014 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



aged men sit in dignity, and the young men and maidens drive past us 

 their flocks, we are almost ready to ask, if such a one be not Abraham, or 

 Lot, or Jacob, or Job, or Bildad, or Rebekah, or Rachel, or the daughter 

 of Jethro the Midianite we seem to know them all. The mountains, and 

 rallies, and streams, partake of the same unchangeableness ; riot a stone 

 has been removed, not a barrier has been raised, not a tree been planted, 

 not a village been collected together. The founder of the race might 

 come to the earth, and he would recognise without effort his own people 

 and his own land." 



There is no place on earth calculated to fill the mind of the observer 

 with such profound emotions of awe, as Jerusalem. As the chosen place 

 for the revealed glories of the Almighty, its very dust becomes hallowed 

 in our imagination ; and we trace the workings of Omnipotent Power, as 

 the apparent indicia of the truth of Revelation. 



44 The scite of Jerusalem," says Mr. Gray, " is peculiarly adapted to 

 have appeared in beauty, when its hills were terraced after the manner of 

 the East, and were verdant with olive, the fig-tree, and the vine ; but 

 that which was then its beauty, now adds to its deformity ; and the bare 

 and blasted rocks seem Jo say, that God, in his anger, has passed by and 

 cursed the city for its sins. There are rocks, but they have no sublimity ; 

 hills, but they have no beauty ; fields and gardens, but they have no 

 richness; vallies, but they have no fertility; a distant sea, but it is the 

 Dead Sea. No sound is now heard but that of the passing wind, where 

 the audible voice of Jehovah once spoke in thunder ; the sky is now 

 cloudless and serene, where the angel of the Lord was once seen in 

 glory ; the paths are now deserted, where the tribes once approached 

 from the most distant parts to the festivals of the temple the old man, 

 and the venerable matron, the beloved son, and the beautiful daughter, 

 weeping for very gladness as they came : and in that city where once was 

 the monarch, his brow encircled with the golden diadem, and in his train 

 the noble and the wise, there is now no higher power than a delegated 

 governor, and its own people are the most despised of men." 



Again, in speaking of the impressions produced on the mind by 

 dwelling in this fated city, he says, * To the sincere Christian, a resi- 

 dence in Jerusalem is connected with many depressing circumstances. 

 He looks abroad, and the only men who assume an independent carriage, 

 or present a respectable appearance, are without exception enemies of 

 Christ. The two extremes meet, for we may look away from the man 

 who rushes past on his fiery steed, to the miserable being who crawls 

 along in indigence and he too cherishes an enmity, and an enmity still 

 deeper towards the same Redeemer. The Christian may profess an 

 outward love to the blessed name that the others reject as evil, but there 

 is no communion with His Spirit, and the worship that they offer is 

 offensive to His sight. We may try to shroud ourselves from these 

 distressing scenes, but sounds will follow us into our retirement. There 

 is a call to worship at the shrine of Christ, but it is not the tone of the 

 cheerful bell it is a dull stroke upon a plank of wood, an acknowledg- 

 ment of degradation, a voice that dares not to speak out, lest the infidel 

 should be roused, and, as such, is more painful far than would be absolute 

 silence. There is another call, professing to invite men to worship God, 

 but it is from the minaret of a mosque, and the name of the false prophet 

 mingles in its cry at such a place, scarcely less startling than the sight 

 of a spirit of darkness would be among the hierarchies of heaven. The 

 cry of the muzzein is always affecting; but when heard in Zion, as it 

 passes from minaret to minaret at the hour of prayer, and comes in loud 

 accents through every part of the city, and is re-echoed from spots 

 where He once taught who spoke as never man spake, there is no soul 

 that can listen to it without tears." 



