V

>-^l»

m

		1 <<«.!«
^

«r«r

«i«^«

«W[ < fC <. Or • CO*.

'■irtc

• «*«.

T? I

<<4MC

presented to

Gbe Hibran?

ot tbe

•University of Toronto

bB

2 ■
2F cfl£r
■

•r <

^B^^B	^^^l^l^l^Bk^-^^^^^^^
	r^sr^^
	^jP^pRJ*?' «■'
	-SP flr-f- *

C tfT*

<«:<- " C-if 5-

Sis,*' ««.<*«• ; .

	r - - <r
^iz^h
j^~	J^J?
S^^H	<■ <rt
aCv <«E

« c

( ■ CC c

C <C< <C

r <

t«L-i<-

^«i r«L «C, *?§k.

""Sir ,*«?<--«_«'"

t <<-, <£^

<(£>•

vv:

«t tf C. C

r« *s«

3a

■«« '<

«a

:«:<-'

		•
		— *. mm
	<*

■'J 3

■ tmrb -

««s. oc «

. £'.

:XC

•<el «£.

■1; <a«r jST

*tt *<«r

<«

■St: -

I

l/faaefr, <J%& ,- ,/,/,// //.j/ /,,/,",/, , .///,//,? //}//.'/,///

THE GALLERY

OF

SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS,

HISTORICAL AND LANDSCAPE,

WITH DESCRIPTIONS, HISTORICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, AND PICTORIAL,

BY JOHN KIHO, D.D., F.S.A.,

EDITOH OF THB " CYCLOPEDIA OP BIBLICAL LITEBATUBE," ETC. ETC.

VOL II.

PETER JACKSON, LATE FISHER, SON, & CO. THE CAXTON PRESS, ANGEL STREET, ST. MARTIN'S-LE-GRAND, LONDON.

LIST OF PLATES, AND CONTENTS.

PAINTED BT

The Prodigal's Keturn . . Spada . . 5

The Profaners expelled . . Jouvenet . 7

Rebecca at the Well . . . Coypel . . 9

Interior of an Eastern House Allom . . 11

The Golden Calf .... Poussin . 13

Smyrna Allom . . 15

Samson and Delilah . . . Rubens . 17

The Caves of Carmel . . Bartlett . 19

The Deluge Poussin . 21

Hierapolis Allom . . 23

Peter's Sermon West . . 25

The Synagogue, Jerusalem . Salmon . 27

Elijah raising the Widow's Son. West . . 29

Descent from the Cross . . Rubens . 31

The Impotent Man healed . Giordano . 33

Great Temple at Balbec . Bartlett . 35

Finding of Moses .... Poussin . 37

Sultan Eyoub's Mausoleum . Allom . . 39

Esther crowned Guido . . 41

Souk Barada, — Pharpar . . Bartlett . 43

Martha and Mary .... Coypel . . 45

Pergamus Allom . . 47

Christ and Disciples at Emmaus Rubens . 49

Rhodes Bartlett . 51

Miraculous Draught of Fishes Jouvenet . 53

Massacre of the Innocents . Rubens . 55

Tobit's Sight restored . . A. Caracci 57

Djerash Salmon . 59

The Good Samaritan . . . Dietrici . 61

Antioch Bartlett . 63

David and Abigail .... Rubens . 65

The Holy Sepulchre . . . Allom . . 67

PAINTED BT

Judgment of Solomon . . . Rubens . 69

Bazaars Allom . . 71

Esther before Ahasuerus . . Poussin . 73

Beirout Bartlett . 75

Joseph introducing his Father . F. Boll . 77

Sidon Bartlett . 79

Death of Sisera Northcote 81

The Fleet of Ophir . . . Melville . 83 The First Death .... Vanderwerf 85

Antioch, from the West . . Bartlett . 87

John baptizing Poussin . 89

Landing-place at Rhodes . Bartlett . 91

Adoration of the Shepherds . Guido . . 93

Plain of the Jordan . . . Allom . . 95

Fall of Dagon Poussin . 97

Alexandria Bartlett . 99

John Baptist reproving Herod. Le Brun . 101

The Daughter of Jairus . . Delonne . 103

The Triumph of David . . Poussin . 105

Island of Ruad Bartlett . 107

•The Leper cleansed . . . Van Dyck 109

The Lake of Tiberias . . Allom. .111

The Wise Men's Offering. . Poussin . 113

Laodicea Allom . .115

Mordecai's Exaltation . . . Detroy. . 117

Mount Hermon .... Bartlett . 119 Flight into Egypt .... Vanderwerf 121

The Slave- Market . . . Allom . .123

Meeting of Jacob and Joseph . Rubens . 125

Conversion of Saul . . . Poussin . 127

Tyre Bartlett . 129

Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. Poussin . 131

THE GALLERY

OF

SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN.

SPADA.

" Joyous seemed no lesse Than the glad marchant that doth view from ground His ship far come from watrie wildemesse." Spenser.

LUKE XV.

The prodigal who in the day of his prosperity had forgotten his father, in the day of his misery remembered him, and resolved to return to him. This was the best proof that could be given that he had indeed " come to himself." He delayed not to execute his intention. With what melancholy thoughts — abhorrent of the past, and doubtful of the future — did he not now retrace the long and weary way, which a few years before he had trodden in high hope and joy, which had made that way seem short.

At length he drew near to his father's house : but when he came within sight of home, his heart misgave him, and the consciousness of his folly, and the shame of his nakedness and wretched appearance, kept him at a distance, doubtful of his reception, and hesitating how to make his approach. While hovering around at a distance — " while still a great way off" — the father's eye was attracted by his uncertain movements, and viewing him narrowly, recognized in the forlorn stranger his long-lost son. With an impulsive burst of overpowering pity and affection — such as fathers only know — he ran towards him. His miserable appearance — his return there, told his tale well enough, and needed not the words of repentance and self-abasement which the son had prepared himself to utter. The father gave him not time to say a word, but fell upon his neck and kissed him. Instead, therefore, of falling at his feet, and humbling

II. B

6 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

himself in the dust before him, it was in the close embrace of his father's arms that he let fall the words of his repentance — " Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son." He probably would have added, as he had intended — " Make me as one of thy hired servants." But his father anticipated him by saying to the servants, who had by this time come up — " Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him." The " best robe" here indicated was the stole, or long robe, such as servants never wore — so that by this the father emphatically indicated his intention to treat him not as a servant, but as a son. Nor was this all : for the father added — " Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet," which speaks the same language as the previous direction, the shoes being signs not only of freedom, but of dignity and honour. And yet further, — inasmuch as " there is joy even in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance," — the father resolved to signalize the event which made his aged heart glad, by a feast of joy. " Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and let us eat, and be merry : for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is found." The fitness of this joy was intensely felt by the happy parent ; and when the elder son, correct and regular in his habits, who had been abroad in the fields, came home at evening, and was so much affronted at this festivity on account of the returned prodigal that he refused to go into the house — " he came out and entreated him." This son remonstrated, that he who had sedulously served his father, and had been at all times obedient to his commands, had never received from him so much as a kid wherewith to make merry with his friends. " But," said he, bitterly, " as soon as this thy son was come, who hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf." To which the father, maintaining the natural truthfulness of his beautiful character to the last, with soothing earnestness replied : " Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry and be glad : for this, thy brother, was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and is found."

Jb

1

••:■■

1

^

^		Jl
\	P	§
s	g
1	9
si	.
^
d $

'$

THE PROFANERS EXPELLED FROM THE TEMPLE.

