the whole class was more orderly in trying to follow Elfie's example.

This evening school was really pleasant to the poor neglected little street girl, and she overcame her habitual restlessness so far as to sit quietly on the form as long as it was necessary, a thing more difficult to accomplish than many might imagine. Elfie herself thought that as she had managed to do this, the victory over all her bad habits was gained; but she found she had been mistaken before long. The next day she did not earn a single penny at the market, and Susie only earned twopence, although she was walking about all day; and when they returned home late in the afternoon, tired, cold, and hungry, and Susie said they could only have a piece of dry bread before they went to school, Elfie felt

herself rather ill-used. She might have helped herself to some turnips quite easily in the morning, and that would have furnished them with a nice hot meal; but she had resisted the temptation, believing that she should get some work and be able to buy some. But the work had not come, and they could only spend a penny of what Susie had earned, for the other was needed to make up the rent. They had got a week or two behind, in spite of all their efforts to keep it paid; and the landlord had said they must leave, if some were not ready on Monday. The next day was Saturday, and they hoped to earn some more; but they could not be sure of this. And so it was with a sad heart they went to school that evening, and Elfie had a hard battle to fight with herself before she could sit still and give her attention to what was being taught.

A

MISSIONARY TOUR

S we passed this tableau vivant, we saw, on a rising ground to the right, heaps of gray stones and dark earth; and by the edge of the path were pieces of very rude columns. The name of the mound is Dubieh (the habitation of the bear). We lunched here on our return, and found the ruins of village, covering about two acres. The ground is strewed and filled with broken pottery, indicating an ancient habitation; and there were many pieces of hand-millstones lying about, similar to that which the woman hurled on the head of Abimelech (Judges ix. 53). There was no fountain at the village, but only cisterns in which they caught the rain-water; and these now stand open-mouthed traps for straying sheep. All the cisterns are dry and broken; but on the side of the mountain above the ruin the flocks of the district are gathering to a fine perennial spring full in view. The founders of Dubieh had left the fountain of living waters, and had hewn out to themselves cisterns in the gravelly desert. The fountain, like the love of God, flows on unceasing, and all the flocks can slake their thirst in its waters; but the cisterns that men made are broken cisterns (Jer. ii. 13) that can hold no water, and the parched and weary find in them only the heated sands of the desert.

ON MOUNT HERMON.

Dubieh has no history. It is the only trace of a human habitation by this inhospitable path for over fifteen miles. At best it must have been a lonesome home, and for centuries it has been abandoned to the wild beast whose name it bears. We soon entered the "Castellated Pass" in the mountain; so called from the enormous castlelike rocks that impend overhead on either side, or lie as they have fallen, deeply imbedded in the path. One huge stone, about eighteen and a half feet square, that blocks the way, has become gratefully associated in my mind with one of the most comforting similes in the Bible. My duty leads me over this path many times in the year; and for ten dreary hours, under a baking sun, there is neither water nor shade. This enor mous block of stone, "cut out of the mountain without hands," supplies the only shade in the journey. It is "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (Isa. xxxii. 2). Many a time, when breasting the fierce heat of a Syrian noonday, I have hurried on eagerly to this object, and then crept gratefully under its shade. To-day the heat is not oppressive; but the mountain wind, mixed with sleet, is rushing down to fill up the vacuum in the heated plain; and so the rock that often shielded me from the sun becomes to us a hiding-place from the wind and a covert

As we rest in this gorge, the voice of a wrathful little bird rises above the piping of the wind. It is a rare little bird — the Syrian nuthatch (Sitta Europaa, ETTη), a frequenter of most of the high mountain-passes in Syria. It was called "delor y cnau" by the ancient Britons, and is still found in parts of England, but never in Ireland or north of the Weser and Tyne. It builds in holes in rocks and banks, and I once saw its nest in one of the rock-tombs of ancient Abila. It is of a gray, bluish colour, shading into rufous brown, and blending into chestnut on the flanks. I saw one, however, at Ma'aloula of very distinct colours-very bright blue above, with jet-black band from the bill to the sides of the neck, and a white throat. I have no doubt the bright little creature was a new species of Syrian nuthatch; but it swung and flitted about the precipices, and chattered and sputtered, regardless of the fusillade kept up by a specimen collector, who blazed away at it from beneath in vain.

