LAST DAYS OF QUARANTINE.

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strengthened and sanctified, while we were engaged in the service for Monday in Passion Week, knowing that many dear ones have united with us in spirit in this offering of prayer and praise. The rain subsided, and we again obtained permission to go forth a while and smell the fragrance of the earth after fresh showers.

way,

Tuesday, April 3.—This morning we have again united in reading the appointed service of the church. A party of English gentlemen who came into quarantine before us, and with whom we have formed a most agreeable acquaintance, have to-day completed the time of their imprisonment, and we saw them march joyously out of the arched gatein full freedom, to direct their course towards the Holy City. Were not our own escape so near, I doubt if it would have been in human nature to give them a cordial good-by. But this we could do only by words, for shaking hands with them, or touching even the hem of their garments, would have brought them back to stay out the remainder of our time; because, though they were proved to be free from infection, yet the plague might break out in our party to-day, and if so, it would, in this manner, have been communicated to them.

Wednesday, April 4.—Our quarantine is ended. The purification of ourselves, our clothes, and all our travelling equipage, with fumes of brimstone mixed with some strong smelling plant, has been

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DELIGHTS OF FREEDOM.

performed. With gay and elastic spirits, like schoolboys on the last day of term, we make our preparations. Our camels, refreshed by rest and pasture, come with their ungainly stride into the area of the lazaretto, and we rejoice to hear once more their grumbling complaints while receiving their loads. But, as there is now no desert to cross, we have preferred horses for our own use. All things being ready, our camels take up the line of march, and we mount to follow and overtake them. But first, we must satisfy our guards with "backsheesh," and bid farewell to the Turkish superintendent, who has performed his duty with so much regard to our comfort. Though we have seen him daily many times, and have conversed with him in a friendly way, yet now, for the first time, has he shaken us by the hand. So farewell, a long farewell, we hope, to the discomforts and provocations of a quarantine.

THE LAND OF PROMISE.

Boundaries and Lames.

WE are now fairly upon the southern boundary of the Land of Promise. Before we commence our journey over its sacred soil, it may be well to speak

THE LAND OF PROMISE.

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of its general characteristics, and of its past and present condition. To review our knowledge upon these points, and bring it into a small compass, will probably add to the interest of the subsequent narrative.

Its boundaries include but a very small and almost an insignificant portion of the whole earth; and yet the widest of departed empires can awaken no such ancient or august recollections. From none of them, nor from them all together, have events arisen that have wielded, and will ever wield, an influence so mighty upon the moral and social condition of men. The names of its people, its cities and villages, its rivers, lakes, and mountains, have been familiar sounds from our earliest infancy; and now the imagination loves to transport itself to this region, where every rock is the symbol of a Divine revelation, every ruin a warning against disobedience, and an evidence of the judgments of heaven, and "in each echo the pious soul can hear the voice of God." Above all, here the Saviour of the world was born, lived, and died. This was the soil trodden by his gracious feet, as "he went about doing good;" and this the ground moistened with his tears and his blood. Yet so narrow is the space within which such wonders were performed, that one of the fathers of the church who made it his retreat in the latter years of his life, says, "One is almost ashamed to speak of the con

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LIMITS OF THE HOLY LAND.

tracted boundaries of the Land of Promise, lest we should seem to give to the Gentiles occasion to blaspheme." "Pudet dicere latitudinem terræ repromissionis, ne ethnicis occasionem blasphemandi dedisse videamur." (St. Jerome, 129th Epistle to Dardanus.) The ancient geographers, however, under the influence of their deep reverence for the Holy Land, placed it in the centre of the world then known.

Its precise limits have been variously stated; but, according to the largest computation, it could never have been more than two hundred of our miles in length, by about eighty in breadth. Probably it was always much less. From Dan to Beersheba, an expression made so familiar to us from the Sacred Scriptures, the distance is about one hundred and sixty miles, and the breadth about fifty from the coast of the Great Sea, as the Mediterranean was called, to the River Jordan. According to the Book of Genesis, this river formed properly the eastern boundary of the Promised Land, though portions of territory beyond it were assigned to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

Its earliest name was the Land of Canaan, derived from the youngest son of Ham, and the grandson of Noah, who came hither, and settled upon it, with his eleven sons, after the dispersion of Babel. (Gen. x. 15-19.)

It derived its title, Land of Promise, from the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 9), because God, in his sovereign will, determined to expel from it the wicked descendants of the cursed Ham, and promised to give it, in perpetuity, on condition of their obedience, to the faithful Abraham and his posterity. (Lev. xxv. 38; Ps. cv. 11.)

When, in pursuance of this promise, the twelve tribes took possession, it was called the Land of Israel. It then comprehended all that tract of country which God gave to the children of Israel on both sides of the Jordan. By this appellation it is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, and we find it used also by St. Matthew (ii. 20, 21).

It was called the Land of the Hebrews by Joseph (Gen. xl. 15).

The title, Land of Judah, was at first restricted to the portion assigned to this tribe (Deut. xxxiv. 2). After the rebellion of the ten tribes, Judah and Benjamin constituted one kingdom, which received this appellation to distinguish it from the kingdom of Israel. After the Babylonish captivity, the whole of Canaan was called the Land of Judah, or Judea. This name it thenceforward retained, and was so called when it became a province of the Roman Empire.

The Holy Land (Zech. ii. 12), The Lord's Land (Hosea ix. 3), Immanuel's Land (Isa. viii. 8), are

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