angel all in white, descending from heaven,” said little Alice, who had been almost in the attitude of prayer, and now clapsed her hands together, and steadfastly, and "One of without fear of the lightning, eyed the sky.

God's holy angels-one of those who sing before the Lamb;" and with an inspired rapture the fair child sprung to her feet. “See ye her not—see ye her not— father-mother? Lo! she beckons to me with a palm in her hand, like one of the palms in that picture in our Bible, when our Saviour is entering into Jerusalem ! There she comes, nearer and nearer the earth-Oh! pity, forgive, and have mercy on me, thou most beautiful of all the angels,-even for His name's sake." All eyes were turned towards the black heavens, and then to the raving child. Her mother clasped her to her bosom, afraid that terror had turned her brain-and her father going to the door, surveyed an ampler space of the sky. She flew to his side, and clinging to him again, exclaimed, in a wild outcry, "On her forehead a star! on her forehead a star! And oh! on what lovely wings she is floating away, away into eternity! The angel, father, is calling me by my Christian name, and I must no more abide on earth; but touching the hem of her garment, be wafted away to heaven!" Sudden as a bird let loose from the hand, darted the maiden from her father's bosom, and with her face upward to the skies, pursued her flight. Young and old left the house, and at that moment the forked lightning came from the crashing cloud, and struck the whole tenement into ruins. Not a hair on any head was singed; and with one accord all the people fell down upon their knees. From the eyes of the child, the angel, or vision of the angel, had disappeared; but on her return to heaven, the celestial heard the hymn that rose from those that were saved, and above all the voices, the small sweet silvery voice of her whose eyes alone were worthy of beholding a saint transfigured, for she had known no sin, and her spirit was taken, as the tradition says, that very night to the abodes of eternal bliss.

For several hundred years has that farm belonged to the family of the Logans, nor has son or daughter ever stained the name-while some have imparted to it, in its

humble annals, what may well be called lustre. Many a time have I stood when a boy, all alone, beginning to be disturbed by the record of heroic or holy lives, in the kirkyard, beside the GRAVE OF THE MARTYRS-the grave in which Christian and Hannah Logan, mother and daughter, were interred. Many a time have I listened to the story of their deaths, from the lips of one who knew well how to stir the hearts of the young, "till from their eyes they wiped the tears that sacred pity had engendered." Upwards of a hundred years old was she that eloquent narrator-the minister's mother-yet she could hear a whisper, and read the Bible without spectacles-although we sometimes used to suspect her of pretending to be reading off the Book, when, in fact, she was reciting from memory. The old lady often took a walk into the kirkyard-and being of a pleasant and cheerful nature, though in religious principles inflexibly austere, many were the most amusing anecdotes that she related to me and my compeers, all huddled round her, "where heaved the turf in many a mouldering heap." But the evening converse was always sure to have a serious termination-and the venerable matron could not be more willing to tell, than were we to hear again and again, were it for the twentieth repetition, some old tragic event that gathered a deeper interest from every recital, as if on each we became better and better acquainted with the characters of those to whom it had befallen, till the chasm that time had dug between them and us disappeared; and we felt for the while that their happiness or misery and ours were essentially mingled and interdependent. At first she used, I well remember, to fix her solemn spirit-like eyes on our faces, to mark the different effects her story produced on her hearers; but ere long she became possessed wholly by the pathos of her own narrative, and with fluctuating features and earnest action of head and hands, poured forth her eloquence, as if soliloquizing among the tombs. "Ay, ay, my dear boys, that is the grave o' the Martyrs. My father saw them die. The tide o' the far-ebbed sea was again beginning to flow, but the sands o' the bay o' death lay sae dry,

that there were but few spots whare a bairn could hae wat its feet.

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Thousands and tens o' thousands were standing a' roun' the edge of the bay-that was in shape just like that moon-and twa stakes were driven deep into the sand, that the waves o' the returning sea micht na loosen them-and then my father, who was but a boy like ane o' yourselves noo, waes me, didna he see wi' his ain een Christian Logan, and her wee dochter Hannah, for she was but eleven years auld-hurried alang by the enemies o' the Lord, and tied to their accursed stakes within the power o' the sea. He who holds the waters in the hollow o' his hand, thocht my father, will not suffer them to choke the prayer within those holy lips-but what kent he o' the dreadful judgments o' the Almighty? Dreadfu' as those judgments seemed to be, o' a' that crowd o' mortal creatures there were but only twa that drew their breath without a shudder-and these twa were Christian Logan and her beautifu' wee dochter Hannah, wi' her rosy cheeks, for they blanched not in that last extremity, her blue e'en, and her gouden hair, that glittered like a star in the darkness o' that dismal day. Mother, be not afraid,' she was heard to say, when the foam o' the first wave broke about their feetand just as these words were uttered, all the great black clouds melted away from the sky, and the sun shone forth in the firmament, like the all-seeing eye of God. The martyrs turned their faces a little towards one another, for that the cords could not wholly hinder, and wi' voices as steady and as clear as ever they sang the psalm wi' within the walls o' that kirk, did they, while the sea was mounting up-up from knee-waist-breastneck-chin-lip-sing praise and thanksgivings unto God. As soon as Hannah's voice was drowned, it seemed as if her mother, before the water reached her own lips, bowed and gave up the ghost. While the people were all gazing, the heads of both martyrs disappeared, and nothing then was to be seen on the face o' the waters, but here and there a bit white breaking wave, or silly sea-bird that had come from afar, floating on the flow o' the tide into that sheltered bay. Back and back

