morning. Three platforms had been erected on
the steps of the Ringhiera, on which sat the Bishop of Vasona, the
Apostolic Commissioners, and the Gonfaliero with the Council of Eight.
On a gibbet in the form of a cross hung three chains, and combustibles
were piled beneath. Sad and solemn was the silence of the vast throng
assembled in the Piazza, excepting where members of the factions were
raging like wild beasts and venting indecent blasphemies.

The three friars were publicly stripped of their monkish robes and
degraded. Tranquilly they mounted the scaffold, the dregs of the
populace assailing them with vile words. But silence reigned at the
moment of the execution. As soon as life was extinct the flames were
kindled beneath the bodies of the three victims. The tragic and awful
spectacle elicited bitter grief amongst the people on the one side,
while cries of wild exultation were raised on the other.

* * * * *

JOHN WESLEY

Journal

John Wesley, who was born June 17, 1703, at Epworth, and who
died in London March 2, 1791, was the son of a Lincolnshire
rector. His history covers practically the whole of the
eighteenth century, of which he was one of the most typical
personalities, as he was certainly the most strenuous figure.
His career was absolutely without parallel, for John Wesley,
as an itinerating clergyman, and as the propagator of that
mission of Methodism which he founded, travelled on his
preaching tours for forty years, mostly on horseback. He paid
more turnpike fees than any man that ever bestrode a horse,
and 8,000 miles constituted his annual record for many a year,
during each of which he preached on the average 5,000 times.
John Wesley received a classical education at Charterhouse and
Christ Church, Oxford, and all through his wonderful life of
endurance and adventure, of devotion and consecration,
remained a scholar and a gentleman. His "Journal" is valuable
for its pictures of the England of his day, as well as for his
own simple and unpretending record of his experiences. Wesley
made religion his business and incorporated it into the
national life. Of him Mr. Augustine Birrell says:--"No man
lived nearer the centre than John Wesley. Neither Clive nor
Pitt, neither Mansfield nor Johnson. You cannot cut him out of
our national life. No single