trees; those who were furthest advanced sat at the table, while the little ones squatted on the turf. When the lessons were over, they carried in the benches and seats for us, asking, in their simplicity, to which kitchen they should take them,-to that one where the cook lived, or to the kitchen where we lived ourselves. The cook's kitchen was by much the more interesting room to them, for there they saw the knives and spoons, the samovar (tea-kettle), the bright copper pans, which, with the earthen pots and the bowls of varnished wood, were the constant objects of their admiration. Their own dwelling-rooms were indeed the kitchens of their poor huts, with the great stove, the rough furniture, and all the domestic creatures crowded in together. As soon as our boys could spell out a little, it was their delight to take their book with them to the village, and there, surrounded by a circle of boys who could not read at all, to show off their wonderful attainments. The fable of the grasshopper, which was in our lesson books, gave the little auditors much matter for laughter. Very patient these audiences were, and never interrupted the reader.

But our school brought forth better fruit. One day four boys ran up to us, evidently full of some dispute that had occurred among them. "Madame," cried little Guerassimus (Jacob's brother), as soon as he had got within hearing of us-" Madame, we have found a beautiful penknife, does it belong to you?" and he showed us his precious find. "No, my child, it is not mine." "Now," said the little fellow, "these boys say we should keep it, and draw lots as to who shall have it; but I say that is not what we have learned on Sundays, and that we should try and find its owner. What do you say?" It is easily imagined what the answer was, and what our joy was at this first evidence of practical results from our teaching.

Among our scholars were some young girls. Two of them, pretty well grown up, appeared among us in a very interesting way. They were two sisters, who lived in a distant village, and came to us first one Sunday.

Their round, expressionless faces did not promise much for them as pupils, but what was my surprise when, at the end of the hour, one of them said with a soft voice full of emotion, "God bless you for teaching us these good things." When I came to inquire about them I found they were two orphans, who lived alone in the little hut where their parents had died, and worked for small wages on the fields of their neighbours. They had come to beg us to teach them to read. "You will find it a difficult matter to learn at your age," I said. "Indeed," they replied, "it will not be easy, but if you will only make the attempt, we will take great pains.” "And why are you so anxious to learn to read?" "That we may read the gospels," they said; "we only wish to read the gospels." Still more astonished, I asked further, "Why are you so very anxious to read the gospels?" They hesitated, but at last the elder of the two said, blushing deeply, "Because we shall both die

soon." "Both die soon! how do you know that?" "That is our feeling," stammered out Paracha, much moved; "we were a numerous family, not so long ago either, and all our brothers and sisters have died." "You live all alone in your cottage; it must be very lonely in the winter?" "Very lonely indeed," said Paracha, and both of them took up the corners of their aprons to wipe the tears from their eyes. "We knit stockings in winter, but it would be so much better if one of us could read the gospels while the other knits." "But then the distance," I said, "and your field-work-the busy time is coming on." "Oh, as to the distance," said Eudoxia, the younger, "in summer that is of no consequence; and as to the work, I can manage all that is necessary alone. I am the stronger, my sister is the cleverer, she will learn with you, while I work for both; and when she can read she will teach me." Of course we accepted them as scholars, and they set off home with faces beaming with pleasure, while we determined to do our very utmost for them. And, indeed, these two sisters were our most tractable, attentive, and industrious pupils. They had immense difficulties to overcome. Their thick stumpy fingers were long before they could bend pliably to hold a pencil, and their memories almost refused to retain the letters of the alphabet. But their eagerness and perseverance were such that at the end of three months they had attained their goal, and could read that Word of God, for love of which they had begun their difficult task and kept steady at it. Every Monday they repeated, with touching exactness, what they had learned on Sunday, and never forgot to thank God for permitting them to learn his Word. As yet there is no appearance of their forebodings being realized; they live on in the old way, but ever thanking God for having seen their sorrows, and comforted them.

Among the girls who came to our school was one indescribably poor and miserable little thing, named Douniacha. She had a bad sore on her arm, which nothing would heal, for she was compelled to knit gloves constantly, which sold well in Moscow; she thus obtained food for her family. Her father was a terrible drunkard; so she had to go on with her ceaseless work, in spite of the pain it gave her, and in the coldest weather she still went about shoeless.

