KING DAVID.-On the death of Ishbosheth, David became king of the whole nation. His first act was the capture of Jerusalem, which up to this time had remained in the possession of the Jebusites. Having taken it, he made it the seat of government, built himself a palace there, and by removing to it the Ark of the Covenant, constituted it the national sanctuary. At the same time a court was formed at the new capital, a moderate seraglio set up, and a royal state affected unknown hitherto in Israel.*

FOREIGN CONQUESTS.-A vast aggrandizement of the state by means of foreign conquests followed. The Philistines were chastised, Gath taken, and the Israelite dominions in this quarter pushed as far as Gaza. Moab was invaded, two-thirds of the inhabitants exterminated, and the remainder forced to pay an annual tribute to the conqueror. War followed with Ammon, and with the varicus Syrian states interposed between the Holy Land and the Euphrates. At least three great battles were fought, with the result that the entire tract between the Jordan and the Euphrates was added to the Israelite territory. A campaign reduced Edom, and extended the kingdom to the Red sea. An empire was thus formed, which proved indeed short-lived, but was as real while it lasted as those of Assyria or Babylon.*

REBELLION.-The glories of David's reign were tarnished by two rebellions. The fatal taint of polygamy, introduced by David into the nation, gave occasion to these calamities, which arose from the mutual jealousies of his sons. First, Absalom, and then Adonijah, assume the royal title in their father's lifetime; and pay for their treason, the one immediately, the other ultimately, with their lives. After the second rebellion, David secures the succession to Solomon by associating him upon the throne.*

THE CULMINATING POINT.-The reign of Solomon is the culminating point of Jewish history. Resistance on the part of the conquered states has, with scarcely an exception, now ceased, and the new king can afford to be "a man of peace." The position of his kingdom among the nations of the earth is acknowledged by the neighboring powers, and the reigning Pharaoh does not scruple to give him his daughter in marriage. A great commercial movement follows. By alliance with Hiram of Tyre, Solomon is admitted to a share in the profits of Phoenician traffic, and the vast influx of the precious metals into Palestine, which results from this arrangement, enables the Jewish monarch

to indulge freely his taste for ostentation and display. The court is reconstructed on an increased scale. A new palace of enlarged dimensions and far greater architectural magnificence supersedes the palace of David. The seraglio is augmented, and reaches a point which has no known parallel. A throne of extraordinary grandeur proclaims in language intelligible to all the wealth and greatness of the empire. Above all, a sanctuary for the national worship is constructed on the rock of Moriah, on which all the mechanical and artistic resources of the time are lavished; and the Ark of the Covenant, whose wanderings have hitherto marked the unsettled and insecure condition of the nation, obtains at length a fixed and permanent resting-place.* THE GRANDEUR OF THE BUILDINGS OF SOLOMON.-One

structure followed another with ruinous rapidity. A palace for himself grander than that which Hiram had built for his father, another for Pharaoh's daughter, the house of the forest of Lebanon, in which he sat in his court of judgment (the pillars all of cedar) seated on a throne of ivory and gold, in which six lions on either side, the symbols of the tribe of Judah, appeared standing on the steps and supporting the arms of the chair; ivory palaces, ivory towers, (used ap*Rawlinson's "Ancient History."

parently for the king's armory) the ascent from his own palace to the house or palace of Jehovah; a summer palace in Lebanon; stately gardens at Etham (paradises, like those of the great eastern kings), the foundation of something like a stately school or college; costly aqueducts bringing water; the fortifications of Jerusalem completed; those of other cities begun; and above all, the harem, with all the expenditure which it involved, on slaves and slavedealers, on concubines and eunuchs, on men-singers and women-singers, these rose before the wondering eyes of the people and dazzled them with their magnificence.

