wealth and splendour remained for many years. After the conquest f Palestine by the Romans, and during their authority here, Samaria was selected as a place of vice-regal residence, and was enriched and beautified by works of art. Herod the Great once resided here; and expending upon it all the vast resources of his genius and tyrannical power, he gave it the proud name of Sebaste, in honour of Augustus Cæsar. Christianity also, at a later period, left the impress of its piety and genius.

Ascending the eastern brow of the Samaritan mount, one of the objects that first met our view was the lofty remains of a Christian church, said to have been built over the body of John the Baptist. Standing afterwards upon the western brow, at a mile's distance from this church, where the beauties of nature eclipsed those of art, I cast my eye along the valleys of Sharon towards the distant Cæsarea and the waters of the Mediterranean. The valleys and the waters live; but cities perish, leaving a sad memorial. All around us the dust was literally sown with columns; some prostrate at full length on the ground; some partially buried and projecting from the side of the hill; some standing erect in rows and at stated intervals, but without capitals, like wounded and mutilated soldiers on the field of battle; some leaning towards the ground, as if they were borne down with hearts of sorrow, and were mourning the loss of their former greatness. They reminded me of those newly cleared fields, where the old stumps remain-the rough and ancient masters of the soil, refusing with stubbornness to be removed, and projecting raggedly and mournfully from the earth, in all diversities of position.

Art, genius, power, have been here: idolatry with its abominations, wealth with its luxurious refinements, art with its creative and adjustive eye, tyranny with its kings, the just and purifying dispensation of the Old Testament with the denunciations of its Elijah and Elisha, and the peace, forgiveness, and purity of the New with its early and humble teachers. The weary foot of the Son of God, the Teacher from another world, the man unknown, has left its pressure on these hills and valleys. He came from the Jordan to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Galilee; and He "must needs go through Samaria."

The glory of Samaria has departed. Not, perhaps, in the absolute sense of the term; for something still remains. Beauty with diminished brightness lingers even here. But still the physical change is great. The rock, from which ancient fertility once sprung up, is now laid

bare; and the flower refuses to grow upon the rocks. The moral change is greater,-a change which is seen in other parts of the East, but is peculiarly painful when witnessed in this land. The heart of the Christian saddens and sinks within him when he names it. The name of Mahomet is substituted for that of Christ; and the precepts of the Koran, in this part of Palestine, as well as in other parts have taken the place of the sublime doctrines and precepts of the gospel. But it cannot be so always. I cannot think with those who shake their heads and speak discouragingly. Hope is, in some sense, the lifespring of the soul, and is the last thing to be allowed to die. And I may perhaps add that the hope is always defective which is less expansive than love. The empire of love is the universe-it lives and acts where there is anything to be saved or benefited,—and it is the nature of love to carry hope in its bosom."-PROFESSOR UPHAM.

Matthew xxv.

6.-" AND AT MIDNIGHT THERE WAS A CRY MADE, BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH ; GO YE OUT TO MEET HIM.” 1965. A Funeral Custom.-An Analogue.-The closest analogue that I know of the fact which plays so great a part in the structure of this scriptural lesson may be found in a custom which prevails at funerals in the rural districts of Scotland. When the distance between the house of the deceased and the cemetery is considerable, a common, perhaps I should say a uniform practice is, that those friends of the mourning family who reside in the neighbourhood of the burying place assemble in a group at a convenient turning of the road, and wait till the funeral procession reaches the spot: they then silently fall into their places, and follow the corpse to the grave. I like the analogy none the less that it is taken not from a time of mirth but from a time of weeping. The two cases coincide in all their features except one. In either example we have an occasion of absorbing interest in one family, and the sympathy of neighbours expressed by means of large assemblies and public processions. In a minor but characteristic feature there is an exact coincidence, a portion of the sympa. thizing neighbours wait for the main body at a point on the path, and fall into the line of march from that spot to the terminus. That the one is a joyful and the other a mournful group enhances rather than diminishes the value of the comparison.-Arnot's “ The Parables of our Lord."

Job xxx. 4.

ATRIPLEX HALIMUS.

WHO CUT UP MALLOWS BY THE BUSHES, AND JUNIPER
ROOTS FOR THEIR MEAT.

1966. Mallows.-Heb. malluach, which occurs only in this passage, where Job is describing the most abject and miserable of the people. "The word," says Mr. Tristram, "has reference, if we may judge from its derivation, either to some plant growing in salt places, or of a salt taste. Some, with the translators of our Bible, understand the Mallow, Malva, of which there are many species, and which is used as a potherb by the poor."

