Ibrahim Pacha, and is now subject to Egypt, which, however, is itself nominally under tribute to the Sublime Porte. The whole of Syria is now included in one pachalic, the head of which is Damascus, and Jerusalem is governed by a moutsellim, an inferior chief. In all these changes, every ancient place mentioned in these notices has taken part, and this rapid historical sketch must be considered as applicable to almost every town and city throughout the country. man (and nearly all were of this occupation,) was his own; it had belonged to his family for centuries; he was surrounded by the homesteads of his immediate relatives; from father to son were transmitted a thousand little traditions which consecrated every stone and stream, and made every field and tree a part and parcel of his existence; and all that affection treasured up in the memory was more or less connected with the sphere of his daily occupations-which included as well the place of his birth, the spring at which he first drank, the tree that produced the fruit of which he first ate, the garden in which were cultivated the flowers he first admired, the altar where he first held communion with the Lord, and the hallowed nook that was the burial-place of his fathers, and where he hoped that Lis own grave would be dug when his form was to be again numbered with the clods of the valley. But there are also other associations besides those of birth and kindred that the human mind has been formed to cherish with gladness, and there will still be a void felt in the heart where the exercise of these is wanting, how sweet and lovely soever may be our proper home. When families have been located for ages in one particular place, and have little intercourse with the rest of their species, they become the slaves of habit, and are prejudiced against all that is exterior to their own nar In the time of our Saviour the Holy Land was in circumstances somewhat different to all that preceded and to all that may follow. There was a pause in the course of events between the period of prophecy and the period of accomplishment, which was the fulness of the prophetical time, and the beginning of the kingdom of God. The æra was come when the polity of the Jews was to receive a mighty disruption, in which the tribes were to be blended into one undistinguishable mass, and the chosen of the Lord were to become "an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead them." The tribes were then separate, but the people resided in what part they chose, and were only required to resort to their own cities on certain occasions connected with the affairs of government. Thus Joseph, the carpenter, of the tribe of Judah, resided at Nazareth, in the tribe of Zebulon, but resorted to Bethlehem to be en-row circle; change is considered as almost sinful; rolled at the general taxation. The country promised to the posterity of the patriarchs was to be "the glory of all lands," "a land flowing with milk and honey." Under the sway of the Canaanites, amidst all their wickedness, it brought forth in such abundance, that the spies sent forward by Moses were constrained at their return to say concerning it, "It is a good land which the Lord our God doth give us." In the time of David the population must have amounted to several millions, as the men able to bear arms were numbered, at the lowest computation, and after an imperfect census, at 1,300,000. In the time of Jehoshaphat the men of war, in Judah alone, amounted to 1,060,000. That there was no exaggeration in these statements we may infer from the writings of Josephus, whence we learn that in his time the cities of the land were numerous and extensive, and that at one celebration of the passover, in the reign of Nero, there were present at Jerusalem 2,700,000 persons.Individuals among the Jews were extremely rich, whilst the condition of all appears to have been comfortable, as Nabal had 3000 sheep and 1000 goats, and David left towards the building of the temple £21,600,000 in gold, besides some millions in silver. Such men as Boaz the Bethlehemite, Araunah the Jebusite, and Naboth the Jezreelite, were an honor to a nation, men worthy to stand before the king. Wise men have struck out from the regions of fancy Utopian commonwealths; but in grave and authentic history we meet with no country so happy as the promised land in the more prosperous periods of its existence, and had the people been faithful to the commands of the Lord their God, there would have been realized amongst them all that the imagination has fabled of the golden age. The spot cultivated by the husband and all that is noble in charity becomes selfish in its tendency and circumscribed in its operation. The Israelites were happily preserved from these unfavorable consequences by the forms of their religion. The priest and Levite, and often the prophet, itinerated from village to village, and thus kept up an intercourse between the different families of the same tribe; and all the males were required to present themselves three times a year in the place of the Lord's presence, by which the connection was kept up between tribe and tribe; and the news they then heard, the incidents they then met with, the few luxuries they then purchased, would furnish them with subjects of thought and conversation, until the period again came round for their pilgrimage, which was expected with equal