MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

under the jacket was a body of crimson satin.

One of her ladies handed her a pair of crimson sleeves, with which she hastily covered her arms; and thus she stood on the black scaffold with the black figures all around her, blood-red from head to foot.

Her reasons for adopting so extraordinary a costume must be left to conjecture. It is only certain that it must have been carefully studied, and that the pictorial effect must have been appalling.

The women, whose firmness had hitherto borne the trial, began now to give way, spasmodic sobs bursting from them which they could not check. 66 Ne criez vous pas," she said, "j'ai promis pour vous." Struggling bravely, they crossed their breasts again and again, she crossing them in turn and bidding them pray for her. Then she knelt on the cushion. Barbary Mowbray bound her eyes with a handkerchief. "Adieu," she said, smiling for the last time and waving her hand to them, "Adieu, au revoir." They stepped back from off the scaffold and left her alone. On her knees she repeated the Psalm, "In te, Domine, confido," "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust." Her shoulders being exposed, two scars became visible, one on either side, and the Earls being now a little behind her, Kent pointed to them with his white wand and looked inquiringly at his companion. Shrewsbury whispered that they were the remains of two abscesses from which she had suffered while living with him at Sheffield.

When the psalm was finished, she felt for the block, and laying down her head muttered: "In manus, Domine tuas, commendo animam meam." The hard wood seemed to hurt her, for she placed her hands under her neck. The executioners gently removed them, lest they should deaden the blow, and then one of them holding her slightly, the other raised the ax and struck. The scene had been too trying even for the practised headsman of the Tower. His arm wandered. The blow fell on the knot of the handkerchief, and scarcely broke the skin. She neither spoke nor moved. He struck again, this time effectively. The head hung by a shred of skin, which he divided without withdrawing the ax; and at once a metamorphosis was witnessed, strange as was ever wrought by wand of fabled enchanter. The coif fell off and the false plaits. The laboured illusion vanished. The lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity of grace and loveliness. The executioner, when he raised the head, as usual, to show it to the crowd, exposed the withered features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

"So perish all enemies of the Queen," said the Dean of Peterborough. A loud Amen rose over the hall. "Such end," said the Earl of Kent, rising and standing over the body, "to the Queen's and the gospel's enemies."

Orders had been given that everything which she had worn should be immediately destroyed, that no relics should be carried off to work imaginary miracles. Sentinels stood at the doors, who allowed no one to pass out without permission; and after the first pause, the Earls still keeping their places, the body was stripped. It then appeared that a favourite lapdog had followed its mistress unperceived, and was concealed under her clothes; when discovered it gave a short cry, and seated itself between the head and the neck, from which the blood was still flowing. It was carried away and carefully washed, and then beads, Paternoster, handkerchiefeach particle of dress which the blood had touched, with the cloth on the block and on the scaffold, was burnt in the hall fire in the presence of the crowd. The scaffold itself was next removed; a brief account of the execution was drawn up, with which Henry Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury's son, was sent to London, and then every one was dismissed. Silence settled down on Fotheringay, and the last scene of the life of Mary Stuart, in which tragedy and melodrama were so strangely intermingled, was over.

A spectator, who was one of her warmest admirers, describes her bearing as infinitely transcending the power of the most accomplished actor to represent. The association of the stage was, perhaps, unconsciously suggested by what was in fact, notwithstanding the tremendous reality with which it closed, the most brilliant acting throughout. The plain gray dress would have sufficed, had she cared only to go through with simplicity the part which was assigned her. She intended to produce a dramatic sensation, and she succeeded. The self-possession was faultless, the courage splendid. Never did any human creature meet death more bravely; yet, in the midst of the admiration and pity which cannot be refused her, it is not to be forgotten that she was leaving the world with a lie upon her lips. She was a bad woman, disguised in the livery of a martyr; and if in any sense at all she was suffering for her religion, it was because she had shown herself capable of those detestable crimes which in the sixteenth century appeared to be the proper fruits of it.-Froude.

POETRY.

Poetry.

THE DEPARTED.

Down the dim vista of the vanished years
I gaze sad-hearted,

And see through gath'ring mists of blinding tears
Loved ones departed.

Brows on which memory's radiance is cast
In fadeless splendour,

And voices that still whisper of the past
In accents tender;

Hands that have lain confidingly in mine,
As loth to sever;

Eyes that upon my darkened pathway shine
No more forever;

Hearts on which mine was ever wont to lean
With trust unshaken,

While not a single cloud could float between,
Doubt to awaken.

And dearer than all others to my sight,
Sweet, childish graces;

Dark grew the world, when death's solemn night
Hid those fair faces.

I sometimes wonder I can ever smile,

Or speak with gladness;

But God is good, and present joys beguile
The past of sadness;

And the fair future stretches far away
From our weak vision;

And thinking of its sunny days, I stray
In fields Elysian.

Yet earthly futures are but dark and dim
Beside that heaven

To which God hath, to all that follow Him,
Free entrance given.

