to the verdure of the plain, and is partly carried by a handsome aqueduct of three tiers or arches, across the valley, partly by a channel along the base of the mountains of Quarantania, in which it rises, to supply the sugar manufactories now in rains, just at the base of the hill I have been describing. There are remains of building at the fountain-head, but only just peering above the ground. A large dôm tree overhangs; and one of the issues of the water is actually in a cleft of the stem. Since visiting the source of the Jordan I have not seen so copious a fountain: it would amply suffice to turn a large wheel, a few yards from the head. There is little or no cultivation on this magnificent plain. Sugar-cane, cotton, rice, used formerly to be raised in abundance. The only artificial crop I observed was wheat and barley. The general tree is the dôm, producing a fruit about the size of a small scarlet strawberry, very oily and insipid, until it has become partially withered, when it acquires a very grateful subacid flavour. Interspersed among them, I saw the castor-oil plant, rising here almost into the rank of a tree; and a species of nightshade, with a fruit about the size and colour of a golden pippin, in shape exactly like the potato apple. These apples are full of a dark and shining seed, which when fully ripe presents the exact appearance of having been roasted till nearly black. It is this which in a district where one is disposed to look for wonders, in all probability gave rise to the story of the apples of Sodom-fair and lovely outside, within only ashes. There is also a tree called tükkům, thorny, yet not quite so bad in this respect as the dom, and bearing a larger fruit. I scarce know whether to call it a nut or an apple. It has something like a thin layer of flesh, a very large and thick stone, and a very small kernel. The proportion of stone to kernel is greater than even in the olive: of this latter I do not remember one solitary specimen on the plain. Along the margins of all the streams and artificial channels are most magnificent canes; one I cut, which was far from one of the longest, measured full sixteen feet. Where the soil is unturned, nothing appears but the coarsest weeds; but among the corn-fields I always observed that wherever the ground was ploughed and cleaned (if what the Arabs do can be called by these names) the most luxuriant crops of clover immediately made their appearance at least I call it clover (though truly it was of kinds I never saw in England), from its being a trefoil, and having the cloverlike flower. It is melancholy to see a place, where climate, soil, and water combine to afford facilities for rearing abundantly the produce of almost any part of the world, thus given up to desolation. A few wild Arabs, and their flocks of camels are its only inhabitants. Wild boars, gazelles, jackals, hyenas, foxes, hares, partridges, quails, storks, all these we saw in abundance: the first and the three last we had at our table. But it is time I bid you farewell for the present. I hope soon to write again. Believe me, very sincerely WM. DOUGLAS VEITCH. yours, Jerusalem, March 26, 1848. THE HISTORY OF ABRAHAM. BY THE REV. J. A. FENTON, B.A. No. V. AT the appointed time, God fulfilled his promise to Sarah; and she became a mother. Very expressive of her feelings was the name Isaac "laughter" divinely chosen for the child; for, said she in the joy of her heart, "God hath made me to laugh; so that all they that hear will laugh with me." At the end of the usual period, which was often extended to three years, the child was weaned; and the event was celebrated with great feasting and mirth. We read of various feasts in the Old Testament, some of them of yearly recurrence and heavenly appointment. And we know that our blessed Lord, when on earth, did not refuse to sanction by his presence the wedding-feast at Cana. It is a lawful, Christian way of manifesting our joy and gratitude to God. Only we must take care that we do not run into expenses beyond our means, and that our amusements be innocent; in short that our feast be one to which we should not be ashamed, were they now living amongst us, to bid Jesus and his disciples. Few of our feasts, whether at weddings or christenings, are of this character; and fewer still, we must fear, of those yearly meetings in our villages, which are honoured by the distinctive title of "the feast." It would be well if the origin of these feasts were generally borne in mind; that they were first instituted to celebrate the opening of the village church, and were held on the Sunday nearest to that saint's day to whom the church was dedicated. Surely one of the most appropriate ways of keeping these feasts would be, for all to go up to the house of the Lord to thank him for those means of grace, and, through them, for the hope of glory. At Abraham's feast there were two persons