impatience, though from different motives, by the old and young, the female and the male. We confine ourselves now to what might be denominated the civil advantages of the people, as we should be called upon to essay to ourselves a far loftier mood, were we to speak of their religion as a revelation from God, and as providing a priesthood and an altar, which could promise to the transgressor that his sacrifice should make "an atonement for the sin he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him." We may borrow the lyre of the Psalmist, and exclaim, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance: happy is the people that is in such a case, yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord." In relative situation the Holy Land had many advantages, as it was at no great distance from any of the kingdoms most celebrated in ancient times, and yet not so necessarily connected with them as to make its position dangerous. It had enough of mountain, and stream, and lake, and sea, to render it complete in its own resources.It admitted of easy defence against invasion either by sea or land. Nor must it be forgotten, that its position, almost in the centre of the three great continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, was the most desirable that could have been chosen when the fulness of time was come, and the blessings of revelation and redemption were to be scattered among all the dwellers upon earth. The relative appearance of the country has been most accurately described by Moses. "The land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs; but the land whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven." Deut. xi. 10, 11. The outline of the hills is bold, and the valleys are strictly plains, presenting few of the undulations that give so much beauty to the scenes nearer home. The valleys are composed of a deep rich soil, free from stones. The rocks are principally of gray limestone, and they contributed greatly towards the sustenance of a large population, as they were terraced in all directions with embankments built up with loose stones, on which grew melons, cucumbers, and other creeping plants, as well as the vine, the fig, and the olive. In summer the heat is oppressive, more particularly in the plain of the Jordan, and in winter the snow lies some days upon the ground, both at Jerusalem and at places of much lower elevation, as the plain of Esdraelon. There are no rivers worthy of the name besides the Jordan. The towns are nearly all built upon the hills, partly for defence, and partly for the more convenient growth of the vegetables most used as food by the people. They are many of them walled, but none of them would be able to make a long defence against an European power. The plains are open, not separated by hedges or walls. The roads are carried through the corn-fields, and it may frequently happen that in the sowing of grain, different portions of the same handful may fall by the way-side, and upon stony places, and among thorns, and into good ground. There is scarcely a single tree throughout the whole land, except the fruit-trees cultivated near the houses of the inhabitants. I did not visit the tribes on the eastern side of the Jordan, though they are far less known to Europeans than the parts I have described: they have the pre-eminence in the splendor of their scenery and in the interest of their ancient remains, but they are much inferior in historical importance. The mountains of the Ammonites and Amorites present a singular character from the distant point at which I saw them, and reminded me of the sacred expression of mountains fleeing from the presence of the Lord: they have a larger superficies of table land, without so much as one solitary peak, and appear as if trying to compress themselves within the smallest possible compass. There is little in the present appearance of the people to put us in remembrance of those periods of Scripture history that are most dear to us, as the Bedouins can only represent the patriarchal age, though they do it to the life, and we look in vain for some one to remind us of the prophets and the apostles. There is no commerce, and the general occupation is the same; but even here there are blanks that bring keen disappointment, as there is not a single fisher-boat upon the sea of Galilee. The costumes have probably undergone little alteration by the lapse of time; but from the associations arising from this source we derive little pleasure, as our painters and sculptors have arrayed their sacred characters in Grecian garments, and it would be difficult for us now to fancy them under any other form. In all other respects, there is a sacredness connected with all we hear and all we see; there is a divinity that stirs in every visible object; and the language of the poet assumes a power that is not equally applicable to it in any other country of the world: "The meanest flower that blows, can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." The sight of a lily carries the mind to the mount of the beatitudes, the expectant people, the disciples, and the preaching of him who “taught as one having authority;" the camels convey us to the times of the patriarchs; the vines remind us of one who has said, "I am the true vine," and of the precious blood of which its juice was chosen to be the sacramental emblem; the diminutive