ended and the Land of Promise is begun. Yet there is an interest in that solemn and peaceful melting away of one into the other which I cannot describe. It was like the striking passage in Thalaba, describing the descent of the mountains, with the successive beginnings of vegetation and warmth. The first change was perhaps what one would least expect the disappearance of trees. The last palms were those we left at 'Ain el-Weibeh. Palm Sunday was the day which shut us out, I believe, with very few exceptions, from those beautiful creations of the Nile and the desert springs. The next day we saw the last of our well-known acacia-that consecrated and venerable tree of the burning bush and of the tabernacle; and then, for the first time in the whole journey, we had to take our mid-day meal without shade. But meanwhile every other sign of life was astir. On descending from the pass of Safeh one observed that the little shrubs, which had more or less sprinkled the whole 'Arabah, were more thickly studded; the next day they gave a grey covering to the whole hill-side, and the little tufts of grass threw in a general tint of green before unknown. Then the red anemones of Petra reappeared, and then, here and there, patches of corn. As we advanced, this thin covering became deeper and fuller; and daisies and hyacinths were mixed with the blood-drops of the anemones. (It is these which are called the "blood-drops of Christ.") Signs of ancient habitations appeared in the ruins of forts, and remains on the hill-sides ; wells, too, deeply built, with marble casings round their mouths, worn by the ropes of ages. East and west, under a long line of hills which bounded it to the north, ran a wide plain in which verdure, though not universal, was still predominant. Up this line of hills our next day's course took us, and still the marks of ruins increased on the hill-tops, and long courses of venerable rock or stone, the boundaries, or roads, or both, of ancient inhabitants; and the anemones ran like fire through the mountain glens; and deep glades of corn, green and delicious to the eye, spread right and left before us.

Most striking anywhere would have been this protracted approach to land after that wide desert sea-these seeds, and plants, and planks, as it were, drifting to meet us. But how doubly striking when one felt in one's inmost soul that this was the entrance into the Holy Land! "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah ? " Everything told us that we were approaching the sacred frontier. In that solitary ride-for all desert rides are more or less solitarythrough this peaceful passing away of death into life, there was

APPROACH TO PALESTINE.

165 indeed no profanation of the first days of Passion Week. That wide plain of which I spoke, with its ruins and wells, was the wilderness of Beersheba; with wells such as those for which Abraham and Isaac struggled; at which, it may be, they had watered their flocks. That long line of hills was the beginning of "the hill country of Judæa," and when we began to ascend it, the first answer to our inquiries after the route told that it was "Carmel; not the more famous mountain of that name, but that on which Nabal fed his flocks; and close below its long ranges was the hill and ruin of "Ziph; "close above, the hill of "Maon." That is to say, we were now in the heart of the wild country where David wandered from Saul like those very "partridges in the mountains" which we saw abounding in all directions.

From these heights, by gradual ascent and descent, we went on. With Ziph the more desolate region ended. The valleys now began, at least in our eyes, almost literally to “laugh and sing." Greener and greener did they grow; the shrubs, too, shot up above that stunted growth. At last, on the summits of further hills, lines of spreading trees appeared against the sky. Then came ploughed fields and oxen. Lastly, a deep recess opened in the hills-towers and minarets appeared through the gap, which gradually unfolded into the city of "the Friend of God"-this is its Arabic name: far up on the right ran a wide and beautiful upland valley, all partitioned into gardens and fields, green fig trees and cherry trees, and the vineyards— famous through all ages: and far off, grey and beautiful as those of Tivoli, swept down the western slope the olive groves of Hebron. Most startling of all was the hum through the air-hitherto "that silent air" which I described during our first encampment, but which had grown familiar as the sounds of London to those who live constantly within their range-the hum, at first, of isolated human voices and the lowing of cattle, rising up from these various orchards and corn-fields, and then a sound, which to our ears seemed like that of a mighty multitude, but which was only the united murmur of the population of the little town which we now entered at its southern end. They had come out to look at some troops going off to capture a refractory chief, and they still remained sitting on the mounds-old men, women, and children, in their various dresses, which, after the monotoncus brown rags of the Bedouins, looked gay and bright-sitting with their hands shading their faces from the rays of the afternoon sun, to see the long passage of the caravan, guarded on each side by the officers of the Quarantine. High above us on

166

THE FIRST PROMISE OF CHRIST.

the eastern height of the town-which lies nestled, Italian-like, on the slope of a ravine-rose the long black walls and two stately minarets of that illustrious mosque, one of the four sanctuaries of the Mahometan world, sacred in the eyes of all the world besides, which covers the Cave of Machpelah, the last resting-place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We passed on by one of those two ancient reservoirs, where king David hanged the murderers of his rival, up a slope of grass, broken only by tombs and flocks of sheep, to the high gates of the Quarantine, which closed upon us, and where we are now imprisoned for the next three days, but with that glorious view of Hebron before us night and day.