who were strangers to the general joy. These were Ishmael and his mother. They now felt more strongly than before how completely their expectations had been disappointed by the birth of Isaac. Perhaps, if Ishmael had been left to himself, he would have acted a more generous part; but, roused to jealousy by his mother, he mocked at the rejoicings which were made on account of the little child. Sarah saw them; and, with an impetuosity and haughtiness which seemed natural to her, she demanded that her husband should dismiss them from her home, and make them fully sensible that the hope of the chief inheritance had departed from them. Abraham would hear his wife's proposal with grief; for Ishmael was now old enough to be his companion, and Hagar he tenderly loved. But, being instructed in a vision of the night that what Sarah in her anger had required was a proceeding which God approved and would bless, the patriarch at break of day acquainted his son and Hagar with the divine will respecting them, and proceeded to carry it into effect. He placed on Hagar's shoulder a skin of water, and provisions sufficient to last them till they should reach the next halting-place, which would probably be a small encampment of Abraham's servants with some of the flocks and herds. Thus furnished, the poor mother took her son by the hand, and set forth, yet parting in all kindness from her master, and perhaps at the very last from the divine appointment, lest her affection for her child should prove stronger than her faith in God. Taking with him two of his servants, and the wood for the fire, the patriarch set out with his son. On the third day a far-off summit was revealed to him as the appointed place of sacrifice. Thither the father and son directed their steps; the former carrying a knife and some burning embers in a vessel, to save the oftentimes long and difficult labour of which he was shortly to be stretched. They had left the servants at their halting place; Abraham being unwilling to allow them to be witnesses of the scene, fearing their interference at the time, or their adoption for the future of the practice of human sacrifices. her mistress also. Bewildered by her grief, she soon lost her way, and wandered up and down in the wilderness, till the water was all spent, and her son unable to proceed further. Unwilling to witness his dying agonies, she allowed him to sink down under a shrub, and went to a little distance, and sat down and wept. Again in her time of need did she find relief from heaven. She was shewn by an angel a well of water, which had before escaped her notice; and with this she re-producing a light; the latter bearing the wood on vived her fainting child, and was able to pursue her journey. In course of years her son attained to man's estate, and, by his valour and skill in the use of his bow and other weapons, became the recognized leader of a large company. His mother procured for him a wife from amongst her own kindred in Egypt. Abraham was stili dwelling in Gerar, when he received a visit from the king of the country and his prime minister. Their object was to enter into a treaty with the patriarch. They viewed with alarm the increasing power and wealth of the strangers, and became fearful that, as they themselves had driven out the original possessors of the land, so they in their turn should be driven out. They had full confidence in Abraham's strict integrity: they did not, therefore, think it necessary to enter into any details, but merely requested him to swear not to deal untruly with them or their descendants, and not to forget the kindnesses which he had received at their hands. Before Abraham would take the oath, he thought it right to complain of a recent injury which he had received. His herdsmen had dug a well of water, and the servants of Abimelech had taken possession of it, and driven them away, jealous of the right which Abraham seemed to be thus acquiring to an occupancy of the land. The king replied that, so far from wishing or sanctioning such an act of violence, he had been entirely ignorant of its commission. Satisfied as to the past, Abraham obtained a public acknowledgment of his right to the well for the future, and then proceeded to ratify the covenant with his friend. To commemorate the transaction, they gave to the place the title of "the well of the oath." The patriarch, expecting to remain long in the neighbourhood, planted a grove of trees as a shade and ornament to the altar, on which he made his offerings to "Jehovah, the everlasting God." This example was followed very extensively by the idolatrous heathen, and the groves thus planted were made the scenes of gross abominations; so that in after times the God of Israel was compelled positively to forbid to his people what would otherwise have been a most suitable practice. Abraham was now rich, respected, and happy: his troubles seemed to be