As we proceed up out of the Castellated Pass, we meet a number of small donkeys and mules bringing charcoal to Damascus. The mules have a sack of coals on each side, and the donkeys have one sack larger than themselves laid across their backs. The muleteers are of three religions: those with the grand white turbans are Druzes; those with the turbans of green, or mixed with yellow, are Moslems; and those with the bluish handkerchiefs about their heads are Christians. But sometimes in times of fear you meet Christians wearing the Druze turban. | The salutations are princely and cordial, for they

The Moslem religion makes washing before prayers obligatory. It is a good sanatory law; and Dr. Meshaka of Damascus declares that the average age of the Moslem is greater than that of the Christians in consequence of these washings; and would be much greater, but for certain debilitating vices to which the Moslems are addicted.

He spreads his ragged jacket by the side of the water as a praying carpet, and then begins his ablutions. There is not more than a quart of water on the stone, spread over a broad surface, so that we need not expect the washing to be very effective. As we are zigzagging up the mountain beside him, we can see every movement he makes. First he folds up his sleeves, and washes his hands three times; then he washes his mouth with his right hand three times. After that he throws a handful of water up his nose, praying as he does so that he may never smell the fires of hell. Then he washes his face three times, and both his arms to the elbows. He next raises his turban with the fore-fingers of his left hand, and draws his wet right hand across the top of his head. He then combs his beard forward with his fingers; and after that he puts his fore-fingers into his ears, and making them pivots to turn on, passes his thumbs upwards round the outside of his ears. Then he meets his fingers at the back of his neck, the palms of the hands outwards, and draws them forward against the sides of his neck. And he finishes off by washing his feet, taking care to pass his fingers between his toes. Each act is accompanied by a suitable prayer; and the whole performance is completed in an incredibly short space of time.

know us.

there, pressing his forehead and lips to the stone. His heaven is painted for him exactly to his liking, and he is in earnest to enjoy it. He might have performed that washing with sand. It would be enough, according to his ritual, to strike the palms of his hands on the ground, and wipe his face with them, and then, striking them on the dust once more, feign to wash his arms as far up as the elbows. That is sufficient when water is scarce. But that devotee will not be satisfied with what is sufficient: he will run no risk of missing the paradise which is so well suited to his taste. He is often thirsty now, and his law most wisely allows him nothing stronger than water to drink; but in paradise he will have wine without stint, and the wine of paradise, like the Syrian wine of modern fable, will not be intoxicating.

The Arab ideal of perfect happiness is a feast where a sheep or camel has been slain and roasted without the intestines being removed, and where all reach forth their naked hand and tear off meat in handfuls; but in that paradise for which he is now working "he will be waited on by three hundred attendants while he eats, and served in dishes of gold whereof three hundred shall be set before him at once, each containing a different kind of food, the last morsel of which will be as grateful as the first." That is the bill of fare in the Moslem's paradise; but it is not all. That simple muleteer will have eighty thousand servants to do his bidding, and seventy-two wives of the girls of paradise, besides the wives he may have had in the world, should he choose to have them. The girls of paradise will be of the same stature as Adam and Eve; that is, about sixty feet high. They will have large eyes like gazelles, and they will remain ever young, and never lose their tempers or their good looks. He himself will be clothed in green silk. He will have a tent spread of pearls, jacinths, and emeralds; and, the crown of all Arab joy, as many children as he may desire. Such is the heaven which the astute founder of Islam promised to his followers; and it is exactly the kind they long for. "Prayer," he told them, "is the key of paradise”—the key that opens the way to the plenary indulgence of all the grosser appetites for ever and for ever.

As we ascend among the mountains the landscape becomes more pleasing. The sides of the hills are covered with scrub oak (Quercus pseudococcifera), and the little valleys between, clad with corn, look beautifully green after the rain. There is little to excite rapture; but the green is grateful to the eye, and a pleasant contrast to the Sahara through which we have passed.

