'And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said,

6.66

Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth,
And the sea, and all that in them is :

Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said,
Why did the heathen rage,

And the people imagine vain things?

The kings of the earth stood up,

And the rulers were gathered together

Against the Lord, and against his Christ.

For of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus,
Whom thou hast anointed,

Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles,
And the people of Israel, were gathered together,
For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
Determined before to be done.

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings :

And grant unto thy servants,

That with all boldness they may speak thy word,

By stretching forth thine hand to heal;

And that signs and wonders may be done

By the name of thy holy child Jesus."'

Ver. 10 was the remonstrance addressed to Henry VIII. by John Lambert, who was burned at Smithfield in 1538:

'Now, ye kings, understand, and ye which judge the earth be wise and learned. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in him with trembling.'

Lambert's martyrdom was one of the most cruel of that time, and the often-quoted words came from him as he lifted his fingers flaming with fire, 'None but Christ, none but Christ!'

Psalm 3.

Vers. 3-6. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. . .

'I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about.'

This was the text from which Bishop Bedell preached to his fellow-prisoners in the time of the Irish rebellion. in 1642, when he and the Protestants of the district were shut up in hold, and in danger of death at any moment. He was one of the best bishops who ever lived in Ireland, and, had his example been generally followed, the Reformation would have made much greater progress in the country. He learned the Irish language, had the Bible translated into it, was assiduous in Christian work, and filled with the spirit of meekness and self-sacrifice. The word bedel in Hebrew signifies tin, and so deep was his desire of an entire renewal that he took for his motto, Isa. i. 25, 'I will purely purge thy dross, and take away all thy (bedel) tin.' He lived from 1570 to 1642, and, when he died in the midst of these troubles, the Irish had such regard for him that they fired a volley at his interment, and cried, Requiescat in pace ultimus Anglorum.

The French Protestants, in the time of their persecution, had psalms adapted to their varied circumstances. The 3rd Psalm was for the stationing of sentinels to

keep watch against sudden attack; when the danger was over, and they could worship in safety, they sang Psalm 122nd.

Psalm 4.

Augustine quotes this psalm as of special value, and worthy to be sung aloud before the whole world for an expression of Christian courage, and a testimony of the peace God can give in outward and inward trouble (Conf. ix. 4). 'I will both lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.'

James Melville quoted it, among others, when he was dying. This being done, he comforteth himself with sundrie speeches out of the Psalms, quhilk he rehearsit in Hebrew; as, namely, ane speech out of Psalm 4th, "Lord, lift up the light of thy countenance upon me." Psalm 27th, "The Lord is my light and my salvation, quhat can I fear?" Psalm 23rd, "Albeit I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet will I fear none evil, because God is with me." The candell being behind back, he desired that it should be brought before him, that he might see to die. By occasioune thereof, he remembered that Scripture, Psalm 18th, "The Lord will lighten my candell; He will enlighten my darkness."'

Psalm 6.

This psalm might have a history to itself. It has a wail of pain and sorrow, deepening into anguish, running through it; but comfort dawns at the close, like an angel turning the key of the prison. It is the first of the seven penitential psalms, the others being the 32nd, 38th, 51st, 102nd, 130th, 143rd. One of the strangest things, though not the happiest, in its records is, that, along with Psalm 142nd, it was the choice of Catherine de Medici, the Jezebel and Athaliah of the French monarchy. She was irreligious and superstitious, profligate and devoured by ambition; and the fact that she had no children, seemed likely to deprive her of the control which she hoped to gain in the counsels of the kingdom. The psalm was the expression of mere worldly disappointment. She became at last the mother of Francis II. (the first husband of Mary Stuart) and of Charles IX., whose character she corrupted by ministering to his vices, and whom she urged to the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 'Her desire was realized,' says a French historian, 'for the misery of France; and that family, which then took pleasure in the Psalms, put to death thousands of the Reformed for singing them.'

It has a more pleasing association with another princess, allied to the French royal family. Elizabeth Charlotte was niece of Sophia, Electress of Hanover,

and grand-daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, after whom she was named. She had remarkable abilities, and was carefully educated by her aunt Sophia, under the eye of the great Leibnitz. Her father, the Elector Palatine, constrained her to a marriage with the Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV., in the hope that the union might save his principality from the aggression of the French king. But it helped Louis to fresh claims; and, when her beautiful native land, beside the Rhine and Neckar, was wasted by the French armies, its towns laid in ashes, the Castle of Heidelberg, the home of her childhood, undermined and shattered, and the people she loved driven out in winter to die houseless and famishing, she could not sleep for the visions of havoc, and for the thought that she had been cruelly sacrificed to a vain policy. Her letters, lately published, are deeply interesting for the light they throw on the time, and on the Court of France. Her heart went back to her early Protestant faith, and to the old Castle of Osnabruck, where she had spent her happiest days with her aunt. In a letter to her she relates an incident connected with this psalm. She was walking one day in the orangery at Versailles, and was singing it in the translation of Clement Marot, as an expression of her feelings. A noted artist of the time, warmly attached in heart to the Reformed religion, was engaged in painting the roof, and heard her. 'Scarcely,' she writes, 'had I finished the first verse,