over. But never can we tell what a day may bring forth. His most severe and difficult trial had yet to come-was now close at hand. His heavenly Father was pleased yet again to prove him, to test his real character. In a night vision he was told to take his son to a distant range of hills, and offer him as a burnt-sacrifice on the particular mountain which should be pointed out to him. Abraham, fully satisfied that it was indeed a divine command, prepared to obey. It seems that he did not tell to his wife the vision, fearing lest she should not be able to acquiesce in Most trying must have been that walk to the two companions-trying, if the son, unconscious of the cause, attempted to comfort bis evidentlyafflicted father; still more trying when, with natural surprise, he inquired where the victim was, to offer which they had made these preparations. Scarcely would Abraham be able to articulate the answer, that God would provide a victim. At length they arrived at the intended spot, and there raised an altar, and laid upon it the wood. Then the afflicted parent informed his child that he was the required offering. Isaac, now a strong young man, made no resistance, but submitted without a murmur to be bound and laid upon the wood. All was ready the knife was uplifted: another moment, and all would have been over, when suddenly a voice from heaven stayed the descending blow, and assured the now rejoicing father that God was satisfied with his obedience, and accepted the undoubted intention in place of the completed deed. Quickly did Abraham release his son, and thankfully did he sacrifice in his stead another victim, a ram which he saw entangled by its borns in some neighbouring bushes. Again the angel spoke, and made known the solemn promise of Jehovah, that, as a reward of his servant's conduct, he would richly bless him, and greatly multiply his descendants, and make them victorious over their enemies and possessors of their land, and that his seed should be the bearers and bestowers of the highest benefits to the whole human race. I might shew the fulfilment of these promises-how, in the days of David and Solomon, the Jews were so numerous and powerful that they extended their conquests far and wide; how, through a lengthened period, they were a blessing to the earth, by preserving in it the knowledge and worship of the true God; how they were so again by their very crimes, rejecting and crucifying the Messiah, and so fulfilling the heavenly purposes of mercy to a lost world; how they are so now, by their dispersion through all lands, the universal witnesses to the truth and inspiration of the prophetic scriptures; and how, when Jerusalem shall cease to be trodden down of the Gentiles, they shall be the devoted, successful missionaries of Christ, as they have long been his bitterest enemies, and their restoration to the favour of God and enlistment in his service be to the perishing myriads of mankind as life from the dead. I might show, too, how in this offering up of Isaac there was a most evident pre-figuring of the death of the Redeemer, and of its glorious fruits; Abraham called the place of the prevented sacrifice by the very appropriate name, "God will provide." And from this circumstance there arose a common proverb, "In the mount of the Lord it shall be provided;" meaning that, in the season of difficulty and distress, God would interpose, and assist his people. how the eternal Father spared not his only-begot- | interference with the plan of God in accomplishten Son, but freely gave him up for us all; howing his promise to his servant of a child in his that Son went forth to the mount carrying his old age. But Abraham, as he sat at the door of cross; how as a lamb led to slaughter he opened the tent where lay her lifeless body, would renot his mouth, but willingly laid down his life; member none of these things: he would only how on the third day he was raised up; how bear in mind that for his sake she had left with that sacrifice God was well pleased; and how, her home, and without a murmur accompanied as a reward of that obedience unto death, God has him in all his wanderings, and shared his congiven to his Son the heathen and the utmost parts tinual trials. But soon it was needful that he of the earth for his possession; and how his seed, should bury his dead out of his sight. He had, the redeemed amongst men, shall be a multitude however, no permanent possession in the land which no man can number, and shall be by their and, though when he mentioned his wish to the prayers and labours a blessing to the world; and inhabitants they gave him at once the choice of how, finally, they shall be victorious over every a portion of any of their burying-places, it did not enemy, and shall reign as kings and priests for meet the views of the patriarch that, even in ever and ever. But, since there is no portion of death, the remains of the