Crossing the first low ridge, we pass a little winter lake on our left; but it is muddy and yellow, and full of frogs, and will soon dry up. Here our Rasheiya host, who is accompanying us, hears that his mule has gone astray and is lost. He resolves to turn aside to the village of Rukhley to inquire, and we volunteer to go with him. Rukhley is a Druze village, shut in among the mountains, with apparently no resources; but on careful inspection we find that the bare mountains all around have at one time been terraced, and were doubtless all once clothed with the vine. The village contains some massive ruins, and the larger structures are made up of the older and more massive buildings. Several Greek inscriptions are scattered about, and a broken eagle; but the finest piece of art in the place is a massive head (Helios? Baal?) exactly similar to the heads that are found on some of the ancient coins of Rhodes. It is now built in an outer wall, and the upper part of the face has been blown off by gunpowder.

As we approach we find a Druze digging in a garden, and he calls us over to him, as he thinks he has stumbled on a "hid treasure." He has removed the covering flags of a little vault, which I take to be only a Moslem grave. A Moslem grave must be so built and covered over as to give room for the body to sit up. It is a Moslem doctrine which must be believed, that shortly after death two dreadful angels, Munkar and Nekeer, visit the body in the grave. The soul is then for a time reunited with the body, the dead man is questioned as to his faith. The questions that will be asked and the responses that should be given are all well known; and before the funeral procession moves away from the tomb, a Moslem sheikh instructs the corpse what reply it is to give to the questioning angels. The vault uncovered was suitable for such a scene.

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The few Druzes of this village are very poor. They live as goatherds, and by the manufacture of charcoal for Damascus. They cut down a quantity of oak, break it up into small pieces, place it in a heap, and set it on fire. When it is about half burned, they cover it over with sods. | They then carry it in sacks to Damascus, and sell it for about one halfpenny per pound. We saw all the women of Rukhley. They had nearly all children mounted astride their shoulders; they all wore glass, or brass, or silver ornaments; all drew the veil coyly over one eye; all were horribly tattooed, and all had old coins for sale. These were mostly of Constantine and Hadrian; but I found among them two good Phoenician coins. The greater part of the women asked for charms; and the men were importunate to be told where they could find pots of concealed money for it is the firm belief of most of these people that the numerous tourists who pass through the country are all in search of treasures. For sore eyes we recommended the charm of clean cold water, often applied; and to delvers after concealed treasures we strongly recommended the removal of the heaps of dung, piled up at their doors as high as the houses, to their fields and vineyards. They did not think much of our clairvoyance, but I hope they will profit by our advice. They neither would have our books, nor our schools, nor our teaching, nor anything we had, except backshish; and so we went on our way, wondering at the mighty temples the ancients raised to their gods, which were no gods, and wondering also if the present pigmy inhabitants of Rukhley are descendants of the men who built such massive structures.

As we leave the village we see several rockhewn tombs. These tombs are large chambers, with one or more loculi, or places hollowed out for the bodies. They are cut out of the solid rock, and are entered by small openings, some of which had stone doors that turned on pivots, and others were closed by large smooth stones rolled up against them. They are scattered about in private gardens, and forcibly call to mind that new garden-tomb, "hewn out of the rock," where, in the presence of "Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre," they laid the body of Jesus. Into

such a lonely death-vault as that once entered the Prince of Life, a lifeless, bleeding corpse, attended only by a few sad, dispirited followers. They roll the stone to the door. The watch keeps guard to prevent the abduction of the body, and the stone is sealed to make fraud impossible. Christ's murderers intended to break the seal after the third day, and show the body to prove that he was an impostor, and that his predicted resurrection was only an empty boast. In concert with these, the Destroyer of Life thought he had set his seal on the Fountain of Life, never to be removed. Never did so momentous a period roll over the earth as the three days in which Jesus of Nazareth lay in the tomb of the Arimathæan. He had promised life to his people, but he himself has fallen before the ruthless destroyer; and even the women, constant in death, have turned away with bleeding, desolate hearts. Jesus has died as a malefactor, and his body is shut up in Joseph's sepulchre ! Then drape the universe in sackcloth. Banish faith and hope from the earth, and fill the void with blank despair. Let suns and moons withdraw their mocking light. Let all the sweet analogies of resurrection be for ever branded as tantalizing deceptions; for man's last hope of life and immortality has become extinct in the grave of Christ. But no! Time passes, and the world's great Sabbath dawns, and the ribald soldiers, who enlivened their watch by crack and jibe, flee in terror before the divine manifestations that hurl back doubt to darkness; and Christ who is our life lays aside the graveclothes, steps forth into eternity with our death trampled under and destroyed, and the germ of our lives in his bosom. By his death he abolished ours, and so, "because he lives, we shall live also." "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." In such a tomb as that, in the side of that garden rock, the last scene of Christ's humiliation closed, and his everlasting exaltation began where his humiliation ended. From that momentous scene spring our ineffably glorious hopes of the "life and immortality which Christ has brought to light by the gospel." The risen and loving Head will not leave his members in the dust for