All the equipments of his court, the "apparel" of his servants, was on the same scale. If he went on a royal progress to his paradise at Etham, he went in snow-white raiment, riding in a stately chariot of cedar, decked with silver, and gold, and purple, carpeted with the costliest tapestry, worked by the daughters of Jerusalem. A body-guard attended him, "three-score valiant men," tallest and handsomest of the sons of Israel, in the freshness of their youth, arrayed in Tyrian purple, their long black hair sprinkled every day with gold dust. Forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen made up、 the measure of his magnificence.*

DECLINE.-But close upon the heels of success and glory follows decline. The trade of Solomon-a state monopolyenriched himself but not his subjects. The taxes, which he imposed on the provinces for the sustentation of his enormous court, exhausted and impoverished them. His employment of vast masses of the people in forced labors of an unproductive character was a wrongful and uneconomical interference with industry, which crippled agriculture and aroused a strong feeling of discontent. Local jealousies were provoked by the excessive exaltation of the tribe of Judah. The enervating influence of luxury began to be felt. Finally, a subtle corruption was allowed to spread itself through all ranks by the encouragement given to false religions, religions whose licentious and cruel rites were subversive of the first principles of morality, and even of decency. The seeds of the disintegration which showed itself immediately upon the death of Solomon were sown during his lifetime; and it is only surprising that they did not come to light earlier and interfere more seriously with the prosperity of his long reign.+

On the death of Solomon, the disintegrating forces, al

ready threatening the unity of the empire, received, through the folly of his successor, a sudden accession of strength, which precipitated the catastrophe. Rehoboam, entreated to lighten the burthens of the Israelites, declared his intention of increasing their weight, and thus drove the bulk of his native subjects into rebellion. The disunion of the conquering people gave the tribes an opportunity of throwing off the yoke, whereof with few exceptions they availed themselves. In lieu of the puissant state, which, under David and Solomon, took rank among the foremost powers of the earth, we have henceforth to deal with two petty kingdoms of small account, the interest of whose history is religious rather than political.†

THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH.-The separate kingdom of Judah, commencing at the same date with that of Israel, outlasted it by considerably more than a century. Composed of two entire tribes only, with refugees from the remainder, and confined to the lower and less fertile portion of the Holy Land, it compensated for these disadvantages by its compactness, its unity, the strong position of its capital, and the indomitable spirit of its inhabitants, who felt them

Rev. Edward Hayes Plumptre. +Rawlinson's "Ancient History."

presents its themes as though all interest concentrated in them, and the essential object were not some far-off thought ́or suggestion. But we must remember that although this character of portrayal belongs to art, and it tends away from all allegory, yet that art has a serious meaning con'cealed under its beautiful exterior. It is one of the greatest mistakes to suppose that art has its end in the production of mere amusement or mere pleasure. The beautiful is agreeable, but something more. The beautiful is the "splendor of the truth," said Plato. Art presents what is eternal and infinite, in the guise of a sensuous show-of an appearance to the perception of the senses. The senses can not perceive pure truth, for that is abstract; but the senses can perceive the beautiful, for the visible and audible manifestation of the true is the beautiful. If we study a beautiful picture or statue, we shall find that it reveals to us, if it is a work of classic art (Greek or Roman) the forms of bodily freedom; if a work of Christian art it will reveal to us some expression of pious resignation or trust, under circumstances of great trial or suffering. In the Greek art is exhibited the freedom in the body; in the Christian art the freedom from the body-in the fact that pious resignation and trust in God in the midst of tribulation exhibits to us the elevation of the soul above the body. The work of art secures this deeper meaning by its selection of its themes. It selects a theme which in itself is doubly significant, immediately or realistically, and mediately or spiritually. We all know how the personages in the Bible have this twofold nature. They are all real men and women first, and then they furnish to us types of human character that enable us to classify the men and women of our experience, and to understand them. The picture of The Last Supper gives us that solemn event, and at the same time gives us the portrayal of the spiritual significance of the event-for it was an event of an all-reaching portent.