servants of God should the history of Abraham which has been so fre- be mingled with the dust of the heathen. He quently touched upon as this event, I will not here proposed therefore to purchase a cave, which bedwell upon it. longed to a stranger, who had acquired property amongst the people of the country. This stranger, seeing how much it would be his interest to lay Abraham under an obligation, offered, with great parade to give him the cave and adjoining field as a present. But, since the acceptance of it on these terms would have imposed upon the patriarch, as the richer man, a far more costly present in return, he insisted upon paying for the place its full value. The price was named and agreed upon; and the money, in the shape of silver rings or bars, was weighed, and paid to the owner of the property. Then, with a minuteness of detail which strongly reminds us of our own legal proceedings, the cave and all that was therein, the field and all the trees that were in it and in the borders around, were transferred and made sure to Abraham, in the presence of many witnesses. This transaction took place at that which, both in ancient and modern times, was the usual scene of business in the east-the gate of the city. Having thus secured a family vault, Abraham deposited therein the body of his wife. After the lapse of some years, the patriarch took to himself several new wives. Of these no particular account is given, except that their sons, as they grew up, were sent away with rich presents towards the east, that they might not interfere with the right of Isaac to the chief inheritance. After this, Abraham returned to Beersheba, and would have to relate to Sarah how nearly they had lost their son, and how abundantly his faithful obedience had been accepted and rewarded. There did the patriarch continue to dwell, happy in the friendship and approval of God, and the interchange of domestic affection; and, to add to his happiness, he received an account of the increasing number and prosperity of his brother's family in the land of his own birth. Abraham had been subject to many unusual trials. We next read of one to which all are exposed-the loss of a friend. For nearly a hundred years had Sarah been his constant companion, the sharer of his varied lot: the tie was at length to be broken. She fell sick, and died at the age of one hundred and twenty-seven. It would seem that her husband was absent at the time; or perhaps by the word "came" applied to him we are simply to understand his coming out of his own tent, and taking his station before that of his wife. There he indulged in open expressions of grief. It is not wrong to weep for the dead: it is the voice of nature, which religion would not silence. On such an occasion "Jesus wept." It only then becomes blameworthy when it turns to murmuring, and rebels against the divine will. There is a time to mourn," says the wise man; and the death of a friend is that fitting time. We know Abraham too well to think that his sorrow would be mingled with repining. Could we have listened to his words, we should rather have heard him say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord." Whilst he was weeping, he would yet thank the merciful Father, who had spared to him such a partner for so long a time. It would soothe his grief to call to mind the excellencies of the departed. Faults indeed she had. We have seen instances of a haughtiness and hastiness of spirit, which made her at the time appear very unamiable: we listened to her unbelieving laugh at the angel's words, and her deceitful denial of it: we remember her impatient Isaac seems to have felt his mother's loss more deeply than his father. To comfort him, Abraham determined to procure a wife for his son from amongst his own kindred in Mesopotamia; and on this errand he despatched a trusty servant. The journey would be a long one. At length, at evening-time, the messenger drew nigh to the city of his master's brother. Kneeling down by the public well, he prayed that God would point out by a particular sign the chosen wife of Isaac. Soon the females of the city, both rich and poor, came to draw water for household purposes. One of them, of surpassing beauty, at the request of the servant gave him water to drink ; and, a thing which pleased him more, she unconsciously gave him the appointed sign that she was the selected bride, by drawing water for his camels also, till they were satisfied. The servant then gave her a nose-ring and bracelets of gold. But still, not fully satisfied, he asked her name; and, when he found that she was indeed descended from Nahor, he blessed God, who had thus guided him aright. Introduced by her to her BALAAM'S WISH: BY THE REV. JOHN HUTTON CROWDER, M.A., Incumbent of St. Margaret's Church, near NUMB. Xxiii. 