which we now call Schleswig. Among the creeks, and inlets, and fishing villages on the east,-over the large grassy plains of the centre, and among the marshes which skirt the German Ocean, he had preached the Word of GOD; he had been instant in season and out of season; he had reproved, rebuked, and exhorted. Very small fruit had he seen. The people clave with all their hearts to the worship of Thor and Woden; they refused to hear of any religion that was a religion of peace; and they laughed to scorn a preacher who told them of a better heaven than that which their warriors promised themselves. For there never was a more terrible struggle recorded in the history of the Church, than that which was fought in Denmark between the worship of Odin, and the one true faith.

So the holy Bishop went on, fully persuaded that his labours would not be in vain; that the seed he had sown would, in due time, bear fruit a hundred fold; and that though from that spring's excursion he could boast but one convert, the time would come, when the Jutes and the Cimbri should form a part of the kingdom of our LORD, and of His CHRIST. She who was accompanying him to the ship which was to bear him again to Hamburg, was that one convert; and you may faintly imagine how she felt, she, who alone among her people had left the gods of her fathers, and had embraced the faith of One Who came, not to triumph over His enemies, but to be crucified by them;-how she felt when her father in CHRIST was about to desert her; when she was to be left alone among fierce idolaters, without a soul to instruct, or to strengthen, or to comfort her.

"It is so, my daughter," said S. Anschar; "but the harder the struggle, the greater the merit, and the brighter the crown. If you learn nothing else from the rhymes of your bards, learn this, at least,-that what the chiefs whom they celebrate expected in their soldiers, that our own true Chief, JESUS CHRIST, expects in His,resistance against all odds, and perseverance through all difficulties. And now be of good courage; for I believe that it will please GOD to perform that by your works which He has not vouchsafed to my words."

"How can that be?" asked Alice, in a voice which was anything but that of one who looked forward to so bright a prospect.

"An old question," replied the Bishop, smiling. "Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can these things be? And I cannot answer it: but the future is not mine, but GOD'S. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that, somehow or other, it will be as I have told you; and that, if it shall please Him to bring me back here next spring, I shall congratulate you on what you have been able to do for His Name's sake."

So they parted; Anschar to his Bishopric, and to its work,-Alice to the log house which marked her father's rank, as chief of the little tribe that found a precarious subsistence along the sides of that which is now called the Flensborg Fjord.

Let us pass over six months. The days were beginning to get short; the frost had set in earlier than usual; the wolves, pinched with hunger, came out of the great inland forests, and prowled around the huts; the snow lay thick and deep in all the valleys, though it still sometimes melted from the hill-brows in the passing heat of a December mid-day. Once or twice the little Strait of Quartz had been frozen over; but as yet, the warmth of the day had thawed its waters again.

And now there were tidings that a fierce tribe of the Jutes were coming down from their savage commons in the north, and spreading terror and devastation every where. You will read in history what was the fierceness of those terrible barbarians; how they were God's Scourge to the coasts of Holland, and France, and England, and Scotland; how their ships ravaged even the shores of Ireland, and the north of Spain; and how the Church used to pray in her Litanies, "From the fury of the North men, Good LORD, deliver us!" But they did not confine their depredations to the sea. Sometimes a

horde would traverse heaths and morasses, carrying fire and sword into any place where there was a show of civilization; torturing and killing the men, selling the women for slaves, and rooting up every trace of tillage, and of human habitation. One of the fiercest of these

hordes it was that was now heard of as advancing south. Flensborg would be in its direct route.

All that summer Alice had laboured in vain among her people, and chiefly in her father's house. Wittigar-for that was his name-sometimes smiled, was oftener angry, and generally concluded by swearing-and it was a sort of oath which he was in the habit of keeping-that the first follower of the new faith from Hamburg, he would himself slay, as an acceptable offering to the gods. It seemed as if it were impossible to touch his heart, or to make the least impression on any of his little tribe. And again and again did poor Alice think, "Then I said, I have laboured for nought; I have spent my strength in vain."

