exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted
they the prophets which were before you_" Matt. 5:10, 12.

M. ---- proceeded to set before them the sufferings of the apostles
and primitive christians for the truth as it is in Jesus, and the
constancy and firmness with which, in all circumstances, they endured
these sufferings, on account of the love which they bore to their
Saviour; that they had good reasons for so doing, for they were
assured by Christ, in the words just read, that "great should be
their reward in heaven." M. ---- then proceeded to show the immense
responsibility which those assumed, and the enormity of their guilt,
who, ignorantly or designedly, persecuted the followers of Christ.
That they were but "heaping up to themselves wrath against the day of
wrath." That the day was not far distant, when the awful realities of
eternity would burst upon their view; and that every man would then be
judged "according to the deeds done in the body."

When M. ---- had proceeded in this manner for ten or twelve minutes,
bringing the truth to bear especially upon the minds of his new
audience, he perceived the mayor wiping his eyes with the cuff of his
sleeve, who, rising at that moment from his seat, exclaimed:

"Sir, I acknowledge that I have heretofore felt an enmity towards
many of the people whom I here see before me; and have, as far as my
influence extended in my official capacity, endeavoured to break up
what I have considered their illegal assemblies, and to coerce them
back within the pale of the mother church, which one after another of
them have been abandoning for years past. But if all that you have
expressed be true, and is in conformity with the sacred volume of
God's word, and if the book which you hold in your hand is a correct