And there I know my loved ones are at rest,
'Mid beauty vernal,

And ne'er can sorrow, care, nor sin, molest
Their peace eternal.

And I will wipe away my selfish tears;

Death can not sever

The ties that bind our souls through mortal years,—

Will last forever!

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Anecdotes and Selections.

THE SCOTCHWOMAN'S FAITH.-By the side of a rippling brook in one of the secluded glens of Scotland, there stands a low, mudthatched cottage, with its neat honeysuckled porch facing the south. Beneath this humble roof, on a snow-white bed, lay, not long ago, old Nancy, the Scotch woman, patiently and cheerfully waiting the moment when her happy spirit would take flight to “mansions in the skies," experiencing with holy Paul, "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." By her bedside, on a small table, lay her spectacles, and her well-thumbed Bible-her "barrel and her cruse,' as she used to call it-from which she daily, yea, hourly, spiritually fed on the "Bread of Life." A young minister frequently called to see her. He loved to listen to her simple expressions of the Bible truths; for when she spoke of her "inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away," it seemed but a little way off, and the listener almost fancied he heard the redeemed in heaven saying, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." One day the young minister put to the happy saint the following question :-"Now, Nannie," said he, "what if, after all your prayers, and watching, and waiting, God should suffer your soul to be eternally lost?" Pious Nannie raised herself on her elbow, and turning to him a wistful look, laid her right hand on the precious Bible which lay open before her, and quietly replied-"Ae, derie me, is that a' the length ye hae got yet, man?" and then continued, her eyes sparkling with almost heavenly brightness, "God would hae the greatest loss. Poor Nannie would but lose her soul, and that would be a great loss indeed, but God would lose His honour and His character. Haven't I hung my soul upon His 'exceeding great and precious promises?' and if He brak' His word, He would make Himself a liar, and a' the universe would rush into confusion." By faith the old Scotch woman had cast her soul's salvation upon God's promise in Christ by the gospel. In every sorrow she had found Him a very present help in trouble;" and now, about to leave the weary wilderness for her everlasting home, could she think that He would prove unfaithful to His word? No. Sooner than poor Nannie's soul be lost, God's honour, God's character, God Himself must be overturned, and all the universe rush into confusion! Dear old pilgrim!

66

LIGHTNING AS A DETECTIVE.-A great many curious tales are related of extraordinary interposition of the electric force in some of the most striking dramas of human life. Arago gives an account of the chief of a band of brigands being struck down in the courtyard of a prison in Bavaria in the midst of his comrades. He was seated on the pavement, or on a stone, being fastened by an iron chain to a fixed

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

ring or staple; his companions bound in a similar manner around him. The electric charge, controlled probably in some degree by the chain and the iron fixture to which it was attached, passed through the body of the chief and instantly killed him. His comrades knowing nothing of the natural laws by which this natural agency is controlled, were struck with consternation, believing that the lightning had intelligently selected their ringleader, by the special judgment of heaven, in retribution for his crimes. In this case, and indeed in many such cases as this, the body of the brigand was so situated as to form part of a chain of communication well adapted for the electricity to pursue in its passage from the atmosphere to the ground. It is always dangerous in a thunder-storm to be so situated in relation to surrounding bodies that are good conductors as to form with them a channel for the passage of the force.

THE MEANING OF SORROW.-Let us look truth in the face. You

cannot hide it from yourself. "Man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upwards." Sorrow is not an accident, occurring now and then; it is the very woof which is woven into the warp of life. God has created the nerves to agonize, and the heart to bleed; and before a man dies, almost every nerve has thrilled with pain, and every affection has been wounded. The account of life which represents it as probation, is inadequate; so is that which regards it chiefly as a system of rewards and punishments. The truest account of this mysterious existence seems to be, that it is intended for the development of the soul's life, for which sorrow is indispensable. Every son of man who would attain the true end of his being must be baptized with fire. It is the law of our humanity, as of that of Christ, that we may be perfected through suffering; and he who has not discerned the divine sadness of sorrow, and the profound meaning which is concealed in pain, has yet to learn what life is. The Cross, manifested as the necessity of the highest life, alone interprets it.

PULLING UP THE ANCHOR.-We have heard a story of two drunken sailors who had to cross a Scotch frith at night. They leaped into the boat and pulled away at the oars with all their might; they pulled and pulled, and wondered they did not reach the shore. In their maudlin state they thought the tide was set against them, and so, in a wild fashion, they took spells of pulling, but no shore did they reach. Great was their astonishment, for the frith was narrow, and a quarter of an hour should have seen them at the opposite beach. "Surely," they said, "the boat is bewitched, or we are." The night wore on, and the morning light explained the mystery to their soberer eyes. "Why, Sandy, mon, we never pulled up the anchor!" Just so; and thus, tug as they might, they laboured in vain.-Many and many a sinner has been in like case. He has tried to believe, always a strange thing to do, but all his trying has come to nothing; peace has been as far off as ever. The means of grace have been unavailing,