One night-it was early in December-while Wittigar and some of his favourites were drinking round a huge wood fire, and talking of past hunts and past battles, and the women and children were thrust out into a cold corner of the log room to sleep, or to pass the evening as they best might, such a cry was heard from among the huts which surrounded the chief's residence, as brought all the men to their feet at once. The cause was soon told. Thorgar, the swiftest runner far or near, had just come in from the hills, with news that the terrible horde from the north, two thousand strong, was advancing in a straight line to Flensborg, and intended to occupy it that night. What was Wittigar to do? His whole people did not amount to four hundred; of those, not fifty were able to bear arms; and how to resist two thousand barbarians, fresh from pillage, and athirst for slaughter? Some cried one thing, and some another; some were for making a large pile, and burning the women and children, and then cutting their own way, if it were possible, through the enemy; some were for trying to offer terms, the only terms which such savages would accept, the giving up every thing, provided they themselves were allowed to depart with life. It was a wild scene torches flaring, men arming, women and children rushing hither and thither in the darkness of the night, and filling the village, such as it was, with their shrieks. Wittigar and some four or five others stood a little apart, and were taking counsel.

"My father," said Alice, coming timidly up to him, "will you let me say something?"

His only reply, furious as he was at the interruption, was a curse and a blow.

Still she persevered; and at last, tired of being impor tuned, "Well," cried Wittigar, "if you must speak, speak, in Odin's name, and have done with it."

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Then, my father," returned Alice, "if the GoD Whom we Christians worship saves you this night by my hand, will you worship Him also ?”

"If He saves us!" cried Wittigar, “yes: but I defy any God to do that; Odin himself could not."

"Odin could not," returned his daughter, "but our LORD JESUS CHRIST can and will."

"Let us hear what she has to say," cried Thorgar; 66 worse off we cannot be than we are: and I have heard strange things of the power that these Christians have." "What would you have us do ?" inquired Wittigar. "Let us go down to the Strait," replied Alice. "There you shall see how all our tribe shall pass over, and the enemy shall not be able to come near us.

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Why, the ice would not bear a mouse!" said Thorgar. 'Nevertheless, it shall bear you, and all of us," returned Alice. "Only promise that, if it does, you will worship the GOD of the Christians, and I, in His Name, promise you that it shall."

Some laughed the advice to scorn; but others, who had either seen the miracles of S. Anschar for themselves, or had heard of them from those that had seen them, elamoured loudly to cross the Strait.

"If we remain here," said Wittigar, at length, "we are lost; if we fight, we cannot escape; and, let the worst come to the worst, we can as well die by the seaside, as where we are. Let us forward!"

Every one took that which they held of most value; the men formed in front and in rear; the women and children were in the centre. Torches flashed on the pure snow that lay on the down side, and along the Fjord. The rude procession moved softly onward, without the sound of a footfall: the solitary wolf, scared at the multitude, howled and fled; the northerly wind came

bitterly cold over the open land, and the snow was falling in small scattered flakes. It was a strange passage from despair to hope,-from certain destruction to promised safety. And it was also the passage of that barbarous tribe, though they then little knew it, from darkness to light, and from the servitude of the devil to the glorious liberty of the children of GOD.

Wittigar, Thorgar, and the other chiefs, went first; with them went Alice, from whom they seemed to look for some kind of protection and comfort. I have often wondered what was that feeling which has made the servants of GOD certain that they have power to work a miracle, and thought how great must be the fulness of that faith which ventures to do so for the first time. But the prayers of S. Anschar, no doubt, had great weight with his Master. He had sowed; and now another was about to enter into his labours.

They were on the brow of the hill above the Strait of Quartz (and I remember sitting down on that very spot, and wondering whether I should ever tell you this story,) when wild shouts and shrieks to the west, gave notice that the horde had entered the deserted village.

"If your God can save us," said Wittigar, "He must be quick about it."

"His own time," replied Alice, "is ever the best. Do not let them hurry so;" for those behind, hearing the shouts of the enemy, were pressing on and pushing those before down the abrupt, and then glass-like hill.

And now they stood on the brink of the little strait. It might have been the boundless ocean, for aught the eye could see: for the bare and stripped beech woods of Alsen could not even be fancied. The little arm of the sea was just frozen; and it was as much as you could say that it was not into the bright, crisp glass of freshwater ice, but into the honey-like substance into which salt water, during its first stage of freezing, always turns. "Now," said Alice to her father, "put your trust in our GOD, and give the word to all to pass with a good courage.

Unable to believe, but yet resolved to make the attempt, Wittigar obeyed. Another minute, and the