DEAN STANLEY.

THE FIRST PROMISE OF CHRIST.

THE word of God is as a seed, in which the whole majestic form or various parts of the future oak or plant lie undisclosed, ready to reveal themselves according to their times, seasons, and circum. stances. There is no break, leap, or start; its course proceeds by a slow and sweet and beautiful progression. The first great promise contains the whole of the revelation and prophecy of God in an embryo state. The lapse of ages is a soft, sweet, silent development of this one seed sown in paradise, which in its growth changes the earth into paradise, and reproduces that kind of blessedness the world was then deprived of, in the restitution, regeneration, and complete blessedness of man and his habitation. Like the stately branches of an oak, which begins in an acorn, the end and the purpose being to generate an acorn, while during the progress of its growth it covers every beast of the earth with its kindly shade, and nestles every bird of heaven in its ample branches, so this promise was sown in the soil of a perfect and perfectly blessed state, while man still dwelt in paradise; and its end is to produce perfectly blessed men, dwelling in paradise again; while during all the ages of its growth it blesses the immortal spirits of men with salvation, and its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

EDWARD IRVING.

Biblical Criticism.

JOHN THE BAPTIST NOT A MIRACLE WORKER.

JOHN X. 41.-" John did no miracle."

A STATEMENT coming in, as it were incidentally, yet somewhat remarkable. He who was, by Christ Himself, declared to be one who, as a God-sent messenger, stood above all others, works none of those miracles by which many men, far inferior to him, had demonstrated their mission in a visible way to those so slow to believe without some such proof. And yet the reason is not far to seek, and must surely have been this, that John came as a herald of a new dispensation, which put faith in the place of sight, and was directly opposed to the carnal views of those who "sought after a sign." But, on the other hand, that Messiah, when he came, should work miracles, was an unquestionable proof of His divinity, since in number and efficacy they surpassed all that had ever been witnessed.

PROPHETIC TESTIMONY TO CHRIST.

ACTS x. 43.-" To him give all the prophets witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins."

WE may conclude that the two clauses in this verse are in close connection, and though an unbroken line of testimony might be traced, through all the series of prophets, along which the Messiah is referred to, with more or less distinctness, as the Chosen Messenger God would one day send; it might not be so apparent, at first, that they associated this advent with the pardon of sin. Some, like Isaiah, did so in plain terms; and of the others, with scarcely an exception, it might be averred that one object of their teaching was to show the valueless nature of ritualism, except as a type of some worthier atonement, whereby the sinner could be forgiven, and brought home to God.

MIRACULOUS BREAD.

MARK viii. 8.—“ So they did eat and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets:"

THOSE Occasions on which Christ, by means of miracle, fed a large concourse of people, furnish in no equivocal way a refutation to the high estimate which those who are not prepared to

accept the doctrine of the real presence, are yet disposed to place upon the mere symbols in the feast of Christian Communion. If any bread could have mysterious sanctity, surely bread that was blessed by Christ, distributed by apostles, and miraculously brought into existence, might be supposed to be different to all other bread. But though, from wise economy, the fragments of the broken bread were gathered up, it is evident that no censure is implied in the text of those who dropped portions about. The eaters did not keep any of the bread as sacred relics.

GOD IN HIS WORKS AND WORD.

PSALM xix. 1.—"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork."

THIS psalm, universally regarded as one of the profoundest and most affecting of David's compositions, is especially remarkable for the vivid contrast, and at the same time the inner harmony, which it recognises between the results of natural and revealed religion. The heavens, as Bacon observes, declare the glory, but not the will of God: that is known only by His law, revealed to man as the perfect expression of that will, for his conversion, instruction, and guidance. It would appear to belong to the same period of David's life as the preceding psalm, with which it has an intimate connection. At the close of that psalm (see ver. 43, 49), the king declares his mission to the heathen; in this he dwells first upon the preparation for such work by natural agencies, then upon the instruments by which it could be effected; in both speaking in accordance with our Lord and His apostles (Matt. v. 45; vi. 26-33; Acts xiv. 15, 17-xvii. 24, 31); David it may be forthis reason, calls himself the servant of God (ver. 11, 13.) The psalm has other indications of belonging to the king's sunny and hopeful manhood. As in other early psalms (see Psa. xviii. 18, 25) he has the consciousness of inherent and secret sinfulness, and of the danger of falling into wilful sin; but it is clear he has not committed the great transgression from which he prays to be preserved.

There is a marked difference between the style of the two portions of the psalm. The former has fuller and more varied cadences, the latter is more pointed and compact; but there is, notwithstanding, a pervading harmony recognised by severe critics. In both, the language is at once forcible and sweet, with frequent archaisms and vivid imagery; and it has been noted that in both there is a fundamental identity of structure, each consisting of fourteen clauses, arranged in six or eight strophes of nearly equal