MURDER AND MERCY.

OR, THE REMARKABLE CONVERSION OF A JEW.

A respectable innkeeper in a village in Germany had a very depraved, ungodly son. One day, an old sickly Jew, Elieser, arrived at the inn, situated at some distance from the village, and feeling himself very ill, immediately ordered a bed to rest upon. While he was fast asleep, the young profligate conceived the diabolical idea to profit from the opportunity-for the innkeeper, his father, with his mother, and all the servants, were gone to a fair in the market town-to murder the old sick Jew, and to rob him of his money. He inflicted upon him several stabs with a knife, whereby he lost his senses. Though he was still breathing, yet the murderer, considering his death as inevitable, took a ring from his finger, and the little money he found in one of his pockets, and threw the body into a dung-hill behind the house, with the design to cover it as soon as possible. But he had scarcely re-entered the room, when he was seized with the terror of hell, which quite disqualified him for reflection. In this state of distraction, he ran out of the house, without minding the body of the murdered Jew, left it uncovered, deserted the house, and determined to travel with the utmost speed to the nearest sea-port, a day's journey from his village, and there to engage as a sailor. Meanwhile, the stabbed Jew, whose wounds were not mortal, recovered so far as to be able to move with slow steps to the adjacent village. He could not give any satisfactory account of the circumstances under which he met with this accident. He died on the following day; and the surgeon who had examined the corpse declared, that though the wounds were not in themselves absolutely mortal, yet, in the present case, they had been the cause of accelerated death.

The murderer, pushed on by tormenting fears, proceeded on his way. In the woods he found on the edge of the road a young Jew fast asleep. Suddenly another satanical idea suggested itself to his mind. He drew the knife with

which he had committed the murder, out of his own pocket, put it gently into the pocket of the sleeping Jew, and rapidly pursued his journey on a bye-path through the wood. He reached the sea-port P—.

It so happened that two soldiers were walking in the same road where the murderer had perpetrated his second atrocity. They found there a well-looking young man sleeping, whom from his dress and countenance they supposed to be a Jew; it was the same who has been mentioned. "Why," said one of the soldiers to his companion, "we are both of us hungry and thirsty, may we not apply to the pocket of the sleeping Jew for a little money? As he is asleep, he will not refuse it." "The hint is good," returned the other, "for I am almost fainting from thirst, and I have not a farthing in my pocket." They now put their hands into the coat pocket of drowsy Nathan (for this was the name of the Jew) for money; but, instead of a purse, they drew forth a large knife, and were terrified when they found it covered with gore; but soon recovering from their terror by the hope of earning the reward to which the law entitles those who have delivered into the hands of justice a man under suspicion of murder, they awakened the Jew, bound him, and, deaf to his questions, entreaties, and protestations, they conducted him into the town, where immediately he was put into prison.

Here he remained in confinement for more than a year. In the first month, already the state of inactivity became to him intolerably tedious. He asked the jailor whether he could not give him books to read? “There is,” replied he, "in the whole house but one book, probably left behind by a former prisoner." "What book?" asked the Jew. "I do not know it," was the answer of the ignorant, rude jailor. "I have never read it; but on looking into it, I have found that it contains some historical accounts, and also several letters." "O!" cried the Jew, "give me that book; for any book is preferable to tediousness." He gave it. The Jew was struck with horror when he read the title page of the book, it was, the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was about to return it;

but he then said to himself—" What harm can it do me, if for once with my own eyes I see what the Christians relate of their deified son of Mirjam? I shall thereby be able to argue with Christians." He now actually began reading; he first read with secret reluctance: but the longer he continued reading, the more reluctance changed into tormenting alarm and distress of mind, which he could not possibly account for.

