" Meanwhile the executioners had returned from the castle, and the flames were rekindled. 'A baker, also, called Myrton, ran and brought his arms full of straw and cast it into the fire ; whereupon there came a blast of wind from the east, forth of the sea, and raised the flame of fire so vehemently that it blew upon the friar who had accused him, and threw him upon the ground, burning all the forepart of his cowl.' The terror and confusion of the conscience-striken Dominican contrasted strangely with the calmness of the martyr. Surrounded and devoured by fierce flames, he had still recollectedness enough to remember, in his torment, his widowed mother, and to commend her with his dying breath to the care and sympathy of his friends. When nearly burnt through his middle with the fiery chain, a voice in the crowd of spectators called aloud to him, that if he still had faith in the doctrine for which he died he should give a last sign of his constancy. Whereupon he raised three fingers of his half-consumed hand, and held them steadily in that position till he ceased to live. His last audible words were, 'How long, Lord, shall darkness overwhelm this kingdom? How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of men ? Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!' “It was six o'clock in the evening before his body was quite reduced to ashes. The execution had lasted for nearly six hours ; 'but during all that time,' says Alexander Alane, who had witnessed with profound emotion the whole scene, the martyr never gave one sign of impatience or anger, nor ever called to Heaven for vengeance upon his persecutors: so great was his faith, so strong his confidence in God.' “ Thus tragically but gloriously died, on the 29th day of February, 1528, Patrick Hamilton-a noble martyr in a noble cause, At a time when the power of the Roman Church in Scotland was yet entire and overwhelming, he found it impossible to serve the cause of the recovered Gospel by the labours of a long life; but he joyfully embraced the honour of serving it by the heroic constancy and devotion of his death; and probably, by dying for it in the very flower of his age, he served its interests more effectually, as his country was then circumstanced, than if he had been permitted to go on with his ministry for many years. Such a martyrdom was precisely what Scotland needed to atir it to its depths, and rouse it to attention and reflection. Such a death had more awakening power in it than the labours of a long life. If his spoken words had been brief and few, they had at least been pithy and pregnant words; they had been the words of the wise, which are as goads, and as nails fastened in a sure place,' and his fiery martyrdom clenched and rivetted them in the nation's heart for ever. He conquered by dying. He spoiled principalities and powers by giving his body into their power. He lighted a candle that day in Scotland wbich could never afterwards be put out. While he lived,' said the elegant poet who sang of the crowns of the Scottish martyrs, “his light was a fire,' so fervent was his zeal for God and his country. When he died, the fire of his pile was a light to lighten a benighted land,'” All who have viewed the romantic ruins of Cambuskenneth, near Stirling, will feel an additional interest in them after reading the following details. “ Garyn Logie had a brother or other near kinsman, Robert Logie, who was a canon of Cambuskenneth, and had charge of the novices of the abbey, to teach them the grammar.' This relationship formed an additional link of connection and communication between the two houses, and no doubt served as a conductor by which the new influence which had begun to work so powerfully at St. Andrews might be conveyed across the country to the Abbey of Stirling. In fact, there are several authentic particulars which go to prove that that abbey became one of the earliest seats and most influential centres of evangelical truth and life. Robert Richardson, one of its canons, became a professed Lutheran preacher only a few years after the publication of his 'Exegesis.' He had a brother or other kinsman, John Richardson, who was also a canon of the abbey, and who was driven into exile in 1538 or 1539, for the same cause. Thomas Cocklaw, parish priest of Tullibody-one of the churches belonging to the abbey and served by its canons-was summoned before the Bishop of Dunblane for having secretly married a widow in the same village, named Margaret Jameson, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. But by the help of a relative, who broke down the walls of his prison with crowbars and other instruments,' he was able to effect his escape, and afterwards became a Protestant minister in England. Cocklaw was intimately connected with a circle of Reformers in Stirling, including John Kiellor and John Beveridge, Black Friars; Duncan Simson, priest; and Robert Forrester, a gentleman burgess of Stirlingwho were all soon after Cocklaw's flight brought to the stake