the martyr's crown." Has infidelity such witnesses for the truth?

Ah! no! It has neither confessors, saints, nor heroes, who, while serving their Divine Lord, gloried in chains and dun

geons; no blessed martyrs to wear the immortal diadem. They who habitually glory in their unbelief, and boast of their superior intelligence, despising the humble believer in Christ, do not even pretend to have any such moral heroes, such glorious champions of the truth, to grace their infamous retinue, or to impart dignity, eclat, and lustre to their faltering cause. Ashamed of their pernicious principles, they must yield without a struggle this honor to Jesus Christ and His holy religion. "For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges."

ART. II. THE CRISIS IN THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.

BY THE REV. JOHN I. SWANDER, A. M., LATROBE, PA.

THE eighth century of the Christian era was born before the midnight of the mediaval age. The power of the Papacy had just started toward the throne of its despotism, while Paganism was tottering upon the verge of its decline. The figures upon. the dial-plate of history seemed to indicate that the world had gone back to gather strength for progress. The Star of Empire no longer mapped its orbit in the land of Shem. Africa had become entangled in the meshes of a moral night whose abiding darkness has required no less than a Livingstone of the nineteenth century to penetrate its interior. America was unknown to the masters of navigation. Europe was the path of the world's progress and the field of its conflicts. Here the antagonistic legions of light and darkness entered the arena of mortal contest and struggled for the mastery over the elements involved. The skirmishes of other continents were of secondary importance in the performance of the world's great drama. The scope of the past had reached its meaning in the mystery of the cross. The Nazarene had solved the enigma of four thousand years. Judaism had fulfilled its peculiar mission