CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE.

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Saul could say, indeed, "the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord;" but he was sufficiently rebuked by the answer of Samuel, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."

Thus they continued a rebellious and stiff-necked generation throughout their national existence, until they filled up the measure of their iniquities, by rejecting and crucifying the Son of God. From that awful day, according to their own fearful imprecation, his blood has, indeed, been upon them and their children.

But the blessings which should reward their obedience, and the curses which should beset their stubbornness, are fully prophesied by Moses in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy. The pen of history would fail in the attempt to chronicle the woes that have been the portion of a disobedient people, should she endeavour to find, in her portraiture of the past, a more unerring guide than the picture which the inspired penman drew from his vision of the future.

But while I refer you to this remarkable portion of the Scriptures, there are some passages which so fully explain the difference between the ancient and the modern Palestine, that they cannot be left unquoted here: "The heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." "Thou shalt become an astonish

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ment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations." "The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low." "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee of fierce countenance,' "whose tongue thou shalt not understand." "And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other." Who can look, at the present day, upon Palestine, and the condition of the Hebrews, and fail to be filled with awe, while perceiving that these are the words of prophecy, and not the words of history?

But is there any cheer in the Future, that bright point to which we always turn while we give our regrets to the Past, and our tears to the Present At this question the heart of the Christian becomes a well-spring of Hope, and the patient eye of Faith gladly hails the sunbeam breaking through the dark clouds that hang over the land of Immanuel. Joyfully we remember the promises that the Lord will not utterly forsake his people, and that kings and princes shall make haste to restore them; that the Gentiles shall come to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising.

It was not without significance that the ancient geographers called Palestine "the centre of the world;" for whatever title she may have to this distinction, from her remarkable physical position, she certainly has that claim upon the minds of men.

PROMISED RESTORATION.

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More especially do the eyes of all Christians turn to the Holy Land as a central point of attraction. Upon her hills, and in her valleys, were first uttered those sacred songs which have attuned the heart of Christendom to melody and devotion. Over those fields walked patriarchs and prophets, inspired and gifted poets and seers. What hovel, from the banks of the Ganges to the Father of waters, has not been cheered and enlivened, and built up to do and to suffer, by the strains which the stripling in Israel sang on the hill-side, when he tended those few sheep in the wilderness! Who would not rejoice to see God's people restored to the city of God, and to behold the desire of all nations coming again to his temple! Therefore is Palestine even now the centre of the world. Does she not sit as a princess of the provinces between the riches of India and the civilization of Europe? And shall the Holy Land have no lot nor part in either? Shall she receive nothing from the children of the Crusaders, nor from the Saxon conquerors of the East? Shall Ethiopia stretch out her hands unto God, while Palestine is for ever trodden down of the Muslim? No, it cannot be! The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad once more for the outcasts of Israel, when they are gathered from all places among the Gentiles; when the times allowed to the Gentiles shall be fulfilled, Jerusalem shall be trodden down of them no more; plenty

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shall be again in her valleys, and olive-yards upon her plains; the vine and fig-tree shall adorn her hills; the myrtle shall creep upon the sides, and the cedar tower upon the summits of Lebanon. Armies shall cease to contend in her fields, for the Prince of Peace shall be enthroned in the hearts of her children; the long ages of exaction, tyranny, and bloodshed shall cease, for "violence shall no more be heard in the land, wasting nor destruction within her borders."

Let Palestine, then, be to me what she ever has been in the world, from the earliest ages, emphatically the Land of Promise. It was the Land of Promise to that pilgrim of old, who wandered here, without a spot that he could call his own, but believed in God, and became the father of the Faithful. It was the Promised Land to the children of Israel, when they left the slavery of Egypt for the freedom of the people of God. It was the Land of Promise to all nations, when they looked for a Deliverer, in whom all the families of the earth should be blessed. It is the Land of Promise to that wonderful people, who are scattered throughout the world, but not mingled with the tribes of other men, ever looking forward to their restoration to the good land which the Lord God gave unto their fathers.

So shall it be to me. Whether I look as now, from its borders, expecting soon to behold the con

JOURNEY RESUMED.

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secrated sites which have been dear to me from the dawn of reason; whether my mind turns to the page of prophecy, so distinctly foreshadowing its future glory; whether I behold the living argument of a whole people praying, and expecting their return to the land from which they are gone out; or, whether I consider the great salvation, and the hopes that were bought for me and mankind upon its sacred soil, it must ever remain to me, and to all who look for his second coming, without sin, unto salvation, the Land of Promise.

JOURNEY FROM THE BORDERS OF THE LAND OF PROMISE TO JERUSALEM.

HAVING now prepared ourselves to enter upon a sacred pilgrimage in Palestine, we look forward to the events which lie before us in the Holy Land. Full of the affecting considerations awakened by a thoughtful survey of its narrow limits, its sacred names, its eventful history, its natural features, its past and present condition, and with hearts buoyed up by hope in its unknown destiny, we enter once more upon the narrative of our journey.

Wednesday, April 4.-We were no laggards this