works" that were done in her. Oh that she had known in the day of her visitation the things which belonged to her peace! But her people rejected the Holy One and the Just, and brought upon themselves an awful destruction; and ever since their children have been wanderers over the earth, a standing miracle to attest the truth of the christian religion, and an awful warning to all who reject or neglect the great salvation. A BOY'S ESCAPE FROM THE SEPOYS AT DELHI. You have often heard about India. It is a great country many thousands of miles from England; and nearly 2000 miles long and 1500 broad. It is about 250 years ago, since a company of English merchants first began to trade with India. For many years after these merchants went there, they had only warehouses for their goods. Then they began to build forts and have soldiers; and just one hundred years ago they conquered the Mahommedans, who had the chief power in the country. Ever since then, the English have had the power over 150 millions of people, though they had not many English soldiers in the country. The soldiers they employed were black men, called Sepoys-some of whom were Mahommedans, and some Hindoos. But the Mahommedans, who are a very proud and revengeful race, never forgot that we had conquered them; and this year (1857) they persuaded the Hindoos to join them in rising against the English, to kill them or drive them out of the country; and they did, and dreadful work there has been. I must not tell you all the savage and wicked things those black soldiers have done. They are too shocking to read about, or talk about. I can only tell you that they killed, in the most cruel manner they could think of, all the English men, women, and children, they could find. Indeed they acted more like savage beasts than men. We fear a few of the missionaries have been killed; but some, we are glad to say, have escaped. Many of the English officers and their wives, and children, have also escaped. Here is a boy's account of his escape from Delhi, which is a great city in Upper India. It is the place where the Sepoys first began to rob and murder the English. Writing to his sister he says: "It must have been about five o'clock in the afternoon, when, all of a sudden, the Sepoys who were with us in the mainguard, and on whom we had been depending to defend us in case of attack, began firing upon us in every direction; a most awful scene, as you may imagine, then ensuedpeople running in every possible way to try and escape. I, with a few others, ran up a kind of slope that leads to the officers' quarters, and thence, amid a storm of bullets, to one of the embrasures of the bastion. It is perfectly miraculous how I escaped being hit; no end of poor fellows were knocked down all about, and all, too, by their own men; it is really awful to think of it. However, on arriving at the embrasure, all at once the idea occured to me of jumping down into the ditch from the rampart (one would have thought it madness at any other time), and so try and get out by scaling the opposite side; but just as I was in the act of doing so I heard screams from a lot of unfortunate women who were in the officers' quarters, imploring for help. I immediately, with a few others, who like me were going to escape the same way, ran back to them, and though the attempt appeared hopeless, we determined to see if we could not take them with us. Some of them, poor creatures, were wounded with bullets; however, we made a rope with handkerchiefs, and some of us jumping down first into the ditch caught them as they dropped, to break the fall. Then came the difficulty of dragging them up the opposite bank; however, by God's will we succeeded, after nearly half an hour's labour, in getting them up; and why no Sepoys came and shot every one of us while getting across all this time is a perfect mystery. The murdering was going on below all this time, and nothing could have been easier than for two or three of them to come to the rampart and shoot down every one of us. However, as I say, we somehow got over, and, expecting to be pursued every minute, we bent our steps to a house that was on the banks of the river. This we reached in safety, and, getting something to eat and drink from the servants (their master, young Metcalf, had fled in the morning), stopped there till dark, and then, seeing the whole of three cantonments on fire, and as it were a regular battle raging in that direction, we ran down to the river side and made the best of our way along its banks in an opposite direction. It would be too long, my dearest sister, to tell you of how for three days and nights we wandered in the jungles, sometimes fed and sometimes robbed by the villagers, till at length, wearied and footsore, with shreds of clothes on our backs, we arrived at a village where they put us in a hut and fed us for four days, and moreover took a note from us into Meerut, whence an escort of cavalry was sent out, and we were brought safely here. We started from Delhi with five ladies and four officers besides myself, but afterwards in our wanderings fell in with two sergeants' wives and two little children, with two more officers and a merchant, so altogether on coming into Meerut, we were a body of seventeen souls. Oh, to think of the privations we endured, and the narrow escapes we had! We used to ford streams at night, and then walk on slowly in our dripping clothes, lying down to rest every half-hour, for you must remember that some of the ladies were wounded, and all so fatigued and worn out that they could scarcely move." Many more such dreadful tales have been told by those who escaped from these savage men; but we shall never know what those endured who fell into their hands. Enough, however, is known to fill us with horror at their cruel wickedness. Seldom in the history of the world, have such cruelties been inflicted on helpless women, and little children! We must all pray that God would interpose, and bring the wickedness of these wicked men to an end. As many as 30,000 English soldiers are gone to put them down, and more are yet going. We hope we shall soon hear that peace and order are restored. But what a creature is man when his own bad passions are let loose! Devils let loose from hell could not be more cruel or wicked! What a sink of iniquity is the human heart! Read what the Lord said of it-"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, coveteousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishAll these evil things come from within, and defile the man." ness: THE DREAM OF A CHILD. "Twas an evening hour, and the breezes wild And waved the rich clusters of golden hair, And her young heart thrilled with unmixt delight, Of the little child, as a bird flew by; And she heard it warbling, but hardly knew "I'd a dream, dear mother, last night," she said, I dreamed that our Saviour came to me, As I played alone by the old oak tree; He stroked my head, and said he was come To take me away to his own bright home, To his own fair home beyond the sky, |