actually get dry after it has been moistened by them. "Servant. Then you need another shower. "Carmelite. Ah, there is where you are wrong. If we had the right kind of rain, its influence would not pass away so soon. Rain did not dry up thus in the days of Moses and the fathers. "Servant. I have read the history of Moses, and if you will compare Ex. xv. 1-18, with the 24th verse of the same chapter, and the 3d and 4th verses of chapter xvi., you will find there were some sudden droughts then, as well as in later days. "Carmelite. But I have a tenth objection. I have known the health of many worthy citizens ruined by rain. In fact, many diseases, such as rheumatisms, coughs, consumptions, &c,, are promoted by rain. O, if men could be persuaded to dwell on the top of Giboa, where there is no rain, neither any dew, what delightful health they might enjoy! "Servant. Stop, Carmelite! stop, I beseech you! They had now just reached the top of this lofty peak, for the seventh time, that looked out toward the sea. The servant, in a sudden transport of joy, seized the Carmelite by the arm, and pointed eagerly to the southwestern horizon. 'Behold, Carmelite, behold, on the distant verge of heaven, don't you see a little object rising there, like " a man's hand"? The Carmelite looked for a moment in the direction the servant pointed. Presently unwonted paleness overspread his long, lean, leathern visage. His frame began to tremble, and his knees to smite one against another. That looks very much. like a cloud!" he exclaimed in accents of troubled agitation. Ah, yes, I see. It is spreading alarm over the awful condition ingly! It throws its volumes abroad in all directions! We are threatened with rain! My cave! My cave! My only chance for shelter is in my cave!' And suiting the action to the word, he hurried down the mountain, and darted into his cave. There, in its deep and gloomy recesses, he brooded of the country, and wrung his hands, and exclaimed, 'Alas! alas! how imminent is the danger! The day is darkened! The sun is eclipsed! The black clouds are over the entire face of heaven! Just what I apprehended and dreaded! But the prophet Elijah was so self-willed and obstinate that he would listen to no reason, no remonstrance! There! there!' he cried out, as he heard the roaring of a great and strong wind that rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks,' 'There! there! my worst forebodings are realized! I said there would be wind! How wide the desolation will spread! But an indiscreet prophet can't be managed. There's no making him "judicious." Eh! Eh!' he suddenly shrieked, in a sharp, shrill outcry, as a bright blaze of lightning kindled up all the mountain side, and glared into the cave of the Carmelite, so as to make every object, for a moment, distinctly visible. 'There's the lightning! there's the lightning! and next we shall have the thunder peal that will make the mountain tremble. And the rain has already begun. Yes, I hear it, I hear it. It's pouring down! It's pouring down! There goes a foaming torrent, dashing impetuously and raving by the very door of my cave. I warned Elijah faithfully of all this, but he was deaf to counsel. It was all in vain! It was all in vain!' "Thus the old Carmelite continued to writhe, wring his hands, and pour forth lamentations during all the while that there was the sound of an abundance of rain.' He remained close in his cave for a number of days, brooding over the horrors of the alarming visitation that had come upon the country in answer to the prayer of Elijah. The evils, the evils of rain! When, at length, he ventured forth, vegetation was every where springing up; the fields were clothed in living green; all nature was rejoicing, 'For the queen of the spring, as she passed o'er the vale, The lambs were leaping for joy, the tuneful birds filled the groves with melody. Happy families were sending presents and congratulations one to another. Age smoothed its care-worn brow to bless the Lord, while children clapped their little hands, and sung, 'Hosanna.' "But as for the Carmelite, none of those things moved him. The evils of rain was the theme of his meditation, and burden of his tongue. He passed from farm to farm, inquiring whose field had been injured by the washing rain, whose roof had leaked, who had been caught out in the shower, who had taken cold, or had a cough, or rheumatic pain aggravated; and from the facts he collected, he was greatly strengthened in his notion about the evils of rain, and could declaim on the subject more eloquently than ever." STAGE-COACH DISCUSSION. In the month of October, 1838, a company of travellers were passing in a stage-coach from Vicksburg to Clinton, in the state of Mississippi. Among the passengers was a minister of the gospel, and a gentleman who was then a member of the legislature of that state; a senator, I believe. And now, for a number of years past, he has been a senator from Mississippi, in the congress of the United States. The free and desultory conversation in the stage turned at length on the subject of religion. When the following dialogue, in substance, took place : Senator. I understand that you are a minister of the gospel. Minister. Yes, sir. Senator. There are some things in the Bible which to me appear difficult of comprehension. I should be pleased to hear your explanation, if you have no objections. Minister. None at all. But let me ask, have you studied the Bible? Senator. Well-why- perhaps not so much as I should have done. Minister. Are you not then unreasonable? That book relates to eternity. It treats of subjects of immeasurable importance. You have given it but little attention, and yet wonder that you do not comprehend all that it contains. You act not thus in other matters. Here is a man who never spent one half week of his life in attempting to acquire a knowledge of mathematics. He takes up a volume of Euclid; he looks into it for a little time, and then objects,-" Here are points, lines, angles, circles, triangles, &c. I cannot comprehend their meaning." You would say to him, "Sir, you have not given that book the attention which its importance demands. It is not strange, therefore, that you do not comprehend its contents. If you will turn your thoughts to it, and bestow upon it the proper amount of study and of time, you will behold truth, beauty, grandeur, in those very figures that now appear unmeaning and mysterious." "But, perhaps," said the minister to the senator, 'you were going to specify the particular difficulty that you have encountered in the Bible." Senator. I was about to mention the passage in the book of Joshua, where Joshua commands the sun and moon to stand still. Minister. there? Senator. And what is the particular difficulty To speak of the sun standing still, is not good philosophy; for we know it is the diurnal revolution of the earth that gives to the sun, and the moon, and the stars, their apparent motions. Minister. Certainly, sir; and Sir Isaac Newton understood that altogether as well as we; and yet he would speak of the sun rising, and the sun setting, the moon rising, and the moon going down; and all philosophers talk thus when they wish to be understood. The Bible uses the language common to man. |