THE CEDARS OF LEBANON.

TAKING a guide, we set out for the cedars; in about two hours we came in sight of them, and in the highest summit of Lebanon, as has sometimes another hour reached them. Instead of being on

been said, they are situated at the foot of a high mountain, in what may be considered as the arena of a vast amphitheatre opening to the west, with high cedars stand on five or six gentle elevations, and ocmountains on the north and south and east. The cupy a spot of ground about three-fourths of a mile in circumference. I walked around it in fifteen minutes.

We measured a number of the trees. The largest is
upwards of forty feet in circumference. Six or eight
others are also very large, several of them nearly the
size of the largest. But each of them was manifestly
two trees or more, which have grown together, and
now form one. They generally separate a few feet
The hand-
from the ground into the original trees.
somest and tallest are those of two or three feet in
diameter, the body straight, the branches almost hori-
zontal, forming a beautiful cone, and casting a goodly
shade. We measured the length of two by the shadow,
and found each about ninety feet. The thickest are
not so high, but some of the others are, I think, a

little higher. They produce a fruit, in shape and size

like that of the pine. I counted them, and found the
whole number three hundred and eighty-nine.
Mr
King (another American missionary) counted them,
omitting the small saplings, and made the number
three hundred and twenty-one. I know not why
travellers and authors have so long and so generally
given twenty-eight, twenty, fifteen, and five, as the
rumber of the cedars. It is true, that of those of
superior size and antiquity, there are not a great num-
ber, but then there is a regular gradation in size, from
the largest down to the merest sapling. Before seeing
the cedars, had met with a European traveller who
had just visited them. He gave a short account of
them, and concluded with saying, "It is as with
miracles; the wonder all vanishes when you reach the

spot." What is there at which an infidel cannot sneer!
Yet let even an infidel put himself in the place of an
Asiatic, passing from barren desert to harren desert,
traversing oceans of sand, and mountains of naked
rock, accustomed to countries like Egypt, Arabia,
Judea, and Asia-Minor, abounding in the best places
only with shrubbery and fruit trees; let him with the
feelings of such a man climb the rugged rocks, and
pass the open ravines of Lebanon, and suddenly descry
among the hills a grove of three hundred trees, such
as the cedars actually are, even at the present day, and
he will confess that to be a fine comparison in Amos
ii. 9. "Whose height was as the height of the cedars,
and he was strong as the oaks." Let him, after a long
ride in the heat of the sun, sit down under the shade
of a cedar, and contemplate the exact conical form of
its top, and the beautiful symmetry of its branches, and
he will no longer wonder that David compared the
people of Israel, in the days of their prosperity, to the
goodly cedars." Psalm 1xxx. 10. A traveller who
had just left the forests of America, might think this
little grove of cedars not worthy of so much notice,
but the man who knows how rare large trees are in
Asia, and how difficult it is to find timber for building,
will feel at once that what is said in Scripture of these
trees is perfectly natural. It is probable, that in the
days of Solomon and Hiram, there were extensive
forests of cedars on Lebanon. A variety of causes
have contributed to their diminution and almost
may
total extinction. Yet, in comparison with all the
other trees that I have seen on the mountain, the few
that remain may still be called the "glory of Lebanon."
-Journal of the Rev. Pliny Fisk.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF

FRANCE,

AT THE BEGINNING OF LAST CENTURY.

BY THE REV. JOHN G. LORIMER, Minister of St. David's Parish, Glasgow. HAVING described in the first series of this work, the awful preparations for the revocation of the edict of Nantes-the terrible revocation itselfmust now describe the consequences of that mea

sure.

While the Protestant pastors were all driven from their country under the heaviest penalty, their people were not allowed to leave it, except at the risk of severe punishment: but so much had they now lost, and so much did they now suffer, that France became embittered to them, and their great anxiety and effort were to emigrate to other lands. This was the course which perhaps nearly one-half of the whole Protestant population pursued; though almost incredible were the hardships which they encountered in accomplishing it. So early as 1681, four years before the edict was ac