One can easily imagine such wretched children looking on death as a release from suffering. When the story of the raising of the son of the widow of Nain was taken up in our class, I asked the children whether they would like to die. A young voice replied, in the most touching tone of sadness, "Yes, I would gladly die." But it was not Douniacha's voice, but that of George, a lad of thirteen, who only came to us on Sundays, because he could read already. "Why would you like to die?" I asked. "Because we have no bread, and life is so sorrowful !” At that moment a laugh broke forth amongst our scholars. It was not caused by George's answer, as I soon saw. A big boy had come in, whose face betekened

him an idiot, his shirt hanging in tatters, and his hair of the last degree of wildness. He sat down at the foot of a tree, and the children continued to make sport of him. “Who is this boy?" I asked. "Nikita, the fool," came from many lips, uttered with pitiless voices. "What!" I said, "is he a poor idiot; and do you laugh at that?" "Ah!" they cried, "but he is very wicked, and very strong too: he throws stones big enough to knock out our brains." "I don't at all wonder at that, when you fall on him like a pack of hounds, and make game of him in that way. Are his parents alive?" "Yes, he has a drunken father, and a cruel stepmother; and even on the highest feast-days he never has on a better shirt than the one you see." "But do you really think all this is matter for laughter? Should you not rather pity the poor boy?" "But he is so stupid, and cannot even speak right." Then I told them the story of the prophet Elisha, and the punishment of those who mocked at him, and they promised that henceforth they would leave the poor idiot in peace, or be kind to him. All this passed in his presence, and we did not know if he could understand anything we were saying. next morning, to our astonishment, he appeared with a happy face, bringing a plateful of wild strawberries, set it on the table, and stammered out, “I will bring more, many more," then ran away. We made him a new shirt, of which he was so proud that it gave him the desire to wash himself, and comb his hair. His stepmother, when she found he was so noticed, changed her treatment of him. He came every Sunday to our school, and during the week brought us strawberries and

nuts.

But

Soon after this the boys gave us an opportunity of making another present of a shirt. They brought in one morning as a prisoner a pale, wretched-looking boy, shivering with cold, whom they had captured on the road. He had been found among the bushes by the roadside, where the poor, half-naked child, hardly seven years old, had passed the night. "He has a still worse stepmother than the idiot," said his young protectors; "he often has to spend the night in a barn, or in the open air; nobody at home takes any care of him. Will you make him a shirt too?" The poor child showed evident traces of the ill-treatment he met with. He sat there stupified, looking at no one, patiently waiting to see what would be done with him. It was well for this poor fellow that he lived close by a fine brave boy called Effime, whose parents lived in more than usual comfort; for the father did not drink, and the mother was one of the best women in the village-industrious, gentle, and pitiful. Her house was the constant resort of poor relations and neighbours, who came to the roomy, comfortable abode for a little refreshment, or to borrow of her.

This good woman undertook to receive the unhappy child, who of course got the new shirt. It pleased us much to see our boys thus seeking out the poorest and most miserable of their acquaintance, that they might be helped; while, though there were many of them very

poor indeed, they never asked anything for themselves.

Effime soon had occasion to find the benefit of having learned to read. One day in bathing he hurt his foot, and lost a great deal of blood. His companions brought him to us pale and exhausted, having bound up his foot in a most unskilful manner; and when his father came with a little cart to carry him home, he was nearly swooning. We recommended him to keep quiet, and rest his foot. That was easy enough for the first day, as he slept most of it; the next day we found him surrounded by his little brothers and sisters, to whom he was reading a story, and the poor little neighbour was there too, with a big piece of bread in his hand. Effime's mother had kept her word, and received the neglected child.

The last days of August were come, and from morning to night the ripe ears of corn fell beneath the reaper's sickle. It was an especially good harvest, and hope brightened every face. Only in the hut of Douniacha, and a few others who possessed no land, the common joy did not enter. The two sisters also still won their bread with difficulty, by hard labour on the fields of others. Teachers and scholars now felt that they must soon part, and zeal and diligence were redoubled. The parents, too, showed themselves very grateful for our trouble. They brought us presents of mushrooms, which they consider a dainty, and begged us to be godmothers to their new-born infants.

As we walked about we were constantly followed by some of our scholars, especially the idiot Nikita, whose strong arm was often a welcome aid against dogs or wild cattle. One evening, as we were standing admiring the wonderful colours of a brilliant sunset, a waggon laden with sheaves passed us, an old peasant following it. He greeted us respectfully, and said, with a voice full of emotion, "God bless you for teaching our children!" "Have you children among our scholars?" "I have no family," the old man replied; "but it is all the same, it is to our children you have done good."

