A WORD TO THE READERS. MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS, I am sure you must have been interested in the very nice, yet very solemn, address of your kind friend, the Editor, in last month's GLEANER. And as our good old friend the GLEANER has there gathered together some very signal instances of God's displeasure against sin and wilful transgressors, together with the discomfiture of the cause of national right and political and religious freedom in the persons of the soldiers of England's Commonwealth, and to which he adds a reference to the shameful treatment that dear servant of the Lord Jesus, Cennick, experienced at the hands of the Wiltshire peopleto which might be coupled the no less honoured Mr. C. Wesley, who has left a very graphic account of the rough handling he received here to the jeopardy of his life-I shall endeavour to give you, by way of addenda, an instance or two of God's providential goodness and spiritual mercies in connexion with the town of Devizes, which I hope may prove interesting and instructive. Perhaps some of you have sometimes wondered why so large a portion of the Bible, the chief object of which is to show us the way to heaven and blessedness, should be occupied with the history of a nation, and circumstantial events in the lives of individuals, many of which are apparently of not very particular importance. I could not attempt, in a little address like this, to reply to so large, interesting, and profitable an inquiry; but I have no *No doubt the people of God in the Parliamentary Army were in a false position. The saints are to suffer, not to slay; still we are quite sure they were fighting against two immense evils, tyranny in politics, and treachery aiding popery in religion.-ED. doubt you will agree with me, that a good and allwise God saw it would be a fitting way to convey lessons of wisdom and truth to our minds, both beneficial for this life, and that which is to come. And I am equally sure that, in the history of God's dealings with nations and individuals from that ancient time to the present, there have been given innumerable edifying and instructive incidents, the proper application of which, to our own lives and conduct, would go far to enable us to fill up usefully our sphere in life, and would add to our material happiness below. But, turning from this wide field, I should hope that God's visible hand, displayed for and on behalf of his Church and people, will ever have an especial interest for you, my dear young friends. I have just now no very wonderful or striking event to tell you; but it is well to trace God's goodness and care toward us and over us in little things. The seed-corn which is this month cast into the fallow ground, and which by God's good hand will be reaped next August, in its fructifying increase, is none the less a work of Almighty power than it would be if the same seed should suddenly spring forth to perfection during the cold, dark days of November, though in the latter instance it would be most apt to rivet our attention. I shall first give you a confirmation from history that the triumph of the wicked is but for a season. After the rout of the parliamentary army on Roundway-hill, the garrison of the old castle became very oppressive to the town and district for miles around; indeed, they seem to have been little better than armed bands of robbers: but sometime after the invincible Cromwell made his appearance under the walls of the grand old castle, planted his artillery in the spacious market-place of the town, and sent in his peremptory summons of surrender to the Governor, which being pompously refused, Cromwell lost no time, but immediately opened fire on the walls, which in the space of about two days brought about the humble submission of the defenders to the terms imposed by the conqueror. "For the first time," says the historian, "during a period of five hundred years, was the flag of surrender seen floating from the grey walls of the proud old regal castle." I most cordially agree with the great New Testament principle, that the weapons of a Christian's warfare are not carnal, and innumerable instances have literally verified our suffering Saviour's words to Peter, "He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword;" yet every true-born Englishman should revere the memory of that generation of Puritans who purchased our present civil and religious liberties with their blood. These were the men who, more than any others, may be termed the founders of the liberties and greatness of England. Our flag which waves in every sea and clime, our prosperous colonies planted in the four quarters of the globe, largely owe their origin and their influence to the political sagacity with which God endowed the great Protector and his advisers. But I must come to my promised record of spiritual blessings. Just about the time of the occurrence referred to above, a good old puritanic Christian lady, whose name is still left on record, opened her house as a Baptist meeting-room, and a tradition is still in existence in the town that some of Cromwell's soldiers formed the nucleus of the first Baptist church most probably in this part of England. The lamp of truth then set up has been kept alight to this day. Puritanical truths and doctrines are still professed, believed, and main [Nov. 1, 1872. tained by its members and present pastor.* May they long continue to be loved, adhered to, and prac tised in their lovely Bible simplicity! Some of my young friends have doubtless read of England's sad Bartholomew day, when two thousand godly ministers were turned out of the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity, and otherwise most cruelly treated. One of these good men, a Mr. Flowers, laboured in word and doctrine during those dark years of suffering and trial among the above little community. Their ancient meetinghouse I have in occupation as a store; and I can assure my dear young readers, though I am an admirer of the beautiful either in nature or in art, when I look on the rude pillars of this house, reared in troublous times, therein to worship God in spirit and in truth, my reflections are very much more pleasurable than when sometimes, in the neighbouring city of Salisbury, I stand and gaze on the fine artistic proportions of that far-famed cathedral church, which was reared in the darkest days of Popery, with money wrung from a degraded and oppressed people, to carry on therein a gorgeous mock worship of the Almighty. The superb western front of this imposing pile of medieval architecture has niches in which originally stood, perhaps, near a hundred life-sized sculptured figures representing saints-the gods and goddesses of Rome. Will not my readers be surprised and grieved to hear that, in these dark ages into which we have for some time past been rapidly drifting, the priest-blinded people of our professedly Protestant church are zealously and actively restoring these carved idols to their original positions, from which many of them were hurled by the soldiery of the renowned Protector? * Mr. Hemmington. But I must bring my rambling address to my dear Gleaners to a close. The northern valleys of the Wiltshire downs have for many years been noted for containing numerous little gatherings of worshippers of God professing Calvinistic principles. I have little doubt that in many instances they owe their origin to the humble and unlettered, but godly itinerants, who for generations past have gone forth on a Lord's day, after the labours of the week, from the old Baptist meeting, Devizes. I find a record, made nearly one hundred and seventy years ago, of a regular stipend paid by the brethren here to an assistant to the pastor in the ministry, most probably for labour of this nature; and I can tell my young friends that some of my happiest hours have been spent in telling the story of the cross, and of a Saviour's love to the lost and the guilty, among the simple rustics of these vales, in whose midst there are still to be found a goodly number of the saints of the Most High. I must not. trespass further. May you be led to love right principles, and esteem good men, and also be brought savingly to know that God, who ruleth over the armies of heaven, and the inhabitants of the earth, is the desire and prayer of a sincere well-wisher to the future prosperity of the LITTLE GLEANER and its readers. OBEDIENCE. I HEARD a mother say to her little boy, "Bring your sister into the house; the dew is falling upon the grass, and she will get cold." Now, I saw that this little boy did not want to obey this command; and yet he was afraid to come out into open disobedience. I would not judge children unjustly, for I love them very much-even dirty, ragged children, who have |