ON KEEPING THE HEART. No. 11.
By John Flavel
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.—Proverbs iv, 23. X. The time of doubting and of spiritual darkness constitutes another season when it is very difficult to keep the heart. When the light and comfort of the divine presence is withdrawn; when the believer, from the prevalence of indwelling sin in one form or other, is ready to renounce his hopes, to infer desperate conclusions with respect to himself, to regard his former comforts as vain delusions, and his professions as hypocrisy; at such a time much diligence is necessary to keep the heart from despondency. The Christian's distress arises from his apprehension of his spiritual state, and in general he argues against his possessing true religion, either from his having relapsed into the same sins from which he had formerly been recovered with shame and sorrow; or from the sensible declining of his affections from God; or from the strength of his affections toward creature enjoyments; or from his enlargement in public, while he is often confined and barren in private duties; or from some horrible suggestions of Satan, with which his soul is greatly perplexed; or, lastly, from God's silence and seeming denial of his long depending prayers. Now in order to the establishment and support of the heart under these circumstances, it is necessary that you be acquainted with some general truths which have a tendency to calm the trembling and doubting soul; and that you be rightly instructed with regard to the above-mentioned causes of disquiet. Let me direct your attention to the following general truths: 1. Every appearance of hypocrisy does not prove the person who manifests it to be a hypocrite. You should carefully distinguish between the appearance and the predominance of hypocrisy. There are remains of deceitfulness in the best hearts; this was exemplified in David and Peter; but the prevailing frame of their hearts being upright, they were not denominated hypocrites for their conduct. 2. We ought to regard what can be said in our favor, as well as what may be said against us. It is the sin of upright persons sometimes, to exercise an unreasonable severity against themselves. They do not impartially consider the state of their souls. To make their state appear better than it really is, indeed is the damning sin of self-flattering hypocrites; and to make their state appear worse than it really is, is the sin and folly of some good persons. But why should you be such an enemy to your own peace? Why read over the evidences of God's love to your soul, as a man does a book which he intends to confute? Why do you study evasions, and turn off those comforts which are due to you? 3. Every thing which may be an occasion of grief to the people of God, is not a sufficient ground for their questioning the reality of their religion. Many things may trouble, which ought not to stumble you. If upon every occasion you should call in question all that had ever been wrought upon you, your life would be made up of doubtings and fears, and you could never attain that settled inward peace, and live that life of praise and thankfulness which the Gospel requires. 4. The soul is not at all times in a suitable state to pass a right judgment upon itself. It is peculiarly unqualified for this in the hour of desertion or temptation. Such seasons must be improved rather for watching and resisting, than for judging and determining. 5. Whatever be the ground of one's distress, it should drive him to, not from, God. Suppose you have sinned thus and so, or that you have been thus long and sadly deserted, yet you have no right to infer that you ought to be discouraged, as if there was no help for you in God. When you have well digested these truths, if your doubts and distress remain, consider what is now to be offered. 1. Are you ready to conclude that you have no part in the favor of God, because you are visited with some extraordinary affliction? If so, do you then rightly conclude that great trials are tokens of God's hatred? Does the Scripture teach this? And dare you infer the same with respect to all who have been as much or more afflicted than yourself? If the argument is good in your case, it is good in application to theirs, and more conclusive with respect to them, in proportion as their trials were greater than yours. Wo then to David, Job, Paul, and all who have been afflicted as they were! But had you passed along in quietness and prosperity; had God withheld these chastisements with which he ordinarily visits his people, would you not have had far more reason for doubts and distress than you now have? 2. Do you rashly infer that the Lord has no love to you, because he has withdrawn the light of his countenance? Do you imagine your state to be hopeless, because it is dark and uncomfortable? Be not hasty in forming this conclusion. If any of the dispensations of God to his people will bear a favorable as well as a harsh construction, why should they not be construed in the best sense? And may not God have a design of love rather than of hatred in the dispensation under which you mourn? May he not depart for a season, without departing forever? You