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to an elevation of a hundred feet, a prismatic column, opaque in its inner structure, gracefully tapering from base to apex, its surface brilliant beyond description, or even imagination, reflecting every color and tint that art ever produced. Gradually, as the sun rose higher and higher above the snowy crest of old Sorata, the Inca anthem subsided, the brilliant prismatic column faded, until within the space of half an hour, the chant was hushed, the phantom shaft was gone.

At the close of the singular worship Don Manuel joined me on the beach; and then led by their castos, the Monicans filed past in admirable order, each and every one bidding us welcome, and then they dispersed to their daily avocations.

Every morning, at the same hour, the strange worship of the singular column-or rather before it, was repeated, and gradually we made ourselves masters of the mystery of the prismatic shaft, and learned much of the traditions and superstitions of the Peruvian Monicas.

The centre of the lake was undoubtedly once the crater of a volcano, and being fathomless, was of course opaque from an elevation above its surface, while all around its shores, for the width of fifty yards, the inclination was very slight, the water consequently shallow, and transparent as air, the beautiful pebbles of a thousand hues and brilliant tints with which the bottom was paved, refracted the rays of the sun from a certain angle in the morning, and these concentrated refractions, finding their focus in the centre of the lake, wrought the magnificent column, which the same rays at a greater angle destroyed, exactly as the mirage of the Mediterranean is created and dispelled.

Something, through the lingua franca of the Andean regions, but more through the interpretations of my companion, Don Manuel, himself by the mother's side, a descendant of the Incas, I learned much of the traditions and superstitions of these singular people. Some of them are singularly beautiful.

To their traditions there are no periods, or dates. Nothing consecutive beyond their first Inca, named Aquilima, whom they claim was a white man, a great sovereign-Master of all Peru, and founder of the great Sun Temple at Cuzco; the ruins of which, every thing considered, is more wonderful than those of Baalbec. Aquilima, they say, taught them husbandry, and all the mechanical arts, until in these, Peru excelled the whole world. The wife of Aquilima was a white woman, whom he drew from the depths of Lake Thayandega, and named after that beautiful fountain. Their white Princess, they said, was more beautiful than the sun, and taught the Peruvian women to spin and weave into splendid and useful fabrics the fibres of the cotton tree, and the fleece of the lama, with all the accomplishments of domestic economy.

Thayandega.was an immortal, and when at length Aquilima died, she returned to the depths of the beautiful lake, carrying with her the body of her dead husband, whom, they believe, will one day rise from the lake in all his pristine beauty and vigor, and clothed in immortality, accompanied by his faithful Thayandega, will become the Sovereign of all ancient Peru, reigning there forever.

Many of their traditions refer evidently to things that had occurred centuries before the existence of Aquilima, and though they are all vague and non-consecutive, some of them are at least singular and suggestive.

For instance, they tell of the world having been once covered with water, and all mankind, save one good man and his family, drowned, on account of their great wickedness. Then they have a tradition of a whole nation of slaves fleeing from their masters, who had almost overtaken them, when the sun divided the waters of a great sea, so that the slaves went through on dry ground, and when their masters pursued, the waters returned and destroyed them. Again, they tell of a man who went forth and slaughtered whole armies of his enemies, and finally, when they caught, and blinded him, he threw down their temple, destroying more than he slew in all his life-time. At greater length, they tell of a powerful Inca, in a far off country, whom the sun commanded to build a wonderful temple, and who, when the gold of his own country was exhausted, sent his ships to Peru for supplies, and that Aquilima sent many cunning workmen to assist the great eastern Inca, who, upon their return, brought plans of the magnificent temple, and Aquilima built many ships to bring the immense stones from the other side of the world, and began building the great sun Temple at Cuzco.

Is it dimly possible that the Ophir of the days of Solomon was Peru, and that these immense marble blocks imbedded in the walls of Cuzco's mighty ruins, came from the shores of Southern Europe? Certain it is, that those stones are of a quality and kind found nowhere in Peru. Whence those singular traditions? Whence all those Hebrew words, mingled with the language of Peruvian Incas? It seems worth an investigation.