ants, as they move along in numerous armies, raise the thoughts to Solomon, the man of three thousand proverbs; the lamb speaks of the daily sacrifice, of the preaching of John, and of the meekness of the Redeemer, when led to the slaughter, and wounded for our transgressions: and the eye can fix itself upon no spot that is not the talisman of thoughts too big for utterance. Near every village there are caves, and cisterns, and sepulchres, cut in the rock, women grinding at the mill, oxen treading out the corn, groupes of females seated near the well, shepherds abiding in the field; the bottles of the people are made of leather; their beds are a simple mat or carpet, and even a child may take them up and walk; the grass is cast into the oven, people live in the tombs, there are lodges in the garden of cucumbers, grass grows upon the tops of the house, and the inhabitants walk, and sleep, and meditate upon the roofs of their dwellings. These customs, and a multitude of others that might be named, still cling to the homes where some of them have been practised near four thousand years. There are the same fruits, flowers, trees, birds, and animals; and milk and honey are still a chief article of food among the people. It is man alone that seems out of his place; all other objects remind us of the Scriptures, and throw light upon some of its facts; we reverence the very pebbles: “And all, save the spirit of man, is divine.” It would be wrong to argue the former capabilities of the Holy Land from its present appearance, as it is now under the curse of God, and its general barrenness is in full accordance with prophetic denunciation. The Israelite in our street, whose appearance was delineated with graphic precision by the legislator prophet, in the 15th century before Christ, is not a surer evidence of the inspiration of the holy volume, than the land the ancients, that all that the lightning touched was as it now exists, cursed as it is in all its products, the breath of its life is away. It was the opinion of its heaven shut up, and comparatively without rain. Deut. xi. 17. The prophecies concerning Canaan are numerous, and have been so literally fulfilled that they may now be used as actual history. "Your high-ways shall be desolate....I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desolation.... And I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.... Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye shall be in your enemies' land: even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths."-MOSES. "The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled.... The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry hearted do sigh: the mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth....There is a crying for wine in the streets, all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone in the city is desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction.... Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers."-ISAIAH. "I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger; for thus hath the Lord God said, The whole land shall be desolate: they shall be ashamed of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the Lord."-JEREMIAH. These prophecies might be taken one by one, and many others might be added to them, and from the preceding statements there would be for each some evidence of accomplishment. It has, indeed, been matter of dispute to what period some of them re-envelope the mountains of Lebanon and Hermon fer, and it is possible that they may have received some inferior accomplishment before the coming of Christ, but the full weight of the woe that they denounce was reserved for these last days. There are prophecies of another description, that present visions of hope to the now abject Jew, and are too important to be passed by without notice. "I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee; though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee, but I will correct thee in measure."-JEREMIAH. "The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days."-HOSEA. These predictions also may be included among those that have a double character, a first and a secondary fulfilment; and though we cannot go the same length that some good men would wish us, as touching the restoration of the Jews, we can have no doubt that they will one day be restored to the favor of the Lord, and that their land will again receive the blessing of the Most High. There are at present in Palestine all the materials requisite for the forming of a prosperous people; it possesses the framework of a mighty nation, but the spirit of its existence is fled; and though a form once powerful and features once beautiful be there, the form is now motionless, the features are marred by a mortal convulsion, and shall soon be dispersed, and beams all-cheering as 99 "THE MOUTH OF THE It will perhaps be asked of me, what are my thoughts as to the effect produced upon the mind of the Christian by visiting the sacred places; whether it tends in any measure to quicken the spiritual affections by seeing with the bodily eye the exact spots where the wonders of redemption were made manifest? the first house, when they wept with a loud voice, To this question it would be difficult to give an answer that would be equally applicable to every inquirer. The minds of men are differently constituted, and where