JOUVENET.

" Hence, avaunt, 'tis holy ground ! " Gray.

JOHN II. 13-22.

In addition to the three ante-courts of the temple, there was a yet larger external area, which comprised a paved uncovered place enclosed hy a great portico. This was the court of the Gentiles. It was separated from the inner temple hy a lattice-work, to which there was an ascent of four steps j and at the entrance of this lattice, there was an inscription notifying that no " stranger " was permitted to go further. Many of the Israelites who came from a distance to the feast of the Passover, had no opportunity of bringing to Jerusalem the animals they intended to offer in sacrifice, or which they required to celebrate the feast ; and it was therefore necessary that they should obtain them on the spot. To avail themselves of this source of gain, many dealers in cattle brought their animals for sale to this place ; where also the vendors of doves, salt, flour, and other articles required for offerings, kept their stalls, and the money-changers had their tables for the purpose of exchanging, generally at a good profit to themselves, large coins and foreign monies for the Jewish half-shekels, which were alone accepted by the priests in payment of the yearly tribute paid by every Jew to the temple. The noise and confusion produced by all this worldly traffic in the house of God, was often very great, and not only disturbed the worshippers, but offered scenes and suggested ideas very unsuitable to the house of prayer. The Jews themselves were sensible of this ; but they excused it on the ground of the convenience of being able to obtain on the spot what the sacred services required. Many also had a pecuniary benefit in this traffic, and none had any such interest in resisting it, or in attempting to put it down.

It was therefore proper that Christ, who came to purify the theocracy in genera], should commence his ministry in Jerusalem, by the symbolical action of clearing the

8 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

temple of all these profanations. " When he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen ; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, ' Take these things hence : make not my Father's house a house of merchandise."

In this remarkable transaction, it is clear that Christ acted on the authority of his Messiah's calling, which he thus asserted and made known ; and the submission which was yielded to him must not be ascribed to the terrors of the scourge which he wielded, so much as to the awe inspired by his holy earnestness, and the majestic severity which his aspect assumed, acting upon their secret consciousness of wrong- doing.

This transaction, which St. John places at the commencement of our Lord's ministry, at the first Passover he attended after his baptism by John, is very similar to one which the other Evangelists place at his third celebration of the Passover. Some think that these transactions were one, and that John was not strictly observant of the order of time. But others allege that the same circumstance occurred twice : and there is certainly no improbability in assuming that Christ checked this abuse whenever it came under his notice. This would have been in entire accordance with his office and character; and it would seem that his subsequent act of the same kind was aided by the remembrance of the holy zeal he had formerly manifested, and by the increased regard in which he was then held by the great body of the people.

.••

■

REBEKAH AT THE WELL.

COYPEL.

Ah, in full measure was the draught repaid Which was bestowed by that fair Aramite Upon the stranger.

GENESIS XXIY. 15-18.

The elder branch of Abraham's family remained still in Haran, having there a settled abode ; while Abraham dwelt in tents, removing from one place to another, in the distant land of Canaan — a land of strangers. One evening the damsels of Haran went forth, according to their wont, to draw water from the public well in the outskirts of the town. Beside the well they beheld an aged stranger — seemingly a traveller from distant parts — waiting, and giving rest to his kneeling camels, whose number — for there were ten of them — and that of the attendants, indicated that the stranger was a person of wealth and consequence, or else that he was the chief servant of some great master. And it was so. The man was no other than the steward of Abraham, who had come all this way to seek, in the family of the patriarch, a wife for his young master, Isaac. He had, on his arrival, tarried there at the well, knowing that the maiden, whom the providence of God had destined to become the mistress of Abraham's camp, (for Sarah was then dead,) would not fail to be among those who came forth to draw water at even-tide. While waiting there, he prayed silently to God, to prosper his anxious undertaking; and he humbly ventured to indicate a sign by which he might be able to recognize, without mistake, the destined bride of Isaac. He had scarcely finished his prayer, when the virgins of Haran came forth to the well. One of their number engaged his attention by her surpassing comeliness. Her he accosted, as she came up the steps of the well, with her pitcher filled with water. He asked her to let him drink : and, with ready kindness, she instantly lowered her water- vessel upon her arm, saying, " Drink, my lord :" and when he had done, she added, " I will also draw for thy camels, until they have done drinking." She did so : returning again and again to the well, and emptying the contents of her pitcher into the trough, from which the thirsty camels might drink. This was the sign the steward had requested, as an indication of the damsel appointed for his master. Overjoyed at the success of his errand thus far, he took a pair of golden bracelets, and a nose-jewel of the same metal, and presented them to her ; asking her whose daughter she was, and whether II. c

10 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

her father's house could afford him accommodation for the night. She answered that she was the daughter of Bethuel, (the son of Abraham's brother, Nahor,) and that her father's house had ample room for him and his. At this news, the faithful servant coiild not contain himself. He bowed his head, and worshipped God, saying, "Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left my master destitute of his mercy and his truth : the Lord having now led me, in the right way, to the house of my master's kinsmen." On hearing this, which revealed to her strange tidings, Rebekah — for that was the damsel's name — hurried home, and related to her family what had happened to her, and what she had heard, not forgetting to direct attention to the handsome and costly ornaments which had been given to her.

Rebekah had a brother, named Laban, who forthwith went out to the well, where the servant of Abraham still remained, and invited him to the house, saying : " Come in, thou blessed of the Lord ; wherefore standest thou without ? for I have prepared the house, and a place for the camels." In fact, nothing was wanting to manifest his hospitable purposes ; for when they reached the place, Laban and his people ungirded the camels, gave them straw and provender, and provided water to wash the feet of Eliezer and the feet of his men. The stranger was then invited to eat : but he declined to do so, until he had discharged the trust confided to him. He therefore stated the great prosperity with which the Lord had blessed his master, in the land of his sojourn- ing ; and that his heir was Isaac, a wife for whom he had been sent to seek among the kindred of Abraham. He then described how his attention had been directed to Rebekah, and concluded : " And now, if ye will deal truly and kindly with my master, tell me ; and if not, tell me : that I may turn to the right hand or to the left." Laban and Bethuel answered promptly, that the will of God was too plainly indicated, for them to have anything more to do than to give their willing consent to the marriage : — " Behold, Rebekah is before thee. Take her, and go, and let her be the wife of thy master's son, as the Lord hath spoken." Accordingly, the next morning saw Eliezer and his company returning joyfully home, with a bride for their master's son. By him she was most tenderly welcomed. It is emphatically said that " he loved her •" and in her love he found some comfort for the still recent loss of a most affectionate mother.

>

11

INTERIOR OF AN EASTERN HOUSE.

' But for to tell the sumptuous aray Of that great chamber would be labour lost : For living wit, I weone, cannot display The roiall riches and exceeding cost Of every pillar and of every post.

So was that chamber clad in goodly wize, And rownd about it many beds were dight As whylome was the antique worldes guize." Spenser.

The domestic architecture of the nations which inhabit the countries from the Persian Gulf to the river Nile, and from the Nile along the southern shores of the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, is in general style and character the same, and is indeed varied only in some unimportant particulars by conditions which the local circumstances of a given district may impose. The source of this resemblance is to be found in the common derivation of the architecture of all these regions from that of the Arabians : and as the architecture of the Arabians does not appear to have sustained any material alteration from the remote times in which it was the same aS that of the Jews in Palestine, we are entitled to consider that a house which we find in any part of this extensive tract of country, does not materially differ from a house of corresponding rank among the ancient Hebrews. The proof of this is found in the perfect sufficiency of such abodes to illustrate and explain all the particulars con- cerning houses, which occur in the Sacred Scriptures. Such particulars are not numerous with reference to the interior arrangements of the houses, and to the appearance and character of the principal rooms j but, so far as they go, we are enabled to gather from them that the chief apartments in the palaces of the great, and in the mansions of the wealthy, among the ancient Israelites, even from the time of Solomon downward, must have exhibited a strong general resemblance to the very beautiful example of an Eastern interior exhibited in our present engraving.