tually revoked, Mr Quick, then minister of the English Church at Middleburgh, recollected having been credibly informed that five hundred families of French merchants had left their native country, and settled in Amsterdam; and that fifty families had, in the course of two months, taken up their abode at Hamburgh. The whole population thus removing probably amounted to between fourteen thousand and fifteen thousand souls. They were the families of merchants too, indicating a measure of wealth and respectability; and if so many betook themselves to two commercial cities, it cannot be doubted that many more removed to other quarters. But it was after the revocation that the people fled in prodigious numbers. The succeeding month, we read in a letter from Geneva, that some time previously, not a day had passed in which that town did not receive and supply from thirty to ninety persons of all ages and conditions, and of both sexes: thus in two short months probably becoming the asylum of five thousand poor French refugees. In one morning the inhabitants saw at their gates five hundred carts laden with household goods, and followed by an innumerable multitude of persons, who went and came from all quarters. The writer beautifully adds: "The country of Vaux is filled in every corner with French fugitives. Within these three weeks there have been reckoned seventeen thousand five hundred persons that have passed into Lausanne." "Zurich wrote admirable letters to Berne and Geneva, desiring them to send of those poor people unto them, and that they would receive them as their own natural brethren, into their country, into their houses, yea, and into their very hearts. I subjoin, in a few sentences, a picture of the melancholy condition of the poor fugitives, from the same important document :

"Women and maids came to us in the habits of men, children in coffers packed up as clothes, others without any other precaution at all than in their cradles tied about their parents' necks; some passing this, others that way, all stopping either at the gates or churches of the city, with cries and tears of joy and sorrow mingled together; some demanding, where are our fathers and mothers? others, where are our wives and children? not knowing where to find them, not having learnt any news of them from the time they departed from their houses. In short, every one was so affected with these miserable objects, that it was impossible to refrain from weeping. Some had no sooner passed the first barricado, but prostrating themselves, upon their knees, sung a psalm of thanksgiving for their happy deliverance; though, poor creatures, they had not wherewithal to get themselves a meal's meat, and might have gone to bed that night supperless, had not he Lord of his great goodness extraordinari ly provided for them. Thus we spent two months, every day affording us new adventures, fresh and eminent examples of self-denial, and that divers ways.

you have discovered in this last war, by sparing nothing that was necessary for the preservation of the Protestant interest, havé made it gloriously to appear to all the nations of the earth, that you value neither your treasures nor your blood when there is a necessity of spending them in defence of your religion." I may mention in passing, that this grandson of Mornay was himself one of the refugees, and that he was the first evils. The pamphlet from which I have quoted is to expose Popery on the side of its political and social a very able one, extending to one hundred pages, and bearing the title, The Political Mischiefs of Popery, or Arguments demonstrating, 1. That the Romish reli

and has given rise to most of the mischiefs that have overspread the Christian commonwealth. 2. That as an instance hereof, it occasions the loss of above two

"No longer than yesterday, in despite of all guards | for their religion; but above all, the courage and zeal at the several passes, and dangers of the galleys, there arrived hither no less than fifty persons. A tall chairman, who had been a lacquey, as he was coming from his house, espying Monsieur de Cambiaques passing over the bridge, immediately stopt, and embraced him in his livery coat. Four young ladies of Grenoble, disguised in men's apparel, after they had lodged four or five days in the forests and mountains, without any other provision than a little bread and their arms, having travelled only by night, came hither but a few hours ago in this their gallant equipage. Should I write you all the stories I know, we should never have done.' It would not be easy, nor is it a matter of much consequence, precisely to ascertain how many Protestants left their country. A few months after the revocation, it is confidently stated that one hundred and fifty thou-gion ruins all those countries where it is established, sand had departed. Some years afterwards, it was estimated, that from eight hundred thousand to a million, forming one-half nearly of the population, had sought safety in exile. It is certain that in a single year the Prince of Orange raised three regiments, and manned three ships of war, with French Protestants; and that there were not less than sixty-two Walloon or Protestant Churches in Holland. As true religion makes men intelligent, industrious, and frugal, and as the Protestants had been shut out from public offices; so they generally followed manufacturing and commercial pursuits, and not a few of them were wealthy. Their persons of quality left properties yielding from ten thousand to thirty thousand livres per annum. The manufacture of silks, hats, and drugs, suffered so seriously by their removal, that in some quarters the revenue sunk one-half. As a whole, it was estimated, that not less than twenty millions sterling of property left the country; and that in the loss of its active and enterprising Protestants, France sustained as great an injury as she would have received from four ordinary civil wars. In the course of five years after the revocation, the city of Tours fell from eighty thousand, to thirty thousand.

