THE MARTYR’S WIDOW

Do not fear, Liesken; our Father cares for me.” The speaker was an intelligent and prosperous artizan, about thirty years of age. The room in which he sat was plainly but comfortably furnished, not without that air of sober and cleanly quaintness which we usually associate with the interior of a dwelling in the land of dykes and sandhills. It was late at night, and a lamp burned before him on the table. His young wife, Lisa, stood by his side, her blue eyes filled with tears, and her features shadowed by an expression of anxious care.

“I am sure He does, Carl; but you know He lets those He cares for suffer so often. He lets them be imprisoned—tortured. Oh, Carl,” she added with a look of anguish, “He does not now ‘quench the violence of fire,’ as He did in those old days of which you read to me in the Book.”

“No, Lisa,” replied Carl, and his face was lighted up with faith and courage; “but there still walks with them in the furnace ‘One like unto the Son of man.’”

It was strange that his look at that moment should seem to Lisa a stronger confirmation of their fears than an expression of alarm would have been. Yet so it was. She went on, almost wildly: “You are doomed, Carl, and you know it. Since you attended those field preachings last summer twelvemonth, our Burgomaster knows you for a Calvinist, and has had his eye on you. God help us! In all this bloodstained country, the king of Spain and the terrible Duke have not a servant more willing to aid them in ‘wearing out the saints of the Most High’ than the Burgomaster of our poor unhappy Gouda.”

“He cannot harm me,” returned Carl, “until my hour has come, for I serve a mightier King than Philip of Spain—even the King of Glory, the Lord of Life, who hath the keys of hell and of death. See here;” and he drew a little book from beneath his leathern doublet. But at that moment a low cry proceeding from a room overhead. struck upon the mother’s ear, arousing her to an anxiety more near and pressing, if far less awful, than the horrible apprehension which had just before filled, her mind. “It is our little Franz,” she said, and lighting a small lamp she hurried up-stairs. Left alone, Carl opened the volume he held in his hand. It was that treasure of the persecuted Reformed Churches in France and the Low Countries—“The Psalms of David, translated into French verse by Clement Marot;” for although Dutch was his native language, Carl, in common with many other of his class, understood French. Ay, read on Carl, and lay up the precious words in your heart and memory; for that book alone, or even so. much as a single leaf of it, if found in your possession, would be sufficient to seal your death-warrant!

In the times of which we write it was death, without mercy and without appeal, “to print, write, copy, keep, conceal, buy, or give,” any of these books, or any part of them; as well as “to converse or disput concerning the Holy Scriptures, openly or secretly,” “or to read, teach, or expound the Scriptures.” Truly, “the word of the Lord was precious in those days,” and every drop of the water of life which was borne to thirsting souls, was like that brought to David from the well of Bethlehem—“the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives.” Yet Carl could not read this night. He was well aware that Lisa’s words were true. For months he had gone to his daily work and returned, sat by his fireside, ate and drank, slept and prayed, in the consciousness that any moment he might be summoned from his peaceful home to the dungeon and the stake. Was that a strange life to lead? A solemn one it certainly was, yet it was such a life as thousands led in his age and country. For a brief space, after years of grinding oppression, the Calvinists of Holland and the adjacent provinces had enjoyed a measure of toleration: they had been permitted to live under the powerful shadow of the Prince of Orange; but now their protector had himself been forced to flee, and the years of Alva’s tyranny had begun—those terrible years, marked evermore in history “with blood and fire, and vapour of smoke.” It was as if a great cry went up from the bleeding country to heaven—such a cry as that of Egypt, when “there was not a house where there was not one dead.”

Carl was amongst those who received the truth in the love of it during the interval of comparative quiet, and now he had counted the cost, and held himself prepared, if necessary, to seal his faith with his blood. Yet, were it his Father’s will, he would gladly be spared the fiery trial. And who could blame him for this? Had he not Lisa to live for, besides his little fair haired Franz, pretty Mayken, and baby Carl? It was of these he thought as he sat motionless—his head resting on one hand, while the other still held the psalm-book of Clement Marot. But Carl had been taught that to which, perhaps, he owed it that his eye was still so bright, his step so firm, and his heart so brave and cheerful, amidst the dangers that surrounded him. With him thought nearly always changed to prayer, and this constant communion with his Father in heaven kept him, as it were, in a quiet place, above the storms of his perilous and uncertain life. He was silently, but very earnestly, laying his fears for those he loved at the feet of Him who cared for him and them, when Lisa hastily re-entered the apartment. To his enquiry if anything were amiss, she answered, “Nothing serious, love. Our little Franz is wakeful and rather feverish: I should like to give him a soothing draught. You need not stir; I have all I want in the pantry;” and she moved, lamp in hand, to the further end of the room. A careless observer would never have found out the door of this little closet, so carefully was it concealed, and perhaps designedly, being in no way distinguished from the quaint panellings which formed the walls of the room. You had to push aside the panel in order to find your way into the dark, close recess which Lisa called her pantry—a very inconvenient one she had often declared it, and wondered “why people built houses in such a senseless manner.” (To be continued)

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