And ye, O ye who hear it, revere the immortal faith that, proof against this consummate barbarity, preferred its most baneful rage, to uttering one deviating word! And then, while your hearts bleed fresh with sympathy, will ye not call out, "O could they have been rescued! had pitying Heaven but spared the final blow, and, snatching them from their dread assassins, cast them, despoiled, forlorn, friendless, on this our happy isle, with what transport would we have welcomed and cherished them! sought balm for their lacerated hearts, and studied to have alleviated their exile, by giving to it every character of a second and endearing home. Our nation would have been honoured by affording refuge to such perfection; every family would have been blessed with whom such pilgrims associated; our domestics would have vied with each other to shew them kindness and respect; our poor would have contributed their mite to assist them; our children would have relinquished some enjoyment to have fed them!" Let not reflection stop here, nor this merciful regret be unavailing: extend it a little farther, and mark the question to which it leads: can ye, wish this for those who are gone, and not practice it for those who remain? Sufferers in the same cause, bred in the same faith, and firm in the same principles; the banished men now amongst us would have shared a similar fate, if seized upon the same spot. Venerate them, then, O Christians of every denomination, as the representatives of those who have been slain; and let the same generous feeling which would call to life those murdered martyrs, protect their yet existing brethren, and save them, at every risk, and by every exertion, from an end as painful and more lingering; as unnatural, though less violent. Come forth, then, O ye Females, blest with affluence! spare from your luxuries, diminish from your pleasures, solicit with your best powers; and hold in heart and mind that, when the awful hour of your own dissolution arrives, the wide-opening portals of heaven may present to your view these venerable sires, as the precursors of your admission. FINIS. FOOTNOTES: