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JERUSALEM.

VAST as is the period, and singular as are the changes of European history since the Christian era, Judea still continues to be the most interesting portion of the world. Among other purposes, it may be for the purpose of fixing the general eye upon this extraordinary land, that it has been periodically visited by a more striking succession of great public calamities than perhaps any other region. With less to attract an invader than any other conspicuous land of the East, it has been constantly exposed to invasion. Its ruin by the Romans in the first century did not prevent its being assailed by almost every barbarian, who, in turn, assumed the precarious sovereignty of the neighbouring Asia. After ages of obscure misery, a new terror came in the Saracen invasion, which, under Amrou, on the conquest of Damascus, rolled on Palestine. A siege of four months, which we may well conceive to have abounded in horrors, gave Jerusalem into the hands of the Kaliph Omar. On the death of Omar, who died by the usual fate of Eastern princes-the dagger-the country was left to the still heavier misgovernment of the Moslem viceroys-a race of men essentially barbarian, and commuting their crimes for their zeal in proselytism. The people, of course, were doubly tormented.

A new scourge fell upon them in the invasion of the Crusaders, at the beginning of the 12th century, followed by à long succession of bitter hostilities and public weakness. After almost a century of this wretchedness, another invasion from the Desert put Jerusalem into the hands of its old oppressor, the Saracen; and in 1187, the famous Saladin, expelling the last of the Christian sovereigns, took possession of Palestine. After another century of tumult and severe suffering, occasioned by the disputes of the Saracen princes, it was visited by a still more formidable evil in the shape of the Turks, then wholly uncivilized -a nation in all the rudeness and vio. lence of mountaineer life, and spreading blood and fire through Western Asia. From this date (1317) it remained under the dominion of the

Ottoman, until its conquest, a few years ago, by that most extraordinary of all Mussulmans, the Pacha of Egypt, -a dreary period of 500 years, under the most desolating government of the world. It is equally impossible to read the Scriptural references to the future condition of Palestine, without discovering a crowd of the plainest and most powerful indications, that it shall yet exhibit a totally different aspect from that of its present state. Enthusiasm, or even the natural interest which we feel in this memorable nation, may colour the future to us too brightly; but unless language of the most solemn kind, uttered on the most solemn occasions, and by men divinely commissioned for its utterance, is wholly unmeaning, we must yet look to some powerful, unquestionable, and splendid display of Providence in favour of the people of Israel.

The remarkable determination of European politics towards Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, within these few years; the not less unexpected change of manners and customs, which seemed to defy all change; and the new life infused into the stagnant governments of Asia, even by their being flung into the whirl of European interests, look not unlike signs of the times. It may be no dream, to imagine in these phenomena the proofs of some memorable change in the interior of things-some preparatives for that great providential restoration, of which Jerusalem will yet be the scene, if not the centre; and the Israelite himself the especial agent of those high transactions, which shall make Christianity the religion of all lands, restore the dismantled beauty of the earth, and make man, what he was created to be-only "a little lower than the angels."

The statistics of the Jewish population are among the most singular circumstances of this most singular of all people. Under all their calamities and dispersions, they seem to have remained at nearly the same amount as in the days of David and Solomon, never much more in prosperity, never much less after ages of suffering. Nothing like this has occurred in the history of any other race; Europe in general having doubled its popula

tion within the last hundred years, and England nearly tripled hers within the last half century; the proportion of America being still more rapid, and the world crowding in a constantly increasing ratio. Yet the Jews seem to stand still in this vast and general movement. The population of Judea, in its most palmy days, probably did not exceed, if it reached, four millions. The numbers who entered Palestine from the wilderness were evidently not much more than three; and their census, according to the German statists, who are generally considered to be exact, is now nearly the same as that of the people under Moses-about three millions. are thus distributed :

They

In Europe, 1,916,000, of which about 658,000 are in Poland and Russia, and 453,000 are in Austria.

In Asia, 738,000, of which 300,000 are in Asiatic Turkey.

In Africa, 504,000, of which 300,000 are in Morocco.

In America, North and South, 5700. If we add to these about 15,000 Samaritans, the calculation in round numbers will be about 3,180,000.

This was the report in 1825-the numbers probably remain the same. This extraordinary fixedness in the midst of almost universal increase, is doubtless not without a reason-if we are even to look for it among the mysterious operations which have preserved Israel a separate race through eighteen hundred years. May we not naturally conceive, that a people thus preserved without advance or retrocession; dispersed, yet combined; broken, yet firm; without a country, yet dwellers in all; every where insulted, yet every where influential; without a nation, yet united as no nation ever was before or since has not been appointed to offer this extraordinary contradiction to the common laws of society, and even the common progress of nature, without a cause, and that cause one of final benevolence, universal good, and divine grandeur ? 'Twas eve on Jerusalem!

Glorious its glow

On the vine-cover'd plain,

On the mount's marble brow, On the Temple's broad grandeur, Enthroned on its height

Like a golden-domed isle
In an ocean of light;

And the voice of her multitudes
Rose on the air,

From the vale deep and dim,"
Like a rich evening hymn.
But whence comes that cry ?_
'Tis the cry of despair!

