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"and there's no blessing to those who do not believe it." The parents of William de Farel and their little boy were troubled with no doubts.

Though superstitious, young Farel thirsted for knowledge, and asked his father's permission to study. But his father would have him to be a soldier, like their neighbour, the Chevalier Bayard, the brave knight "without fear and without reproach," whose name was borne on every breeze that swept across the Alps. "I would rather be a scholar," was the youth's ambition. "Let me read of Cæsar before I try to be like Cæsar. Let knowledge be my armour, and the pen my sword. I want not battles, but books." Long and earnestly did he plead with his father, who felt it to be a great blow to all his hopes of seeing the young noble enter upon a military career; but at last the old man gave way, and began to inquire for a competent teacher.

The year 1510, which saw Luther on his way to Rome, partially enlightened, but still full of faith in the Pope, and in the Roman church, saw Farel on his way to Paris, to study in its then famous University. The young Dauphinese gave himself with equal zeal to his studies and to his religious devotions. On the walls of most Romish churches are hung pictures of different scenes in the sufferings and death of our Lord. The worshippers begin at the first and pass around to the last, kneeling before each one, and repeating the words of their penance or prayers. These kneeling places are called stations on the way to the cross. Farel made it a matter of conscience to visit these stations, but the cross to which they led him was not the true cross.

One day he saw an aged man going the rounds, all absorbed in his devotions. He prostrated himself at the stations, and lingered, repeating his prayers. He seemed the model of fervour and contrition; as the tears fell, the lips quivered, and the voice rose full and clear in the responses of the public service. There was much in his manner to charm the young stranger; and he could not forget the earnestness of the good old man, saying of him years afterwards: "Never had I seen a chanter of the mass sing it with greater reverence. This little, unpretending, aged man was the eloquent, popular, and beloved James Lefevre, a Professor in the University.

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Lefevre was a "Reformer before the Reformation," and had maintained important truth at a time when Luther had only just found the chained Bible in the convent of Erfurth, and five years before he nailed his theses to the door of the old church in Wittemberg. But the French Professor was an earnest Roman Catholic notwithstanding. And to become acquainted with him was young Farel's most ardent wish. How they met, we do not know; but Farel "could not restrain his joy when he found himself kindly received by this celebrated It seemed as if he had gained his object in coming to the capital. "From that time his greatest pleasure was to converse with him, to listen to him, to hear his admirable lessons, and to kneel with him devoutly before the same shrines. Often might the aged Lefevre and his young disciple be seen adorning an image of the Virgin with flowers; and alone, far from all Paris, far from its scholars and its doctors, they mur

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mured in concert the fervent prayers they offered to Mary." The teacher, warring against certain errors, still held to some of the most absurd; and the student, who had refused to take the sword, still clung to the rosary. But Farel's spirit hungered, his soul found no rest. Lefevre scarcely dared to tell him the little truth that he was leaning upon; for he seemed not quite sure of it himself. student went, restless and wretched, to several doctors of the age; but they only sent him away more wretched than before. He told them that he wanted to be a real Christian, and they gave him Aristotle as a guide. He read books, bowed to images, adored relics, invoked the saints, kept the fasts and festivals, carried his reverence for Mary to a most superstitious extreme, and yet all proved worse than in vain. It was sending him to the brambles, under a delusion that from them he would gather grapes.

In his distress he learned one piece of good news. It was that the "Holy Father, the Pope," was willing to allow the Old and New Testaments to be called the Holy Bible. And Farel betook himself to the Bible. The Pope and the Apostles, he thought, must agree in their teachings! But as he read the sacred page, he was amazed at seeing how they disagreed, and how different everything in Romanism was from the Christianity of the New Testament. Where was the mass taught in the Bible? Where prayer to the saints? Where the adoration of relics? Where the worship of the Virgin Mary? Where confession to priests? Where the paying of money for a pardon? Where Purgatory?

Where salvation by an endless round of works? Certainly not in the Bible. But now came deeper perplexity than ever. And his first effort was the very reverse of what the young Luther was now doing, when making the Church give way to the teachings of the Bible. The monk of Erfurth thought, in his best hours, that Christ must stand, and the Pope must fall; God must be believed, though the church went to ruin. The Dauphinese student scarcely ventured to think; but attempted to make the Bible give way to the teachings of Popery. But this was a hard task. And he shut his eyes lest he should see. He now left the Bible unopened, lest it should destroy his faith in the Church and in its rites. So his Romish fervour returned, and he threw his whole soul into his old devotions.

The "Lives of the Saints," so-called, were now resorted to. In his heart Farel admired the invented stories of their zeal, their coarse fare, and rough burry garments, their barefoot pilgrimages, their self-tortures, the visits paid them by angels, and by the Virgin Mary, and their alleged freedom from mortal sin. The most disgusting tales of their voluntary filthiness were beautiful romances of a willing humiliation. He mistook their low and idle lives for a high and heavenly existence, and began to think of living like them.

"My dear William," said Lefevre, one day when returning from the mass, "God will renew the world, and you will see it."

"Often have you said this to me, but I do not yet fully understand your words."

"Ah! one cannot tell what light

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"But are you not going on to publish those "Lives?" I have been delighted with the two monthly

numbers now issued."

"No, no. I began with zeal the laborious task of collecting and arranging them in the order of their names in the Calendar. But I am weary of them. They disgust me. They are foolish legends at best, and many of them are the false tales of monks, who could write a life to order, without any knowledge of the facts.

"You astound me, Father Lefevre." "I wish to, if there be no other way to keep you from having anything more to do with these legends. They are puerile superstitions, and are no better than brimstone, fit to kindle the fire of idolatry. They cause us to idolize the saints, and to treat our Lord with neglect. They are too paltry fables to keep us from the sublime word of God."

"How came you to know this so suddenly ?"

"By one of those beams of light which come from heaven through the Holy Scriptures. All at once I was struck with the impiety of addressing prayers to the saints. Go, dear William, to the Bible."

This was in 1512. Lefevre had now taken a long and sure step. Not the Breviary, but the Bible, should henceforth be his authority. He studied the epistles of Paul, and light beamed on his mind, and life

was breathed into his heart. The University was astonished and moved by the doctrines which he taught. Farel listened as for life. The doctrine that Jesus was the only Saviour, and that one such Saviour was enough, had a weighty charm for his heart, and a glorious power over his soul. No sooner had Lefevre put forward this doctrine than Farel embraced it with all the ardour of his nature. He had undergone labour and conflicts enough to be aware that he could not save himself. In later years he wrote:-"Lefevre extricated me from the false opinion of human merits, and taught me that everything came from grace, which I believed as soon as it was spoken."

Farel now found the true cross. In his native Alps he had bowed before the "Holy Cross," which he then thought was made of the very wood of the one on which Christ was crucified. In Paris he had been adoring another cross, of which the same story was told-although the wood was of a different kind. Now he bowed in spirit before the cross on which Christ had made atonement for sin, and gloried in that atonement, as did his teacher when he exclaimed: "Ineffable exchange! The innocent One is condemned, and the criminal acquitted; the Blessing is cursed, and He who was cursed is blessed; and Life dies, and the dead live: the Glory is covered with shame, and He, who was deep in shame, is covered with glory."

One conflict more the young soul of Farel must pass through, that he might be disciplined to sympathize, in his after ministry, with those who might be tempted in like manner. The admiration of the saints returned

upon him like a Satanic spell. To pray to them seemed easier than to pray to Christ. They had no merit to give him; they must not be trusted in for salvation; Jesus only was the Saviour on whom his faith must be fixed. He saw all that; but yet, might not the saints help to bear his prayers to God? Christ alone must be trusted; but was Christ alone. to be invoked? He was troubled, and he carried his question to Lefevre.

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"My dear son," said the spiritual father, we cannot be sure that the saints hear any words we speak. We know they cannot hear different persons, in different places, at the same time. We are sure that Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost, do hear us, and to this Holy Trinity only we are at liberty to pray. We must hold to what is certain, and abandon everything that is doubtful."