We must study the great works of art, then, to find the spiritual lesson underlying their beautiful exterior. The beauty will not become less by this discovery of a vast and universal meaning beneath the form. Such works will become doubly satisfying-satisfying the senses and the reason. While we enjoy the agreeable shapes and colors we may take a higher pleasure in the recognition of solutions to the problem of human life. Both our senses and our reason may find satisfaction in great works of art. To the person who objects to the study or enjoyment of art on the ground that it is unworthy of the serious occupation of the immortal being, this view which shows the higher significance of art may not be unwelcome as affording a ground for reconciling him to the course of the world-a course that must seem to him hopelessly godless in these days of the multiplication of works of art through photography and the steam-press. For art includes not only pictures and statues, but also poetry and the drama, and even the novel. The form of art includes very good things and also very bad things. It includes the sublime psalms of David, and also the story of the wretched career of a villain, sold in yellow covers to corrupt our youth.

We cannot choose-people of all climes and of all lands will have some form, or many forms, of art. We can turn this human proclivity into a means of great blessing and increase of spirituality. We must do this by cultivating true taste for Christian art. It has been said by Aristotle that man is an art-making animal-for thus we must translate his word "mimetic." Man is a symbol-making animal-an animal who is engaged in manifesting his real human nature and in recognizing his nature as thus manifested. know that religion reveals to us the nature of God and our relations to him. Art, too, gives us products which reflect this divine nature; Greek art manifesting its polytheism and Christian art manifesting its divine-human Savior of the

We

world. It is wrong to neglect so great an instrumentality as art-omitting to consecrate it to the service of God and to use its ministration for the approach to the divine. If we thus neglect it, we shall render it not the less influential, but we shall turn its powerful influence against evangelical religion, and thus waste the means placed in our hands for securing the triumph of divine truth in human society. With these extended remarks on the subject of the importance of art, and the sphere it fills, let us turn, now, to a brief survey of its field. The student of art should make it a rule to study the great works of art-the famous ones before the less famous and inferior ones. What is the greatest? should be his first question. The greatest works will make the most powerful effect on him, and prove the most profitable for his contemplation. Having secured a famous work of art, let the student keep it under consideration— devoting a little of his time to it often. A few minutes each day will cause his taste to grow, and he will be surprised at the hold which the work has upon his feelings after a few months, even when the first contemplation aroused no interest whatever. The great work of art will prove to be of a central, deep-moving character; it will relate to wide-reaching doctrines. The great artists must be men who see the real issues of their day, and who are able to portray them to their fellow-men. Thus, Michael Angelo was one who saw the evils of his age, and left for all times an earnest protest against such forms of evil. Indeed, he has portrayed for us the divine judgment against all sin. His "Last Judgment" shows us the wicked ascending from their tombs, and confronted by the sight of the fruit of their own deeds; they plunge into the fiery pit that yawns for them on the left hand. The punishment is the return of the deed upon the doer. This insight of Michael Angelo is God an insight into the moral responsibility of each man. has made each man free, and he holds each one responsible for his deeds-what he does shall be returned upon the doer. The "Divina Commedia" of Dante is a work in the same spirit as the art-works of Michael Angelo. The Christian religion is there set forth in its entirety, a picture of its doctrines and its results. The seven mortal sins and their effect upon the soul-the consequence of those sins lasting after repentance, causing a long probation in which the individual has to painfully struggle against the besetting temptation of his old established habits. Then there is painted the Paradise of holy deeds, wherein one may live in harmony with God. To the beginner in the study of art, let us recommend a few works to own and to keep in daily contemplation, so that their influence will form the taste and discipline the imagination. Various forms of photography have so cheapened pictorial reproduction that a very poor person may possess a few pictures of the works of great masters. The properties of bichromated gelatine have rendered possible a number of inventions by which the photograph can furnish a basis for an engraving. The "autotype process" (any autotypes can be obtained of Charles F. Haseltine, 1125 Chestnut St., Philadelphia) has furnished twenty thousand carbon photographs of works in the famous galleries of Europe, at a price which is small compared with engravings of the same size. The heliotype process is cheaper still, and very satisfactory. Then there is the Alberttype, now used with great success in Boston. Get photographs or reproductions by some one of these methods. Commence a cabinet of pictures of works of art. Begin with the most important and add others as fast as needed for study. As a guide in purchasing, (for want of a better list) take the following:

Of Michael Angelo:-The last Judgment; the Moses; the figures of Day and Night, and Morning and Evening, from the tombs of the Medici; figures from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; the Creation of Adam and of Eve, the

prophets Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jonah, Zachariah; the Sibyls of Cumæa, of Delphi, of Lybia, of Persia, of Erithria. Of Raphael:-The Transfiguration; the Sistine Madonna; the Saint Cecilia; the School of Athens; the Madonna Sedia; the Four Sibyls.

Of Corregio:-The Night.

Of Leonardo da Vinci:-The Last Supper; Christ and the Doctors.

Of Murillo:-The Holy Family; the Immaculate Conception.

Of Fra Angelico:-The Annunciation; the Virgin and Child Carried by the Angels; St. John; the Martyrdom of St. Stephen; the Crucifixion.

Of Crivelli:-Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints. Pictures of Architecture:-The Cologne Cathedral; the Cathedral at York; St. Peter's Church at Rome; St. Paul's Church, London; the Milan Cathedral; the Strasburg Cathedral; St. Stephen's Church at Vienna; the Cathedral at Rheims; the Cathedral of Burgos; St. Marks at Venice; St. Sophia, of Constantinople.

Pictures of Sculpture:-Besides those of Michael Angelo mentioned, Canova's Monument of Clement XIII; Thorwaldsen's "Twelve Apostles" and the "Last Supper."

These works of art are named at random from a very large list that occurs to one when he is asked which ones to begin with in a course of study on this subject. Select some one of those mentioned under each name, and examine it with care every week, if not every day, and its charm will soon work its effect on the mind.

Besides Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, there are the arts of Music and Poetry, as already intimated. It is very important that the person who desires to gain an insight into art shall habitually read poetry, and listen to the highest order of music. There is a level road leading out from music into each one of the plastic arts, said a great essayist. The music of a Beethoven will require as much study as the frescoes of an Angelo, but it will make clear the spirit of all other art.

In future articles I propose to illustrate these somewhat dry generalities by analyses of special works of the great masters, showing how one may investigate them and draw lessons from them. In the course of those studies, moreover, the limits of each art will be pointed out, and the relations of one form to another defined.

GEOLOGY.

INTRODUCTION.

In the following pages I have attempted to set down briefly the principal facts of Geology and the conclusions which have been drawn from them, to indicate the nature of the earth's crust, the processes which have acted, and still are acting, upon it, and the probable history of that little portion of it on which we live. I was requested before commencing my task to avoid the use of long words and the discussion of doubtful points, and have done my best to attend to this request. It is, however, impossible to comply with it entirely. Technical terms are sometimes inevitable; and to refrain from them wholly would often lead to inaccurate or confusing phrases. Again, by the discussion of some doubtful points the student is more than by anything else encouraged to use his own eyes and think for himself.

Thus, at the risk of being rather tedious, I have gone at some length into the nature of the materials of which the earth's crust is formed; because I believe that without accurate elementary knowledge on this point very little real progress can be made, even in the study of such common things as clay and limestone. I have laid much stress upon the various agencies which alter the surface of the globe-as

heat, frost, rain, rivers, and the like—because the action of many of these can be observed by every student; but I haveonly sketched in general terms the life-history of the past, the various periods" into which the geological record is divided, because, without some knowledge of zoology, without a museum of specimens, and a competent teacher todescribe them, the student can, I fear, make but little reak progress.

