a feeling amongst all classes of society in our country. With the nearest possible approximation to truth might the terms be used of him-' He was not, for God took him.' He was sought-sought with timid and trembling apprehension ?-but 'he was not found; for God translated him.' His bodily frame, indeed, was there but that was not himself, that was not the man-the animating spirit had fled. All that constituted the interest of his being, all that gave character to the living and intelligent man, all that wakened admiration, all that inspired affection, was gone. It is very true, we are disposed to feel as if there were something unattractively dreary in the solitude of his departure; no one by to whisper in his ear a precious promise, or to catch from his dying lips the latest breathings of faith and hope! no one to close with friendly hand, the eye which death hath fixed! and yet, it was not solitude. He had company with him,— Man was not there; but God was there: his Divine Master was there. Earthly friends were absent; but his best Friend was there. And, although there was no human lip to whisper a promise in his ear, that Friend, let us cherish the assurance, spoke by his Spirit to his heart'Fear not; I am the First and the Last, and the Living One:-and I was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore; and have the keys of the unseen world and of death.' Fear not, for I am with thee!' And the smile of serenity upon his lips may have been fixed there, just while they were uttering the believing response to the promise-'I will fear no evil; for thou art with me!' And angels of light were there, Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation?' They were there, in waiting, to escort the parting soul to its promised and prepared mansion in the realms of light and love.

"His spirit had fled. And what a spirit was that!-a spirit which the God of nature had amply endowed with powers of intellect, of large expansion and commanding energy; which the God of providence had afforded abundant means and opportunities of maturely cultivating, and fitting for effective use; and which the God of grace had hallowed by the subduing, renovating, purifying power of his Spirit and truth, consecrating all its faculties and all its energies and resources to himself. That noble and de

voted spirit had fled. That very day, on the early morning of which God had suddenly, silently, secretly, taken it to himself, he was expected by his assembled brethren of the church of which he was so distinguished an ornament and so massive a pillar, to have appeared amongst them with official communications, the product of his ever-active mind, respecting the educational seminary of which he was the honoured head. But their Master had taken him from their head that day. He had taken him to join a higher and holier assembly,-the assembly of the 'spirits of the just made perfect, and the innumerable company of angels' in the sanctuary above. So that, instead of listening, as they had anticipated, with their wonted delights, to his own living voice, they had to hear, with heavy hearts, from other lips, the tidings of his death! 'He was not; for God had taken him!'"

"LITTLE SINS."

OUR blessed Lord lays it down as a principle of human conduct, and of human responsibility, "He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much." Though a man start back, and shrink from great transgressions, if he allow himself in known offences against God, which appear him of a smaller character, he manifests that the spirit and disposition of his heart are still guilty, and opposed to God. The claims of true piety and obedience not only require that we should be kept back from presumptuous sins, but that we should be cleansed also from secret faults.

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and orchards, and gardens of flowering | and fruit trees, it fully sustained the conceptions which he had previously formed of its beauty and loveliness. The Jew, Mordecai, who had hitherto been much disappointed with the land of his fathers, and who was always contrasting its naked asperities with the grandeur and fertility of Western India, was forced to admit that this part of the country, at least, seemed to flow with milk and honey. Nábulus lies principally along the eastern base of Gerizim. We were impatient to enter it, from our desire to find out the remnant of its oldest inhabitants, the Samaritans, with whom, if possible, we were anxious to take up our abode, that we might learn as much as possible from them of their creed and condition. We asked for them at the gate, first by the name of the Samaratání; but by this cognomen they were unknown by the Arabs, to whom we addressed our inquiry. That of the Hebrew Shomeronim was equally unintelligible. As soon as I stumbled upon the Sámarah, several voices exclaimed, "Yes, the Sámarah! We shall soon show you where they live." A young man politely volunteered to be our guide to their abodes. Conducting us through the bazaar, he directed our attention to a venerable native trudging along, and distinguished by a white turban and nearly as white a beard, whom he introduced to us as their priest. This proved to be the very person of whom we were in search. "I am, indeed," he said, after receiving our salutations, "the priest of the Samaritans, Salamah Ibn Tobíah, the veritable correspondent of the learned Frenchman, the Baron de Sacy. Whence do you come?" "From Hind, from Bombay." "Have you brought a letter from the Samaritans there?" "I have brought," I said, in reply, "a communication from the Bene-Israel of Bombay, whom you suppose to be Samaritans." This," cried he, "is what we have long wanted. Come along to my dwelling." Leading the way through the narrow streets, he conducted us to a small conglomeration of houses on the north-western part of the town, and close on the gardens lying along the base of Gerizim; and, after passing through a darkish vault, we ascended a staircase, which led to his residence directly over the synagogue. "This is your own house," were the simple terms in which he welcomed us to its hospitalities. When we told him that

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we had lodged with the people of Hawárah during the preceding night, he began to curse them, and declared that they were fit for every evil deed, being known throughout the country as "sellers of water.'