The sermon of Jesus, contained in the Gospel, appeared to him so full of wisdom, his actions so supernatural, his views so pure, his sentiments so noble and so holy; that he felt himself struck with reverence for him, and was convinced that not one of all men that have lived here on earth, not even Moses or Abraham, was to be compared to him. From his early infancy he had heard his parents and teachers represent Jesus of Nazareth as a proud, quarrelsome, and to his own people, hostile innovator, mutineer, and imposter. He now was amazed to see before his sight, on every page, the humblest and meekest of all the sons of Abraham, nay of all the children of Adam. He could not be satisfied by reading the sermon on the Mount, distilling the dew of heavenly wisdom, the last prayer of the Divine High priest, and his last conversation with his disciples overflowing with the most tender parting love; with silent tears in his eyes, he read the history of the passion and death of Jesus; and at his last word upon the cross, especially at that prayer, "Father, forgive them!" he began bitterly to cry, He could scarcely prevail upon himsalf to proceed, but his desire to know the conduct of his disciples after the death of their Master, induced him to read the Acts of the Apostles also; here the events of the day of Pentecost, and the effects of the sermon of that day struck him with peculiar power. But the conversion of Saul of Tarsus made the deepest impression upon his soul: this marvellous event operated decisively; and immediately he exclaimed with a loud voice "As truly as the God of Abraham lives in heaven, Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of the living God!" And in the same state of

ecstacy, he lifted up his hands, and prayed, "As truly as thou, O Jesus of Nazareth, art the true Prophet and Messiah, I will be thy disciple! Have mercy upon me!— have mercy, as thou showedst mercy to the thief at thy right hand! Pray for me as thou prayedst for thy murderers -Father, forgive them!"

This son of Abraham, now in his heart a believer, longed for the day of his acquittal, of which, conscious of his innocence, he had not the least doubt. This desire was not so much owing to his natural love of liberty, as to a wish to confess publicly with the mouth what he believed with his heart, and to be added by baptism to the followers of Christ. He spent his time every day in reading the New Testament, which now had become his valuable treasure, and he repeatedly persued it from the beginning to the end with increasing interest and joy. In his examination before the court of justice, he defended himself with freeness, but modestly; even the judges confessed that his conduct bore testimony to his innocence; and the visible calmness of soul he showed when the bloody knife found in his pocket was produced, and his modest declaration on that occasion staggered the judges. As to the final issue of the trial, the prisioner was without fear, quietly waiting for the day when God himself would be pleased to make his innocence manifest by some providential incident. After having been detained in prison for fifteen months, he received his sentence, by which he was condemned to be whipped publicly before the town hall on three consecutive days, and then to one year's hard labour in the citadel. A tear dropped from his eyes when the sentence was communicated to him, but he returned calm and resigned into his prison.

The day of execution arrived; the prisoner had already been brought into the town-hall to be undressed for the first whipping, when an official messenger arrived from the court of magistrates at P, by which notice was given that the real murderer of the Jew Elieser had there been detected and brought into prison, and that he had already confessed his crime.

Our prisoner was now immediately sent back into prison, but showed into a better room; and after the lapse of a week he was in the most honourable manner restored to full liberty. The most respectable inhabitants of the town expressed their concern for his undeserved imprisonment, and their cordial sympathy in his release. He replied, "Your interest in my case affects my heart; but I cannot accept your compassion, for by my imprisonment I have lost little, but have gained infinitely." Very soon after having been set at liberty, he inquired after a pious minister of the Gospel; the Rev. Mr. B. was recommended to him as a holy man; to him he opened his heart, and related to him all that he had experienced both in his outward and inner man, and most earnestly entreated him that he might be baptized and admitted to the Lord's Supper. AMERICAN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

OVERBOARD IN THE GULF.
(Concluded from page 195.)

I had been overboard for half an hour, before I caught sight of the French frigate. When at last I beheld her, I could scarcely restrain a cry of joy. She was drifting rapidly toward me, and would pass within hail. How beautiful she looked! Her symmetrical hull, that floated buoyantly as some wild fowl; her tall spars, unreleaved by a single bit of canvass, except the close reefed main-top-sail, under which she was lying to; these pencilled against the horizon, formed together a picture of grace and beauty unsurpassed. Now she would pitch head-foremost in the sea; now slowly rise dripping from the deluge. Here and there was a look-out dotting her rigging. As she swung, pendulum-like, the wild and whirling clouds that rapidly traversed the distant sky, seemed one moment to stand still, and then to speed past her with accelerated velocity. In the midst of peril as I was, I still felt all the charm of this picture.

Suddenly I reflected-what if I should miss the frigate? There were other vessels, in sight, but none in my track,