Mr. Houghton (in "Smith's Dictionary of the Bible") refers to a statement of a traveller who, in going from Aleppo to Jerusalem in 1600, says, "We saw many poor people gathering mallows

and three-leaved grass (clover), and asked them what they did with it; and they answered that it was all their food, and they did eat it. Then we took pity on them and gave them bread, which they received very joyfully, and blessed God that there was bread in the world, for they had not seen bread the space of many months."

Another plant suggested is the Jews' Mallow (Corchorus trilocularis), which we found common on the salt plains near Jericho. But the best authorities are in favour of a species of Sea-purslane (Atriplex halimus), which grows abundantly on the shores of the Mediterranean, in salt marshes, and also on the shores of the Dead Sea still more luxuriantly. We found thickets of it of considerable extent on the west side of the sea, and it exclusively supplied us with fuel for many days. It grows there to the height of ten feet -more than double its size on the Mediterranean. It forms a dense mass of thin twigs without thorns, has very minute purple flowers close to the stem, and small, thick, sour-tasting leaves, which could be eaten, as is the Atriplex hortensis, or Garden Orache, but it would be very miserable food.

Harmer, in his "Observations on Various Passages of Scripture," mentions the incident quoted in " Smith's Dictionary," and suggests that as Biddulph the traveller referred to issued his book of travels before the publication of the first English Bible, the translators may have been influenced by his observations in rendering the word "mallows" in this passage.

Isaiah xxx. 13.-"THEREFORE THIS INIQUITY SHALL BE TO YOU AS A BREACH READY TO FALL, SWELLING OUT IN A HIGH WALL, WHOSE BREAKING COMETH SUDDENLY AT AN INSTANT."

1967. A Remarkable Preservation.-A few years ago a circumstance occurred in connection with these words, which is remembered with thankful hearts by those who then met with a most providential escape. A carriage passed a high wall, which was precisely in the condition described in the text-indeed, no words could have better described its state; and it was remarked by those seated in it how very dangerous it was in a high road, and where so many were coming and going. The words were scarcely spoken, and the danger past, than a terrible crash was heard. The breaking had come "suddenly at an instant,” and the road behind was utterly impassable from the stones and rubbish of the fallen wall.-C. W.

Isaiah lix. 2.- 66 BUT YOUR INIQUITIES HAVE SEPARATED BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR GOD, AND YOUR SINS HAVE HID HIS FACE FROM YOU, THAT HE WILL NOT HEAR.

David Rittenhouse, of

He was skilful in mea

1968. A Star hidden by a Thread. Pennsylvania, was a great astronomer. suring the size of planets and determining the position of the stars. But he found that, such was the distance of the stars, a silk thread stretched across the glass of his telescope would entirely cover a star; and moreover, that a silk fibre, however small, placed upon the same glass, would cover so much of the heavens that the star, if a small one and near the pole, would remain obscured behind that silk fibre several seconds. Thus a silk fibre appeared to be larger in diameter than a star.

You know that every star is a heavenly world, a world of light, a sun shining upon other worlds as our sun shines upon this world. Our sun is eight hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in diameter, and yet, seen from a distant star, our sun could be covered, obscured, hidden behind a thread, when that thread is near the eye, although in a telescope.

Just so we have seen some who never could behold the heavenly world. They always complained of dimness of vision, dulness of comprehension, when they looked in a heavenly direction. You might strive to comfort them in affliction, or poverty, or distress; but no, they could not see Jesus as the Sun of Righteousness. You might direct their eyes to the Star of Bethlehem through the telescope of faith and holy confidence; but, alas! there is a secret thread, a filament, a silken fibre, which, holding them in subserviency to the world, in some way obscures the light, and Jesus, the Star of Hope, is eclipsed, and their hope darkened.—“ Our Sunday School World."

Psalm cxli. 6.-"THEY SHALL HEAR MY WORDS; FOR THEY ARE SWEET.

1969. Heard, but not Seen.-There is a spot on the Lake Lugano, where the song of the nightingale swells sweetly from the thicket on the shore in matchless rush of music, so that the oar lies motionless, and the listener is hushed into silent entrancement; yet I did not see a single bird; the orchestra was as hidden as the notes were clear. Such is a virtuous life, and such the influence of modest holiness; the voice of excellence is heard when the excellent themselves are not seen.-C. H. SPURGEON.