It is well remarked by Mr. Urquhart, that in these countries "the room is the principle of all architecture. No one cares for the external form of a building. Its proportions, its elegance, or effect, are never considered. The architect, as the pro- prietor, thinks only of the apartments, and there no deviation from fixed principles is tolerated. Money and space are equally sacrificed, to give to each chamber its form, light, and facility of access, without having to traverse a passage or another apartment to reach it."

12 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

The principal rooms, such as that represented in the engraving, are square, and in front of the square is an ohlong space, generally depressed a step, and sometimes, in large apartments, separated by balustrades or by columns. This depressed place is where the servants remain in attendance. The bottom of the room is lined with wooden work ; and here are the cupboards for stowing away the bedding, recesses for vases containing water, sherbet, or flowers ; and, in the best rooms of the best houses, marble slabs and basins for a fountain. In this lower compartment also are the doors, and over the doors are hung curtains, which are held up by the attendants as any one enters or goes out. Such door-curtains were in use among the Hebrews, of which conspicuous examples are afforded in the vails of the tabernacle and temple.

The square or raised portion of the room is surrounded on three sides by a broad sofa, the existence of which among the Hebrews is somewhat doubtful, at least in the modern Oriental use; although it appears that something of the kind was in use among them in and before the time of Christ. The rich effect produced by the delicate Arabesque tracery, wrought in the hard and brilliantly white plaster or stone, sometimes set off by a ground of rich blue, and relieved by gilding not untastefully applied, with the admirable and nice joining of the lattice-work which forms the windows, and which claims to be one of the greatest triumphs of Oriental art — all this has a richness of effect, without tawdriness, which requires to be seen to be properly appreciated, although a very fair notion of it may be formed from the engraving.

In the higher sorts of buildings, costly and variegated marbles are employed in the pavements, and about the entrances and windows, reminding one of the variously coloured stones in the pavements of the Persian palace-court, Esth. i. 6 ; and the " glistering stones, and stones of divers colours," of 1 Chron. xxix. 2.

►

<r

N

^

1

13

THE GOLDEN CALF.

POUSSIN.

" I saw an image, all of massive gold, Placed on high upon an altare faire, That all, which did the same from farre behold, Might worship it." Spenser.

EXODUS XXXII.

It seems marvellously strange that a people who had recently witnessed such signal manifestations of the power and greatness of the God who had brought them forth from the bondage of Egypt, and who had ample cause to know that they were the objects of his special care and providence, should so soon turn aside to idols. Nor seems it less strange that they who had but lately heard his awful voice proclaim — " Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them," — should so speedily set themselves up an idol-image, and that, of all the idols in the world, they should choose to degrade the glory of the invisible God to the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. All this is very strange, but not unaccountable ; as few strange things are, when they come to be thoroughly understood.

We know that the Israelites, during their long sojourn in an idolatrous land, had not preserved without taint the pure and simple faith which their fathers had trans- mitted to them. Without altogether forgetting God, they had to some extent adopted the religious symbols of the' great nation in whose land they dwelt. One of the most conspicuous features of the Egyptian worship, and the one most likely to engage the attention of a pastoral people like the Hebrews, was the adoration paid to a live bull at Memphis, who, under the name of Apis, was supposed to represent Osiris, and was accordingly worshipped in that character. His worship extended throughout Egypt ; for although the actual presence of the god was confined to Memphis, images of him were abundant, and received the same adoration as was paid to the living animal. In these representations, Apis was sometimes figured in his natural shape, with the symbols of Osiris upon his head ; but he frequently appeared under the likeness of a man with the head of an ox.

14 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

Now, when Moses had been away in the mountain much longer than had been expected, the encamped Israelites began to fancy that he never would return ; and feeling the restraint of their great master's hand withdrawn, they now gave way to the propensity acquired in Egypt, and demanded of Aaron to be provided with a visible symbol of the God they served, after the manner of other nations. The brother of the great lawgiver lacked the moral courage and the sustaining faith required of him who would stem the torrent of a general impulse ; he thought it more prudent to temporize with it, that he might retain some control over its developments. He therefore caused the figure of a young .bull to be cast in gold, with the metal which the votaries had provided by the general contribution of their ear-rings for the purpose. In presenting this familiar symbol, Aaron took care to remind them that they were worshippers not of Osiris but of Jehovah ; and in point of fact, there seems to have been no inten- tion to abandon the worship of the Lord, as the final object of all their services; but they would worship Him under this material symbol, which was not only degrading to his greatness, and adverse to the first principles of the worship he required, but had in the strongest manner been interdicted, as putting the High and Lofty One, who filleth eternity, upon the same low level with the nullities which the neighbouring nations worshipped as gods, and as having an obvious tendency to produce an entire alienation from him. The danger is not difficult to conceive. If the Israelites had been allowed to go on worshipping God under a symbol appropriate to Osiris, they would soon have come to regard Jehovah and Osiris as the same, and eventually the first intention of this worship would be lost in the popular service of the Egyptian idol.

The day after the completion of the image was, as Aaron reminded the people, a feast to the Lord ; and that was the feast they were to celebrate. But they celebrated it after the Egyptian fashion, with dances and sports around the golden image which they had set up.

It was at this juncture that Moses, accompanied by his servant Joshua, returned from the mountain, with the tables of the law, written by the finger of God, in his hands. The whole scene transacting in the plain below bursts suddenly upon him, and, in the vehemence of his grief and indignation, he let fall the sacred tablets which he held in his arms, and they were broken in pieces. He hastened down into the midst of the festive crowd, and such was the force of the authority he had established, that his presence stayed the limbs of the dancers, and rendered the voice of the singers mute. The meekest of men was terrible in his wrath. He overthrew and utterly destroyed the idol which had been set up, and compelled the votaries to drink the nauseous dregs mingled with water ; and then he stood at the gate of the camp, and cried — " Who is on the Lord's side ? let him come to me." At that call the Levites came ; and he commanded them to gird on their swords, and pass through the camp, slaying without compunction all whom they could recognize as having taken an active part in this abomination. This was done ; and the next day Moses said to the people — " Ye have sinned a great sin ;" — but promised to go and intercede for them with the Lord whom they had so grievously offended. He did so : and they were once more forgiven.

t

.

15

SMYRNA.

Oh that it were as it was wont to be !

When thy old friends of fire, all full of Thee,

Fought against frowns with smiles ; gave glorious chase

To persecutions, and against the face

Of death and fiercest dangers, durst with brave

And sober pace march on to meet a grave. Crashaw.

In noticing the remains of the ancient Smyrna, we mentioned the theatre, and alluded to the martyrdom of the venerable Polycarp which took place in that spot. As that event is by far the most interesting circumstance in the ecclesiastical history of Smyrna, we may venture to state it more particularly before proceeding to describe the condition of the modern Smyrna.