are not the first that have mistaken the design of God in withdrawing himself. "Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, my Lord hath forgotten me." But was it so? What saith the answer of God? "Can a woman forget her sucking child?" &c. But do you sink down under the apprehension that the evidences of a total and final desertion are discoverable in your experience? Have you then lost your conscientious tenderness with regard to sin? and are you inclined to forsake God? If so, you have reason indeed to be alarmed. But if your conscience is tenderly alive; if you are resolved to cleave to the Lord; if the language of your heart is, I cannot forsake God, I cannot live without his presence; though he slay me, yet will I trust in him; then you have reason to hope that he will visit you again. It is by these exercises that he still maintains his interest in you. Once more. Are sense and feelings suitable to judge of the dispensations of God by? Can their testimony be safely relied on? Is it safe to argue thus: If God had any love for my soul, I should feel it now as well as in former times; but I cannot feel it, therefore it is gone? May you not as well conclude, when the sun is invisible to you, that he has ceased to exist? Read Isa. i, 10. Now if there is nothing in the divine dealings with you which is a reasonable ground of your despondency and distress, let us inquire what there is in your own conduct for which you should be so cast down. 1. Have you committed sins from which you were formerly recovered with shame and sorrow? And do you thence conclude that you sin allowedly and habitually, and that your oppositions to sin were hypocritical? But do not too hastily give up all for lost. Is not your repentance and care renewed as often as you commit sin? Is it not the sin itself which troubles you, and is it not true, that the oftener you sin the more you are distressed? It is not so in customary sinning; of which Bernard excellently discourses thus: "When a man accustomed to restrain, sins grievously, it seems insupportable to him, yes, he seems to descend alive into hell. In process of time it seems not insupportable, but heavy, and between insupportable and heavy there is no small descent. Next, such sinning becomes light, his conscience smites but faintly, and he regards not her rebukes. Then he is not only insensible to his guilt66but that which was bitter and displeasing has become in some degree sweet and pleasant. Now it is made a custom, and not only pleases, but pleases habitually. At length custom becomes nature; he cannot be dissuaded from it, but defends and pleads for it." This is allowed and customary sinning, this is the way of the wicked. But is not your way the contrary of this? 2. Do you apprehend a decline of your affections from God and from spiritual subjects? This may be your case, and yet there may be hope. But possibly you are mistaken with regard to this. There are many things to be learned in Christian experience; it has relation to a great variety of subjects. You may now be learning what it is very necessary for you to know as a Christian. Now, what if you are not sensible of so lively affections, of such ravishing views as you had at first; may not your piety be growing more solid and consistent, and better adapted to practical purposes? Does it follow from your not always being in the same frame of mind, or from the fact that the same objects do not at all times excite the same feelings, that you have no true religion? Perhaps you deceive yourself by looking forward to what you would be, rather than contemplating what you are, compared with what you once were. 3. If the strength of your love to creature enjoyments is the ground of desperate conclusions respecting yourself, perhaps you argue thus: "I fear that I love the creature more than God, if so, I have not true love to God. I sometimes feel stronger affections toward earthly comforts than I do toward heavenly objects, therefore my soul is not upright within me." If, indeed, you love the creature for itself, if you make it your end, and religion but a means, then you conclude rightly; for this is incompatible with supreme love to God. But may not a man love God more ardently and unchangeably than he does anything, or all things else, and yet, when God is not the direct object of his thoughts, may he not be sensible of more violent affection for the creature than he has at that time for God? As rooted malice indicates a stronger hatred than sudden though more violent passion; so we must judge of our love, not by a violent motion of it now and then, but by the depth of its root and the constancy of its exercise. Perhaps your difficulty results from bringing your love to some foreign and improper test. Many persons have feared that when brought to some eminent trial they should renounce Christ and cleave to the creature; but when the trial came, Christ was every thing, and the world as nothing in their esteem. Such were the fears of some martyrs whose victory was complete. But you may expect divine assistance only at the time of, and in proportion to your necessity. If you would try your love see whether you are willing to forsake Christ now. 