STONY CLEARING. the fuss has settled down, you see; anyhow, it made | a man of me, and somebodies of my family. We were all glad to leave the Seneca country. But before goin', I rode to the Indian reservation, found out Old Beaver, and gave him a thousand dollars in a canvas bag, which was but a fair return for the true tale he told me. Then we went to Meadville, and lived there a good spell, as people with money ought to do. My two sons got married to very genteel young ladies, and I set them up in the ile trade, which is the best one in the town. My daughter Kate got married too; her husband's a doctor, high up in the physic business; I gave them a good start to begin with, and they're settled in Pittsburg. So we have nobody now but Grace; half-a-dozen wellto-do young men have asked her; but I don't know how it is, she don't want to marry, and says she'll stay at home with the old folks, and her mother and me are right glad on it, for Grace was the best o' them all. But the girl is so given to learnin', nothin' would serve her but going to the Ladies' College in Philadelphy. We get her home every Saturday, she stays with us all Sunday, and she'll soon come home for good, for her schoolin' will be done, Grace is so clever, they tell me." The sudden enrichment of Nathan Baxter was not without a parallel in the time and place, but it pained Mr. Weston to observe, in all his recital there was not one grateful acknowledgment of the Hand that had given so abundantly. Before he could venture a remark on the subject, they were summoned to the dining-room, a handsome apartment fitted with every appliance for comfort and convenience, where they sat down to a luxurious and well-served table, and Mrs. Baxter asked the minister to say grace, at the same time reminding her husband, in an undertone, that it was the right thing to do in Carlisle. "I think it is right for any man," said the minister, as he sat alone chatting with his host, after dinner, "to enjoy the good things which the Lord of all has been pleased to send him, in moderation and with a thankful heart. Mr. Baxter, we have all received from that Almighty Lord more and better than we deserve, but you and yours have cause for thanksgiving beyond most people; He has sent you wealth out of the bowels of the earth, almost for the gathering, and thus given you a noble opportunity of doing good and advancing his glory among your fellow-men." 66 Wal," said Nathan, looking as if the thought had 'never entered his mind before, "I dare say you're right; but, Mr. Weston, riches ain't sich a fine thing, after all, for folks that haven't got genteel breedin' or schoolin' in their youth. Here's me and my old woman, when she was lookin' after the house and makin' cheese and butter, and I was seein' about the ploughin' and sowin' of our old farm fields, with an apple-bee for her and the gals now and then, and a b'ar hunt for me and the boys, the time passed far lightsomer than it does now, when we've nothin' to do and nothin' to amuse us. We goes to lectures, and we don't understand a word o' them; we goes to concerts and we falls asleep. There's nothin' left for a man to do. But the old woman's worse off than me, knittin' woollen stockin's and plain sewin' ain't genteel work for her now; the cook won't let her stop in the kitchen; the housemaid won't let her help to clean the stoves; and sometimes it's my 755 opinion she don't know what to do with herself. Then, you see, our sons have married two fine ladies that make the boys ashamed of us; Kate don't want to show us up among her husband's grand friends in Pittsburg-not that either her or her brothers got any breedin' to crack about, but young folks soon pick up new ways, and grey heads can't-so we stays at home and frets, and if we hadn't Grace comin' home to us, I don't know what we should do. Oh! Mr. Weston, the wealth that was sent to us from the bowels o' the 'arth, as you say, hasn't made us much happier on the top of it." 66 'My friend," said the minister, taking him by the hand, for the sad truth contained in the honest man's account of his fortunate days, was a touching illustration of the drawbacks found in all the prizes of time. "My friend, it has not made you much happier, because you have not made a right use of the gift. The breeding and schooling you so much regret having missed are opportunities which the Disposer of All Things distributes as His wisdom sees fit; good things if turned to good account, but they never made a man wiser or happier except on that condition. The same Almighty Disposer has granted you an opportunity of well-doing to which they are but trifles. Money answereth all things;' with that power in your hands, the greatest of any entrusted to ordinary