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8. ANTIOCHUS IV.

ANTIOCHUS IV. was an unrelenting enemy of the Church of God. In a furious passion he vowed the utter ruin of Jerusalem and the people of God. He took an oath that he would make it a national sepulchre for the Jews, and extirpate them to a man. But even while the words were in his mouth the wrath of God fell on him, and smote him with a horrible disease. In spite of all the arts of his physicians, his body became a mass of putrefaction, whence there issued an incredible number of worms; and the torture of his mind was infinitely superior to that of his body. And before he sunk into a delirium he acknowledged that it was the hand of the Almighty that had crushed him.

9. PHILIP II., OF SPAIN.

PHILIP II., of Spain, was a persecutor of Christians, more bigoted and more bloody than eyen Antiochus. He was smitten by the same disease. His flesh consumed away on his bones, by incurable ulcers, which sent forth innumerable swarms of worms, so that nobody could approach him without fainting. His shrieks and groans were heard all over the palace.

10. ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL was a Dominican friar, who stood by and assailed the Scottish martyr, Patrick Hamilton. After the martyr was in the flames, and the powder, having exploded, had severely scorched his hand

and face, this impious man cried out incessantly to him, "Repent, heretic. Call on our lady, and say, Hail, Mary!" The martyr meekly replied, “Depart from me, thou messenger of Satan, and trouble not my last moments." But, as he still uttered with great vehemence, "Pray to our lady; say, Hail, Mary," the martyr turned his eyes on him and said, "O thou vilest of men, thou knowest in thy conscience that these doctrines which thou condemnest are true, and this thou didst confess to me in secret. I cite thee to answer for this at the judgmentseat of Christ." Buchanan and Knox add, that the fria in a short time became distracted, and died in the rag ings of despair.

11. CHARLES IX., OF FRANCE.

CHARLES IX., of France, was a modern Nero, as the memorable St. Bartholomew's massacre, conducted under his auspices, can testify. He plotted the horrid massacre of the Protestants in his kingdom. Within a few days thirty thousand, others say fifty thousand, another writer, one hundred thousand Protestants were butchered in cold blood. The day after the butchery he observed several fugitives about his palace, and taking a fowling piece, fired upon them repeatedly.

He died in the midst of these disorders, overcome by vague and sombre terrors, believing that he heard groans in the air, starting from his sleep at night, and struck by a strange malady, which made him bleed from every pore.

"Two days before his death, he had near him," says L'Estoile, "his nurse, whom he ardently loved, although she was a Huguenot. As she was sitting upon a chest, and commenced nodding, having heard the king complaining, weeping, and groaning, she approached his bed

very softly; and taking off the coverlet, the king began to say to her, drawing a deep sigh, and weeping so violently that the sobs interrupted his words: Ah, my nurse, my dear nurse, what blood, what murders! ah! what evil counsels I have followed! O, my God, pardon me, and have mercy on me, if thou canst. I know not what I am. What shall I do? I am lost: I see it well.' The nurse said to him, Sire, let the murders rest on those who counselled you to them! And since you consented not to them, and are repentant, trust that God will not charge them upon you, and will cover them with the mantle of his Son's justice, to whom alone you should turn.' Upon that, having brought a handkerchief, his own being saturated with his tears, after his majesty had taken it from her hand, he made her a sign that she should retire and allow him to rest.

Soon after he expired, exhibiting on his death-bed the appalling exhibition of a tortured conscience and an avenging heaven.”

12. ROCKWOOD.

DURING the Papist persecution in England, one Rockwood distinguished himself for his busy malignity, and in his last sickness he fell to raging, "I am utterly damned!" He was exhorted to ask mercy of God, but he roared out, "It is now too late, for I have maliciously sought the death of many godly persons, and that against my own conscience, and therefore it is now too late."

13. BISHOP BRAMBLE.

WHEN the celebrated Mr. Blair of the seventeenth century, was deposed by Bishop Bramble of Derry, in Ireland, he cited the bishop to appear before the tribunal of Christ, to answer for that wicked action. "I appeal," said the bishop, "from the justice of God to his mercy." Your appeal," replied Mr. Blair, "is likely to be rejected; because, in prohibiting us the exercise of our ministry, you act against the light of your own conscience."

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The bishop was shortly after smitten with sickness, and when Dr. Maxwell, his physician, inquired of him what was his particular complaint, after a long silence he replied, "It is my conscience!"

"I have," rejoined the doctor, "no cure for that." This confession the friends of the bishop endeavoured to suppress; but the countess of Andes, who had it from the doctor's mouth, and who was worthy of credit, used to say, “No man shall suppress that report; for I shall bear witness of it to the glory of God, who smote him for persecuting Christ's faithful servants."

SECTION. IV.

The Dying Infidel.

1. VOLTAIRE.

"The Frenchman first in literary fame,
Mention him if you please-Voltaire ?—The same,
With spirit, genius, eloquence supplied,

Lived long, wrote much, laugh'd heartily, and died.
The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew
Bon-mots to gall the Christian and the Jew.

An infidel in health;-but what when sick?

O! then a text would touch him to the quick."-
."-COWPER.

It is well known that this celebrated infidel laboured through a long life to diffuse the poison of infidelity. In life he was pre-eminent in guilt, and at death in misery. He had been accustomed for years to call the adorable Saviour "the Wretch," and to vow that he would crush him. He closed many of his letters to his infidel friends with these words-" Crush the Wretch;" -yet such is the detestable meanness, as well as wickedness of infidelity, that during these efforts to destroy Christianity, he was accustomed to receive the sacrament, and to attend to some other outward acts of religion, that he might be able to deny his infidelity if accused of it! Such was he in health; but dangerous sickness and approaching death, though they could not soften the hard heart of the hypocritic infidel into real penitence, filled it with agony, remorse, and despair.

Voltaire had risen, in poor deluded France, high in worldly prosperity and fame; but the Most High appeared to permit him to rise to the pinnacle of glory, only that he might sink with deeper ruin to the gulfs

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