The

The manufactures of this country received an important impulse from the accession of the French Protestants. The Spitalfield silk manufactures originated with them; and also some manufactures in Edinburgh, which I believe have become extinct. The French name, Picardy, in that city, still marks the site. Protestant ministers dispersed themselves to various quarters. Claude, Basnage, and De Bose, went to Holland; Saurin to Geneva; Allix to England. These were the leading ministers; but many brethren were along with them. Quick met with not fewer than one hundred and fifty in London. There were two hundred in Holland. In Edinburgh, so considerable was the French population, that it enjoyed the services of two ministers, the one paid £100, the other £70 a-year. Spitalfield and Seven Dials Chapels in London, were originally French Protestant Churches. It is scarcely necessary to say, that wherever they went they were kindly treated. Indeed they themselves bear testimony to this with lively gratitude. De Souligne, the grandson of the celebrated Protestant Du Plessis Mornay, in a Pamphlet upon French Popery, reprinted in Edinburgh in 1699, and dedicated to the House of Commons, says, addressing them, "The tender care and great charity which you have manifested towards the poor refugees who suffer

hundred millions of livres, or sixteen millions sterling per annum, to France in particular. 3. That if Popery were abolished in France, that kingdom would become incomparably more rich and populous, and the king's revenues would advance above one hundred millions of livres, or eight millions sterling per annum. 4. That it is impossible that France should ever be re-established whilst Popery is their national religion.' No one who reads this rare but excellent pamphlet, can doubt that the author makes out his point. But to return from this digression to the kind treatment which the suffering received at the hands of British Christians. An author whom I have quoted more than once, and who wrote shortly after the revocation, says,—

"But we comfort ourselves likewise in the Christian compassion showed us by foreign princes, and more especially by his Majesty of England, who has received recommended our distressed condition to all his subjects; us into his countries, succoured and relieved us, and and we have found in them not only new masters, or the affections of new friends, but of real parents and brethren. And as these bowels of commiseration have been as balm to our wounds, so we shall never lose the remembrance of it, and hope we nor our children shall these their protections." ever do any thing, by God's grace, unworthy any of

Contributions were made in their behalf by the Christians of this country. So early as 1681 collections were appointed, and subscriptions raised through the Bishop and Mayor of London. As usual, the Church of Scotland was not behind in her liberality. I find she repeatedly made their sufferings a ground for the appointment of fast-days; that on 13th June 1689, there was a collection made in the parish church of Dunfermline of £621:6: 10d., for the French and Irish Protestants. There can be no doubt this was general. Directions are given that it be delivered to Sir Patrick Murray, who is said to be appointed by the Privy Council for that end. In a former paper I showed that so early as 1622 the Presbytery of Glasgow contributed for the relief of the French Protestants, and it is not to be imagined, when they actually appeared in our country, in poverty and distress, they would be overlooked. The General Assembly in 1707, presented an address to the Queen, thanking her for her gracious answer to the address of their brethren, the distressed and persecuted Protestants of France. In 1709 the British Parliament passed a bill

The soul and body, with their opposite quali ties, their separation at death, and the transcendent superiority of the one to the other, are the sub

for the naturalization of foreign Protestants. This shows both that they were numerous, and that the feeling of our country toward them was kind. So recently as 1829, one of the money votes of the House of Com-ject of these words of the wise man: "The dust mons runs in these words: "That a sum not exceeding £5812:7: 10d., be granted to his Majesty to pay the annual allowance to Protestant dissenting ministers in England, poor French Protestant refugee clergy, poor Freach Protestant laity," &c. This would intimate not only that Christian Churches but the government had taken up their case, and that for many years some regular provision was made for them from the public purse of the nation. This private and public liberality is the more creditable, when it is remembered that in 1709, when warmly befriending the French Protestants, our countrymen had also to supply the wants of the persecuted German Palatinos. Dr Calamy states in his diary, that

several thousands of these came over to Britain at this

time,—that a large sum was raised which was carefully distributed among them by commissioners,-that five hundred families were sent to Ireland, where, if I have not been misinformed, their descendants can still be traced, many to Carolina, and a number returned to their own country. Indeed Britain at this time seems to have been what we hope she will ever be the great asylum for the oppressed and the persecuted of all the

nations of the world.

(To be continued.)

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN TIME AND ETERNITY:

A DISCOURSE.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM MUIR, D.D., Minister of St. Stephen's Parish, Edinburgh.

33

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.' -ECCLES. xii. 7.

