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affection should feel the pressure of no necessity, should be exposed to the assault of no peril, should languish in the feebleness of no disease, and exempt from all danger of mortal dissolution. Oh, how cold would Friendship soon become! And, may we not ask, how soon would the lovely garden of pleasure be laid waste, by the fires of malignant passion! Let us thank God, then, for pain and trial, for sickness and death. Let us look upon pain, and trial, and sickness, and death, as the pledges of a nobler immortality than earth can give. It was necessary even for the Captain of our salvation, in bringing many sons to glory, that he should himself be made perfect through suffering. And let us not believe that God, in the beginning, meant nothing better for all his children, than the garden of Eden, nor that he means nothing better for them now, than that heaven of physical delight, of pearls and jewels and golden crowns, with which so many please their fancy.

Let us look upon all such language as but symbolizing the blessedness awaiting that spirit, which, through pain aud trial, shall have fed itself from the dominion of sense and mere earthly affection, and put forth, in energy and joy, its own immortal powers.

In the Book of Revelation the Apostle, describing a vision of Heaven, says:

C And I heard a voice from Heaven as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder; and I heard the voice of harpers, harping with their harps; and they sang as it were a new song, before the Throne and before the four beasts and the elders; and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand which were redeemed from the earth.'

And why could none of the other inhabitants of Heaven learn that song. Was it to be a song of new and strange invention, altogether unconnected with the familiar melodies of the upper Temple, and therefore unknown to the elder worshippers in its Holy Courts. Long as they had sung the praises of their Creator, and in howsoever varied strains, there might doubtless fall upon their ears new songs in the celebration of His glory and goodness, who is ever new in signs of strength and wonders of mercy. But how could there be a song which they should not have even the power of learning? A song which the hundred and forty-four thousand redeemed from the earth'

would fully appreciate and unite in, but so peculiar that those angels who served God day and night in His Temple, even before the morning stars sang together over the completed creation of this lower world, could not join their voices to the celestial harmony, but only drink in its strains of rapture? - Doubtless the reason is to be found in the peculiar experience through which this select heavenly choir should have passed while in the flesh. Yes! —from the memory of earthly pains and sorrows must be derived those exquisite tones pouring from their lips and sounding forth from their harps. Well might it be said that none even of the angelic host could join in the full spirit of their song!

The scenes through which we are even now passing on the earth may tell us something of the singular richness of this predicted melody. When from the lonely desert, or the wide waste of waters, the long-absent traveller comes once more into the bosom of his family, the hymn of plaintive gladness lifted from his dwelling may give foretaste of that which the saints shall sing in glory. Yet still, how faint its sweetness compared with that of the song, whose echoes shall be heard when a Christian joins the kindred who have, from time to time, been gathered into the mansions of the great Father's House! Let us,

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then, bear with a holy patience the pains and griefs which here afflict us. A most abundant and most fitting reward shall we gain when we join the choral company, and sing the song of those redeemed from the earth.' Let us not too sorely grieve for those now lost to the sight of these mortal eyes and the hearing of these fleshly ears, — but even become glad in the hope of seeing them clothed in their celestial bodies, and listening to voices unspoiled of any of earth's tones of sympathy and love, though strengthened into the richness of the heavenly melody. Soon will the veil drop. The mourning Rachel will gain that comfort, which earth denies, and receive the afflictions of time ripened into the harvest of eternal joy.

And the Father, from whom disease or accident has snatched the hope of his age!-if himself faithful unto death, will find that the Destroyer has but raised bis child to glory, and but prepared him for that one family above that hundred and forty-four thousand redeemed from the earth-among whom all who now rightly endure the great Parent's discipline will be numbered!

277

THE JEWS IN SYRIA.

Sketches by Dr. Bowring of the Mahomedan and other Oriental Religions.

WHEN I left Egypt, accompanied by a distinguished Bey of that country, a Jew of Aleppo was his Dragoman,* and from him I had often opportunities of learning particulars of the state of his nation in Syria. He was not without instruction. He spoke Turkish and Arabic, Italian and French. He had seen much of the world, and was a fair representative of the Jewish population. Cunning, under the cloak of simplicity-intriguing, though seemingly sincere sensual, but desirous of being thought indifferent to personal enjoyment-and withal strongly attached to his creed and people, proud of their history and of their hopes. When we became tolerably well acquainted, he was in the habit of giving expression to many of his thoughts, and of unveiling that personal and social policy by which the Jews-the slaves of slaves, the degraded among all nations-have managed to wind their way in the midst of the most appalling vicissitudes-to hold firm their faith-to preserve their language, their worship, their nationality-to obtain wealth and its adjunct, power -frequently political as well as personal power; and in spite of the legislation of intolerance-of the ban of popular opinion of a persecution more extensive, more enduring, than has ever been directed against any other sect or communion, to be what they are- omnipresent in every Christian and Mahometan country-having threaded their distinguishable way through ages and over the civilized world. Bigotry has made ten thousand vain attempts to extirpate them: even toleration and liberty have failed to absorb them in the common mass.

