ot an honourable enemy," replied Mr
Linacre. "If Stephen would fight it out with me on even ground, we
would see who would beat: and I dare say my boy there, though none of
the roughest, would stand up against Roger. But such fair trials do not
suit them, sir. People who creep through drains, to do us mischief, and
hide in the reeds when we are up and awake, and come in among us only
when we are asleep, are a foe that may easily ruin any honest man, who
cannot get protection from the law. They houghed my cow, two years ago,
sir."

"And they mixed all mother's feathers, for the whole year," exclaimed
Mildred.

"And they blinded my dog," cried Oliver;--"put out its eyes."

"Oh! What will they do next?" said Mildred, looking up through her
tears at the pastor.

"Worse things than even these have been done to some of the people in my
village," replied the pastor: "and they have been borne, Mildred,
without tears."

Mildred made haste to wipe her eyes.

"And what do you think, my dears, of the life our Protestant brethren
are leading now, in some parts of the world?"

"Father came away from France because he was ill-used for being a
Protestant," said Oliver.

"The pastor knows all about that, my boy," observed Mr Linacre.

"Yes, I do," said the pastor. "I know that you suffered worse things
there than here; and I know that things worse than either are at present
endured by our brethren in Piedmont. You have a warm house over your
heads; and you live in sunshine and plenty. They are driven from their
villages, with fire and sword--forced to shelter among the snow-drifts,
and pent up in caves till they rush out starving, to implore mercy of
their scoffing persecutors. Could you bear this, children?"

"They suffer these things for their religion," observed Oliver. "They
feel that they are martyrs."

"Do you think there is comfort in that thought,--in the pride of
martyrdom,--to the son who sees his aged parents perish by the
wayside,--to the mother whose infant is dashed against the rock before
her eyes?"

"How _do_ they bear it all, then?"

"They keep one another in mind that it is God's will, my dears; and that
obedient children can, if they try, bear all that God sees fit to lay
upon them. So they praise His name with a strong heart, though their
voices be weak. Morning and night, those mountains echo with hymns;
though death, in one form or another, is about the sufferers on every
side.

"My