"But the saints have such a feeling for us."

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pray only to the Master. Our prayers must reach the willing ear of God, or they are useless. Then let them go up directly to Him."

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The soul of Farel was for a time shaken by conflict. Now he inclined to the saints, now to the Saviour. But God struck the blow for him; the spell was broken, the enchantment gone. The saints were in a cloud, and Christ appeared in His glory, as deserving of all adoration. 'Then," he wrote afterwards, "Popery was utterly overthrown in my heart. * * O Lord, would that my soul had prayed to Thee and honoured Thee as much as I have given my heart to the mass, and to serve that enchanted wafer, honour. I have known Thee too late. Too late have I loved Thee."

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But not too late. He lived to be the "Father of the Church at Geneva," the "beginning" of the Reformation in his native land. Enemies honoured him with the title of the "Valais Luther." Michelet calls him "the Bayard of the battles of God.' His latest biographer calls him "the Elijah of the Alps." And how God blessed and honoured him for nearly fifty years after his emancipation from the bondage of Rome, forms one of the noblest chapters in the history of "the kingdom of God."

NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD SHADOW FROM THE CLAY OF

BABYLON.

By Reb. Henry T. Robjohns, B.J.

WHEN Christian advocates meet in the Word of God with apparent contradictions, they often say:-"Had we more information, no doubt the

seeming difficulty would disappear." They feel so sure of the entire reliability of the Divine Word, that they are convinced this would be the

case. Sometimes perplexities do thus. vanish. Further information does come to hand, and Holy Scripture is vindicated. No rolling away of cloud is, perhaps, more remarkable than that relating to the person of Belshazzar. Only so recently as the writing of Barnes' "Commentary on Daniel," the cloud was still dark and impenetrable. The Rev. A. Barnes could give no satisfactory explanation. The contradiction between the statements of Daniel and of profane history appeared inexplicable.

It was on this wise. Belshazzar's name never occurs in profane history. On that point, the book of Daniel was our sole authority. Not only was his name not mentioned, but another was said to have been the last king. That last king, Nabonadius, was not slain when Babylon was taken. On the contrary, he offered battle, in the open field, to the Persian. Nabonadius thereupon shut himself up in Borsippa, a town a little to the south of Babylon. After Babylon was taken, Cyrus besieged Borsippa, took it and the king. Cyrus treated him with the gentleness shown commonly by the Persians to those of royal dignity, and assigned him a residence and estates in Carmania, which formed a kind of principality. All this seemed in the teeth of Daniel's statements. But the difficulty has at last been solved. It might never have been; and that teaches us, what has so often to be insisted on, that fuller information would in every case vindicate the Bible, and illustrate the minutest detail. There is also another truth to be borne in mind, and that is, that, even placing the Bible writers on the level of other mere historians, they are surely quite as worthy of credit, to say

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In January, 1854, Oppert announced to Professor Olshausen by letter, and in the same month Sir Henry Rawlinson to the "Athenæum," that the name Belshazzar was at last found on some Babylonian cylinders. Sir Henry Rawlinson says:-“ Mr. J. Taylor, who has been employed during the winter in conducting the British Museum excavations Southern Chaldæa under my superintendence, has lately disinterred a number of clay cylinders, in the ruins of Um-Qeer (the ancient Ur of the Chaldees, and near the modern Arab capital of Sook-ess-Shookh on the Euphrates). Two of these cylinders have already reached me, and I have found them to contain a memorial of the works executed by Nabonadius (the last king of Babylon) in Southern Chaldæa. They describe among other things the restoration of temples, originally built by the Chaldæan monarchs, at least 1,000 years previously, and further notice the re-opening of canals dug by Nabopolasser and Nebuchadnezzar. The most important fact, however, which they disclose, is, that the eldest son of Nabonadius was named Bel-shar-ezar, and that he was admitted to a share of the government. This name is nndoubtedly the Belshazzar of Daniel, and thus furnishes us with key to the explanation of that great historical problem which has hitherto defied solution. We can now understand how Belshazzar, as joint king with

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