men, you and your good wife need not want occupation for the leisure time of your lives; there are afflictions and poverty to be relieved; there are ignorance and vice to be overcome; there are heathen tribes to be reclaimed from barbarism, and brought from the power of Satan unto God. In assisting every scheme on foot for those objects and devising some private works of charity for yourselves, you might find employment for your time and means which would gain for you the respect of all wise and good men, and perhaps might be led to see other things in their true light. Never mind absurd luxury or silly fashion; they can only destroy the health and debase the mind of man; life has nobler ends, and wealth better purposes." "I wonder what the old woman would say to that; she was always more religious than me," said Nathan; "indeed Sally and Grace had all the bit o' religion that was in the family. Mr. Weston, I'm afeared I haven't been so mindful of the Lord's goodness as I should have been. At one time I thought that gettin' rich was all my own doin' because I believed Old Beaver's story when you did not, and wouldn't sell my farm.” "Yes," said the minister, "and there you were wiser than I. But is it not wonderful that while you believed Old Beaver's story, and would not sell your farm, you did not believe the Word of God Himself, but went on selling your eternal inheritance in his blessed kingdom from year to year. Yes, my friend," he continued, in answer to Nathan's surprised look, "you sold it in drinking saloons and the haunts to which they lead; you sold it by neglect of His ways and commandments; but unlike the sales of this world, it may be redeemed without money. Turn to the Lord, and He will turn to you. Employ the abundance He has given you for the promotion of His cause on earth-every good cause is His-and thus lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." At this point of the conversation, Mrs. Baxter sent them an intimation that tea was ready in the drawing-room, but scarcely had they taken their seats there, when Nathan, whose mind was full of the subject, said, "Minister, I wish you would he good enough to tell my old woman what you've been sayin' to me." Prescot Weston was a judicious man, as his pastoral office required. Without infringing on her husband's confidential disclosures, which he knew would wound the good woman's pride, for the two men were the most intimate, he briefly repeated to Mrs. Baxter the suggestions he had offered for the better employment of their spare time and abundant means. She listened with fixed attention, and seemed even more impressed with the truth of his remarks than Nathan. They talked together over the whole matter as friends in council, till the minister found it was time to return home, and then parted with an earnest invitation from the old pair, and a promise from him to revisit their house as often as he could. The promise was kept, like all that Mr. Weston ever made. Besides his anxiety to win people from the vanities of the world to the service of his heavenly Master, he had a more than common interest in the Baxters, on account of the circumstances under which his first acquaintance with them was made. That interest grew deeper, when, in one of his subsequent visits, he found that the father and mother were no longer alone; their eldest daughter Grace had come home to them, as Nathan said, "for good." Weston had never forgotten the considerate girl who brought him refreshment when faint with fatigue and cold; he should have known her kindly handsome face anywhere, but Grace had altered as much as her fortunes. The rosy flush and sunbrowned complexion given by the forest farm, had changed to a delicate fairness, a result of the indoor time she had spent in making up for the want of early education. Well, though plainly dressed; easy, but polite in manner, and highly cultivated in mind, she might have been taken for a daughter of one of those city families that were then arriving every day to spend the summer months in Carlisle, but, above all her acquirements, it pleased the minister to see that she had learned to remember her Creator in the days of her youth. That best of all learning made her an efficient, though quiet and gentle assistant in his endeavours to awaken her parents from the long lethargy of a thoughtless life, to a sense of their religious and moral responsibilities. Limited as their education was, neither of the pair was wanting in sound sense and shrewd observation; their experience of the opposite extremes of fortune had given them a practical knowledge of the balance weights attached to both, and prepared their minds for choosing a better way than they had hitherto known. By degrees