Before the day of our departure came we made a feast for the children, and gave them tea under the limetrees. They came long before the time, of course, and while the preparations were making, dispersed through the park. Then we remembered that we had neglected to invite two little boys, the two smallest of all, who lived with their widowed mother in a rather distant village. To reach school they had each morning to cross a great wood, and pass by the forester's dogs; but they had come regularly till wolves began to appear in the neighbourhood, and here and there a sheep or a calf had been torn by them. Then their mother would not let the boys come any longer. When we told the children how sorry we were we had not these boys with us at the feast, some said, "It is a long way off," and so on; but little Guerassimus called out, "I will go and fetch them," and off he set at once as hard as he could run. was time enough, for the sun was high in the heavens.

There

Egyptian to complain of the Christians riding as high as the believers in the streets of the city, the conqueror answered, with a smile, that they could still mount higher than the Christians by mounting on camels. The Christians, when going a journey, had their horses led out of town before they mounted them, and they were not permitted to walk on the elevated footpath, but were obliged to plod along in the central gutter. It need not be wondered at, then, that fanatical words occasionally reach our ears; for we are mounted on horses, and, worst of all, I have a lovely blood mare, of one of the famous races ridden by the prophet.

It is better, however, and more philosophical, to take no notice of evil words, but only to look at them who utter them in such a manner as will make them conscious that you comprehended what was said. They will probably start to their feet in a little confusion, touch breast and brow in token of love and esteem, and give you the salutation of the true believer, "Go with my peace."

Some of the people who had eating-stalls were sticking bits of the intestines of animals on spits, to be held over charcoal fires, for their hungry customers as they came up. The spit is held towards the customer, who draws the morsel off the iron with his fingers, and stands in the street and eats it, and then reaches for another piece, draws it off, pays his fare, and passes on, eating as he goes. The poor spend little time at their meals; and to this day I have hardly ever seen one of our servants dining; but they all waste much time over their elaborate pipes, and the custom of sitting long over their cups is also not unfrequent.

Flocks of goats were being milked by grandlooking Druzes, with great white turbans, at people's doors, and black slaves were waiting with empty vessels to receive the milk, and prevent its being washed blue.

The few Jews whom we saw seemed most ghastly after their debauch and victory over the Christians in the feast Purim; for the Jews believe, as a Rabbi, who read the Book of Esther with me, informed me, that "Ahashuerosh, and Haman, and all the other enemies of the Jews in Shushan the palace, were Christians."

As we emerged from the gate of the city, the keeper asked, and was refused, "backshish," and we were glad to find ourselves among the gardens. The apricots were all in bloom, and as the blossoms precede the leaves, the trees seem sheeted in snow tinged with pink. The walnuts had begun to unfold their fragrant leaves and ebon catkins. The leaden evergreen olives served as a foil to set off the bright and various colours of the trees around them; and the yellow willows and silver-stemmed poplars, by the streams, gave pleasing variety to the scene. The blossoming beans on every side scented the air, and blackbirds and turtle-doves filled the trees with their melody. Wherever an apple-tree appeared, it called to memory the words-" As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons." There are few things more curious to me than the pains that have been taken to prove that the apple-tree of Scripture is not the apple-tree. The usual method by which this feat is performed is by misrepresenting in English characters the Hebrew spelling of the word; then misrepresenting the modern Arabic spelling of the word; and then by bringing into play that awe-inspiring instrument "higher criticism." Nevertheless, the modern Arabic name is the same in all essentials as the Hebrew; and the tree itself, by its deeper green foliage,-by the symmetrical arrangement of its lovely and delicately-scented blossoms,-by its fruit, that excels all others in beauty of tinge and sweet fragrance, and by its thickness of shade, at the season when shade is needed, asserts its pre-eminence over all the trees of the field.

An hour brought us to the end of the gardens, and then we had to cross a level plain, partly cultivated, for another hour. Our route lay due west to a low range of mountains; behind, and rising over the mountain, stood great Hermon, sheeted to the feet. Our third hour was spent in crossing over this mountain, which has a peculiar yellow tinge. The stone is veined with red, takes a beautiful polish, and is by many Damascenes preferred to marble. By ten o'clock, the "morning cloud and the early dew" had passed away. Flocks of goats streamed down from the brow of the mountain, calling to mind the figure

"Thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear