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her sunken fragments, and the nets of fishermen are spread on the sand and stones. The port in which the merchant navies of the Old World rode at anchor is now choked up, and can scarcely float a few fishing-boats.

Dr. Robinson writes in 1838:-" 66 I wandered out alone towards the south end of the peninsula, beyond the city, where all is now forlorn and lonely like the desert, and mused upon the pomp and glory, the pride and fall of ancient Tyre. Here was the little isle, once covered by her palaces, and surrounded by her fleets; but, alas! thy riches and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and all thy men of war, even with all thy company, where are they? Tyre has indeed become like the top of a rock-a place to spread nets upon. The sole remaining tokens of her more ancient splendour lie strewed beneath the waves in the midst of the sea; and the hovels which now nestle upon a portion of her site present no contradiction of the dread decree, Thou shalt be built no more."

Such is the desolation which has come upon the old mistress of the seas. And if God has raised our own country to higher influence and fame than Tyre attained in the days of her glory, does not his hand point to her ruin as a warning to us? If Britain sits a queen on the waters, rejoicing in the power of her fleets, girdled with a belt of colonies, and stretching her sceptre over an empire on which the sun never sets, let her not despise the lesson which the stones of Tyre cry out. As a Christian nation, may we feel our responsibility, and seek to plant the cross of Christ wherever the red-cross flag of Britain waves; otherwise "it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for us."

The waters, Tyre, once hailed thee queen,

A crown was on thy brow;

On every sea thy ships were seen;--
Where is thy glory now?

Where once thou wast in splendour set,
Thy place is known no more,

And the poor fisher spreads his net
Upon thy silent shore.

J. D. BURNS.

THE LEPER.

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ROOM for the leper! room!"-And, as | Sick, and heart-broken, and alone, --to die For, God had cursed the leper!

he came,

The cry passed on-"Room for the leper! room!"

Sunrise was slanting on the city's gates,
Rosy and beautiful; and from the hills
The early-risen poor were coming in,
Duly and cheerfully to their toil; and up
Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the
far hum

Of moving wheels, and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city-murmur swells,-
Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,
Aching with night's dull silence; or the
sick,

It was noon,

And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool In the lone wilderness, and bathed his brow,

Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched The loathsome water to his fevered lips; Praying that he might be so blest-to die! -Footsteps approached; and with no strength to flee,

He drew the covering closer on his lip, Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!" and, in the folds

Hailing the welcome light and sounds, Of the coarse sackcloth shrouding up his

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Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood,-- The leper's prostrate form, pronounced his all

Who met him on his way,—and let him

pass.

name,

Helon!"-The voice was like the mastertone

And onward through the open gate he Of a rich instrument,-most strangely

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And sparkled in his glance; and in his His garb was simple, and his sandals worn:

mien

There was a gracious pride that every eye Followed with benisons;-And this was he! And he went forth-alone ! Not one of all

His stature modelled with a perfect grace; His countenance the impress of a God, Touched with the opening innocence of a child;

His eye was blue and calm, as is the sky

The many whom he loved, nor she, whose In the serenest noon; his hair unshorn

name

Was woven in the fibres of his heart, Breaking within him now, to come and speak

Comfort unto him. Yea, he went his way,

Fell to his shoulders; and his curling beard The fulness of perfected manhood bore. -He looked on Helon earnestly a while, As if his heart were moved; and, stooping down,

He took a little water in his hand,

And laid it on his brow, and said, "Be clean!"

And his dry palms grew moist, and on his

brow

The dewy softness of an infant's stole :

And lo! the scales fell from him; and his His leprosy was cleansed; and he fell blood

down

him.

Coursed with delicious coolness through his Prostrate at Jesus' feet, and worshipped veins;

WILLIS.

THE HEALING OF THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS.

FRESHLY the cool breath of the coming eve Stole through the lattice, and the dying girl

Lay with a mocking beauty, and his gaze
Ached with its deathly stillness.

Like a form

Felt it upon her forehead. She had lain Since the hot noontide in a breathless Of matchless sculpture in her sleep she trance, Her thin pale fingers clasped within the The linen vesture folded on her breast, hand

Of the heart-broken Ruler; and her breast, Like the dead marble, white and motionless.

The shadow of a leaf lay on her lips,

And as it stirred with the awakening wind,

lay;

And over it her white transparent hands,
The blood still rosy in her tapering nails;
A line of pearl ran through her parted
lips;

And in her nostrils, spiritually thin,
The breathing curve was mockingly like
life;

The dark lids lifted from the languid And round beneath the faintly tinted skin

eyes,

And her slight fingers moved, and heavily
She turned upon her pillow. He was there,
The same loved, tireless watcher; and she
looked

Into his face until her sight grew dim

With the fast falling tears, and with a sigh

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Ran the light branches of the azure veins;

And on her cheek the jet lash overlay, Matching the arches pencilled on her brow.

Her hair had been unbound, and falling loose

Upon her pillow, hid her small round ears

Of tremulous weakness, murmuring his In curls of glossy blackness, and about

name,

She gently drew his hand upon her lips, And kissed it as she wept. The old man sunk

Upon his knees, and in the drapery

Of the rich curtains buried up his face;And when the twilight fell, the silken folds

Her polished neck, scarce touching it, they
hung

Like airy shadows, floating as they slept.
'Twas heavenly beautiful. The Saviour
raised

Her hand from off her bosom, and spread
out

The snowy fingers in his palm, and saidStirred with his prayer, but the slight hand "Maiden, arise!"-And suddenly a flush

he held

Shot o'er her forehead and along her lips,

Had ceased its pressure; and he could not And through her cheek the rallied colour hear,

In the dead, utter silence, that a breath
Came through her nostrils; and her temples

gave

ran,

And the still outline of her graceful form Stirred in the linen vesture; and she clasped

eyes

To his nice touch no pulse; and at her The Saviour's hand, and, fixing her dark
mouth
He held the slightest curl that on her neck Full on his beaming countenance- arose!
WILLIS.

LEBANON.

THE mighty mountain-wall that guards the northern flank of Palestine, sending forth its rocky roots on one side to the Great Sea, on another to the Great Desert,—the cradle of four famous rivers which spring from its snows to water regions once the seat of splendid monarchies,—the symbol of grandeur, and magnificence, and luxuriant beauty,-Lebanon stands in some respects alone and unrivalled among the mountains of the world.

A most impressive signal of approach to the Holy Land is the first glimpse of the ancient mountain off the shores of Cyprus, rising from the eastern waters, its peaks wreathed with everlasting snows, and flushed with shifting hues of rose and purple in the clear evening sky. High up in its aerial solitude, pure and lustrous like a cloud steeped in sunshine, it stands for us as the emblem of that old oriental world which lies in its shadow ;Damascus, buried in its depth of ever-blooming verdure; Antioch, where the Orontes runs sparkling through its laurel groves to the sea; Baalbec, with its gray colossal relics—the Stonehenge of the desert; Tyre, discrowned and desolate, by the waters; and away in the south, the hills of Galilee with Jerusalem beyond, and the red peaks of the great and terrible wilderness which closes in this land of wonder.

From the time when the Jewish leader sighed to see "the good land beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, even Lebanon," through those later days when Hebrew seers and poets looked up to its vineyards and forests, its purple slopes and its burnished silver diadem, and drew from them eternal types of truth and beauty, what a boundless wealth of sacred tradition and imagery has been treasured up in the venerable name of Lebanon!

This name, which is now confined to the eastern mountain chain, “Libanus," properly so called, is used in a wider sense by the inspired writers, and includes the great parallel range of “ Anti

Libanus," which in Hermon, its loftiest summit, attains a height of ten thousand feet. This mountain, towering in its magnificent elevation over the plain, is "the tower of Lebanon, which looketh toward Damascus."

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From a large part of the low country of Palestine these heights were constantly in view, and their ancient names, as Stanley remarks, are "all significant of this position;-Hermon, 'the lofty peak;' Sion, 'the upraised;' Shenir and Sirion, the glittering breastplate of ice;' above all, Lebanon, the Mont Blanc of Palestine, 'the white mountain' of ancient times." Hence, too, the force and charm of every allusion to them would come home to the popular heart, breathing through the Jewish poetry with the freshness of mountain air, and tinging it with native glow and colour.

The peasant of Galilee could feel as deeply as the Levite of Jerusalem the power of this peculiar imagery-the glory and excellency of Lebanon; the richness of its harvests and vintages; the bloom and fragrance of its gardens; the delicious coolness of its valleys, with their heavy dews, their brimming fountains, and foaming rivulets-"living waters and streams from Lebanon ;" the wildness and grandeur of its upper ravines; the solemn gloom of its primeval forests; the drifting mists and clouds which gathered darkly on its summits, and launched the thunder-storm over the land. In one of the sublimest psalms of David (the 29th) we have clearly such a storm described, rising from the waters, shrouding the topmost peaks of Lebanon, rolling in long, grand reverberations through the ravines, shivering with its lightninglance the gnarled cedars of its woods, darkening the broad land with its shadow, till its far echoes die away in the southern wilderness of Kadesh.

To the Jewish people, so proud of their national Temple and its associations with the golden age of their history, Lebanon, on this account alone, would be reverently endeared. From its quarries were hewn the massive blocks of stone which rose on Moriah without sound of axe or hammer; and many a giant tree had been felled by the Tyrian woodman in its forests to yield the precious

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