one would receive pure and salutary instruction, another would receive equal disgust, and would turn away as from an unclean vessel or a poisoned chalice. There are individuals, more especially among men little acquaint-garden, his death upon the cross, and his resured with the Scriptures, who seem to require some outward and visible sign by which to quicken their faith, and when that sign is given them, they throw into their faith the whole fervor of their souls, and embrace it as a boon from Heaven. Such characters may perhaps be profited by a sight of the mountain village where our Lord was born, or of the sudden turn in the road from Bethany, near which he wept over Jerusalem, or of the mount upon which he triumphed over the grave and snatched the victory from death. Indeed there is no believer in these things who will not find himself influenced more or less by a sight of these me-surrection, even to Mary Magdalene was this commorable places: but in the far greater number of minds there will be no benefit at all adequate to the loss that will be sustained by an absence from the regular means of grace, by having of necessity to mingle much with men of the world and heathen men, and by meeting continually with those disappointments and annoyances from the people of the country, that tend to bewilder the mind, and to deaden the best affections of the heart. I have now seen most of the places whose his-tirement of the closet than amidst the glare of the tory tells with the most thrilling sensations upon the soul; but at the time I visited them, I did not feel that deep and awful interest in them that I previously expected. I had many inquiries to make before I could tell what to believe and what not: I was sometimes fatigued by the distance, or by the intense heat of the sun, or by climbing of rocks; there was so little to see that at all comported with the simplicity of the actual truth; there was among the bystanders so little manifestation of a feeling in unison with the grand transactions they were professing to reverence; that all these things, single or united, tended to unfit me for that "flow of soul" I might otherwise have supposed would spring up within me as a mighty flood of the purest and most refined enjoyment, when standing, for instance, upon the mount of Olives or the mount of Zion. mand given, "Touch me not." It is not "after the flesh" that we are now to know Christ: the mind may be affected by a recital of the death and passion, whilst the heart retains its uncleanness; it is that spiritual sight of the victim slain which enables me, as an individual, so to look upon it, that it becomes the received atonement for my own transgression, that will alone be accepted by God, and this may be better exercised in the re lamps and ornaments of the pretended Calvary. The pilgrim to the Holy Land would generally be better employed in visits to the throne of grace; and would derive more wisdom from searching with sacred awe the oracles of the word, than in gazing for a time upon the spot where these oracles were delivered, or the events were transacted that they record. I do not, after all, regret that I have turned aside for a little time to see these great sights. I have witnessed the degradation into which the professed churches of Christ have fallen, a degradation more deep, more awful, and more distressing, than I could possibly have conceived without being an eye-witness; and I am not without some hope, that my imperfect representations of these things may tend to induce the inhabitants of a more favored land to make some attempts to resIt is necessary too that a distinction be made cue them from their errors, and impart unto them between the different kinds of events of which this a knowledge of "the truth as it is in Jesus." I land has been equally the theatre. I can witness seldom open my Bible, more especially the histothe horrors of the road to Jericho, and the good-rical parts, without reading its pages with greater ness of the Samaritan appears to me greater than interest, from the more vivid perception I have of I before could have conceived; I can wind along its scenes: I have been present at the first estathe valley of Elah, and the patriotism of the shep-blishment of a mission at Jerusalem, which I trust herd boy with the five smooth stones in his scrip, will never cease its operations till the city be a touches my soul with power; I can wander among praise in the whole earth: and in looking at some the ruins of Cæsarea, and listen with more intense of the barren hills of Judea, where the beast wandelight to the stirring oration of the apostle; I can stand near the site of the temple, and feel with the fathers, the ancient men who had seen ders not, the bird flies not, and the grass grows not, I have seen the impress of the curse of God, in more dreadful characters than are to be seen elsewhere on this side the grave; a sight render-numbers of locusts, and to the fariner they must be ed still more striking by the beautiful flowers, and a terrible scourge. the patches of flourishing grain, that here and there present themselves, as if to show what the land was once, and what it again may be, when the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon the city and upon the field, and the labor of man's hand shall be refreshed by the former and latter rain. THE ISLES OF THE MEDITER RANEAN. THIS sea