on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, not only as 'chief heretics and teachers of heresies, but also because they had been present at Cocklaw's marriage, and had eaten flesh in Lent at the same.' And there was a like intimacy between Robert Logie and the excellent Dean and Cauon of St. Colme's Inch, Thomas Forret, Vicar of Dollar, who was cruelly put to death along with the martyrs of Stirling. Logie used much the company of the Vicar of Dollar, and great search was made for him in the vicar's house when he took to flight. When he perceived he was to be apprehended he conveyed himself secretly to Tullibody, where he found some treasure which Thomas Cocklaw had laid under a horse-stall, as the said Thomas had directed him. He was hardly pursued by the way, and drew into a sheepfold till his pursuers passed by. He went to Dundee, where he took the seas, Some years afterwards he was seen teaching in London, but nothing further is known of him.' "From these facts, taken in connection with what is further recorded by Knox, that in 1559 the malice of the Queen Regent' extended to Cambuskenneth, for there she dischairgit the portionis (stopped the stipends) of as many of the canons as had forsaken papistrie, it appears that this ancient and opulent abbey had become a centre of light to all the country round. Its influence was very great in that part of the kingdom. It had numerous churches and chapels dependent upon it, including St. Ninian's, Larbert, Kippen, Kirkintilloch, Alloa, Clackmannan, and several others; and having the patronage of most of them as well as the fruits, it filled them with parish priests from its own college of canons. It was an honourable peculiarity of the canons regular of St. Austin that they took the charge of parish churches, and performed ecclesiastical functions, without distinction of place; whereas the regular clergy of other non-predicant orders seldom discharged spiritual duties beyond the walls of their own monasteries. And hence the clergy of St. Austin, who had once been the most active agents of papal influence, were qualified to become, as many of them in fact became, highly efficient instruments in propagating the principles of the Reformation and extending its triumphs, “It was remarkable that th4 Abbey of Cambuskenneth should have become imbued to so considerable an extent with the doctrines of the Reformation, considering the character and principles of its distinguished abbot. Alexander Myln was a churchman of the strictest Roman orthodoxy, and took an active part in the severe proceedings which were adopted through a long course of years to suppress the Reformation. He had sat on the tribunal which condemned Patrick Hamilton to death, and he was one of the judges who doomed the numerous exiles and martyrs of 1534. But Myln, though not a doctrinal, was an educational Reformer. He was exemplary in his own life and deportment, as attested by Richardson, and took great pains, in imitation of the example set by his predecessor, Patrick Panther, to improve the talents and scholarship of his canons. Richardson speaks in strong terms of the benefits which he had derived from him ; and it was no doubt by Myln's liberality that he was sent to study in the University of Paris, where he was residing at the time when he published his work. But it was in all probability these very reforms, introduced into the abbey by two successive abbots, that prepared in it à soil for the seed of Reformation truth. Generally speaking, it was the better sort of monks in every country, not the worse-those whose minds had been enlightened, and whose mental and moral tastes had been improved by superior culture--who welcomed the Reformation. It was perfectly natural that the two Augustinian houses of St. Andrew's and Cambuskenneth, the two most lettered in the kingdom, which had long been united by the tie of common intellectual studies, should also be drawn to each other by common religious sympathies, and that the religious Reformation begun in the one should speedily be communicated to the society of the other, But the most curious fact of all connected with this subject is, that Robert Richardson, whom the abbot had selected from his canons to send to the schools of Paris, and who, so late as | 1530, gave a proof both of his zeal as an Augustinian, and of his veneration for Myln by the publication of his 'Exegesis,' and the dedication of it to the abbot, should turn up in London, only a few years after, as a religious disciple and protégé of the celebrated Thomas Cromwell, Prime Minister to Henry VIII., the worst enemy of monks and monasteries that the world had ever seen ; and that he should have been one of the first Lutheran preachers employed to declaim in the dioceses of England against the supremacy of the Pope, and in support of the new spiritual prerogatives claimed by the English crown." HALLELUJAH: AN APPEAL TO THE CHURCH ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF PRAISE. AMONG the various planets