In Rev. ii. 10, the message to the angel, or minister, of the church of Smyrna con- tains the words — " Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer : be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." It is generally understood, on the authority of Irenseus, that the "angel" thus addressed was no other than Polycarp, who was a disciple of St. John. This point is not free from doubt ; but as it has been shown that he might have been thirty-nine years old at the time the book of Revelation was written, there is nothing improbable in it ; and the passage acquires a new interest, if we allow ourselves to regard it as a prediction of that martyrdom which actually took place, accompanied by a promise well calculated to sustain the heart in the hour of its trial.

The age of Polycarp at the time of his martyrdom, and the year in which he suffered, are matters of dispute, into which we need not enter. The lowest date assigned to this event is 147 a.d., and the highest 169 ; while the lowest age that can be assigned him at his death is eighty-six years, and the highest exceeds one hundred. Upon the whole, the date of 147 is perhaps the most satisfactory, although it is not that which is usually received. The matter is of importance only as determining the persecution under which the martyr suffered, and the reign in which it occurred. The earlier date would assign it to the reign of Antoninus Pius, and the latter to that of Marcus Aurelius. In both reigns, however, the Christians were persecuted, although with much more severity in the latter than in the former.

Be this as it may, in one of the persecutions of the time, which extended to Asia Minor, and which became violent in Smyrna, a cry was raised for the blood of Polycarp, known as the foremost man among the Christians of the place. He had, by the advice of his friends, withdrawn to a neighbouring village, where he might have remained in safety. But when his enemies proceeded to put some of the brethren to the torture, to compel them to disclose his retreat, he cried, "The Lord's will be done," and declining

16 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

to take any further means of concealment, he presented himself to those who were sent to apprehend him, and cheerfully conversed with them. He directed refreshments to he placed before them, and received their permission to remain undisturbed for one hour. That hour, and another after it, he spent in prayer, which he poured forth with such sweetness and fervour, that the soldiers were softened, and lamented the unpleasant duty which had fallen upon them.

Polycarp was then placed upon an ass, and conducted towards the city. On the way they were met by the irenarch Herod, and his father Nicetas — both of them active persecutors, and prime movers of the cry which had been raised against the " atheists," as the Christians were called because they refused to worship the gods of the people. They took him into their chariot, and with great show of pity pressed the old man to save his life by the simple ceremonies of swearing by the genius of Caesar, and of offer- ing sacrifice. But he refused so steadily, that they thrust him forth from the chariot with such violence, that liis thigh was much injured by the fall. As soon as he had recovered, he proceeded with great cheerfulness, under the conduct of the guard, to the tribunal, where the proconsul had already taken his seat. This magistrate having received his confession that he was Polycarp, began to urge him to recant : " Regard thy great age," he said, " swear by the genius of Caesar, and say with us ' Away with the atheists.' " On which the venerable man surveyed the crowd with a fixed coun- tenance, and, looking up to heaven, cried, " Away with the atheists ! " Not satisfied with this, the proconsul urged him to swear, and called upon him to blaspheme Christ. To which Polycarp answered with holy indignation, " Fourscore years and six have I served him, and in all that time he has never done me wrong : how then can I blas- pheme my King and my Saviour?" When further urged, he said, plainly, "I am a Christian." When threatened with the wild beasts, he answered calmly, "Bring them forth ; " and when with the fire, he reminded them of the everlasting fires which awaited the ungodly. Finding that all attempts to shake the firm purpose of his soul was hopeless, the proconsul sentenced him to the flames. Wood sufficient to form a pile was soon brought, and the martyr then divested himself of his outer raiments. The executioners were proceeding to nail him to the stake, but he said, " Let me remain as I am ; for He who giveth me strength to sustain the fire, will enable me, without such fastening, to remain unmoved therein." He was therefore bound to the stake, without being, as usual, nailed thereto. He then uttered a short prayer, or rather thanksgiving, which has been preserved to us. " I bless thee," he said, " that thou hast counted me worthy of this day and of this hour, and to receive my portion with the number of martyrs, in the cup of Christ." He had no sooner uttered " Amen ! " in a clear and unshaken voice, than the torches were applied, and the flames rose high around him. When it was observed that he remained amid the devouring flame*, calm and unmoved, much longer than was expected, the confector, on the demand of the people, approached, and plunged a sword into his breast. The Christians attempted to carry off the body entire ; but they were prevented by the irenarch, and it was reduced to ashes. The bones were, however, gathered up, and decently interred by the faithful.

i

17

SAMSON AND DELILAH.

RUBENS.

" O impotency of mind, in body strong ! Milton,

JUDGES XYI.

The Philistines, whose heads the Hebrew champion had often bent low in battle, had never been able to discover the secret of that mighty strength with which he beyond all men had been gifted. But although they knew not the secret of his strength, they knew but too well the secret of his weakness j and when, therefore, they heard that he had given himself up to a besotted attachment to a woman of their own nation, who dwelt in the vale of Sorek, they resolved by her means to work his overthrow. The chief of the five states composing the Philistine dominions, applied secretly to the hero's paramour, whose name was Delilah, to induce her to learn " wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him." The temptation offered to her, to betray the too-confiding Hebrew, was eleven thousand pieces of silver from each of the five princes. If the pieces of silver were shekels, as is probable, this would make a total of above six hundred pounds — a vast bribe for that age and country.

The woman was won. She plied all her arts of blandishment and persuasion, and by taking advantage of his yielding modes, and expressing admiration of his wonderful exploits, aimed to throw him off his guard, and to win his secret from him unawares. But he as yet retained sufficient self-possession to elude her cunning, and he amused her by stating that if he were bound with seven green withes which had never been dried, he should become weak as another man. This was not true ; and Samson's resort to this falsehood, instead of decisively repelling this insidious attack upon his " fort of silence," is a symptom of that obtuseness of conscience which marks his whole career. The watchful "lords of the Philistines" being apprised of this disclosure, eagerly provided Delilah with the seven green withes, with which she, probably in a sportive way, as if to test the truth of his statements, bound fast the man of strength. Hoping that all was safe, the woman cried out, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson !" and at that word several stout warriors, who had been concealed in an adjoining chamber, rushed in to secure their prize. But the hero rose in his strength ; the strong withes were broken from his hands like a thread burnt by fire ; and his enemies fled before him.

Delilah dared not renew prematurely her attempts to worm him out of his secret. But at length, when the suspicion which this affair had created appeared to be lulled, II. e

18 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

and when her blandishments had again assured her of her advantage over him, she ventured to return to the subject. He then told her that new ropes of the strongest kind, which had never been used, would suffice to compress the strength by which the green withes had been broken. But the result was the same as before ; for when the alarm was given, " he broke them from his arms like a thread." Once more the woman ventured ; and this time Samson told her that if all the locks of the long hair, which as a Nazarite he had never shorn, were interwoven with the warp which was in a loom hard by, his strength would altogether fail him. She accordingly interwove them while he slept; and to render her work secure, she fastened the whole with a strong pin, like those with which tents are fastened to the ground. But when the alarm was given, Samson arose, drawing away the whole apparatus with his hair, and again the men who had hoped to make him captive hastened from the place.

One would think that after so much frustration, the woman would have abandoned her enterprise as hopeless. But the inducements were great to a woman of her cha- racter, and she knew too well the power of her wiles, and the moral weakness of the man she had enthralled. She assailed him from day to day in such language as this — " How canst thou say I love thee, when thy heart is not with me ? Thou hast mocked me these three times, and hast not told me wherein thy great strength lieth," — till at last, worried out with her continual importunities, and overwhelmed by the violence of his insensate passion for this worthless woman, he yielded up his secret, and told her all his heart. She saw that he had done so ; and hastened to make the great fact known to the Philistines, who forthwith came to her with the promised money in their hands. The secret was, that he was a Nazarite, consecrated to God from his mother's womb, and that by the tenure of the obligations which that state imposed, he held his mighty strength. Of that state his unshorn locks formed an essential condition, and if these were removed, the bond by which he held his power would be broken, and he would become as other men.

Assured that her object was now attained, this artful woman soon lulled him to sleep upon her knees, doubtless after a fashion still very common in the East, where it is not unusual for a husband, or full-grown son, to sleep upon his wife or mother's knees. The woman sits cross-legged upon the mat or carpet, and the man lays himself down with his head upon her lap, and she gently taps, strokes, sings, and soothes him ' to sleep. When Delilah was satisfied that her victim slept soundly, a man shaved off his hair, and by that act took his strength and glory from him. When the woman cried — " The Philistines be upon thee, Samson," — he awoke, and, ignorant of what had - befallen him, said — " I will go out, as at other times before, and shake myself," — meaning, probably, that he would free himself from the bands which his betrayer had doubtless placed upon his hands. But vain were all his efforts. He saw that the Lord had departed from him : and in the shock produced by that terrible conviction, the Philistines made him their captive, and led him away to Gaza, where they put out his eyes, and set him to grind corn, like a slave, in the prison-house.

*<

I

@ j

19

THE CAVES OF CAEMEL.

Or, if at home they stay, Yet are they, day by day, In spirit journeying through the glorious land. Keblb.

In the previous notices of Mount Carmel, the caverns in which it abounds have been slightly mentioned, and some of them may now claim a more particular notice.

As the ouly scriptural incidents with which Carmel is connected, are those in which the prophet Elijah appears, tradition has appropriated a sufficient number of these caverns to him. That holy man was, as we know, attached to the congenial solitude, and valued the safety, which mountains offered ; and, from the tone of his history, and of such of his thoughts as that history records, we may with certainty infer that his mind was of that order which feels that to rest for a time among the everlasting hills, casting a wide survey over the vast ocean, or over the labyrinth of mountain-tops, with the valleys entangled far below, and the silver thread-like streams that first rush down the ravines, and then meander through the vales — beholding at safe distance the busy world and the turmoil of man — was wholesome to his soul, friendly to the cultivation of his faith, favourable to a directer intercourse with God, and afforded the means for more calmly weighing both worlds — this world and that to come — than could be realized under other circumstances. Doubtless —

" There are in this loud stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide

Of th' everlasting clime ; Who carry music in their heart, Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet, Because their hearts a holy strain repeat."

But even they are the better and happier for such seasons of refreshing ; and there are others, of whom Elijah seems to have been one, who are even —

" Fain to doubt how Faith could dwell Amid that dreary glare, in this world's citadel."

When Elijah dwelt among the mountains, he doubtless availed himself of the shelter of the caves which they contained. In Carmel, as elsewhere, one cavern assuredly afforded a sufficient retreat to him ; but in order to spread the influence of his name over as wide a surface as possible, tradition has assigned to him many caves, making for him a luxurious provision of a whole suite of caverned apartments — there being a separate one for every slightly varied use of which his life might be supposed capable.

20 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

There is first the grotto, which is immediately under the altar of the new church, and which is affirmed by tradition to have been the oratory of the prophet, and the place where he received communications from Heaven. The cavern is of no great depth. The entrance to it is railed, and within it stands a plain altar, at which mass is performed on that day in the year which the Roman Calendar sets apart to the memory of " St. Elias." The special appropriation of the cave to his honour is indicated by the presence of a wooden statue of the prophet, of no very prepossessing appearance, in the act of giving a blow with a formidable club to one of the false prophets of Baal, who is in the agonies of death at his feet.

Between two and three hundred paces from the monastery, there is another cavern, which is alleged to have formed the actual lodging of Elijah, where he lay hid from the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel. This grotto is nearly of a square figure, and is about fifteen or sixteen feet in length, by ten or twelve feet wide. In the time of Elijah, as tradition states, there was no other entrance to this cavern than by a hole in the roof, through which the prophet descended and went up. This aperture is now closed, and access is afforded by a door which the monks usually keep carefully closed, to prevent the intrusion of the profane into a sanctuary which they regard with peculiar reverence. At the end of this grotto is an altar, set upon a kind of rocky bank, which is believed to have formed the bed of the self-denying prophet.

The cave represented in the present engraving has already been described in vol. i., p. 112. The tradition which has procured for it the name of the School of Elijah is minutely stated by the old Latin writers and French travellers, who inform us that it was here the prophet used to receive and address the people who came to Mount Carmel to consult him as an oracle, and that here he went on certain days to meet his disciples, and impart to them his instructions, and the emanations of that divine light which he received from Heaven. The view which is commanded from the outside of this cavern is most delightful and elevating. A recent, and somewhat lively traveller, describes the monks as not insensible to its influence. One of them, Padre Camillo, who had been his guide to the place, and was there detained with him by rain, exclaimed, " What a place for uninterrupted meditation ! Here, indeed, (he continued, spouting out a pas- sage from his favourite historian,) the plants, the rugged rocks, the moaning of the wind, the prospect of the ocean, the murmuring of the streams, the lowing of the herds, the frisking of the flocks, the shady valley, the singing of the birds, the delightful clime, the variety of the flowers, the odour of the aromatic herbs, how they refresh the soul ! " The traveller (Major Skinner) adds — " This sounded very sweetly in Italian ; and as he delivered it standing in the mouth of the cave, as if he had been before an altar where so much of what he mentioned was in reality assembled, it came with great force, for the catalogue is not overcharged."

3s

*

*i

21

♦,

THE DELUGE.

POUSSIN.

" One universal ocean covers all : All but this little spot, this mountain-top, This lonely isle that every moment lessens. How awfully terrific 1 0, how dread The soul-appalling prospect 1 The flashing billows, far as eye can stretch, Rolling in foam-clad mountains, us surround, And hasten onward to entomb us here. Down pour their ceaseless cataracts, the black clouds, With redly-glancing lightning half illumed ; While roar of waters, thunders, drowning beasts, And shriek and wail of the last remnant left Of human kind, in deafening discord mix Most horrible." Pennie.

GENESIS YII.

There are some among us who know the exceeding bitter cry that rises from all beholders, when one poor soul sinks, and rises not again — is lost, in the great deep. There are many among us who can tell how the pulse of general life beats with one great and torturing throb at the tidings that some goodly vessel, laden with human creatures, has sunk beneath the waters. These things strike us — they happen under our eyes; they are things of our own day. But we contemplate with comparative calmness, merely because remote in time, the race of man — nearly the whole race — struggling amid the waters; and hear, without great emotion, the distant shriek of a drowned world. This is not well. The world was drowned for sin; and the record of its punishment was left us for our profit. It is also a matter which concerns us nearly. The race was our own ; and had not the infinite mercy of God spared the family of one righteous man, the history of the world since then had been a blank; the myriads of human creatures who since then have animated the world by their deeds, their hopes, their griefs, their fears, would not have had any being ; and we ourselves, who glory in our high aims, our marvellous arts, and the wide scope of our knowledge, had never breathed. And yet more nearly does that tremendous manifestation of the Divine wrath concern us, inasmuch as it conveys to us the assured knowledge, that sin is that ii. F

22 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

abominable thing which God hates ; and may well enable us to guess how fearful might be our own doom, had not a Redeemer been found for us.

