more than seventeen hundred years ago the temple was destroyed, and the kingdom departed from Israel: but we know, also, that the words of our God shall never fail. These declare not only that the Lord shall come to his temple, our holy temple at Jerusalem-but that the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.' Is not then the destruction of our nation, and of Jerusalem, a sufficient proof that Shiloh has already come? My father, it

must be so! or there is no truth in the oracles of God! He has come,

and we hid, as it were,

our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not,'-and, alas! for the obstinacy and blindness of Israel, he shall never come again, till he descends from Heaven, with ten thousands of his saints, to take vengeance upon them who know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." "

The old man was silent, seemingly lost in thought; and she continued with increasing enthusiasm, an enthusiasm now fed by hope

"I am but a weak maiden, father! but uninstructed and simple as I am, I can see as clearly

as though an angel from heaven had taught mè, that the abounding prophecies with regard to the Messiah have been literally fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The place, and the manner of his birth; his poverty; his oppression; his affliction; his betrayal, and even the price of it; his death, the manner, and even the time of it; the disposition of his garments, with many other particular and remarkable circumstances, were all minutely prophesied hundreds of years before, and as minutely fulfilled in the blessed Saviour, whom I worship; to whose purity, and miracles, and cruel death, even our own historians have given testimony; who must be the same Messiah which

our prophet Daniel predicted should be cut off, but not for himself.' Father! I would that you could believe as I do! I would that I could prevail upon you to examine Scripture for yourself; not only the Old Testament, but the New; permit me, father," and she took his hand with irresistible persuasion, "to read it to you now."

The prejudiced old man could not find it in his heart, after her unwearied tenderness, to refuse this indulgence, great as it appeared to him; and

Tirzah, without waiting for the little word of acquiescence, yet trembling at her own temerity, opened the book and read.

He heard with a conscience sheathed in unbelief; but he could not long shut his heart to the beauty, purity, tenderness, and pathos, of these inimitable writings. Listening as a mere matter of curiosity and speculation, he could not entirely shut his heart to the unspeakable love and benevolence which give such a touching interest to the character of Jesus. Regarding him as he would a hero of romance, he could not avoid feeling sympathy in his sufferings, and resentment against his persecutors. As he heard the narration of miracles, in which the blind was made to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, and the dead to rise, he could not help thinking-I, too, had I witnessed these things, must have believed. Neither could he forbear contrasting the blessedness of such a belief with the cold and joyless system of the Jews.

'Sanctify them through thy truth-thy word is truth,' was the prayer of the Blessed Saviour while on earth. It must needs be that his prayer

was heard; it must needs be, therefore, that the word of truth will be accompanied by salutary influences. Thus exposed to its daily light, the father of Tirzah seemed to become pure, by being purely shone upon the mild rays of the Sun of Righteousness, as they beamed in her life, and those words of inspiration which came with so much beauty and propriety from her lips, were imperceptibly clearing away the mists of prejudice, blindness, and unbelief.

When the Jew first became sensible of this change of feeling, he was alarmed. He had permitted his daughter to read for her gratification, and because sickness had fastened upon him that inertia which took away the inclination to oppose her. He felt, as the debilitated often do, careless of every thing; but no power on earth could have induced him deliberately to countenance Christianity. He had too violently and inveterately hated and contemned its sacred author, to do this without shuddering at the wrath he had invoked. He had too madly railed against its followers, to do it without shame. Therefore, when he perceived that the strong hold of Judaism in which he