The name of my Jewish friend was Joseph. He had adopted the Nizam or military dress, which imposes much more respect than any other Oriental costume; perhaps even more than the European, which, while it has ceased to excite the fanatical feelings of the Mussulman population, frequently obtains for the wearer deference and attention. But a sabre, the ensign of authority, is the sine qua non accompaniment of the military uniform;

* Interpreter.

and a Dragoman, especially if belonging to any of the oppressed classes, seldom fails to exhibit it wherever he has an opportunity. Joseph often complained of the indignities to which his nation was subjected, alike from Christians and Mahomedans. Kelby Yahoudy —“ Jewish dog❞—is one of the gentlest appellations which meets an Israelite's ear when he has the ill luck to get into controversy either with a Nasrany (Christian) or a MousJim (Mussulman); and, trained to bear the insult, be generally bends in silence, cursing (if he curses) only in

his innermost heart.

If I were to judge from Joseph's language, I should say that the bitterer and stronger antipathy of the Jews was rather directed against the Christians than the Mahometans. Though there is a more elevated notion of Christian civilization, yet the religious rites and creeds of the Mussulman more closely resemble those of the Jews. Circumcision-the belief in the Divine Unity—a common reverence for the names and characters of the patriarchs-create associations from which Christians are for the most part excluded. Christians, too, have, on the whole, been more coarse and violent in their persecution of the Jews. They have tormented them as if they had a personal quarrel with all and every individual member of the nation, who have been treated as if each had personally participated in the crime of the crucifixion. To the contempt with which the Mussulman regards all infidelity, all resistance to Islamism, the Christian has added a hatred and a malevolence peculiarly his own. One day Joseph said to me, "I have heard that Jesus was a good man. I know that you profess to be his followers. Now, Jesus was a Jew; and if Jesus taught you to hate his own nation, and if you obey his instructions, what opinion must I have both of him and you!" But when I explained to Joseph that Jesus had taught nothing but charity and mercy and forgiveness-that no word of unkindness ever fell from his lips-that no deed of maleficence was ever sanctioned by him-"O then," said he, to put him to death was a most unrighteous act, and most blameable and wicked were they who did it!" So strongly is the sense of justice written on all men's hearts, and so willingly-so spontaneously I had almost saiddoes the conscience rise up to bear its testimony to truth and right.

The first place in Syria, where I saw any thing like an outward profession of Judaism, was Antioch. We had landed at Scanderoun, and defiled along the skirts of Mount Taurus, in the very line where Alexander had marched upon Darius. I had overheard, in our way along the coast, conversations between Joseph and the Mussulmans on the subject of their various or common traditions, and I found they agreed that after the flood Noah had been landed on the Northern Syrian coast, near the spot we were then passing-that he found there a white road, or rather a road strewed with ashes, miraculously traced for him-that the road was still visibleand that here it was he made his way to the solid and afterwards peopled regions of the earth. Now Noah and Abraham are equally favourites of Jews and Mahomedans. The schism, the quarrel, begins somewhat later than the era in which they lived. Isaac is the protected of the Hebrews-Ismail of the Moslims. From Abraham backwards to Adam, there are few incongruities between the Pentateuch and the Koran.

We had scarcely entered Antioch ere Joseph was recognized by a group of people of his nation. We had passed through some of the long narrow streets, in which the deep gutters occupy four-fifths of the whole width, forcing the foot traveller either to walk through a foul, half-paved, muddy trench, or along a narrow ridge, where two persons cannot stand abreast,-on our way to the ruins of an ancient edifice, of which the earthquakes, so common in Antioch, had only left standing some ruined walls, pillars and broken arches. Our Dragoman was recognized, summoned away, and we heard loud voices of gratulation in Hebrew and Arabic, which were followed by an humble petition from Joseph that he might be allowed to quit us, in order to spend the rest of the day with the friends he had been so happy as to discover, and to discover unexpectedly, in Antioch. So permission was given, and the next morning it was late before Joseph appeared to discharge his accustomed functions. He had passed the night, he said, in gay carousal's. "You must not believe," added he, "that those ill-dressed, shabbylooking people who accosted me, are what they seem to be. To protect themselves from robbery and oppression, they wear the garb of poverty; but if you could see them

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