scarcely perceptible to themselves, their mode of life was changed. Nathan learned to say grace at his own table and take part in family prayer at his own fireside. The household formed part of Mr. Weston's congregation. He and his good wife gradually entered upon the fields of usefulness which the minister pointed out to them, and were soon able to direct their own efforts and devise new schemes of well-doing for themselves. Their time no longer hung heavily on their hands. Mr. Weston relied on them for help in all his undertakings; the town reckoned them among the best of its notabilities; and in every endeavour to stem the tide of evil that was in the world around them, their daughter Grace was known to be their right hand. Her better education made up in many respects for the deficiency of theirs; the energy and activity of her youth took the burden of oversight and inquiry off their declining days; she was their secretary, accountant, and commissioner; but at length it was whispered that the helpful daughter was about to become the helpmate of her father and mother's dearest friend. The minister of Zion Chapel, though naturally social, was yet a single and solitary man. Peculiar circumstances, perhaps a peculiar turn of mind, had prevented-his making an early choice of a domestic companion, but in Grace he found one willing to unite heart and hand with his, notwithstanding some disparity of years. "You have my consent, and Sally's too, I am sure," said Nathan, when he was consulted on the subject; "as you live beside us, we will not lose our good daughter, but gain a good son. But, minister, it downrightly overcomes my judgment at times, to think of the wonderful dealings of Providence with us all since the day when we first met at Stony Clearing." OUR FOUNTAIN OF MARY AT NAZARETH. UR Saviour had no proper home in this world below. He only pitched his tent for a season on earth, to prepare us for our eternal home in heaven. But he was born in Bethlehem in Judæa, "flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone," and was brought up in Nazareth, where he spent thirty years of his Divine-human life. Nazareth is not even named in the Old Testament, except by an indirect allusion of prophecy (Matt. ii. 23), but "Jesus of Nazareth" has made it a household word. Here he grew up in the obscurity of a carpenter's shop, with no other means of education than those sacred Scriptures which in prophecy and type, foretold his own character and mission, and the book of nature which A VISIT TO THE HOMES OF CHRIST. spread before his eyes the fertile plain of Jezreel in the south, the mountains of Tabor and Gilboa in the east, Hermon in the north, and Carmel on the shores of the Mediterranean in the west. The beautiful surroundings consecrated by historic associations and the seclusion of the place afforded educational advantages even to Him, who like other men “ grew and waxed strong in spirit," and "increased in wisdom and stature." Coming from the ruins of Nain, where He raised the only son of a widow from death to life, and in full view of Tabor, the traditional Mount of Transfiguration, we ride swiftly over the Plain of Esdraelon-the historic battle-field of Israel-and slowly ascend the rocks and hills to En Nâsirah or Nazareth. We cannot see it till we are quite near. It is not perched on the hill-top, like Bethlehem and the cities of Judah and Benjamin, but in a basin on a steep slope of the hill, to which it clings like an amphitheatre. Its modest retirement may account for its proverbial obscurity. We encamp a little distance east of the town, close by "the Virgin's Fountain," from which Christ and his mother must have drawn their daily supply of water, as the people do now, for there is no other fountain within convenient reach. As we walked through the narrow, crooked, and dirty streets of the town, passing now a dead dog in a putrescent state, now an immense dung-heap which has been allowed to accumulate for years to spread disease, and as we looked into the houses or holes where men, camels, and donkeys live together on terms of equality, we were tempted to ask, "Is it possible that the eternal Son of God, through whom the worlds were made, should have spent the greater part of his life in such a place and amid such surroundings?" Reason says no, but faith says yes, and adores the amazing condescension of God. "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" was Nathaniel's question when he first heard from Philip of the Prophet of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. But when he came and saw with his own eyes, he exclaimed, "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel." The title "Nazarene" was applied to Christ and his followers