prisoner, and found him sitting in gloomy meditation in the corner of his dungeon.

'Well, Hawsa,' Peter cried to him, do you recognise me again? Do you know that you now belong to me, body and life?'

I know,' replied the prisoner, that the Duke has given me up into your power, but I shall not be your property long, and I despise all your threats.'

And what do you think that I shall do to you?' asked the Count. "Why, nothing else than avenge yourself,' said the Turk proudly. 'No, Hawsa,' said the noble hero with a smile, 'I shall not avenge myself upon you, but I shall give you your freedom, without any ransom and without any condition.'

Astonished, amazed, like one in a dream, the prisoner gazed long and fixedly at his magnanimous enemy. At last he exclaimed,'No, that is not possible! you are deceiving me; for no man is capable of such generosity.'

Then Peter von Szapary replied, 'You may be right, Hawsa; and certainly you have not deserved to receive your freedom from my hand. But we Christians have a Saviour and a Redeemer, who has enjoined us, "Love your enemies; bless them which curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven." We Christians have a Saviour, Who, as He was dying on the cross, prayed for His murderers and enemies, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." My humble desire is to be His faithful disciple and follower, therefore I act towards you as He has commanded me, and God is my witness that I will honourably and faithfully keep my word and promise. So take courage, Hawsa; you are free; depart in peace from this prison back to your own country.'

The prisoner then suddenly sprang up, embraced the knees of his generous enemy, and exclaimed with tears,-'Now, for the first time, I am deeply grieved for all my cruelty towards you. Know, however, that I can make no use of your noble kindness and generosity. When that servant, with malicious joy, announced to me that the Duke had given me wholly into your power, as I feared that you would torture me as I had done to you, and kill me at last with every long and refined torment, to avoid these sufferings and this disgrace I took poison, which I always carry about with me. I feel its deadly effects already within me. Forgive me for what I have done in my madness and folly. And now I have but one wish in my heart. Your God and Saviour must be the real one; none but the true God could teach so grand a doctrine or give so noble an example. I desire to be baptized in His name, so that I may die at least as a Christian, and with faith in Him.'

Deep emotion took possession of both friends when they heard these words of the unhappy prisoner; they did all they could to save both the body and soul of the poor man. A physician whom they summoned tried every means of his art, but all was in vain. The priest of the Gospel could only in a few short words proclaim to the dying man its glorious and saving message, that the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God takes away all sin.'

At the Church Door.-Good Friday.

Hawsa Beg confessed his faith in the Saviour, and was baptized in the Redeemer's name. Both friends were witnesses at this doubly touching and solemn ceremony. Soon after the Turk peacefully breathed his last. But when he was borne to the grave, the noble Peter von Szapary walked as chief mourner behind the coffin of his once so cruel foe. He had learned and practised what God's word says,- Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves; neither give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink for by so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.' J. F. C.

B

'Is it nothing to you, O all ye that pass by?'

EFORE another month is past the Church will have called upon us to keep Good Friday, the day on which our Lord and Savionr Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross for our sins. There will be very few among us to whom the day will not, in some way or other, be a day of mark. Some will look forward to it as a day of rest from their usual daily work, some as a day on which they are deprived of part of the amusement which they can have on other days. Custom, if nothing else, will make it to each of us unlike other days; but custom is unhappily very far from making it to any of us such a day as it ought to be. Let each one of us, then, before the day comes, ask himself how he means to keep it, and why he means to keep it so.

Now perhaps the first answer which he might give to himself would be, It is one of very few holidays that I get in the year, and I mean to enjoy it as well as I can.' Few of us, I think, would first think of what the day is, and then give such an answer as this; but the answer is given first and little thought is given to the day.

But think of the day first, and then say how you will spend it. It is different from other days, because it is the day of a death. It is different from the days of other deaths, because it is the day of such a death that the world has never seen and never can see another like it.

If you have ever lost an earthly friend by death, do you make merry every time the day of his death comes round? If death has taken a brother from you, do you think of the day in which he died

as one fit for feasting and worldly pleasure? You will say, perhaps, that this is a very different thing from making merry on Good Friday, because you have no work to do. And so it is. It is very different, because on that day such a Friend as the world could never give you died for you; died-not because God had called for His soul and He could not keep lt, but because He wished to die that you might live— to die the most painful death that the cruelty of men has ever invented that you might, if you choose, live for ever with Him in Heaven --different, because on that day He died who had emptied Himself of His glory as Eternal God that He might be the Brother of sinners and so be able to die for their sins.

