HOW A QUEEN WAS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. IN the year 1797, English missionaries went to Tahiti. They found a pleasant climate, a fair and fruitful land, but the people were ignorant and wretched. The work of introducing civilization and Christianity among this savage people was one of great difficulty and peril. The missionaries learned the language, a language never before spoken by a civilized man. They reduced it to writing; made a dictionary, speller, and other books. They translated hymns, and portions of Scripture. They built chapels and opened schools. They preached wherever they could find hearers. They offered to teach the people to read and write, to build houses, to work iron, to sew and to weave, but they found them indifferent, or hostile. They were often plundered, and obliged to flee from place to place. Their lives were often threatened, and always in peril; yet for sixteen years they continued their unrequited toil, patiently sowing the precious seed, and hopefully waiting for the harvest. At last their faith and labour were rewarded. The open hatred or sullen indifference of the natives was exchanged for friendship and affection. Their contemptuous carelessness in regard to their teaching gave place to the liveliest interest. The schools were crowded with scholars. Aged priests, chiefs, and warriors came with the little children to learn to read. The houses of the missionaries were thronged from morning till late into the night, by anxious inquirers in regard to the religion of Jesus. Soon they began to pull down their temples, to destroy their idols, and to conform their lives to the teaching of their new religion. On the 7th of June, 1819, Pomare, the king of Tahiti, was baptized. He was one of the earliest converts, and the first person on the island admitted to this sacred rite. He was very soon followed by a large number of his subjects who had been anxiously awaiting the time when they would be permitted by their teachers to make this public profession of their faith in Christ. As soon as King Pomare was converted, he began to perceive that he had no right to exercise power over his people, simply for his own pleasure. He learned that he who would be greatest among the disciples of Christ must be servant of all. He informed the missionaries of his wish to give his nation a constitutional government, and, by their advice and assistance, the chiefs were HOW A QUEEN WAS BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. called together, and a code of just and humane laws was written. Then a great convocation of the people was proclaimed, and when they had come together, the laws were read to them, and they were asked if they would be governed by them. Not only the inhabitants of Tahiti, but of all the islands over which Pomare reigned, accepted them with great joy. This was their Magna Charta. It was not, like the Magna Charta of which we and our ancestors have boasted, wrung by an indignant people from the reluctant hand of power; but it was given voluntarily by a prince just emerging from barbarism, and just beginning to feel and to understand the spirit of Christianity, which makes wrong and oppression impossible where it is obeyed. This is a long prelude to the story I wanted to tell you, which will show you these laws were not a dead letter. In the autumn of 1822, the queen of Tahiti visited the island of Huahine. Her attendants had need of a piece of timber, and she commanded them to cut down a bread-fruit tree that grew near by, in the garden of a poor man. Her order was obeyed, and when the owner returned in the evening to his home, he saw, with surprise and indignation, the wrong that had been done him. Having ascertained that the servants of the queen had committed the trespass, he went to the magistrate and lodged a complaint against her majesty. Under the old heathen government, if a man had complained of the queen, she would have silenced him by having his head cut off. The magistrate ordered him to appear at sunrise the next morning, at the place of public justice, and he summoned the queen to be also present. As the sun arose above the horizon, Ori, the magistrate, was seen sitting beneath the spreading branches of a large tree. By his side was the queen, attended by her train, and before them stood Teuke, the poor man, whom she had wronged. Ori commanded him to state what complaint he had against her majesty, or what law she had violated that they were called together. The poor man replied he had a bread-fruit tree in his garden. The shade of this tree protected his cottage from the sun, and its fruit supplied him and his children with food. Yesterday, it had been cut down by order of the queen, and he accused her of violating the law that protected the poor man's property, as well as the rights of chiefs and kings. The magistrate then turned to the queen, and asked her if she had ordered the tree to be cut down. She acknowledged that she had done so. Then he opened the book of the laws which he held in his hand, and read that part which forbade any person from taking THE FIRST ENGLISH MARTYR. the property of another without his consent. He said, this law made no exception