in derision and contempt, but it is significant of that humiliation and outward lowliness which is the way to exaltation and glory. The town as well as the whole country was in a far better condition at the time of Christ than it is now, although the people who attempted to cast him down headlong from the brow of the hill for preaching "the acceptable year of the Lord," were as bad and ungrateful as they can be at the present day. A gentleman who lived here many years informed me that even within his recollection, things have changed for the worse, since the Turkish government, by heavy taxation and oppression, discourages all forms of industry. A few years ago the neighbouring Mount Tabor was covered with oaks, but now it is almost bare on the southern slope. Every fruit tree, whether it bears or not, is taxed by the government, and many farmers cut their trees down to escape taxation, except the olive trees and fig trees, which are a necessity for life's sustenance. And yet Nazareth, as compared with other towns of this unhappy and down-trodden land of Palestine, improves upon acquaintance. It is better built, has 757 more decent houses, and shows more industry and thrift than any of the miserable villages I have passed through since I left Jerusalem, with the exception of Nablus. It is the chief commercial town of Galilee and the mart of exchange between the merchants of Acre and Caiffa and the Bedawin. Viewed from the top of the hill, to which in all probability it formerly extended, it presents a pleasing appearance, while the view from that hill is one of the most extensive and charming I have seen in the east. Renan, in his "Life of Jesus," says that no place in the world was so well adapted to dreams of absolute happiness. I was The women of Nazareth are the most beautiful in all Palestine, with the exception of the women of Bethlehem, where nearly the whole population is Christian. They certainly contrast favourably with the ignorance and degradation of woman in purely Mohammedan villages. They wear around their forehead and face a roll of silver coins called semedi,' to which our Saviour alludes in the parable of the lost piece of silver (Luke xv.). They walk the street unveiled and mostly barefooted, and gather every morning and evening around the marble trough of the "Virgin's Fountain," gossiping and quarrelling, and filling their large water jars, which they carry gracefully on their heads. touched by a beautiful little girl that took me by the hand and imploringly looked up to me as if she had lost her father or mother. The fountain is not mentioned in the Scriptures, but it marks the spot where the angel, according to the Greek tradition, appeared to the virgin mother with his astounding message, and the Greek church of the Annunciation stands close by. Hence it is also called "Gabriel's Spring," and "Jesus' Spring." It is fed by waters from the hills, and never fails. It is in a better condition than the fountains of Jerusalem and Jacob's Well; yet the ground before the fountain is very muddy, and even the muddy water is used. Cleanliness has nothing to do with godliness in the East, and is one of the first lessons which the missionaries of a better Christianity have to teach. The population of Nazareth is variously estimated from 4,000 to 10,000; a well-informed resident fixes the number at 8,000. The Orthodox Greeks are the most numerous, next come the Muslims, then the Latins, United Greeks, Maronites, and Protestants. The Latins have a fine convent and hospice, the Casa Nuova Foresteria, where one may lodge at ten francs a day. The Protestants number not more than one hundred, but represent the hope of the future. I found among them some intelligent and enterprising members of the Hoffman colony of Haifa at the foot of Mount Carmel. The traditional sights of Nazareth are the two chapels of the Annunciation (one Latin and one Greek), the kitchen of the Virgin Mary (the house was transported by angels to Loretto centuries ago), the suspended column (above the spot where Mary received the angel's message), the workshop of Joseph and Jesus, the stone table on which Christ often ate with his disciples before and after the resurrection, the synagogue in which He taught, and the Rock of Precipitation, from which the Nazarenes attempted to cast Him down. These traditions are utterly worthless, and the creatures of superstition. The rival claims of the Latins and the Greeks to the possession of the spot of Annunciation and Incarnation neutralize each The traditional Mount of Precipitation is two miles off from the town, and cannot be the brow of the hill "on which the city was built." The steep rock behind the Maronite church would have answered the purpose much