is called in Scripture the Great Sea, and the Sea of the Philistines. It is not much noticed in the Old Testament, except as the western boundary of the Holy Land, and the cedars used in the building of the temple were floated upon it from the foot of Lebanon to the port of Joppa. It was upon this sea that Paul was shipwrecked, and several of the other apostles sailed upon it in their voyages of mercy. It extends from the coast of Syria to the Straits of Gibraltar, a distance of more than 2000 miles. It is one of the most celebrated collections of water in the world. It has been looked upon by nearly all the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, and by Jesus Christ. It has carried upon its breast almost every warrior, philosopher, and poet, both of ancient and modern times; and could the spirit of its winds collect together at one place all the characters they have wafted along its surface, there is scarcely a single name of note written upon the pages of history that would not be included in the assemblage. Upon its waters were fought the battles of Salamis, Actium, Lepanto, and the Nile. Upon its shores, or at a little distance from them, stood the cities of Jerusalem, Tyre, Troy, Athens, Alexandria, Rome, and Carthage; and among the mighty empires of the ancient world, whose wings were dipped in its waters, were Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome. It includes within its limits several minor seas, and many islands of celebrity both in sacred history and profane. CYPRUS. I EMBARKED in a Sardinian brig for Larnica, in Cyprus, May 14, and on the 18th we were off the port of Famagousta, the ancient Salamis, mentioned by Homer, where Paul and Barnabas "preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews." We were not able to make Larnica before the 19th, though the same voyage is sometimes performed in a few hours. There being no immediate opportunity of embarking for Greece as I had expected, I made a ittle tour into the interior, in company with a friend. The plains were cultivated to some extent with barley and wheat. In some places the barley was reaped, and the crops were expected to be large, from the plentiful supply of rain that had fallen during the winter. We saw great After passing several villages, in about eight hours from Larnica we arrived at Nicosic, a fortified town, and the present capital of the island. The principal mosque was once the Greek cathedral of St. Sophia. Cotton prints are extensively manufactured here, but the bazar is as dull as Turkish indolence can desire. I had a letter of introduction from the British counsul to the patriarch of the Greek church. He is a stout heavy man, destitute of all energy, and was placed in his present office by the Turks, that they might receive as little opposition as possible to their oppressive schemes. He signs his name with purple ink, and as no law can be legally promulgated in the island without his consent, he has it in his power greatly to protect his people, were he not too subservient to the masters who have placed him in his present situation. He did me the honor to say that the convent should be mine during my stay, however much it might be prolonged. It has been said that 10,000 people were massacred here by the Turks at the commencement of the Greek revolution, but the statement is greatly exaggerated. The patriarch, bishops, and about 150 of the more respectable ecclesiastics and other inhabitants were summoned to the house of the governor, under pretence of having to hear read to them a document from the Sultan, and were all massacred. About 300 persons perished in other places. The houses of the sufferers are yet in ruins, and the melancholy aspect of the town seems to say that there is a curse upon it for the treachery of its masters. In the evening we again mounted our horses, and in three hours arrived at the convent of St. Chrysostom. On the way we met the harem of a respectable Turk. A black attendant rode forward, and ordered us to leave the path until the ladies had passed. The convent is situated on the side of a steep hill, and has the appearance of a strong fortress. The monks waited on us at table as servants. The visiters had music and dancing, and were as riotous as if they had been at an inn, but the monks did not join in their sports. An archimandrite, who had been in England, was playing at cards, but he was reproved by one of his brethren. I returned to Larnica on the 25th, as I was afraid that I might be absent during some opportunity that might present itself for me to leave the island. Larnica is the principal sea-port of Cyprus, and is well frequented by ships of all nations that put in for provisions, as they are plentiful and cheap. There are two towns, and that near the sea is called the Marino. The space between them is said to have been once occupied by houses, the inhabitants of which fled to other places to escape oppression. There is a small castle, but not of any strength. A mound of fragments and stones is said to have been formerly surmounted by an acropolis. About a mile to the southwest of the town is a small lake, whence salt is procured: an aqueduct and tomb are seen on the opposite side, and the view of it at sunset was almost the only sight of interest I met with in my rambles. There was one day a feast to commemorate, as I was told, the deluge. The roadstead was gay with |