had aye fallen the people, as the tide was roarin' on wi' a hollow soun'-and now that the water was high above the heads o' the martyres, what chained that dismal congregation to the sea-shore? It was the countenance o' a man that had suddenly come down from his hiding-place among the moors,-and who now knew that his wife and daughter were bound to stakes deep down in the waters o' the very bay that his eyes beheld rolling, and his ears heard roaring-all the while that there was a God in heaven! Naebody could speak to him—although they all beseeched their Maker to have compassion upon him, and not to let his heart break and his reason fail in the uttermost distraction o' despair. The stakes! the stakes! Oh! Jesus! point out to me, with thy own scarred hand, the place where my wife and daughter are bound to the stakes, and I may yet bear them up out of the sand, and bury the bodies ashore-to be restored to life! O brethren, brethren, said ye that my Christian and my Hannah have been for an hour below the sea? And was it from fear of fifty armed men, that so many thousand fathers and mothers and sons and daughters, and brothers and sisters, rescued them not from such cruel, cruel death?' After uttering many more raving words, he suddenly plunged into the sea, and being a strong swimmer, was soon far out into the bay,—and led, as if by some holy instinct, even to the very place where the stake was fixed in the sand! Perfectly resigned had the martyrs been to their doom, but in the agonies o' that horrible death, there had been some struggles o' the mortal body, and the weight o' the waters had borne down the stakes, so that, just as if they had been lashed to a spar to enable them to escape frae shipwreck, lo! both the bodies came floatin' to the surface, and his hand grasped, without knowing it, his ain Hannah's gouden hair,-sorely defiled, ye may weel think, wi' the sand; and baith their faces changed frae what they ance were by the wrench o' death. Father, mother, and daughter came altogether to the shore, and there was a cry went far and wide, up even to the hiding-places o' the faithful among the hags and cleuchs i' the moors, that the sea had given up the living, and that the martyrs were. triumphant, even in this world,

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over the powers o' Sin and o' Death. Yea, they were indeed triumphant ;-and well might the faithfu' sing aloud in the desert, O Death, where is thy sting, O Grave, where is thy victory?' for those three bodies were but as the weeds on which they lay stretched out to the pitying gaze of the multitude, but their spirits had gane to heaven, to receive the eternal rewards of sanctity and truth."

Not a house in all the parish-scarcely excepting Mount Pleasant itself-all around and about which my heart could in some dreamy hour raise to life a greater multitude of dear old remembrances, all touching myself, than LOGAN BRAES. The old people we used, when we first knew them, to think somewhat apt to be surly—for they were Seceders—and owing to some unavoidable prejudices, which we were at no great pains to vanquish, we Manse-boys recognised something repulsive in that most respectable word. Yet for the sake of that sad story of the martyrs, there was always something affecting to us in the name of Logan Braes; and though Beltane was of old a Pagan festival, celebrated with grave idolatries round fires a-blaze on a thousand hills,-yet old Laurence Logan would sweeten his vinegar aspect on May-day, would wipe out a score of wrinkles, and calm, as far as that might be, the terrors of his shaggy eyebrows. A little gentleness of manner goes a long way with such children as we were all then, when it is seen naturally, and easily worn for our sakes, and in sympathy with our accustomed glee, by one who, in his ordinary deportment, may have added the austerity of religion to the venerableness of old age. Smiles from old Laurence Logan the Seceder, were like rare sun-glimpses in the gloom-and made the hush of his house pleasant as a more cheerful place; for through the restraint laid on reverent youth by a feeling akin to fear, the heart ever and anon bounded with freedom in the smile of the old man's eye. Plain was his own apparel-a suit of the hodden-gray. His wife when in full dress, did not remind me of a Quakeress, for a Quakeress then had I never seen-but I often think now, when in company with a still, sensible, cheerful, and comely-visaged matron of that sect, of her of Logan Braes.