in our solar system there is a common influence that binds them into unity, and a common exercise which creates their harmony. Gravitation makes them one, and their individual revolutions work out a concord. In God's moral world there are similar features. A common sentiment unites heaven and earth. A common service is their harmony. The love of God is the grand gravitating law that binds celestial and terrestrial beings into one family, and the praise of God is the employment that assimilates their service. In heaven charity never faileth, and when the seer of Patmos was favoured with a vision of the glorified, he beheld, and heard " ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands ”-a myriad choir“ saying | with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and i riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." Heaven is begun on earth. The character that befits it is here acquired, and the exercise that occupies its redeemed inhabitants is here cultivated. The sentiment that there moves all alike, is in some degree the privilege of Christian expectants here; and the song that expresses the grateful emotions of the beatified, and is strung on their “harps of gold," is set to earthly music, and sung by imperfect tongues in this lower sphere. The ordinary services of our sanctuaries consist of three parts—the devotional, the eucharistic, and the homiletic, or prayer, praise, and preaching. The last has had an undue place in the worship of our Church, while the two former have been deprived of their proper position. Of the two, however, the devotional prevails more than the eucharistic. The praise is our saddest blemish. It has been sinfully neglected among us. It has not formed so frequent a subject of instruction and exhortation from the pulpit as it does in the revelation of God: it has not resounded as it ought from our pews. Ministers and people have not done their part in promoting the proper praise of God. But we may be no longer silent or inactive. The Church is awakening to the importance of this part of our worship. Efforts are being made on every side to improve it. We may not be behind. Praise is the ascription of glory or honour to any one. It is therefore the adoration of God, for all the excellence that belongs to this exalted Being, for all the bounties of his providence, and for all the disclosures and effects of his grace. All his works do praise Him. The marks of divine wisdom which they bear are a silent hymn to their Creator : " For ever singing as they shine The Hand that made us is Divine.” Intelligence is no less a psalm, but it can actively perform the service, compose a psalmody and music. In the praise of inferior beings there is ever danger of enhancing merit, and of giving a superlative expression to comparative worth; but in the praise of God it is impossible to be lavish. No key-note is too high for an anthem to Jehovah, " for of Him and through Him, and to Him are all things : to whom be glory for ever. Amen." Praise is a reasonable service in man to his Maker, in the redeemed to the Redeemer, and in the beatified to the God of Love. The constitution of man suggests the duty. He is an organ for intelligence to sound. The atmosphere around him affords facilities for the musical expression of praise. But Scripture precept enjoins the duty in language too strong to leave room for doubt, and with a frequency sufficient to magnify the service in the esteem of the obedient. There is a breadth of application both as to the theme and exercise of praise in the word of God, as to impress on the most cursory reader the solemn obligation to praise the Lord. Many of the psalms begin with the express command, and Hallelujah is their frequent chorus. What has been so strictly insisted upon by God, has been characteris. tically the practice of the Church in its most revived times. The various experiences of Israel led to praise. The deliverance from Egypt occasioned the Song of Moses. The wilderness journey suggested the Psalms of David. Public worship had this service as a constant accompaniment. The New Testament dispensation was heralded by angelic anthems. Its “ glad tidings of great joy” have been the songs of Zion. The beautiful garments of the bride have been her extatic praises to redeeming love. The early Christians were particularly distinguished for this service of God. And when the Reformation dispelled the darkness which had enshrouded “the Huguenots," and revived the deadness of the Church, the new life of believing men sought expressions in psalms of thanksgiving. Next to its renowned preachers, the Reformation was most indebted to its lively psalter. The same occurred in the revivals of the last century under Whitfield and Wesley. It is a rule of Church history. Evangelical religion improves the service of song. But the duty of praise, while it arises out of the Divine commandment, is enhanced by all the circumstances connected with spiritual experience. All the mercies of God in providence and grace, call for the expression of lively gratitude. Redemption, alike in its origin and blessed effects, suggests thanksgiving. Praise is the first emotion of a forgiven soul. It was an early feature in the worship of the converts at Jerusalem. It was the exercise of the gaoler at Philippi. Thus, too, does the joy of a recovered backslider find utterance. The fifty-first Psalm was David's tbankoffering. And throughout the Christian life, joys and sorrows alike suggest a song of Zion. Exiles, while hanging their barps on the willows, poured forth their experience in Hebrew melody. Mariners have music on the waters. Dear reader, have you something to be thankful for ?