The matter being thus one of great concernment to us, and yet one in regard to which our feelings are peculiarly apathetic, our better nature owes a debt to any one whose more active imagination raises our sluggish comprehension, and, by depicting the terror and pathos of the greatest judgment which the world has seen since its creation, constrains to cry out — " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God I"

Many such representations, well suited to awaken salutary thoughts, have been given in verse, in animated prose, and in painting. Of the last, no one representation is comparable to that of Poussin, from which the present engraving has been copied. It was painted in 1644, expressly for Cardinal Richelieu, and, as the artist was then in his seventieth year, it embodies the results of much experience and careful study. It is now in the Louvre, and is regarded as an extraordinary work of art, admirable for the simplicity of its composition, its unobtrusive colouring, and the singular paucity of its objects, as well as for the awful grandeur of it3 effect, and its comprehensive expres- sion. It is indeed a precious example of the fact, that, to a master-mind, but few details are necessary, to represent an event even of the most sublime and complicated character, with great power and suggestive truth. A family is seen committing its last hopes to a boat, in which also a drowning man endeavours to find safety. Another boat is wrecked in the middle distance, and it is clear that those who were on board must perish. Iu the foreground, one more supports himself upon the waters on a board, and another is upon a horse, grasping its mane with one hand, and with the other endeavours to sustain the head of the noble beast above the waters. A serpent, driven from its retreat by the encroaching flood, wreathes its extended form upon the rocks, and is perhaps intended to bring to mind the Old Serpent, through whose machinations all this ruin has been caused. Meanwhile, the lightnings break through the dark clouds, and disclose the ark, containing the ransomed few, floating safely in the distance.

A public valuation, made in 1816, reckoned the worth of this painting at 120,000 francs, equal to 5,000 pounds sterling.

*

I 1

23

HIEEAPOLIS.

" Remnants of things that have passed away, Fragments of stone, rear'd by creatures of clay." Byron.

Hierapolis is mentioned in Scripture only as the seat of a church, in which Paul's companion, Epaphras, took much interest, and for which, with the churches in Colosse and Laodicea, he " laboured fervently in prayers, that they might stand perfect and complete in all the will of God." Col. iv. 12, 13. That it is mentioned in connection with these other towns is explained by the fact, that Hierapolis is but seven miles north of Laodicea, and about sixteen miles west-by-north of Colosse.

The name of Hierapolis, or Holy City, was common to this and several other towns mentioned by the ancient geographers. This one derived its name from the number of its warm springs to which healing virtues were ascribed, and which occasioned the erection of a greater number of temples than usually belonged to a town of its rank. There are coins still extant bearing figures of various gods who had temples there. The town stood in the ancient Phrygia, on the borders of Caria and Lydia, and is situated on the Scamander, on a portion of Mount Mesogis.

The place now bears the name of Pambouk Kalesi, or Cotton Castle. It would perplex any one to conjecture the origin of such a name ; but it is really owing to the peculiar appearance which the place presents to an approaching stranger who sees before him the sloping face of a hill, of a pure white and apparently fleecy texture, swelling into little eminences, and resembing a mass of cotton wool laid upon the surface, and slightly agitated by the wind. This appearance is a pure white concrete substance, generated by the water flowing over the steep, and leaving behind a chalky deposit. On being tested with acids it is found to ferment, and like the dropping - well of Knaresborough, and from the same cause, leaves behind an incrustated surface of carbonate of lime wherever it flows. Dr. Chandler, who says that at first he had taken the cliff for chalk, states that on a nearer approach it rather suggested to him the idea of an immense frozen cascade, the surface wavy, as of water at once fixed, or in its headlong course suddenly petrified. The abundance of this concrete deposit was formerly so great that, as we are told, on the water being conducted around the gardens and vineyards, the channels speedily became long fences, each of a single stone. Some recent travellers have ventured to deride this story ; but a closer inspec- tion would have shown them that the road up to the ruins, which appears as a wide and high causeway, is a petrifaction of this nature, and it overlooks many green spots, once vineyards and gardens, separated by partitions of the same material.

24 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

Above the cliff is an extended terrace, on which the ruins of the ancient city are seen. These ruins are still sufficient to evince the ancient importance of the place. The main street can still be traced through its whole extent, and among the other remains by which it is bordered are those of three Christian churches, one of which is about 300 feet long. Pococke, who was at Hierapolis above a century ago, thought he could distinguish near the middle of this street, just above the warm springs, some remains of the temple of Apollo, of which ancient writers speak. But more conspicuous are the remains of the stadium and the theatre, both in a state of uncommon preservation. These remains, with ruins of a modern fortress, and fragments of massive wall, occupy a-site of about a mile in length, by about two hundred paces broad. Among the ruins some sarcophagi, with and without covers, some sculptured stones, and some inscrip- tions have been found. The last are mostly in the face of the wall of the theatre, and few of them are now legible. In one the name of the city, Hierapolis, might formerly be deciphered ; and on another, an encomium in verse, which may be thus translated : " Hail, golden city Hierapolis, the spot to be preferred before any in wide Asia ; revered for the rills of the Nymphs ; adorned with splendour \"

Near the city was a famous subterraneous grotto, called Plutonium, from its supposed connection with the infernal regions. It was filled with mephitic vapours, like the Grotto del Cane in Italy. There was around it an area of about half an acre, which was usually filled with a dense black mist. Outside the fence of this area the air was usually wholesome, but within it was death. Bulls dropped down there, and were dragged forth lifeless ; and Strabo declares that some sparrows which he let loose, instantly fell down without life. It is likely that this mist was the condensed vapour of the tepid mineral springs, rendered noxious by the qualities of the soil. Like other natural wonders it was made subservient to the superstitious delusions of ancient idolatry ; for the eunuch-priests of Cybele claimed to be alone able to endure the mephitic mist, and obtained great credit on that account. They entered it, or passed over it, without damage. Some think that they had about them some powerful anti- dote. But, as it is said that on such occasions they kept their faces high in air, aud carefully held their breath even to the danger of suffocation, it seems likely that they had discovered that the poisonous vapour became so diluted at a certain height above the ground as not to be fatally injurious. This is the more probable, as the area in front of the grotto, to which these statements refer, was open to the external air. Mr. Cockerell, the architect, seems to have discovered this cave near the theatre, which is the position assigned to it by ancient writers ; and up the mountain side is a deep recess, far into the mountain, which had been taken for it till this discovery was made.

/// /A' / tf/f //./

LA. PRE

25

PETER'S SERMON.

WEST.

" How different is the scope and sway Of boons that God bestows ; The varying tongues that heretofore, On Shinar's plain with loud uproar,

Converted friends to foes, Here seemed like manna to descend, And made a foe far more than friend." Barton.

ACTS II.

In regard to the sermon delivered by Peter after the gifts of the Holy Spirit had descended upon the apostles, there are two points which well deserve our consideration. These are, that it was the first sermon under the new dispensation, as completed by the death and resurrection of our Lord ; and that it was successful, to the conversion of the hearers, beyond all sermons that were ever uttered.