10. last end be like his." friends, he declared his errand, dwelling upon his master's prosperity, and the evident approval by God of his choice. His proposal was accepted by the maiden's relatives, and the usual presents were tendered to them to compensate for her loss. Making no long stay with them, the servant set out on his homeward journey, and reached its close at the time of evening. They were met by Isaac, who had wandered into the fields to meditate undisturbed. Seeing her future husband, Rebekah alighted from her camel, and cast around her the bridal veil, and was introduced to him for whom "Let me die the death of the righteous; and let my she had left for ever her early home and her childhood's friends. Isaac led her to Sarah's tent, and she became his wife. Though he had chosen her by deputy, he found happily thishe was one whom he could love; and he soon allowed her to occupy in his affections the place of his buried mother; and he was comforted for her death. After this, we are told by the sacred historian of no other events in Abraham's life. He lived till he saw his grandchildren, the sons of Isaac, growing up to manhood; and then in a good old age he gave up the ghost. Ishmael and Isaac joined together in committing his body to its restingplace, by the side of Sarah, in the cave of MachDelah. There too was Isaac afterwards buried; and thither were the remains of Jacob and of Joseph brought up from the land of Egypt. It is a natural wish to rest in death with the friends with whom we have lived through life; to have it said of us, "They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided;" their bodies not divided in the grave, nor their souls in the temporary residence of the unclothed spirit. Natural too is the wish that at the resurrection-day the nearest to us, the first whom we shall behold in glory and incorruption, should be the friends whom we have most dearly loved on earth. Isaac and Ishmael seem already to have been reconciled; or, if there was yet any lingering feeling of ill-will, we may believe that they buried it in the tomb of their father. We have thus followed the patriarch Abraham in all his recorded pilgrimage, from the cradle to the grave. As we went on, we have noticed various practical lessons, which may naturally be learned from his conduct. From his life, as a whole, let us draw this concluding instruction, that true faith in God includes action as well as belief; that it will look to the commands, as well as to the promises, of God. True Christian faith is this: to accept Christ thankfully as the Substitute who has borne our punishment, as the Redeemer who has ransomed us from Satan and the grave, and to submit to him fully as the King, whose we are, and whom we are bound to serve. IF the observation were true in every case that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," we might decide that these words could proceed only from a holy man; whereas, we know from the historical context, that their speaker was an unrighteous timeserver. The whole career of Balaam, as revealed in this book, presents to us a salutary warning against that common self-deception, viz., the substitution of feeling for the strict conscientiousness and watchful walk of Christianity. Such wishes as the text expresses are most easily thrown off the tongue, just as are the frothy compliments of polite society, which pass, as they are meant, for nothing. The God whom we serve absolutely requires a correspondence between the heart and the lips; and, therefore, a mere ceremonious bow to his truth, nay, a mere verbal admiration of those who believe and obey it, or a wish to be like them in life or death, will avail nothing, unless we show that these wishes are signs of a thing signified, viz., a grateful, overflowing heart. These words in Balaam's mouth were a mere mockery: his conduct negatived his speech : his feeling in uttering them must have been not a sure and certain hope that such a consummation awaited himself, but a lingering hope, whose feeble glimmer, in spite of conscience and experience, just sufficed, perhaps, to keep him from despair. May God's blessing accompany our meditation on this subject! First, as the word " righteous" has undergone many misconceptions, let us consider what is its scriptural meaning; and then the wish in connection, uttered by Balaam, and by many imitators of his at all times. I. The meaning of a "righteous man." God has given the bible as a rule of faith and practice. Conformity to it is righteousness; God's law being, like himself, "full of righteousness and truth." This conformity, in order to save the soul, must be without spot or flaw: consequently, man by this method must despair of salvation; for it is written and proved, "There is none righteous, no not one.' We echo this in the confession, and in the litany. What then? are we to despair? Of saving ourselves, in the strict sense of the word, assuredly; of being saved at all, thank God! no. God's law demanded, by its