I have tried to use simple language, such as, I hope, will be intelligible to any fairly educated boy or girl of fifteen but I have not shrunk from suggesting ideas which may not be simple, which may require some thought before they can be fully grasped; because I believe that these are the most fertile seeds to sow in the mind of an intelligent student. The great aim of the Natural Sciences is to teach students to observe and think for themselves; when this result is not produced they are mere "cram," and do more harm than good. If I can succeed in doing this, and lead people to look more closely at the wonderful world around them, these pages will more than repay me for the pains which I have spent upon them.

As so many of the leading facts of Geology are common to almost every text-book, I have not generally thought it necessary to indicate the sources from which those hereafter quoted are derived; but may say, once for all, that, while I have verified most of the statements from the well-known works of Sir Charles Lyell and the late Professor Jukes, I have avoided consulting any text books or manuals of a very elementary character; indeed, I believe I have only read one such at any time, and that was years ago. Most of the book is written from my own lecture-notes; and one portion of it was in substance delivered as a course of lectures to a mixed audience in an English country town.

CHAPTER I.

Has the earth a history beyond that which we can learn from written records? These, even the oldest of them, only tell us—and that most imperfectly—of a very few thousand years. Is that all the story? Were Scotland, Cumberland, Wales, always hilly? When the dry land first appeared, could one, as now, have looked from the Malvern ridge to the Cotteswold bluffs over the broad meadows in the Severn valley? or did the tide always ebb and flow where now stands London Bridge? Was there always slate at Llanberis? coal in Staffordshire? chalk in Norfolk? What is the meaning of the curious forms which are so often found in rocks-the screwstones, birds' beaks, cockles, of the quarrymen-some so exactly like plants or sea shells, or bones and teeth of animals? are they only accidental resemblances, mere freaks of Nature, or did they form partsof living things?

These are a few of the questions Geology has to answer. The task is not unlike that of writing the history of a forgotten nation from fragmentary inscriptions in an unknown character and language, and it has to be done in somewhat the same way. The rocks are graven over with strange markings more thickly than the sandstone cliffs in Mokatteb; these must have some meaning-how shall we find it. out? Very briefly it has been done in the following way: These markings of various kinds have been examined; it has been found possible to classify them. They have then been compared with those, the cause and meaning of which can still be learnt from observation. If such and such a mark is now found where water is running or ice sliding, and nowhere else, then, even where there is now no water or ice, the geologist on seeing such a mark declares here has been water, or here has been ice. Thus also with regard to the forms resembling plants, shells, bones, etc.: these havebeen compared with the living things that they are most.

like; and when in the stone you find preserved a perfect copy of even the delicate parts of the living structure, you are convinced that this can be no chance resemblance; though now a stone it must once have been a part of a plant or animal. So, by degrees, it is possible to pass from things which are very like living creatures, and very perfectly preserved, to those which do but slightly resemble them and have been much injured. Proceeding in this way, step by step, truth has sometimes proved stranger than fiction, when the geologist has unearthed and built up strange beasts, more monstrous than the dragons of our nursery tales. From what has been said you will perhaps have already seen that there are two rather different questions which geologists wish to answer, namely (1) How was the earth shaped?* and (2) With what was it peopled? The former concerns the history of the earth itself; the latter, of its inhabitants. To a considerable extent they may be separated just as might the history of the buildings and of the people of a great city.

You see then that Geology must be helped by all the socalled Natural Sciences. We must go to the Botanist to tell us about plants, to the Zoologist to learn about animals, to the students of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Physics for information from their sciences; in fact, Geology is not so much a science in itself as the application of all the Natural Sciences to answering this question-What is the earth's history?

Perhaps this may be enough to show you that the study is not likely to be a dull one. It is difficult, it requires patience, it is one where we must be content often to say, I do not know; wherein the longest life's work will only show us how little we have learnt; but then it is one which is always teaching us more and more about this wonderful world in which we live, which, beyond all others, will show us how to find "books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything."

