Puslapio vaizdai
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it should support itself on its limbs, like most vertebrate animals. But however incapable of walking, its frame is admirably constructed for enabling it to hang by its limbs on the branches of trees. Amid the great intertangled forests of South America, stretching for hundreds of miles, it is by no means so slow in its movements, at least its motion is sufficiently quick to admit of its gathering its sustenance. It has long, coarse, shaggy hair, to protect it from insects; it clings to the bough of the tree by its two hinder claws, and commonly also by one of the fore-limbs, and it employs its other arm in hooking in the foliage on which it browses. It can fling itself from one branch of a tree to another; and, in the more open parts of the forest, it can take advantage of windy weather to throw itself from the tree which it has stripped to another covered with rich and tempting foliage.-Such facts as these go to prove that it is our own ignorance and presumption which lead us to complain of the inconveniences of nature; and that a little more knowledge, and, better still, a little more humility and patience, would lead us to discover and acknowledge, that there are admirable wisdom and benevolence even in those parts of God's works which may seem to be useless, or even injurious. M'COSH.

THE BURIAL OF JACOB.

It is a solemn cavalcade, and slow, That comes from Egypt; never had the land,

Save when a Pharaoh died, such pomp of

woe

Beheld; never was bier by such a band

To Goshen, swarthy chieftains with their troops

Of vassals from the Thebaid, gathering groups

Of pilgrims from the populous towns, whose vast

Of princely mourners followed, and the And massy piles loomed o'er them as they

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the sage,

passed.

The hoary elders in their robes of state Were there, and sceptred judges; and the sight

Of their pavilions pitched without the gate Was pleasant: chariots with their trappings bright

Stood round, till all were met, and every rite

Was paid; then at a signal the array Moved with a heavy splendour on its way.

Its very gloom was gorgeous, and the sound Of brazen chariots, and the measured

feet

Of stately pacing steeds upon the ground, Seemed, by its dead and dull monotonous

beat,

A burden to that march of sorrow meet; With music Pharaoh's minstrels would have come

Had Joseph wished,-'twas better they were dumb.

In a long line the sable draperies waved Far backward from the bier,--and as they go,

The people of the cities he had saved

Look from their walls, afflicted with his

woe,

And watch the pageant as it winds below,--

And prayers arose for him, and tears were shed,

And blessings called from Heaven upon his head.

Made haste to join in that sad pilgrimage. They pass by many a town then famed or

By the green borders of the reedy Nile, Where wades the ibis, and the lotus droops,

The armed horsemen ride in glittering

file

feared,

But quite forgotten now; and over ground Then waste, on which in after time were

reared

Cities whose names were of familiar sound For centuries,-Bubastus, and renowned

Pelusium, whose glories in decay

Gorged the lean desert with a splendid prey.

Where oft, at eve, a visionary boy.

He wandered on in innocence and joy.

Now in their eastward march the waste Now Jacob rests where all his kindred

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His mind recalls the time when through Upon the way to Bethlehem, where she

this wild

The merchants bore the unresisting child.

The way that then was watered with his tears

died.

Sleep on, O weary saint! thy bed is bless'd; Thou, with the pilgrim-staff of faith, hast passed

Is wet with them again; the tender Another Jordan into endless rest:

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JERUSALEM.

Ir is not strange that my first night on the Mount of Olives was sleepless. Though the preceding night had been spent in the saddle, and the preceding day in fatiguing travel, yet the vision of Jerusalem, which I had that day seen for the first time, remained so vivid before my mind's eye, that it banished all thought of sleep and all sense of fatigue. For hours I lay absorbed in the stirring memories of the distant past, which holy scenes had called and invested with the charm of reality. Mount Zion,-Moriah, crowned of yore with the halo of the Shekinah glory,-Gethsemane, bedewed with the tears, and stained by the bloody sweat of the Son of man,-Olivet, where Jesus so often taught and prayed,— they were all there, each with its wondrous story written as if in letters of light. Longing for the morning, I once and again rose from my bed and threw open the lattice. The stars hung out like diamond lamps from the black vault of heaven, shining with a sparkling lustre unknown in our hazy west, and revealing in dim outline the walls and towers of the Holy City sleeping peacefully away below.

I was specially favoured during my first visit to Jerusalem. An old friend had rented a little tower high up on the western side of Olivet, commanding a noble view of the Holy City and the surrounding country from Bethlehem to Mizpeh. It was one of those square turrets which in recent, as in ancient times, proprietors sometimes built in their vineyards as residences for keepers and temporary store-houses for fruit. Here I took up my quarters, and from the open window or the terraced roof, at all hours, day and night, I gazed on that wondrous landscape. During the soft, ruddy morning twilight-at the full blaze of noon-day

in the dead stillness of night, when the moon shed her silvery rays on the white walls and roofs of the city, my eyes were upon it, -never wearying, never satisfied, but ever detecting some new beauty in tint or form, some fresh spot of sacred interest or historic renown. While I live I shall never forget that view of—

JERUSALEM FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

Morning dawned; and with my kind host, to whom every spot in and around Jerusalem was familiar, I ascended to the terraced roof. Behind Olivet, on the east, the sky was all aglow with red light, which shot slanting across the hill-tops and projecting cliffs, and upon the walls and prominent buildings of the city, throwing them up in bold relief from the deeply shaded glens. No time could have been more opportune, no spot better fitted for seeing and studying the general topography of the Holy City. The whole site was before us, distinct and full, like a vast and beautiful embossed picture. At our feet, along the base of Olivet, was the Kidron, a deep and narrow glen, coming down from an undulating plateau on the right, and disappearing round the shoulder of the hill on the left; its banks terraced, and dotted here and there with little groves and single olive trees. Directly opposite us was Mount Moriah, its bare sides rising precipitously from the bottom of the Kidron to a height of some two hundred feet.

On its summit is a rectangular platform, about thirty acres in extent, and taking up fully one-half of the eastern side of the city. It is encompassed and supported by a massive wall, in some places nearly eighty feet high, and looking even higher where it impends over the ravine. This platform constitutes by far the most striking feature of the city. It is unique. There is nothing like it in the world. Its history, too, is wonderful. It has been a "holy place" for more than thirty centuries. Its Cyclopean walls were founded by Solomon. Upon it stood the Temple, in whose shrine the Glory of the Lord so often appeared, and in whose courts the Son of God so often taught. It is still to the Muslem "the noble sanctuary," and, next to Mecca, the most venerated sanctuary in the world. The platform itself-simple, massive, and grand

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