For this it was that He left the glory of Heaven and became a poor, despised, and suffering Man. For this it was that He was mocked, spitted on, stripped, scourged, and nailed to the cross, hanging there between two thieves, when He might have been sitting on His throne in Heaven. For your sake He chose to bear all this— not as we bear our troubles, because we cannot escape them; but because He knew that by bearing it He was saving us from the punishment which our sins deserve.

This was His love for you; but what is yours for Him? Can you think of some scene of worldly pleasure to which you mean to devote the day on which He died, and think too of His cross as standing in the midst? Feasting while His wasted Body, worn with pain and fasting, is hanging before your eyes-drinking while His bitter cry of thirst, wrung from His parched tongue by the fever of His burning wounds, is ringing in your ears?

Will you not rather on that day think of all this in the courts of His house and in your own solitude with God? Try to think, too, how much He loved you, and how far short the best that you can do must fall of paying back that love. Listen with the ears of your soul to the falling of the hammer which drove the nails through His Holy Hands and Feet; think of the mocking which jeered at His agony while He was praying for forgiveness for those who mocked Him; think of the spear which pierced His side; and then remember that all this your sins have done all this He bore that they might be forgiven. He saved you: Himself He could, but for your sake He would not, save.

OUR ROYAL NAVY.

T.

INGLAND possesses five royal dockyards, the nurseries and hospitals of her various ships of war and transport. These are Chatham, Sheerness, Portsmouth, Devonport, and Pembroke; and beyond these she has two storeyards at Deptford and Woolwich.

Devonport is the chief naval arsenal of Britain, and her dockyard is one of the finest in the world, seventy-two acres in extent, and comprising everything necessary to ship-building and ship-fitting, dry docks, machine works, foundries, slips for building, and rope-walks. Here, in a splendid natural harbour called the Hamoaze, the whole British navy might ride at ease; and here in time of peace many of

Her Majesty's ships of war are moored, such as need repairing being taken into dock, examined, and refitted for service.

Devonport used to be called Plymouth Dock, and was considered a mere appendage of Plymouth; but as it grew in importance and size we cannot wonder that, after a time, it set up a name of its own, and, in the year 1824, erected a fine fluted column in the town to commemorate the event.

We hear a good deal of talk now and again about the glories of our Royal Navy, and we know the words of some of the famous sea songs, and feel very much at home with Jack, whether engaged in action or bidding farewell to his Nancy; but it is a question if many people outside the profession know of what our Navy consists.

Let us therefore set down a few words on the subject, gleaning the information from our latest Navy Lists.

To begin with, we have 54 ironclads and 462 vessels of all sorts, besides 28 steam gunboats and five splendid Indian troop-ships.

Not a contemptible list, truly; but then, out of the four hundred and odd vessels many are only hulks doing harbour service, and others are out of commission.

And what do you think the cost of an ironclad may be? Half-amillion is not an unusual sum, the Inflexible running through indeed three quarters of a million before she was completed. But then these ironclads are no toys, as you will shortly see.

In Henry the Eighth's days a vessel numbering a few hundred tons was thought a very fine specimen, and when the bluff king caused to be built his grand vessel, Henry, Grace de Dieu, of 1000 tons, she was indeed considered a marvel. Even so late as the 17th century a ship of 1500 tons was a sight to be run after; at the end of the 18th century 2500 tons was the extreme limit, while now we possess many vessels of 4000 tons, and the Navy has frigates of 6000 tons.

A step further, and many of our enormous ironclads have a tonnage of over 11,000 tons, while the Great Eastern, that huge floating world of which we heard so much a little while ago, boasts 22,500 tons.

Here is somewhat to have made King Harry's hair stand on end under his plumed cap could he have imagined such a thing!

Iron ships, too! Not the wooden walls of Old England, that were for so long her pride, her glory, and her song.

The iron, however, did not force its way to the front without a struggle. 'Don't talk to me about iron ships; it's contrary to nature!' said a famous naval architect of long ago. And, 'Who ever heard of iron floating?' was the mocking echo of the common sailor. And yet the while there were desponding people going about and shaking their heads. If the Navy went on increasing, where was the oak to come from of which to build the good ships? Time insisted on the problem being solved, and showing that iron would float. Then steam began to puzzle the world: indeed, that was long before the iron question. In 1819 the Admiralty constructed the Comet steamtug, and in 1827 the Navy List reported seven steamers! while now steam is everywhere. But Government had been very timid and backward in regard to this new invention. The merchant navy had for long been fizzing over the seas in the new chimney-like vessels,