4. Is the want of that enlargement in private which you find in public exercises an occasion of doubts and fears? Consider then whether there are not some circumstances attending public duties which are peculiarly calculated to excite your feelings and elevate your mind, and which cannot affect you in private. If so, your exercises in secret, if performed faithfully and in a suitable manner, may be profitable, though they have not all the characteristics of those in public. If you imagine that you have spiritual enlargement and enjoyment in public exercises, while you neglect private duties, doubtless you deceive yourself. Indeed if you live in the neglect of secret duties, or are careless about them, you have great reason to fear. But if you regularly and faithfully perform them, it does not follow that they are vain and worthless, or that they are not of great value, because they are not attended with so much enlargement as you sometimes find in public. And what if the Spirit is pleased more highly to favor you with his gracious influence in one place and at one time than another, should this be a reason for murmuring and unbelief, or for thankfulness? 5. The vile or blasphemous suggestions of Satan sometimes occasion great perplexity and distress. They seem to lay open an abyss of corruption in the heart, and to say there can be no grace here. But there may be grace in the heart where such thoughts are injected, though not in the heart which consents to and cherishes them. Do you then abhor and oppose them? do you utterly refuse to prostitute yourself to their influence, and strive to keep holy and reverend thoughts of God, and of all religious objects? If so, such suggestions are involuntary, and no evidence against your piety. 6. Is the seeming denial of your prayers an occasion of despondency? Are you disposed to say, "If God had any regard for my soul he would have heard my petitions before now; but I have no answer from him, and therefore no interest in him?" But stay: though God's abhorring and finally rejecting prayer is an evidence that he rejects the person who prays, yet, dare you conclude that he has rejected you, because an answer to your prayers is delayed, or because you do not discover it if granted? "May not God hear long with his own elect, that cry unto him day and night?" Others have stumbled upon the same ground with you: "I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes; nevertheless, thou heardst the voice of my supplication." Now are there not some things in your experience which indicate that your prayers are not rejected, though answer to them is deferred? Are you not disposed to continue praying though you do not discover an answer? Are you not disposed still to ascribe righteousness to God, while you consider the cause of his silence as being in yourself? Thus did David: "O my God, I cry in the day time, and thou hearest not; and in the night, and am not silent; but thou art holy," &c. Does not the delay of an answer to your prayers excite you to examine your own heart and try your ways, that you may find and remove the difficulty? If so, you may have reason for humiliation, but not for despair. Thus I have shown you how to keep your heart in dark and doubting seasons. God forbid that any false heart should encourage itself from these things. It is lamentable, that when we give saints and sinners their proper portions, each is so prone to take up the other's part.—Flavel. Clouds of darkness gathering o'er us, awful tidings with them bear;
Scenes of misery spread before us—rumors reaching us from far—
All in one loud piercing chorus, tell us that the end is near. Hearts of men within them failing, for the coming woes they fear—
All their efforts unavailing—no propitious signs appear—
Sin increasing, crime prevailing, tell us that the end is near. Selfishness is all abounding—gold, the idol, everywhere,
Worshiped by a host confounding for all that's good and fair—
Crowds, the mammon god surrounding, tell us that the end is near. Lawlessness so vastly spreading, void of reverence, awe or fear—
Sacred things beneath it treading stamped with God's own signature,
Never once his vengeance dreading, tell us that the end is near. War, that heaviest curse of nations, running on its dread career;
While the mass its desolations listless or applauding hear,
War, with its abominations, tells us that the end is near. Saints of God all evil hating, faithful to the name they bear,
For their coming Saviour waiting, caught up in the air;
Thence their rest and blessing dating—tell us that the end is near. Sinner, wouldst thou in the glory of that cloudless morning share?
Wouldst thou have this hope before thee?—wear the crown that saints will wear?
Now believe redemption's story—look to Christ—the end is near! Let not earth, thy thoughts engrossing, cheat thee of that portion fair;
Look to Christ; on him reposing thou shalt happy be, nor fear—
Sinner haste! the day is closing—look to Christ—the end is near! THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED
By Rev. W. M. O'Hanlon
From the Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical Repository. THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED.