ever. We are said to be complete in Christ, but Christ is also complete in us, and he will not abandon to the powers of death "the Church which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."

We now pass along the bare ridge of the mountain, to the right of, and parallel with, the Damascus road. Out of consideration for the safety of our necks, we lead our horses along the horrible path. Sometimes my poor desert mare looks at me with soft imploring eyes, groans audibly, and then balancing herself on her hindlegs, swings round the corner of the rocks that project over the precipices, and lights safely down on the path below. We thus proceed over flat rocks-worn smooth as glass by the feet of animals and by a series of wild leaps down rocky ledges we gain the sultany, or king's highway. By this fine-sounding name we must not suppose that we have reached a road where man and horse can proceed with comparative safety. once, in the great heat of summer, passed down this road by night, and my young Kurdistan mare and I rolled down the rocks together six times. The path, however, shows much signs of wear, as horses' tracks are sunk deeply in the rocks; but no tool has ever been lifted up against it, for Shemitic people never made roads. The Romans-the world's tutors in law, order, and government-made roads over which to pass armies, and the mercantile English make roads for traffic; but the Turks only make toy roads to delight the eyes of Europeans. The Government English engineer, after five years in the Turkish service, made fourteen yards of a road at Damascus, which remains to this day his sole monument in that department.

I

We now cross a series of undulating hills abutting on Mount Hermon. Occasionally a Greek partridge whirrs up out of our path, and here and there stunted bushes grow among the rocks; but the whole scene around is bare, barren, and lifeless. Once when passing through this district with an English tourist, he began to ridicule the Bible description of the country as "a land flowing with milk and honey." But it turned out that his attempted wit only exposed his own superficial observation. True, the district before us was no emblem of abundance to

him who looked at the desolation around, made his shallow joke, and passed away; but when we examined minutely, we found that in every place stones had been arranged by human hands, and every foothold had been terraced. At Rasheiya, a few miles further on, we see the vineyards still flourishing on such terraces; and from the known we can argue to the unknown-that these bare terraces, from which lapse of time has worn away the soil, were once laden with the vine, the highest emblem of prosperity and joy. Of this kind are most of the objections urged against the Scriptures. On the discovery of important scientific facts in astronomy, geology, anatomy, &c., men who view the facts merely from the scientific stand-point, and believing that they have discovered in them a contradiction of Bible statements, hastily seize these facts, and holding them up before the world, challenge the faithful harmony of God's word and works; but in a short time it is found, by patient, honest investigation, that the very facts which were employed to destroy the credibility of God's Word, are powerful and irrefragable arguments in favour of its divine origin, and prove that the Books of Nature and Revelation are from the same divine Source.

It is very illogical to infer that because Syria is faded and desolate now, that therefore it has always been so. Before the battle of Hattindisastrous to the cause of the Crusaders-the Arab historian tells us that Salah ed Din set fire to the forests around Hattîn, and thus encircled the Crusaders with a dreadful wall of fire. Thus only a few centuries ago there were forests that could be set on fire in the neighbourhood of Tiberias; now there is scarcely a shrub. Once the cedar-forests of Lebanon seemed almost inexhaustible; now only a few groves, scattered far and wide over the mountains, confirm the tale of the glory of their ancestors. With the destruction of the forests, the moisture is no longer attracted to the land, and war, and famine, and misrule have since combined to make the country a desert. The number of ruined villages that dot the country shows what the capabilities of the land must have been to support the teeming population that once inhabited them. Thus the arguments of those