better, and agrees with the description of Luke (chap. iv.). I examined the spot with M. Huber, the resident German minister, and came to the conclusion that this is in all probability the real Rock of Precipitation. But let me now turn to the signs of a better future, which most travellers pass by. As I approached Nazareth, my attention was arrested by an imposing white building situated below the brow of the hill, and commanding the whole town. I did not fail to visit it, and learned that it is an orphanage, established in 1874 by the English Society for Promoting Female Education in the East. It is the handsomest building of the kind in all Palestine, and is kept as neat and clean as any schoolhouse in Europe or America. The principal, Miss Mathilde Dickson, with whom I had a long and interesting conversation, is a highly accomplished and devoted lady, and reminded me, by her zeal for mission work and the female sex, of the late Mrs. Doremus, whose praise is in all churches, and whose memory will never fade. The orphanage has thirty-four boarders (mostly of Greek, some of Protestant, a few of Mohammedan parentage), who are here washed and dressed, and taught the elements of education, Bible history, and Christian hymns. It is hoped that their influence will tell upon their future husbands and children, and indirectly prepare the way for evangelical Christianity. It must be confessed, however, that the work is very difficult; for girls in the East are married very young, that is, bought and sold into a state of slavery. The institution owns the hill, from which the finest view is enjoyed. It is undenominational, but works in connection with the episcopal church, the only Protestant church in Nazareth. One of its good effects is that it has stimulated the zeal of the Greek bishop, who started a rival school for girls in 1876. This church was founded by the English Church Missionary Society, and stands in connection with the Anglo-Prussian bishopric of Jerusalem. It has a beautiful building, where the gospel is preached in Arabic to about sixty hearers. The first minister was the Rev. J. Zeller, whose wife-a daughter of the late Bishop Gobat, of Jerusalem-wrote a charming book on the flowers of Palestine. The present missionary is the Rev. Franklin Bellamy (formerly of the royal English navy). He invited me to preach, and when I told him I was not an Episcopalian, he said that it made no difference, as the canons did not apply to missionary stations. He is assisted by a catechist, Mr. Jacob Huber, who was educated in the mission-house at Basle, and has laboured here many years most faithfully. I found him an intelligent, experienced, and obliging gentleman. He spoke in high terms of the Presbyterian mission in Beirut, to which the Episcopal mission-schools are indebted for Christian literature in the Arabic language. I must mention also a Christian hospital which was founded here by the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society (undenominational, but chiefly Presbyterian). highly Presbyterian). It is very ably and successfully managed by Dr. Vartan, an Armenian educated in Scotland. His medical skill is a great aid to the Protestant mission. All these labours of love for the good of our suffering fellow men are inspired by love and gratitude for Him who spent thirty years of his life in this retired village to prepare himself for His great work of saving us from sin and death and leading us to life everlasting. LIFE AMONG THE AFGHANS. BY THE REV. T. P. HUGHES, B.D., C. M. S. MISSIONARY AT Peshawar. A This remark is specially applicable to the Afghán people, for in Pushto, the language of the Afgháns, whilst there are not a dozen prose works in existence, the number of poems is very considerable. The earliest Afghán poems extant are the odes of Mirzā. Mirza Ansari flourished about the year A.D. 1560, and is said to have spent the latter years of his life in the hills of Tirah, on the south of the celebrated * Prescott's "Essay on Scottish Song." Khyber Pass. He was a great traveller, and resided for some time in different parts of Hindustan; consequently his poems are full of Sanscrit words. Another Afghán poet is Ahmad Shah, the founder of the Durrani monarchy, and grandfather of the unfortunate Shah Shirjah-ul-Mulk, whom the British attempted to replace on the Cabul throne in 1839. But notwithstanding this kingly origin, the poems of Ahmad Shah have not obtained very great notoriety. The great national poet of the Afgháns is Abd-urRahman, who lived about the year A.D. 1700. This remarkable man was born in the village of Bahadur Kilai, near Peshawar. His tomb is still to be seen in the village graveyard of Hazārkhāna, and until within the last few years, the