—then you will praise. Are your sins forgiven ?-then you will say with the sweet singer of old: “O thou my soul, bless God the Lord, And all that in me is, To magnify and bless." Are you conscious of answers to prayer?-petition will be changed to triumph. Have you got grace according to your need ?-you will rejoice in the Lord. Praise may be the privileged exercise of everyone, were you only considering your mercies. They are new every morning. Were you accepting the offer of eternal life through Jesus, the expression of your soul would be praise. This offer is now made to you, pressed upon you. Receive it, and give thanks. Praise to God in his sanctuary is the object for which we write; and we hope, in another paper, to consider the means necessary for this, and the great importance of improved expression of praise in the House of God. Meantime, let it be considered that this is the only part of Divine service in which the whole congregation audibly joins in our form of worship. Its obligation is therefore vastly increased, and should be deeply felt and fully expressed. Personal piety must merge into congregational worship, and the gush of individual emotion burst forth in a common psalm. Yet there is no part of public worship so deficient among us. What ought to be the chief characteristic of our congregational piety is its greatest reproach. It is as if few choristers were training for the heavenly Hallelujah! Miscellaneous Papers, (Original and Selected.) HAVRE AND ITS SEAMEN'S CHAPEL. We have often thought that the free, in Louisville, Kentucky, arrived general character which most of the at Havre-de-Grace-a seaport perhaps statements regarding missionary and the most important in all France. To philanthropic efforts assume, robs them himself and to his friends it seemed as to some extent of that interest which if he had gone there to die. It was attaches to more individual narratives. recommended to him as his only We have, therefore, been glad, when chance, and that but an uncertain one, we have found opportunities taken to of regaining vigour; and rather in seize on a special effort and describe it compliance with a demand of duty by itself; and, thanks to willing work- thar with the hope of recovery, he ers in this field, we have now more sought that foreign clime. But, conthan one of a series of what might be trary to all expectations, health gracalled Missionary Monographs. Idually returned, and as Chaplain to the We believe there are few persons in American Seamen's Friend Society, this country at all aware of the ex. Mr. Sawtell found congenial employ. tended nature and catholic character ment in Havre. He laboured among of the labours pursued by the American the sailors, who visit the port in great Sailors' Friend Society. It has its pumbers. A wide and effectual door chaplains, with their simple and inex-of usefulness was opened up to him, pensive agency, in almost every port and the work grew and prospered. He that American commerce visits-and began by visiting the ships and hosgreat has been the service these mi- pitals, and distributing tracts. By. nisters of the truth have conferred on and-by he opened a reading-room for the cause of Christianity among the sailors, and invited them to meet him class to which they chiefly devote their there on Sabbaths to hear the Gospel. labourg. Without going into any The small room at first obtained soon general detail of the society's opera- proved insufficient. A larger and a tions, we prefer to present our readers larger were successively rented, till at with a short description of one of its last the largest that could be got in stations, in the shape of a narrative, Havre could not hold the numbers who such as might form such a Mig. sought admission. Impressed with the sionary Monograph as we have refer- importance of the work, Mr. Sawtell red to : proceeded to America, and collected In July, 1836, the Rev. E. N. there 10,000 dollars, or £2,000, for the Sawtell, an evangelical minister in the erection of a chapel. Returning to United States of America, with strength Havre, he proceeded with the building; exhausted and health broken through but the funds being scarcely ample manifold and arduous ministerial duties enough, he visited England, and from among whites and blacks, bond and London and its neighbourhood carried |