BY REV. W. M. O'HANLON, BURNLEY, LANCASHIRE. Our attention is next called to the place which the sabbatical law occupies under the Jewish dispensation. Hitherto, so far as we know, it might have been dependent upon oral tradition for its safe transmission. But its exposure to mutilation and wrong in this channel, for the first twenty-five centuries of its existence, would be far less than is generally imagined. It is remarkable how few links were necessary to connect the progenitor of our race with Aaron and Moses, the leaders of the Jewish people. Adopting Calmet's Chronology, Adam could converse with Methuselah, who was two hundred and forty-three years of age at the death of Adam; Methuselah could converse with Shem, who was ninety-eight years old at the death of Methuselah; Shem could converse with Abraham, who was a hundred and fifty years of age at the death of Shem; Abraham could converse with Isaac, who was sixty-nine years of age at the death of his father; Isaac could converse with his grandson Joseph, who was carried into Egypt eight years before the death of that Patriarch, and who was at least seventeen years old before his brethren sold him to the "Midianite merchantmen;" and Joseph could converse with Amram, the father of Aaron and Moses, these being born, the former sixty-one, the latter sixty-four years after the death of Joseph. So that six persons would suffice to bear down the great primeval institution, from the hands to which it was first committed, until it was lodged with those who were honored to give it a more stable position amidst the ordinances and records of the Judaic economy. But the time had now arrived for the separation of the "peculiar people." The patriarchal was to give place to a more elaborate and complicate religious regimen. Besides, the span of human life had become greatly contracted, and the links of human descent were proportionally multiplied. It was, therefore, fitting that the divine statutes should be taken out of the sphere of human tradition, placed amidst the monuments of history, and committed to the archives of a nation that might act as conservators of the precious and holy treasure. Thus would these statutes partake of the benefits of written language, and in the end constitute a part, the most essential part, of the world's ancient literature and laws. This being the case, we find that ordinance which in the beginning took the precedence of every other in the divine announcements (even of that prohibitory command, upon obedience to which the destinies of the whole race depended,) was now written by the finger of God himself, twice written upon tables of stone, emblazoned in characters of light and fire, and proclaimed by the voice of Jehovah out of the midst of that visible glory which descended and dwelt upon the mount; as if, by such external splendor, the divine majesty would supply some feeble symbol of the higher lustre of his law. "And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die. . . . And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was." Such was the solemn and august enthronement of the divine moral code. And, embosomed in the midst of it, stands this great sabbatical law, taken up out of the past, like all the other "words" of the decalogue, and invested with the awful sanctions common to them all. Ex. xx, 8-11. We say, taken up out of the past; for there is a continuity in the dispensations of God, which must not be overlooked by the student of either his works or his word. These commandments, thus uttered amid such overwhelming proofs of a present Deity, were not novel in their principles, though doubtless they were in their circumstances and form. No one who had rightly understood the genius of the patriarchal religion, or felt its spirit, would be conscious of entering a region essentially new, or of coming under a different jurisdiction, when he heard the "fiery law" issuing from the summit of Sinai. We speak of its ethics, its everlasting and immutable moralities. And it is utterly impossible to separate from these the essence at least of the precept in question, which appears, from its position and bearing, to combine, concentrate, and bring into practical form, the grand verities involved in the preceding portion of the first table of the law. It would, indeed, be a strange anomaly, if, associated with these, which in their essential elements are as old as the creation, and related to every age and nation alike, we should find a statute, belonging to a quite different category, of recent origin, and of temporary, limited authority; and which, while other regulations of the economy and ritual were inscribed upon the fragile papyrus of parchment, was thus engraven, and that not "by man's device," upon the solid and enduring stone, (thus symbolically intimating its more lasting character,) and in this form laid up and deposited in the ark of the covenant. We are not prepared for anything so wanting in harmony and order, so calculated to shock all the conclusions of the reason in the methods of the divine procedure. To this and kindred considerations we may have occasion to advert more fully at a subsequent stage of our argument. But, meanwhile, in accordance with the evidence already adduced, we hold that the sabbatical ordinance was embodied in the Jewish code, in part, at least, that it might have its rightful position among the very first and chief institutions of all religion; and that, invested with all the sanctions which could attach to a precept of its rank, antiquity, and importance, it should be handed down to future ages, in all its integrity, and with the peculiar advantages which belong to a written formula. It is not denied that the due observance of the Sabbath was obligatory upon the Israelites; or that, as a people, their religious prosperity or decline greatly depended upon it. But it is denied that the promulgation of the