THE man who is wise according to the Bibleestimate of wisdom, sets habitually before his mind the truth here solemnly announced. As he proceeds in his course through life, he looks with increasing stedfastness to the close of the journey, and he takes occasion, from events and seasons in human experience, to deepen the salutary impression of so serious a view. Anticipating that soon the goods and ills of his temporal condition are equally to pass away, he receives its advantages, and bears its calamities, in the calm and humble frame corresponding with that anticipation. Especially he draws, from the thought of his "latter end," what serves him for a test and an excitement. Bringing the light of eternity to bear fully on the objects of time, he tries, by the searching illumination, his own actions, and schemes, and wishes, and learns the better which of them, as valuable, may be cherished, and which of them, as worthless, ought to be rejected. Above every thing, he connects the sentence of death passed upon all men with the promise of life given by the Saviour of sinners, and thus he gathers, from meditating on the dissolution of the body, the very means of excitement to the principles and affections of an eternal existence in the soul.

shall return to the earth as it was: and the spirit unto God that gave it." "To the earth as it was," such is the nature of the corporeal frame. Moulded, indeed, it is with exquisite skill into symmetry and beauty, yet out of humble and base materials; and, as composed of these, liable to dissolution, frail, easily broken, a tabernacle of clay to be struck at last by the Hand which reared it, and to return to its original. But the spirit, while now mysteriously combined with its "earthly house," does not share in the corruptibleness of its tenement, is not to be dissolved, is itself uncompounded, and allied immediately to God; and, on leaving its material lodging, shall return, without interruption of its consciousness, or a moment's delay, unto Him that gave it, unto the Creator, Saviour, and Judge, to be disposed of through eternity by the Lord of life. Thus the author of the Book of Wisdom, by this solemn announcement of a well known but much ne

glected truth, would arrest our minds, would improve us in rendering us serious, and bless us in leading us to salvation.

That the soul, on being separated from the body at death, makes an instant transition into the world of spirits, is what the text has clearly determined; and this, moreover, is so unceasingly taught in the Sacred Scriptures, that we are surprised how an opposite doctrine should be held by any who profess to receive the Bible as the Word of God. Where do we find authority in the Bible for maintaining that the soul is alike in its qualities to the body, only a finer configuration of matter, and between death and the resurrection partaking, with the corporeal frame, in the dissolution of its powers? We find passages of Scripture, no doubt, where death is compared to sleep, and the stillness of the grave is paralleled with the silence of night, and the calling up of the long sleepers at the resurrection is described. as an awakening of them in the morning from their bed of dust. But these passages allude exclusively to the body, and to that unbroken rest into which the weary frame sinks at the dissolving of its mysterious union with its companion. Its companion, however, is of different qualities, and of a nobler mould, and meets at death with an opposite destiny.

While our consciousness, and many facts illustrating the human mind, might well intimate these things, the Scriptures explicitly and uniformly teach them. What can more plainly do so than the well known address of our Lord to the penitent on the cross? Surely, it is an immediate transition into the spiritual world that is promised by these words, "Verily, I say unto thee, this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." Consider, too, how the Apostle Paul declared that he was in a strait betwixt two things," having, on the one hand, a desire to depart to be

"No longer than yesterday, in despite of all guards | for their religion; but above all, the courage and zeal at the several passes, and dangers of the galleys, there arrived hither no less than fifty persons. A tall chairman, who had been a lacquey, as he was coming from his house, espying Monsieur de Cambiaques passing over the bridge, immediately stopt, and embraced him in his livery coat. Four young ladies of Grenoble, disguised in men's apparel, after they had lodged four or five days in the forests and mountains, without any other provision than a little bread and their arms, having travelled only by night, came hither but a few hours ago in this their gallant equipage. Should I write you all the stories I know, we should never have done."

sequence, precisely to ascertain how many Protestants left their country. A few months after the revocation, or Arguments demonstrating, 1. That the Romish reliit is confidently stated that one hundred and fifty thou-gion ruins all those countries where it is established, sand had departed. Some years afterwards, it was and has given rise to most of the mischiefs that have estimated, that from eight hundred thousand to a mil- overspread the Christian commonwealth. 2. That as an instance hereof, it occasions the loss of above two lion, forming one-half nearly of the population, had hundred millions of livres, or sixteen millions sterling sought safety in exile. It is certain that in a single year the Prince of Orange raised three regiments, and manper annum, to France in particular. 3. That if Popery ned three ships of war, with French Protestants; and were abolished in France, that kingdom would become