The immediate occasion of this discourse was afforded by the astonishment of the people at the gift of tongues which the disciples had received, so that the foreign Jews then assembled from all parts at Jerusalem, heard them declare, in their own tongues, the wonderful works of God. Some supposed that they were " full of new wine." This roused Peter to vindicate the honour of God's gifts. " These," said he, " are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing that it is but the third hour of the day." This was con- clusive, for this was the hour of morning prayer, and it was a notorious custom of the Jews, not to take any food or drink till that hour had passed. Besides, as the distilled drinks, which are the bane of our day, were then unknown, and the wines were com- paratively weak, it was utterly improbable that so much should have been taken to cause intoxication before that hour. As it was not this, Peter proceeded to show what it really was. It was that out-pouring of God's spirit of which their own prophets had spoken, and which they had indicated as harbingers of many great and terrible things — many impending calamities. From all this, those who called on the name of the Lord should be delivered. He then proceeded to speak of Christ, showing that the scene which had occurred was in accordance with his promise, was a proof of his resur- rection, and of his exaltation, as the Messiah, to sit at God's right hand. " Therefore," he concluded, " let the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."

II. G

20 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

It was meet that this testimony for Christ should he first of all publicly borne by the man who had denied his Lord. No doubt that " when he thought thereon, he wept," even to this time, and long after ; and we can easily understand the natural eagerness with which he would come forward to confess before men the name he had denied, and to evince that with him the hour of worldly fear had passed. It is very observable, considering the effect which this address produced, that it exhibits none of the qualities which men are apt to regard as essential to that oratory which awakens popular emotion. It has no declamation, no pathos, no points of force. It is a close and well-reasoned discourse, full of arguments and proofs of the points to be estab- lished, suited to the capacity and training of the auditors. Yet it smote their hearts. They felt the truth of the great argument ; and if it were true, they had slain Him who was the desire of their nation, and the hope of their fathers. This thought was more than they could bear. " They were pricked to the heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?'" The answer was ready : " Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ." Accordingly, " those who gladly received the word were baptized ; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls."

Thus signally did the Lord honour the first preaching of the completed Gospel, and thus widely did he enable Peter to throw open the gates of that church, whose keys had for that purpose been committed to him. This day the gates were opened by him to the Jews, even though they had crucified the Lord of Life ; and not long after, it was he who opened them to the Gentiles, in the person of Cornelius the centurion. It is with reference to the honour thus laid upon Peter, of first opening the church to both Jews and Gentiles, that we may interpret the important words which Jesus had long before addressed to this favoured apostle : " I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Matt. xvi. 19.

o

■

THE SYNAGOGUE AT JERUSALEM.

" And shall not Israel's sons exulting come, Hail the glad beam, and claim their ancient home ? On David's throne shall David's offspring reign, And the dry bones be warm with life again." Heber.

The condition of the Jews in the city where their fathers reigned is, in many respects, a subject of peculiar interest. The time has long past when they were excluded from the walls of the holy city, and forbidden even to look upon it from the adjacent hills ; and they now dwell there in considerable numbers, and not with greater inconvenience than they are exposed to in other cities over which the Moslems have dominion. Their number is about three thousand. Here, as elsewhere, a particular quarter of the city is assigned to them, of which they are the exclusive inhabitants. This is upon the eastern part of Mount Zion ; and there, as is almost invariably the case in the Jews' quarter of every considerable town, the streets are the narrowest and foulest in Jerusalem. The buildings are also small, and generally in a more dilapidated and worst-kept condition than those which belong to the Moslems and the Christians. The offal of their slaughter- houses is cast down in the middle of the most frequented streets, and the pedestrian is every moment liable to step into pits full of putrid blood and mire, emitting the most horrible stench, and reeking with plagues of all sorts. At the same time, the ground is so favourable to draining, that half an hour's labour with the spade would suffice to clear these pest-holes, and disinfect the poisoned atmosphere.

The larger and best-conditioned portion of the resident Israelites are natives of the city, as of other parts of Western Asia, and are descended chiefly, it is supposed, from the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who were expelled from Western Europe by the successors of Charles V. A great part of the trade of Jerusalem is in their hands, and although scarcely any of them are affluent, very many of them indicate, in their dress and general appearance, the possession of a certain measure of competence. The Polish and German Jews constitute a distinct, and, to all appearance, a very inferior class. They have, for the most part, abandoned their native country for the purpose of laying their bones near "the city of their fathers' sepulchres " — a motive calculated to awaken our sympathies, although, as in this case, operating only upon persons in humble cir- cumstances, whose native homes offered little to counteract this inclination. They are destitute of property or employment, and subsist chiefly upon the funds collected from the rich Jews of Europe and Turkey for their support.

28 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

There are three synagogues in Jerusalem, although some state them as six, by counting as separate synagogues the four compartments into which one of them is divided. This is the synagogue of the Spanish, or rather native Jews. The dearness and scarcity of timber in the vicinity of Jerusalem has led to the general prevalence of domed or arched roofs, both in public and private buildings ; and through the unskil- fulness of the architecture, several arches are required to roof in comparatively small buildings. This small synagogue has four, and the like number of small apartments for worship are occupied by as many separate congregations. A recent American tra- veller (Dr. Olin), to whose interesting travels we are indebted for most of these par- ticulars, visited this synagogue at the time of worship. He thought the congregations rather indevout — ;which, however, is generally remarked of Hebrew congregations. " I was much impressed, however," he says, " as I always am in a synagogue, with the profound respect shown for the Book of the Law. It is preserved in a case of wood — an ark my companion called it — behind a splendid curtain of velvet. Several grave and venerable rabbins went in a company to remove it to the reading-desk. The whole assembly rose, and before the reading of the lessons, the sacred parchment, covered with a white cloth, was carried round to be reverently kissed by the worshippers. In reading, the rabbi who officiated pointed to the line with a silver stylus. Every look and motion connected with this part of their worship was expressive of the profoundest reverence. In- reading the Pentateuch, the rabbi and congregation bowed their heads very low at the occurrence of every emphatic word — indeed, of almost every word, the better to mark and impress upon their minds its solemn import. This practice, as will readily be conceived, gives a peculiar appearance to the assembly."

I

I

\

29

ELIJAH RAISING THE WIDOW'S SON.

WEST.

' Lo ! the slumber of death is now broken,

And, disconsolate mother, once more he is thine !" Hutton.

1 KINGS XYII.

When the prophet Elijah found no longer food, water, or safety in Israel, he withdrew to the town of Zarephath, or Sarepta, in the country of the Phoenicians. God had made it known to him that he had " commanded a widow woman to feed him there." How should she feed him ? — out of the abundance of her garners, and from the super- fluity of her wealth ? No — but out of the abundance of that faith which, although not one of Zion's daughters, she was enabled to manifest. It was not to a rich widow, but to one the poorest of the poor, that the prophet was sent. He found her gathering a few sticks, to prepare for herself and son what she believed to be their last food, with the single handful of meal which remained in her barrel, and with the small portion of oil which was left at the bottom of her cruse — that they might eat it, and die.

This was the woman to whom the thirsty and travel-worn prophet said : " Fetch me a little water, I pray thee, in a vessel." This was no small matter to ask, at a time when the whole land was consumed with drought ; and yet the prophet, at the first sight of the woman, in whom he recognised his destined entertainer, added — " Bring me a morsel of bread in thine hand." Alas, where was bread to be gotten by a poor widow in those days ! She told him her sad case. Though a heathen, she knew and respected Jehovah as the God of the Hebrews, and she must have perceived that Elijah was an Israelite — and probably from his peculiar dress she knew him to be a prophet, or, as she phrased it — " a man of God." This is indicated by the adjuration with which she addressed him — " As Jehovah, thy God, liveth." " It is no marvel," says Bishop Hall, " if the widow knew Elijah, since the ravens knew him."