sabbatical law upon Sinai67could have any relation to us, who are under a new and different economy. To this point it will be our duty to direct attention, when we come to examine the question of the permanent obligation of the ordinance, and its binding character in the present day. It may tend, however, to clear our path and to facilitate our object, if we now advert to the important distinction which subsisted between the Sabbath law as a constituent part of the ethical code of the Jews, and the same law as introduced into their civil code. It should never be forgotten, in the discussion of this question, that the peculiar government established among this people, gave a special air to the whole of their national polity, forming, as it did, the basis of many regulations which could have had no existence apart from the theocracy. Thus it was that temporal rewards were annexed to obedience, and temporal punishments to disobedience, in cases where, otherwise, only the natural moral results would have followed the practice of virtue or of vice. Accordingly, disobedience to the fourth commandment, under the Mosaic economy, was not only an act of gross impiety against God as the supreme moral Governor, but likewise an act of daring rebellion against him as their theocratic King. It is on this principle we are to explain the form in which it is presented, and the penalties by which it is enforced in Ex. xxxi, 13-15; xxxv, 2, 3. And such being the righteous penalties enacted and promulgated by the sovereign lawgiver, the infliction of them as revealed in Num. xv, 32-35, must not, as it need not, excite our wonder. Thus, to despise the word of the Lord and to break his commandments was a crime, a public, open violation of the social and civil law, and one which was no more to pass with impunity under the theocratic rule established among the ancient Israelites, than the daring transgression of the law of land is to be exempt from retribution, in any well-ordered state or commonwealth of the present day. Moreover, such an act was invested with an aspect of peculiar aggravation, because committed against a Sovereign who had claims to their love and fealty, such as God alone could prefer. "Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath." Superadded, then, to other considerations and inducements, there was this, which they were bound to enshrine in their "heart of hearts," that by stupendous displays of power, by "his wonders in the land of Ham," they had been rescued from the deepest degradation, from the intellectual, moral, spiritual degradation of slavery; and, from being no people, had become the people of the most high God. Nor was this all; for to them pertained "the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." From the most abject wretchedness they had been lifted to the loftiest pinnacle ever occupied by any people. If then it be alleged, by any one, that the punishment of Sabbath-breaking was greater than the offense, though our reply might simply be, "Who art thou that repliest against God?" yet we add, Canst thou measure the extent and enormity of his guilt who, in defiance of the plain, positive enactments of his God and King, and despite the majesty and mercy so frequently and so signally displayed in the history of this chosen people, and as it were in the very face of the Almighty seated upon his throne in the midst of them, could thus willfully and presumptuously transgress a law, binding alike as a religious and a civil statute, and one, be it observed, on which Jehovah had fixed as a special sign of the solemn and tender relations into which he had entered with that nation? Until we have found the scales in which such a crime can be adequately weighed, we may well bow to the divine award, mysterious though it may appear, assured that though "clouds and darkness are round about God, righteousness and right are the bases of his throne." Nor must it here be overlooked that, while this law was, in this peculiar manner, incorporated with the Jewish civil institutions, it was by no means, even under the Mosaic dispensation, restricted in its bearing to the Israelites. It was binding upon "the stranger within their gates," and thus the soul of "the stranger" was to be "refreshed." In regard to the rite of circumcision, it is clear that it was optional with the stranger whether he would submit to it or not, though such submission was necessary ere he could partake of the Passover. But with regard to the Sabbath, there seems to have been no option allowed; it was binding upon all to whom the words of consecration would come. It was binding, however, be it remembered, as much in the form of a privilege to be enjoyed, as of a duty to be discharged. It would be doing great injustice to its celestial spirit, to represent it as clothed with austerity and scowling portentously upon an enslaved people. When rightly understood, and viewed in the higher relations, nothing could be more benignant than the aspect which it wore, both to the "home born" and "the stranger." To the former, God spake these words: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." To the latter, the Most High referred in these terms: "Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people." Not a few of those features which have been connected with the Sabbath under the law, and which have been regarded as forbidding and ungenial, were in reality the result of human interference, abuses imposed upon it by that formalism which had been substituted for true piety and obedience. They were the incrustations with which ritualism evermore seeks to obscure and pollute the fair and heavenly form of religion, just in proportion as the genuine spirit of devotedness to God declines and decays. From the beginning, the Sabbath being "made for man," was designed and calculated to insure his happiness, to promote his interests for both worlds, to "scatter many blessings by the way, on its march to immortality," to throw its lustre upon his earthly dwelling place, while in the act of preparing him for that loftier world where its festive light and joy never terminate, and never suffer even the shadow of a cloud. Our Divine Saviour, in the days of his ministry, resolutely set himself to remove these false and pernicious views which had grown up and defaced the beauty of this sacred ordinance. But while, with just severity, he rebuked those who "bound heavy burdens and grievous to be borne," he honored the Sabbath, by investing it with the sanctions, and yielding to it the obedience of "God manifest in the flesh." In him the glory of the Jewish Sabbath might be said to reach its zenith, and not the less, but the more so, because of those works of benevolence, those miracles of mercy, which he wrought on this day, and by which he illustrated in the most signal manner the true genius of religion and of religious ordinances, under whatever dispensation. Time is the cradle of hope, but the grave of delusion. Time is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counsellor of the wise. Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it. He that has made Time his friend will have little to fear from his enemies; but he that made time his enemy will have little to hope from his friends. Hear this, ye young! It is high time even for you to awake: for the hours of youthful hope and spirits bear but a small portion in "memory's backward view," to the whole of life. But be assured that they do bear to it a most important proportion, if even now you become formed to love and serve your God. O, happy, happy he, "whose yesterdays look backward with a smile?" His tomorrow brightens with a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." It is impossible to describe one's feelings on falling on your knees (you do so involuntarily) on the stone of unction. You feel as if you were in the immediate presence of the great Saviour of mankind. You do not stop to think whether the localities pointed out to you, are really the places where the events described took place. It was foretold of Jerusalem, that she should be a city of heaps, and it is literally fulfilled. Immense heaps of rubbish meet you everywhere. The church of England people, when laying the foundation of their church, had to dig through a heap of rubbish fifty feet in depth before they came to the rock. It is peculiarly a city of heaps. Suppose you enter a large town and go into one house and find nobody there, then into another, and another, and so on, finding all empty. You go to the markets, to the halls, to the churches, and find them quite deserted, nobody to be seen. Will you not be astonished? There is a town in Syria, with its houses, theatre, columns, and gate-ways all there, but without a single inhabitant. That town is the wonderful Petra, the capital of Edom. The town is built at the foot of a hill, on a slope rising up from the valley. It was foretold of Edom that she should be made bare, and that no man should live in her. Can the fulfillment of this be all fiction? Can it be mere chance? We come now to a point still more striking. Where Jericho once stood, the wild Bedouin encamps. It is an excellent site for a town for business, for commerce, for agriculture, and nobody lives there. You have read of the cluster of grapes which the spies which Joshua sent forth, brought from the brook of Eshcol. You talk of your grapes. Why, you would not call them grapes at all in Syria; we would not give them even to pigs! Our grapes are as large as walnuts, very juicy, and grow in great abundance. I remember my brother John and myself bringing home a bunch one day, on our way from school, which was so large that we were obliged to carry it home on a stick between us. Thousands of pilgrims visit Jericho every year, and it would therefore be an excellent place for a hotel. If a large hotel were built, other houses would necessarily follow, and a town would soon rise up, but notwithstanding this, and all the natural advantages of the place, no hotel is built. Two American farmers went to Syria some years ago to settle. They went over the whole country, and visited Jericho, but finally settled, one of them at Etam, and the other at Jaffa. I asked them why they did not settle in Jericho. They said they did not know. I asked them if it were not a good place for business, if they could not have made money there. O yes, they said, plenty of money could be made there,—excellent stand for business. I asked them again, why they did not settle there. Their answer was, “Sir, we cannot tell you why we did not settle there.” But I can tell you, friends. The Lord says, “Cursed is the man that re-builds Jericho,” and no man dares to re-build it. Let us now come to the people of Syria. They are still more interesting than the country itself. There ought to be three races of people in Syria—the Canaanites, the Hebrews, and the Ishmaelites. Now, I am a native of Syria, but I cannot tell you to what race I belong. Our country has been overrun, over, and over, and over again. It has been re-re-re-conquered, and each successive band of invaders has settled down in the country, and has intermarried with its inhabitants. One of our most remarkable races is the Bedouins or Ishmaelites. They will rob you wherever they meet you, but still will indignantly repel the charge of being robbers. They consider that they are merely taking back the share in the property of Abraham, of which their father Ishmael, as they think, was unjustly deprived by his brother Isaac. Still, with all his faults, the Bedouin is an4honorable man. If you put your hand on the pole of his tent he will do everything in his power to serve you. If you have eaten bread and salt with him, (their term for taking a meal with you,) he will fight for you, and if need be, die for you.