people went to point THE AFGHAN POETS. out the very tree under which their poet sat as he depicted the vanity of life and sang of love divine. The odes of Abd-ur-Rahman are remarkably pure, and they are free from that glaring nonsense which 30 mars the verses of most Oriental authors. The following are a few selections from his Diwan : There is no return for thee a second time into this world. To-day is thy opportunity, whether thou followest evil or good." "At the last day inquiry will not be made of thee As to whether thou art the son or the grandson of such a man; To the bride who may not be handsome in her own person What signifies her mother's or her grandmother's looks? Soar not into the heavens with thy head in the air, For thou art originally from the dust of the earth created." "Practise goodness in thine own person, and fear evil! Presume not on the virtues of thy father or thy mother." "He who approacheth the graveyard of the dead Should consider it a sufficient admonition in this world. These massive courts, these firm and compact mansions Will certainly at last be desolate in this world." The name of the Messiah (Christ) frequently occurs in the poems of Abd-ur-Rahman, as the healer and lifegiver of mankind; for example: "The enlightened are like unto the Messiah, Since from their breath the dead are given life." The following ode from Abd-ur-Rahman, on the duty of each man minding his own business, is translated into Romanised Pushto, and will show the rhythm of a popular piece of Afghán poetry: "Ka tah na kare pa bul cha bande gharaz Zah Rahman da ishaq pa dard khe hase khwakh yam Then the watch-dog will not interfere with the beggar. "Your ships would never have foundered on the sea-shore If you had not interfered with the sea by sailing on the wide ocean. "This world's friendship is sought by fools, But with the world's pursuits wise men do not interfere. “I, Rahman, am so happy in the agonies of love, That with medicines of relief I do not interfere." Another poet of distinction is Khushhāl-Khan, the warrior-poet of the Khatan tribe. He was born at Akora, on the banks of the Cabul river, in the year A.D. 1613. Khushhal was a voluminous writer, and his poems evince a spirit of patriotism which is very remarkable. He was as active with his sword as with his pen, and for many a long year did he, in concert with the Afridis of the Khyber, resist the 759 invasion of the Moghuls. In vain, however, did he attempt to rally his fellow Afgháns, and in one of his odes he thus laments their lack of patriotism : "I alone among the Afgháns grieve for our honour and renown, Whilst the Yusufzais at their ease are tilling their lands: His description of the Afghán people is very characteristic, and fully confirms recent experiences of them during the war: "Though the Afghán people are of the human race, In disposition and ways they are very Hindus. They are possessed of neither skill nor intellect, "They ever lie in wait, one to injure the other; That they are not slaves, but free from men." For some time the poet was in "durance vile," a prisoner in the fort at Gwalior. From his prisonhouse he wrote several spirited poems; and it was during this imprisonment that one of his wives, herself a poetess, addressed her absent husband in a pretty ode ending with the following couplets: Though life is sweeter than aught else in this world, What shall I do with it? It is bitter now, from my lover parted. “May he be Khushhāl (i.e., happy) wherever he be; Let him care for his own happiness; I alone will mourn." Even when an old man, Khushhal-Khan retained much of his former vigour of mind and body; and in one of his poems he thus expresses himself; "Two and sixty years by computation my age hath now reached; And my black hair hath turned silvery, but my heart is not yet grey." 66 This grand old poet, chief of the Khataks, died in his seventy-eighth year, and was buried in the secluded little hamlet of Esurrai, at the fort of the Khatak mountains. 66 Bury me," he said, where the dust of the hoof of the Moghul cavalry shall not light upon my grave;" and for many years the place of Khushhal's burial lay concealed from the foreign invader. It is now a spot treasured much by his numerous descendants. Khushhal-Khan had fifty-seven sons; many of them, especially Ashraf and Abd-ul-Nadir, whose works are still extant, were poets of considerable reputation. He is said to have written upwards of three hundred works, consisting of poetry, medicine, philosophy, and falconry; but very few of these works are now in existence. A direct descendant of this celebrated Khatak chief is now the Subadar major in the corps of Guides infantry; and the old fort in which Khushhäl-Khan mourned and sang of |