What form stands on Zion ?—
The prophet of woe!
His frame worn with travel,
His locks living snow.

His hand grasps a trumpet;

The heart's-blood runs chill At its death-sounding blast:

All the thousands are still—
All fixing their gaze,

Where, like one from the tomb,
The shroud seems to swim
Round the long, spectral limb,
And the lips pour in thunder
The terrors to come!

"Thou'rt lovely, Jerusalem! Lovely, yet stain'd; Thou'rt a lion's whelp, Judah,

Yet thou shalt be chain'd. Thou'rt magnificent, Zion!

Yet thou shalt be lone ; The pilgrim of sorrow

Shall see thy last stone.

"Hark, hark to the tempest→→

What roar fills my ear?
'Tis the shouting of warriors,
The crash of the spear.
The eagle and wolf

On that tempest are roll'dTwin demons of havoc,

To ravage thy fold.

"They rush through the land

As through forests the fire; Woe, woe to the infant,

Woe, woe to the sire! Rejoice for the warrior

Who sinks to the grave; But weep for the living

A ransomless slave.

"But, veil'd be mine eyeballs! The red torch is flung, And the last dying hymn

Of the temple is sung! The altar is vanish'd,

The glory is gone; The curse is fulfill'd,

The last vengeance is done!

"Again all is darkness: Year rolls upon year;

I hear but the fetter,

I see but the bier,

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ETHICAL SONNETS.

1.

THE SPRING AND THE BROOK.

IT may be that the Poet is as a Spring,
That, from the deep of being, pulsing forth,
Proffers the hot and thirsty sons of earth
Refreshment unbestow'd by sage or king.
Still is he but an utterance-a lone thing-
Sad-hearted in his very voice of mirth,—
Too often shivering in the thankless dearth
Of those affections he the best can sing.
But thou, O lively Brook! whose fruitful way

Brings with it mirror'd smiles, and green, and flowers-
Child of all scenes, companion of all hours,

Taking the simple cheer of every day,-
How little is to thee, thou happy Mind,

That solitary parent Spring behind!

2.

GOOD INTENTIONS.

FAIR thoughts of good, and fantasies as fair!
Why is it your content to dwell confined
In the dark cave of meditative mind,
Nor show your forms and colours otherwhere?
Why taste ye not the beautiful free air
Of life and action? If the wintry wind

Rages sometimes, must noble growth be pined,
And fresh extravagant boughs lopt off with care?
Behold the budding and the flowering flowers,
That die, and in their seed have life anew;
Oh! if the promptings of our better hours
With vegetative virtue sprung and grew,
They would fill up the room of living Time,

And leave the world small space to nourish weeds of crime.

3.

GRAVE TEMPERAMENTS.

To live for present life, and feel no crime

To see in life a merry-morrice craft,

Where he has done the best who most has laugh'd,

Is Youth's fit heaven, nor thus the less sublime:

But not to all men in their best of prime,
Is given by Nature this miraculous draught
Of inward happiness, which, hourly quaff'd,
Seems to the reveller deep beyond all time.
Therefore encumber not the sad young heart
With exhortations to impossible joy,
And charges of morose and thankless mood;
For there is working in that girl or boy
A power which will and must remain apart-
Only by Love approach'd and understood.

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4.

ACTION AND THOUGHT.

THERE is a world where struggle and stern toil
Are all the nurture of the soul of man-
Ordain'd to raise, from life's ungrateful soil,
Pain as he must and pleasure as he can.

Then to that other world of thought from this
Turns the sad soul, all hopeful of repose;

But round in weirdest metamorphosis,

False shapes and true, divine and devilish, close.
Above these two, and resting upon each
A meditative and compassionate eye,

Broodeth the Spirit of God: thence evermore,
On those poor wanderers cast from shore to shore,
Falleth a voice, omnipotent to teach

Them that will hear " Despair not! it is I."

5.

PRAYER.

In reverence will we speak of those that woo
The ear Divine with clear and ready prayer;
And, while their voices cleave the Sabbath air,
Know their bright thoughts are winging heavenward too.
Yet many a one-" the latchet of whose shoe”
These might not loose-will often only dare
Say some poor words between him and despair-
"Father, forgive! we know not what we do."
For, as Christ pray'd, so echoes our weak heart,
Yearning the ways of God to vindicate;
But worn and wilder'd by the shows of fate,
Of good oppress'd and beautiful defiled,
Dim alien force, that draws or holds apart
From its dear home that wandering spirit-child.

6.

LESSON TO POETS.

TRY not, or murmur not if tried in vain,
In fair rememberable words to set
Each scene or presence of especial gain,
As hoarded gems in precious cabinet.
Simply enjoy the present loveliness;-
Let it become a portion of your being;
Close your glad gaze, but see it none the less,
No clearer with your eye, than spirit, seeing.
And, when you part at last, turn once again,
Swearing that beauty shall be unforgot:
So in far sorrows it shall ease your pain,
In distant struggles it shall calm your strife,
And in your further and serener life,
Who says that it shall be remember'd not?

R. M. MILNes.

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