All their ideas of a Supreme Being centre in the sun, and their latest tradition, having any presumable reference to another continent, is that their great Deity had a son, whom he sent to the earth to teach men who had become very bad, to live like brothers, and always love one another. That wicked men nailed the child of the Great Sun to a tree, where He lingered in great agony, and finally died. We saw several representations of the crucifixion among the Monicans,* and one, wrought in cane work, in one of the arches of the Temple where we had our quarters, was, I thought, a very good one.

The Monicans have a Sabbath-our Thursday, which they keep very strictly. They baptize all their children by immersion in the lake, and although they have no code of laws, or arbitrary rulers, crime or misdemeanor of any name, is unknown among them. Their dead they sink in the lower depths of Lake Thayandega, and that magnificent prismatic column, is, to them, a perpetual in memoriam.

If these descendants of the Peruvian Incas, these, sun worshippers, are not Christian idolaters, pray what are they?

* Pronounced Me-nee-quins.

Is the Lord my Shepherd, and am I his sheep? Then am I well taken care of; I am well provided for, both soul and body; He will nourish me richly, will protect and support me against misfortunes, will care for me, will deliver me out of all need, will comfort and strengthen me; in short, He will do all that the good Shepherd should do.

NOW BEHOLD ME, KING OF GLORY.

FROM THEGERMAN, “SIEH HIER BIN ICH EHRENKŒNIG."

BY S. T.

Now behold me, King of glory,
Lying at Thy footstool low;
Weak essaying, childlike praying,
Bring I Thee, Thou Son of Man.
Let me find Thee, let me find Thee,
Dust and ashes as I am.

Oh! look on me, Lord, I pray Thee,
Guide me by Thy holy will;
Jesus only could atone me,

And His purchased heir I'm still.
Let me find Thee, let me find Thee;
In me Thy blest love reveal.

Naught require I, naught desire I,
But, oh Lord! to taste Thy grace,
Which Thou givest, where Thou pleasest,
Free to them who seek Thy face.
Let me find Thee, let me find Thee;
They have all who Thee possess.

Sun of Heaven, to us given,
Undefiled Lamb divine;

Let, in secret, still my spirit

Seek Thee, Bridegroom, Who art mine.

Let me find Thee, let me find Thee,
Hero strong of David's line.

Though believing, still I'm grieving,
While my soul Thy praises sings;
Hark! how gladly, and yet sadly,
My poor voice unworthy rings.
Let me find Thee, let me find Thee,
While my heart its prayer brings.

Earthly treasures, worldly pleasures,
In this time of vanity,

All earth gives me only grieves me,
Longing for eternity.

Let me find Thee, let me find Thee;

I'm prepared, great God! for Thee.

* This beautiful Hymn, which has been a favorite in the Church for nearly two centuries, was composed by Joachim Neander, whilst he was in great distress, in 1678. He wrote it in a wild, rocky ravine, near Wettman, on the Rhine. The translation here furnished by a contributor is quite successful.-ED. GUARDIAN.

LIFE PICTURES FROM CHURCH HISTORY, No. 22.

AUGUST HERMANN FRANCKE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF A. THOLUCK.

BY L. H. S.

"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all-sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." 2 Cor. ix. 8. The sainted Francke pondered over these words when the news of the great distress of a friend reached him. He reflected and planned in his heart how God might enrich him; he did not, like many, simply look upwards, but also on and about himself, with the view of seeing whether the spade with which he could dig treasures, was not already in his hand. After mature reflection, he determined to take a part of the time usually spent at supper-because other duties occupied all the rest of the day-for the purpose of writing his Observationes Biblica, and, within a year, the result was not less than a hundred and fifty dollars for his friend. What Francke became for Christianity and for humanity, that he became chiefly through his faithfulness. He was in the habit of reflecting every morning that the past night might have been his last. God had graciously added another day to his life, and he sought to employ that day as became such a gift. With this view of life, faithfulness was required in little things. Hence his life brings prominently to the conscience of every Christian the question-Hast thou been faithful? For the interrogatory of the Lord himself is: "Who is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?"—Luke xii. 42.