Our host was much disappointed to find that we had strong doubts about the propriety of ranking the Bene-Israel of Bombay among the Samaritans. That we might make no mistake in forming a judgment of them, he would repeat, he said, the articles of the Samaritan creed, which he did in the following terms: 1. Allah Wahid-God is one.

2. Músá Nabíyah-Moses is the prophet.

3. Et-Toráh hí el-Kutáb-The law is the book.

4. Karízím el-Kiblah-Gerizim is the Kiblah.

5. Yakún yom el-keiámat wa ed-deinúnat-There will be a day of resurrection and judgment.

He also repeated some Arabic verses, in which this creed was given at greater length, but without any addition to its substantial meaning. When we said that the Bene-Israel did not view Gerizim as a Kiblah, he said, “Then, most assuredly, they are not Samaritans." This concession, however, he made only to ourselves. To some of the members of his flock, who had begun to collect around us, he said, "These gentlemen have brought me tidings of the Samaritans of Bombay."

We felt much interested in the avowal of the doctrine of the resurrection by the Samaritans. When I asked the priest, in what passage of the Law he found this important tenet, he quoted the verse, "See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive," with a great air of confidence in the correctness of his interpretation, and asked us, "Do you think that men are to remain in their graves after they are made alive again?" In answer to a question which we afterwards put to him, he supplemented his creed, by declaring his belief in the existence of Satan, as a malignant and injurious spirit having access to the souls of men, to tempt and allure. When we asked him to point out the authority in the Pentateuch, the standard of his faith, for this doctrine, he said, "The Náhásh which addressed Eve was evidently more than a serpent. It was Satan who spoke within that animal." "True," we said; "but, have we no more direct proof for the personality

of Satan in the books of Moses?" "Verily, we have," he replied with great emphasis; "look at these texts: Certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you;' 'Beware that there be not a thought in thy heart of Belial.'" We could not but be much struck with his application of these passages of holy writ. With all due deference to Gesenius and others, I am more than inclined to believe, that the translators who rendered Belial as a proper name, have better authority for so doing, than those who render it abstractedly, "worthlessness," "evil," and so forth. It remains to be proved, that it is either a late or New Testament usage merely, which sets it forth in a personal sense.

Among the articles which the priest first showed to us was a copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch, tolerably neatly written on paper. At my request he explained to me the powers of the Samaritan letters, and slowly read a portion of Genesis. I endeavoured to mark his method of pronunciation, which, of course, differed much from that of the Jews, as the Samaritans have never received the Masoretic points, by which the Jews regulate their reading. The notes which I made on this occasion I elsewhere insert. When we told him that the Samaritan Pentateuch had been printed in England, he said, "I know that," and then brought us a few leaves, and afterwards the body, of the first volume of Walton's Polyglott, in which it is contained.

It was now full time for breakfast, and the kind priest who had his table spread before us, took care that we should do justice to all the good things which he had provided for our refreshment. To do us honour, he produced a considerable quantity of silver plate, which had been in the family for several generations. He also introduced us to his son, a handsome and agreeable person, about thirty years of age. Into the hands of this young man we put a copy of the Arabic New Testament; and he read with us the fourth chapter of John's Gospel, in which is contained the interesting and affecting narrative of our Lord's interview with the woman of Samaria at Jacob's Well, in our immediate neighbourhood. I made the perusal of this portion of the Divine word the occasion of examining both father and son as to the views and expectations of the present Samaritans relative to a Messiah. "The Messiah," they said, "is not one of our terms; but we do not

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particularly object to its use. expect a great instructor and guide, whom we call Hathab, to appear in the world." The conversation, on this avowal, of the Samaritans, proceeded as follows: W. Upon what passage of the law do you found this hope?

PRIEST. Upon the words of Moses, "The Lord thy God will, from the midst of thy brethren, raise up a Prophet, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken."

W. What do you think of the passage, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel?" Does this apply to the Messiah?

PRIEST'S SON. It may apply to the Messiah, and it may not apply to the Messiah.

PRIEST. It does not apply to the Messiah.

W. What do you think of the passage, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be?" To whom does this apply?

PRIEST. Don't say Shiloh, but Shilah. W. Take the word in either form you please.

PRIEST. Shalah is equivalent to Shalamah, (Solomon) [the peaceful one.]

