searched into foundation truths.

He felt that it was

His convictions

not a little thing; that it was his life. of the truth were strong, and his zeal in making it known was exemplary. He studied God's word; he told his family and his countrymen the wonderful things of God. He was the source of a new impulse to inquiry. A few such men, in the course of an ordinary life-time, would have reformed all Italy. This was seen at Rome. Spira was marked for destruction. The Pope's legate applied to the Senate of Venice. The foundations of society were moved. Confiscation, reproach, poverty to his wife and eleven children, a dungeon, torture, and death, all rose up like monsters before his imagination. His purpose faltered, his courage failed, his faith was gone. He went from Citadella, the town of his usual residence, to Venice; there found Casa, the legate, and signed the following paper:

"Having for several years maintained opinions respecting certain articles of faith, contrary to the orthodox and accredited judgment of the Church, and advanced many things against the authority of the Church of Rome, and of the universal Bishop, I acknowledge, in all humility, my fault, mistake, and folly, in seducing others, and in consequence I return in entire obedience to the Sovereign Bishop in the communion of the Church of Rome, without ever desiring to depart from the traditions and decrees of the holy See. I am extremely grieved for all which has passed, and humbly implore pardon for so great an offence."

Twice was he required to sign his recantation, and then to go to his own town, and publicly declare his

renunciation of the doctrines he had so lately and zealously defended. But ere this work was fully done, conscience began to awake; a sense of guilt began to take hold of him; shame at his own cowardice unmanned him; but worldly friends urged him on till he had, in the presence of a great assembly, renounced the principles of the Reformation.

The awful deed was now done. But it was the signal for the letting loose of the tormentors. From that moment he regarded himself as an impious apostate, a weak and wicked creature, who had trifled with his own convictions on the most solemn subjects. He always maintained that his sin was against light. He said: "I believed it when I denied it; now I neither believe that nor the doctrine of the Church of Rome. I believe nothing; I have neither faith, nor confidence, nor hope; I am a reprobate, like Cain or Judas, who, rejecting all hope, fell from grace into despair; and my friends do me great wrong in not suffering me to depart to the abode of the unbeliev ing, as I have justly deserved." Again: "I have denied Christ voluntarily, and against my knowledge; and I feel that he hardens me, and that he will allow me no hope." Again: "I tell you my own conscience condemns me. What need is there for any

other judge?"

Those, who had been the instruments of his denying Christ, attempted to comfort him. The priest who had received his recantation came to see him, and made himself known. This awakened new horror. He cried: "Oh the accursed day! Oh the accursed day! Oh that I had never been there! Would to God I had then been dead!" Another Roman

Catholic undertook to satisfy him that he had not denied Christ by abjuring Protestant doctrines. His answer was: "Assuredly, when I renounced those opinions, I believed them to be true; and yet I renounced them." Some Roman Catholics called on him now to believe the doctrines of the Reformation to be false. He cried out: "I cannot, I cannot; God will not permit me to believe them so, nor to take refuge in his mercy."

Others told him of God's mercy to Peter, who had thrice denied his Lord. This gave him no hope. He exclaimed: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." The sight of the Bible filled him with anguish. He begged that it might be carried out of his sight, and read no more in his hearing. The bitterness of death was in him, and seemed to assimilate every thing to itself.

When he was urged to believe, his answer was, "Oh! I wish I could believe, but it is impossible for me. I HAVE DENIED CHRIST. I can only believe what is contrary to my salvation and my comfort."

When prayer was recommended to him, he said: "I ardently desire to pray to God with my whole heart; but I am unable. I see my condemnation, and know my only remedy is in Christ. Yet I cannot persuade myself to embrace him: such is the punishment of the damned. . . . My crime is not one iota less than that of Judas." One proposed to him that they should together repeat the Lord's prayer. He began, and after each petition, he would express such sentiments as these: "I deplore my misery, for I perceive that I am abandoned by God, and cannot

invoke him with all my heart, as I have been accus tomed to do.

In this deplorable state he continued for some time, once attempting self-destruction, and failing; once going to Padua for medical and religious advice, but deriving no benefit from any, until at the age of forty-eight years, without comfort, without hope, without confidence, his body being wasted to a skeleton, he left this world, and entered on the realities of eternity. This case teaches many les

sons.

1. No man knows what he will do until he is tried.

2. No man has any more religious principle than a fair trial proves him to have.

3. How horrible is sin! "Man knows the beginnings of sin," said Spira, "but who can tell the bounds thereof?"

4. In this, as well as in any other day, men may wickedly and fatally deny Christ. "Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny before my Father, which is in heaven."

5. "If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things."

6. There is even in this life something worse than the death of the body. Sin is worse.

Dishonour is

worse. Despair is worse. A guilty conscience is

worse.

7. If God chooses to punish, he is at no loss for means. He can let loose on a man his own vile passions, or his memory, or his imagination, or his conscience, and the work is done.

8. There must be a hell. In this world, where

mercy so much prevails, there is often something very much like hell. In the next world, retribution will be perfect, and so there must be a hell.

9. The human mind may be brought, and sometimes is brought, into states of feeling, to be kept out of which evinces infinite goodness on the part of God.

10. God can do good by any means. He made Spira a great means of establishing many, and of converting some. Even Verger, who held a very rich bishopric under the Pope, was so wrought on in his visits to Spira, that he renounced popery, retired to Basle, and died a Protestant.

11. “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” "If any man draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him."

12. Are you a Christian? Spira used to say, "Do you, who are so assured of your right state, take care that it be such. . . . Look to yourselves. It is no light or easy matter to be a Christian. Look narrowly to your lives. Make a greater account of the gifts of the Spirit of God than I have done. Be constant and immovable in maintaining your profession. Confess it even to death, if you are called to it."

Let us also beware how we give up our convictions of truth and duty as taught by God, and yield to the doctrines and solicitations of men, thus giving them dominion over our faith and lordship over our consciences. Matt. xxiii. 9; 2 Cor. i. 24. The united voice of the world is as nothing on a point of faith or practice, when we have a Thus saith the Lord to the contrary.