l, to have used carnal weapons for our defence. Those who
thus stood firm felt bolder than they had ever done before. We demanded
why we were thus assailed and interrupted in our private devotions. We
asserted our right to meet for prayer to God and to our Lord, and
demanded that we might be left to finish our devotions undisturbed. In
return we were jeered and ridiculed, and roughly ordered to marshal
ourselves and hurry on before our captors. They told us that we should
be tried before a proper tribunal; that there could be no doubt we had
met together for political and treasonable purposes; that also we were
schismatics and heretics, and that we had merited the severest
punishment. We had no help for it, so, praying to God for help and
support in this our first hour of peril, we did as we were ordered. How
we had been discovered we could not learn. We feared that some one
among our own body had proved false, but we trusted that such was not
the case. Our meetings had probably attracted the attention of some
priest more acute than his brethren, and he had subtly made inquiries
till he had discovered the truth. It was a sad procession as we marched
forth from our woodland temple, but yet we were not cast down; we
trusted in God that He would deliver us. He did not even then forget
us. We had marched a verst or more when thick clouds began to gather in
the sky, and loud rumblings were heard. Soon the tempest burst over the
forest, louder and louder grew the thunder, flash upon flash of
lightning darted from the heavens; first heavy drops, and then torrents
of rain came down upon our heads; the trees bent, trunks were riven by
the lightning, boughs were torn from the stems and dashed across our
path. The steeds of our captors began to snort and rear and show every
sign of terror. Crash succeeded crash--more vivid grew the lightning;
it played round the tall stems of the trees, it ran hissing like
serpents of fire along the ground, it almost blinded us by its
brightness. At last the horses could no longer stand it; their riders,
too, were alarmed. Some of the horses wheeled one way, some another,
and all set off galloping furiously through the wood in different
directions. In vain the priest and the lords called to us to keep
together, and to meet them at the town; in vain their servants and their
other attendants endeavoured to keep us together. Feeling that the
tempest was sent for our deliverance, with