Of what, then, is this great globe made which we call the earth? Let us touch on this our hardest question first. The earth is a ball or sphere, nearly eight thousand miles in diameter. Of all this mass we can examine a very small part: the highest mountains are barely five miles above, the deepest mines not one below, the sea level; that is, we can see about as much of the earth's interior as of a cricket ball's stuffing through a few pin scratches on the leather; we are, therefore, chiefly concerned with the outer covering, and we shall find this more than enough. As for that which is under our feet, but cannot be seen, the following is a brief sketch of what the kindred sciences of astronomy and physics can tell us. The whole earth is about 51⁄2 times as heavy as water; while most of the rocks that we can handle are rather less than three times as heavy, so that the earth must in some way or other become heavier toward the centre. Again, it is always found that the deeper we can pierce into the earth the hotter it gets; the thermometer rising about one degree Fahrenheit for every fifty-one feet that we descend. If this increase went on a descent of a few miles would give us a heat that would melt every known metal. Is then the earth a great molten ball, enclosed in a thin shell of solid matter? Most probably not; perhaps no part is ac

*To some extent connected with this is a third, How were the rocks first made? What was the primeval earth before life appeared upon it? Most important questions but too difficult to be touched upon in so elementary a treatise as this.

It is really a slightly flattened ball, the polar diameter being 7,853.6 miles, the equatorial 7,925 miles.

The rate at which the temperature rises varies considerably in different places. As slow an increase as 1 degree for very 208 feet, and as rapid as 1 degree for every 37 feet (Lyell's "Principles,” ch. xxxii has been observed. The amount in the text is considered the most probable average.

tually in a molten state; at any rate it is thought by the best judges that the solid shell is at least from eight hundred to a thousand miles thick. The reasons for this are far too difficult to be explained at present. One only can be given, which will show that it does not follow that the heat which will melt a rock on the earth's surface will do the same when it is far below that surface. Most substances that we

know require more room when melted than when solid. If they cannot get that room they cannot melt, make them as hot as you will. It may be then that the substances inside the earth are packed too tightly to allow them to melt; and thus it is possible that though a few miles descent might bring us to a region hotter than any blast furnace, the earth is solid to its core. It is, however, thought most probable that the earth was once a molten mass, which has cooled in its passage through space as a leaden shot does in falling from the tower. It is not yet cold, probably is still cooling, though for ages past-possibly for all the time of which the records as yet deciphered have informed us, that cooling has been as nearly as possible imperceptible.

Does then Geology give us any account of those times when a stony scum first formed upon the molten sea? It once was said confidently, some perhaps would still say, yes, but most geologists will now tell you that our records do not go back far enough; that when they take up the tale, long ago as that time must have been, there was no more a smoking earth or a steaming ocean-rain fell and rivers ran ; herbage may have existed on the land, and living creatures in the water; seasons, climate, in a word, all things may have been not so very greatly different from what they now

are.

This much for the present: further on we shall have to refer again to this subject. We must now turn to another question. Of what are made those parts of the earth which we can handle? This cannot be properly answered without some knowledge of chemistry, and every one who wishes seriously to study Geology must acquire some knowledge of this science. It cannot be neglected long, for a knowledge of rocks and their composition is the very groundwork of geology, and even here I cannot quite omit all reference to it.

Chemists have reduced all substances to sixty-three elements, some gaseous, some fluid, some solid. An element is incapable by any known means of further reduction. For example, water can be separated into two gases,* but neither of these can be further separated. Pure lead, iron, gold, can not be further divided, and are elements. Now, these elements combine together in obedience to certain laws. A combination is a different thing to a mixture. When things are combined a new substance is produced, not so when they are mixed. Oxygen and hydrogen gas may be mixed, there is no new substance, after awhile they will separate again; pass an electric spark through them, combination takes place, and water is formed, which, if left to itself, will remain water.

Now, of these elements the greater number are comparatively rare; and of those which are of more ordinary occurrence, but few are found native, that is, uncombined. The great rock masses consist either of oxides (combinations of an element with oxygen) or silicates, carbonates, sulphates