What each can do for his Lord does not entirely depend on himself, but also on the age in which he lives. There are fruitful and unfruitful years in the Church. When Francke entered the world, a good year for the Church had just begun. An awakening to life, in the Lutheran Church, had taken place towards the end of the seventeenth century; such lively witnesses, as Arndt, Spener, H. Müller, and Scriver, had been produced, and here and there were similar instances among the laity. Francke was born in the year 1663, at Lübeck, but removed in his third year, with his father a doctor of laws-to Gotha, where then, Duke Ernest the Pious, zealously labored to build up the Church of the country. The living spirit of piety descended from father and mother upon the son; when only ten years of age he asked his mother for a little room where he could learn and pray in quiet, and he often offered up this "Dear Lord, prayer: there must be different grades and employments in life, but all should finally tend to Thy honor; yet I pray Thee, that Thou wouldst suffer my

whole life, absolutely and entirely, to be devoted to Thy honor." But the rich shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven-this is even true with reference to those rich in wisdom and scholarship. Francke had to learn that with his wisdom grew also ambition, and that then the tender plant of piety could no longer properly increase. In his sixteenth year, (1679) he went to the University of Erfurt, and in the same year to Kiel, and later, at the invitation of a wealthy theologian in Leipzig, who desired him as a room-mate, he went (1684) to that city. Spener had begun to reanimate the dead members of the Lutheran Church in Saxony; Francke was in Leipsic, in company with piously inclined theological friends, with whom he established a Collegium Philobiblicum, for the critical as well as devotional perusal of the Scriptures. But, as he himself acknowledges, he could not then declare: "The crucified one is my only love!" Christ was still not his all in all, but honor and comfort in the world were along with the Lord the end of his efforts. In his twenty-fourth year, during his stay at Lüneberg with the pious and learned Superintendent Sandhagen, he first felt remorse, and then made this confession: "My whole life passed before my eyes, like one who overlooks a whole city from a high tower. At first I could almost count up my sins, but soon there was revealed the chief sources, namely, unbelief or misbelief, with which I had so long deluded myself." As long as one does not perfectly understand himself, faith in a gracious God seems mere child's play. So was it for a long time with Francke. But when the selfishness and uncleanness of his heart were brought truly before the young man, the distress of this consciousness intervened between him and his God, and he was forced to exclaim; "O God, if there be a God, reveal Thyself to me!" The man who afterwards inscribed on his Orphan's House the words "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles,"-passed through a period indeed, as he himself relates, when he was obliged to offer this prayer. He could preach no more, and, only after the severest travail, did the blessed assurance reach his heart, despite all opposition, that in his Lord Jesus Christ he had a reconciled God.

The Christian, blest in his faith, feels now also those words of the apostle-"For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." So he returns to Leipzig in 1689, anxiously longing to lead souls to his Lord. The Lutheran theologians of that time had deserted and forgotten the green paths of the Holy Scriptures in their dry, dogmatic contentions. Spener says, "I know those who have attended the Universities for six years without hearing a single exegetical lecture," and Francke relates that at that time neither a Bible nor Testament could be found in the bookstores (Knapp's Lives of Pious men in the eighteenth century, page 110). He delivered a course of practical, exegetical lectures on the New Testament, for which so great a hunger and thirst arose, that many of the burghers were attracted, and occupied places in the lecture room. But as soon as life from above began to manifest itself, there arose opposition also; the new sect name of Pietists was invented. Francke was pointed out as its head, and in 1690 his lectures were forbidden. At first he desired to continue his labors in this place, but another had been prepared for him by the Lord. Through his friend, Pastor Breithaupt, of Erfurt, a man of like mind with himself, he obtained a call to this city, which he

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