very nature, what we by ours could not give; but another has come in and satisfied the demand; "and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness." Unconverted man's righteousness, if thereby be meant his best performances, is "filthy rags." A just God beholds in such a one only a proud criminal thinking to atone for a thousand instances of ungodliness by a few paltry exhibitions of morality such as heathens may show, and which require little or no selfdenial. And, no matter as to the extent or degree of these endeavours, they never can be meritorious. "Except your righteousness exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven;" where the excess is, not in the number of its performances, but in the difference of its nature; not by adding items to the collection, but by standing on another foundation: therefore, a righteous man is one who, desiring to be saved, has asked and received vital practical faith in Christ Jesus into his soul, known his own insufficiency and Christ's sufficiency, thrown himself unconditionally upon the last for pardon of the first, is conscious of the witnessing Spirit within, teaching him of Christ, convincing him of sin and righteousness and judgment, and finally working in him "all the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." By this means, being admitted through a gratuitous forgiveness to peace with God for another's merits instead of his own, be sure that such a sinner will shew a practical righteousness, of a tone which the self-righteous formalist never yet was capable of. The hand of God, or God's instrument, has touched the stony rock, and the floods forthwith gush forth, adorning that from which they come, and fertilizing all around. Now such a transformed being as this, though liable, like other men, to care and trouble, possesses a stability, as they do not, by virtue of his foundation. "He shall not be moved." "Great are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of them all;" and beyond this, "The end of righteousness is peace, and the effect of it quietness and assurance for ever." These are no words of sounding brass and tinkling cymbal: they are profound experimental realities. "We speak that we do know;" and any one, who utters Balaam's wish, confesses at least with the lips that the words have a solemn meaning, though his heart or life [may attach thereto little importance. II. Let me then say something in respect to this wish so very generally uttered, before depicting the righteous man at the hour alluded to here; and I repeat, may God make us cease from mistaking shadow for substance. First of all, I observe that it is a most proper wish for every Christian_to make. Like as we "Deare to pray, liver us from evil," so are we to pray, Endow us with good, and especially spiritual good. The death of the righteous is a crowning good. It implies that we have been in peril, and come out of it; "been through fire and water," and been "brought out" of both by the Lord's hand "into a wealthy place;" that the pilgrim has arrived at the city-gates, where rest awaits him; and that the soldier has gone forth "more than conqueror." If that verse of Heb. ii. be true-and true it is, not exclusively of worldlings, but of some feeble saints also-men "are all their life-time subject to bondage through fear of death." Blessed thing, then, to see death face to face, and find that, after all, he is not "the king of terrors," but only a rude messenger, whose uncouth appearance is forgotten in the sweet thought to whom he is come to summon us. So that, reflecting on the death of the righteous, as implying rest, deliverance, triumph, it is proper that we should wish for it. "Of But again, the wish is not only so, but common too. In a land professedly Christian, amidst all the diversity of opinion, all the revolting contradiction of principle by practice, if the question "Dost thou wish to die this death of the righteous?" were put to men individually, their answer would be, course I do." There are also seasons when the wish spontaneously suggests itself; as when the worldling, disgusted by failure in the pursuit of some cherished object, or by the heartlessness of false friends, has a flashing impression of "life and immortality; or when a reflective and reasoning man comes to discourse with self instead of with books, and discerns what a dark void is the human heart without a God to fill it; or when Divine kindness, commonly called chance, has thrown a person in the way of some appallingly miserable case of death, and soon after, perhaps, of one just the contrary. In such, and the like cases, a chord of the heart is touched; and most heartily and sincerely does it vibrate to the wish, "Let me die the death of the righteous." However, this wish may be unprofitable after all; like the seed scattered on the stony ground, anon received with joy, and then, alas! burnt up. It may |