in favour of chief, kings, or queens, therefore she was convicted of the wrong. The queen wept, and acknowledged her fault, and offered to make whatever restitution should be demanded. "And what remuneration do you require ?" said the magistrate, addressing Teuke. He replied, "If the queen is convinced that it is not right to take a poor man's tree without his permission, I am sure she will not do so again. I am satisfied. I ask no recompense." The magistrate then pronounced the affair settled, and the parties went to their homes. The queen, so far from resenting the conduct of Teuke, sent him a kind message, and a present that repaid his loss. THE FIRST ENGLISH MARTYR. AMONG the furious zealots of early English times, none were more conspicuous than Archbishop Arundel, by whose efforts and influence, in the year 1400, an Act of Parliament was passed, authorizing all such unhappy persons as the clergy should deem guilty of heresy to be burnt to death. The following account of the proceedings against the Rev. Sir William Sawtre, the first person who was burned at the stake in England for his religious opinions, is given by an English writer: "The Archbishop, impatient to put this law into execution, even during the session of Parliament that made it, brought Sir William Sawtre, rector of St. Oswyth, London, to take his trial for heresy, before the convocation of the province of Canterbury at St. Paul's. The chief heresies of which he was accused, were these two, that he denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. The unhappy man, in order to avoid the painful death with which he was threatened, endeavoured to explain away his heresies as much as possible. He underwent an examination of no less than three hours on that subject, Feb. 19, A.D., 1501; but when the Archbishop urged him to profess his belief, That after consecration the substance of the bread and wine no longer remained, but was converted into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, which were as really and truly in their proper substance and nature in the sacrament, as they hung upon the cross, as they lay in the grave, and as they now reside in heaven,' he stood aghast, BISMARCK'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. and after some hesitation declared, 'That, whatever might be the consequence, he could neither understand nor believe that doctrine.' "On this, the Archbishop pronounced him an obstinate heretic, degraded him from all the clerical orders with which he had been invested, and delivered him to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London, with this hypocritical request, that they would use him kindly; though he well knew that all the kindness they dared to show him was to burn him to ashes. He was accordingly burnt in Smithfield." BISMARCK'S RELIGIOUS BELIEF. “I CANNOT conceive how a man can live without a belief in a revelation, in a God who orders things for the best, in a Supreme Judge from whom there is no appeal, and in a future life.~ If I were not a Christian, I should not remain at my post for a single hour. If I did not rely on God Almighty I should not put my trust in princes. I have enough to live on, and am sufficiently genteel and distinguished without the Chancellor's office. Why should I go on working indefatigably, incurring trouble and annoyance, unless convinced that God has ordained me to fulfil these duties? If I were not persuaded that this German nation of ours, is the divinely appointed order of things, is destined to be something great and good, I should throw up the diplomatic profession this very moment. Orders and titles to me have no attraction. The firmness I have shown in combating all manner of absurdities for ten years past is solely derived from faith. Take away my faith and you destroy my patriotism. But for my strict and literal belief in the truths of Christianity, but for my acceptance of the miraculous groundwork of religion, you would not have lived to see the sort of Chancellor I am. Find me a suceessor as firm a believer as myself and I will resign at once. But I live in a generation of pagans. I have no desire to make prosely tes, but am constrained to confess my faith. If there is among us any self-denial and devotion to king and country, it is a remnant of religious belief unconsciously clinging to our people from the days of their sires. For my own part I prefer a rural life to any other. Rob me of the faith that unites me to God and I return to Varzin to devote myself to the production of rye and oats."-London Times. POETRY. Poetry. TIRED MOTHERS. A LITTLE elbow leans upon your knee- From underneath a thatch of tangled hair. Of warm, moist fingers holding your's so tight, You do not prize the blessings overmuchYou almost are too tired to pray to-night. But it is blessedness! A year ago I did not see it as I do to-day- The little child that brought me only good. And if, some night, when you sit down to rest, This lisping tongue that chatters constantly; I wonder that some mothers ever fret At little children clinging to their gown; Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber floor- And hear it patter in my house once more. If I could mend a broken cart to-day, |