W. How do you make the passage agree with the interpretation?

PRIEST. The sceptre did not depart from Judah till the days of Solomon, till the days of his son Rehoboam, as you may see even from those unworthy historical books that are in the hands of the Jews.

W. But how do you make out that the gathering of the nations was to Solomon ?

PRIEST. Why, do you not know that his kingdom extended from El-'Arish to Damascus, and from the Great Sea to Euphrates? The queen of Sheba came to visit him, and brought him presents from a far country. He held the birds of the air and the beasts of the field in subjection. Joseph, and not Judah, has been, and will be, the deliverer. "From thence is the Shepherd, the stone of Israel."

The fable with which the priest concluded his notice of Solomon, is common to the Jews, the Mohammedans, and the Samaritans.

We all felt much interested in this conversation; and I defended the Christ

ology of the passage as I best could. I was quite convinced, from the keenness with which my views were impugned, that the prophecy respecting Shiloh is a very sore one in the eyes of the Samaritans, and that they feel that their interpretation of it is a very unnatural one.

THE CHESTNUT-TREE.

THE chestnut-tree is named only thrice in the Scriptures. It occurs among the "speckled rods," which Jacob placed in the watering-troughs before the sheep, Gen. xxx. 37. Its grandeur is indicated in Ezek. xxxi. 8; as well as in Eccles. xxiv. 14. It is noted for its magnificence, shooting its high boughs aloft. This description agrees well with the plane-tree, which is adopted by all the ancient translators, to which the balance of critical opinion inclines, and which actually grows in Palestine. The beech, the maple, and the chestnut, have been adopted, in different modern versions, as representing the Hebrew armon; but scarcely any one now doubts that it means the plane-tree. It may be remarked, that this tree is, in Genesis, associated with others, the willow and the poplar, whose habits agree with it: they are all trees of the low grounds, and love to grow where the soil is rich and humid. This is strikingly illustrated by the fact, that Mr. Russel expressly names the plane, the willow, and the poplar, along with the ash, as trees which grow in the same situations near Aleppo.

In those situations which are favourable to its growth, huge branches spread out into all directions from the massive trunk, invested with broad, deeply divided, and glossy green leaves. This body of rich foliage, joined to the smoothness of the stem, and the symmetry of the general growth, renders the planetree one of the noblest objects in the vegetable kingdom. It has now, and had also of old, the reputation of being the tree which most effectually excludes the sun's beams in summer, and most readily admits them in winter; thus affording the best shelter from the extremes of both seasons.

For this reason it was planted near public buildings and palaces-a practice which the Greeks and Romans adopted; and the former delighted to adorn with it their academic walks and places of public exercise. In the east, the plane seems

to have been considered sacred, as the oak was formerly in Britain. This distinction is in most countries awarded to the most magnificent species of tree which it produces. In Palestine, for instance, where the plane does not appear to have been very common, the tereberith seems to have possessed pre-eminence. No one is ignorant of the celebrated story of Xerxes arresting the march of his grand army before a noble plane-tree in Lydia, that he might render honour to it, and adorn its boughs with golden chains, bracelets, and other rich ornaments; an action misunderstood and egregiously misrepresented by Ælian.

The oriental plane endures our own climate well, and grows to a fine tree; but not to the enormous size which it sometimes attains in the east. Several grand old plane-trees have been mentioned. Pausanias notices a noble plane in Arcadia, the planting of which is ascribed, by tradition, to Menelaus; so that, if this tradition were entitled to credit, (and it claims little,) it must, when he wrote, although in a sound state, have been about one thousand three hundred years old. Pliny, in noticing this tree, mentions one in Lycia, in the trunk of which had been gradually formed an immense cavern, eighty feet in circumference. L. Mutianus, thrice consul and governor of the province, with eighteen other persons, often dined and supped commodiously within it. If nothing more were known of this L. Mutianus, we should like him for the pleasure, not unmingled with regret, with which he records the satisfaction which he occasionally derived from hearing the rain patter on the leaves overhead, while he and his company sat dry and safe within: it was the music of their feast. Caligula, also, had a tree of this sort at his villa near Velitræ, the hollow of which accommodated fifteen persons at dinner, with a proper suite of attendants. The emperor called it his nest; and it is highly probable that his friend Herod Agrippa may occasionally have been one of the fifteen birds who nestled there along with him. Modern travellers also notice similar trees. La Roque and others mention the groves of noble planes, which adorn the plain of Antioch; and the last-named traveller records a night's rest which he enjoyed under planes of great beauty in a valley of Lebanon. That they are among the principal trees in the plantations near