"O lady fair, I have yet a gem, which a purer lustre

flings,

Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the

lofty brow of kings,

A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay,

Whose light shall be a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way."

The lady glanced at the mirroring steel, where her form of grace was seen,

Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks waved

their clasping pearls between:

"Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old,

And name the price of thy precious gem and my page shall count thy gold."

The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a small and meagre book,

Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his folding robe he took,

"Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove as such to thee:

Nay, keep thy gold, I ask it not, for the Word of God is free."

The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he left

behind

Hath had its pure and perfect work on that highborn

maiden's mind,

And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the lowliness of truth

And given her human heart to God in its beautiful hour of youth.

And she hath left the gray old walls, where an evil faith hath power,

The courtly knights of her father's train and the maid'ens of her bower:

And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly feet

untrod,

Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the perfect love of God.*

There is also another denomination in Italy, belonging to the Alliance of the Reformed churches, holding to the Presbyterian system called the Evangelical Italian Church, founded in 1870 by Gavazzi. It has about forty congregations and numbers about 2,000 communicants.

*This poem was translated into French, and became familiar to the Waldenses, but its author was unknown to them until Mr. Fletcher, who had studied at Geneva in 1850, and found its French translation there, finally notified the Waldenses in 1875 that Whittier was the author. The Waldensian synod wrote in their name a letter of thanks to the Quaker poet of America.

CHAPTER IV.-BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND.

H

OLLAND,* the quaintest country in Europe, with its dykes, its windmills and

its canals, is a prosperous land, because of its Calvinism. It was the Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, that made the Hollanders persevere, until they had crowded out the sea by their dykes and the Spaniards by their arms. It was the first nation that gave religious liberty and hence became the asylum of thousands of the Reformed driven out of other lands. The spirit of liberty, begotten of Calvinism, gave her an inspiration to great things, so that she became during part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the mistress of the seas and gained world-wide dominion.

Holland was not at first Reformed as it is now. There was a question, whether it would be Lutheran, Anabaptist or Reformed. The first influence

*The proper name of this country is not Holland, but the Netherlands. Strictly speaking, Holland is only one of the provinces of the Netherlands, but it is one of the leading provinces as it includes the largest cities.