The prophet, nevertheless, persisted in his request, and justified it by the surprising declaration — " For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth." This was a hard thing to believe. Human distrust had room for a thousand doubts and difficulties. But the woman's faith in the power of the great God of Israel, n. h

30 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

of whose ancient wonders she had heard, triumphed over them — and that at a time when the thousands of Israel, who signed themselves by the name of Jacob, were apostate and cast away. Nor was hers a barren or speculative faith. It was in the highest degree warm, vital, real : for it was put to the hard test of her being required to prepare first of all for the man of God a cake with her handful of meal. Hers was the faith that could remove mountains ; and it received such reward as true faith in the Lord's promises never yet missed. She, who had felt that she had no resource for existence left to her and her son, was preserved, by means of the unexhausted barrel and cruse, to see the end of the years of drought and famine which consumed the land. Yet in that time one sore trouble fell upon her. Her son died. "What felt she then ? In these days, when sickness and untimely deaths were held to be special judgments from heaven, her first thought was, to ascribe this calamity to the presence of the man of God ! It would seem that the consciousness of sin had been awakened in her by witnessing the holy life and conversation of the prophet ; and she seems to have thought that the God of Israel had, probably at his instance, taken this means of reminding her of her unworthiness. This seems the most obvious sense of her words: "What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God ? art thou come to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son ?" This, so far as it reflected on Elijah, was an unjust suspicion against one, but for whom, her son, and herself too, had died long ago. It might have sufficed to kindle up the naturally warm temper of the prophet. But he pitied a mother's grief, and, repressing the stern words which probably rose to his lips, he quietly took the dead child from her, and carried him to his own room. He there laid it on his bed, and ventured humbly — but not without some soreness of feeling, natural to the man who believed that griefs pursued him and troubles awaited him wherever he went — to expostulate with God : " O Lord my God, hast thou brought evil also upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son ?" Not content with this, the prophet, in the intensity of his will, cast himself upon the cold and stiffening corpse, as if he would infuse his own life and warmth into it, crying mightily to God that the child's life should be restored to him. There was faith ! Erom the beginning of the world it had not been heard or dreamt of, that the dead should be raised to life, even at the inter- cession of a prophet. But the faith of Elijah went beyond ordinary bounds, because he had vividly realized to his own heart the conviction, and lived in the daily con- sciousness of it, that the power of God, and his willingness to exercise it at the call of earnest faith, was illimitable. And God heard him. " The soul of the child came into him again, and he revived ;" and the prophet restored him to his mother, whose chastened joy we may clearly conceive, in recollecting that the child was the only son of his mother, and she a widow. The striking and unexampled miracle had the proper effect upon this right-minded woman, who with great intensity of conviction exclaimed : " Now — by this — I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth."

///,/¥/>// . "'//,;///

■

31

THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS.

RUBENS.

'For us, for us thou didst endure the pain, And thy meek spirit bowed itself to shame, To wash our souls from sin's infecting stain, To' avert the Father's wrathful vengeance-flame ; Thou that couldst nothing win By saving worlds from sin, Nor aught of glory add to thy all-glorious name. Milman.

LUKE XXIII. 53.

Shocking and beyond measure barbarous as was the punishment of crucifixion as inflicted by the Romans in Judea, it was in that country divested of some of its horrors out of respect to what were by them regarded as the prejudices of the Jews, whose law rendered it impossible that the tortures of any capital punishment, or the exposure of the body of an executed criminal, should be prolonged beyond the setting of the sun. Now, in the ordinary way of inflicting the punishment of crucifixion, the agonies of death were often protracted for a whole day and night, and sometimes for two or even three days. But in Palestine, if death did not naturally take place before sunset, the criminals were put out of their pain. This was the reason that the soldiers broke the legs of the two men who were crucified with Jesus, whose sacred person would have experienced the same treatment, had it not appeared that he was already dead. Again, the bodies of those who had been executed often remained upon the crosses long after death had taken place, a spectacle of horror to all beholders, unless the friends of the deceased were able to pay high for permission to remove his mangled corpse to the tomb. Of this we who, not more than fifty years ago, could endure to see the bodies of executed criminals gibbeted about the country, till they fell to pieces from decay; and who, less than a hundred years ago, could suffer human heads to be stuck upon the gates of our cities, have no right to express much surprise. But to the humane spirit of the Mosaical law these practices were utterly abhorrent ; and the feeling of the Jews in the matter was so well understood by the Romans, that they made it their rule in Palestine to remove the bodies of crucified persons from the crosses before the sun had set. This accounts for the fact that the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross on the same day in which he was crucified. This was even done somewhat earlier than usual on account of its being the preparation of the Sabbath.

32 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

The friends of the crucified Redeemer were alive to the necessities of the occasion, and having obtained the grant of the body from the governor, they were enabled to preserve the sacred remains from the rough handling and brutal indifference of the soldiers, and to remove it from the cross, and convey it to a neighbouring tomb, with all becoming decency and care.

The manner in which this was done has been finely imagined by Rubens in the great picture from which the present engraving is copied, and which is reckoned as one of the chief works, if not the very first work, of that master. It is in the Cathedral at Antwerp, and was given by the painter, together with four others, in liberal payment for a piece of ground on which he built his house. Sir Joshua Reynolds has an inte- resting criticism on it in his " Journey to Flanders and Holland." He says, that from the engravings he had formed a very high idea of the excellence of the picture, as he could conceive what such a composition might produce in the hands of such a painter ; but he admits that the picture itself scarcely came up to his expectation, which he ascribes to the damage it had sustained, and to the rather unskilful manner in which it had been retouched. " The great peculiarity of this composition," Sir Joshua observes, " is the contrivance of the white sheet, in which the body of Jesus lies ; this circumstance was what probably induced Rubens to adopt the composition. He well knew what effect white linen, opposed to flesh, must have with his power of colouring; and the truth is, that none but great colourists can venture to paint pure white linen near flesh, but such know the advantage of it." He afterwards goes on to remark that the principal light is formed by the body of Christ and the white sheet, without a second light bearing any proportion to the principal. " In this respect," he says truly, " it has more the manner of Rembrandt's disposition of light than any other of Rubens' works." The figure of Christ in this picture, he thinks one of the finest that ever was invented. " It is most correctly drawn, and I apprehend in an attitude the most diffi- cult to execute. The hanging of the head on his shoulder, and the falling of the body on one side, gives such an appearance of the heaviness of death that nothing can exceed it."

The subject afforded an opportunity for perhaps the most effective example which exists of that pyramidal arrangement of figures which artists so much admire. It is hard to conceive any other subject out of which this arrangement would naturally arise. At the top are two men, mounted on ladders, leaning over the transom of the cross, who are lowering the body of Jesus upon the sheet, and one of whom holds the linen in his mouth, while he lowers the body with his right hand. They are assisted by Nico- demus on the one side, and by Joseph of Arimathea on the other, who stand lower down upon the ladders. St. John stands below, ready to receive the body in his arms ; on his left are Mary Magdalene and Salome upon their knees, extending their hands to aid him. Beyond them stands the Mother of Jesus, whose gesture and expression evince her solicitude. The shades of evening are falling, the multitude has departed, and none remain but those whose love and sorrow engage them in this mournful duty to their crucified Lord.

33

THE IMPOTENT MAN HEALED.

GIORDANO.

" Among them there was one, whose eye Had often seen the waters stirred ; Whose heart had often heaved the sigh, The bitter sigh, of hope deferred ; Beholding, while he suffered on, The healing virtue given — and gone !" Barton.

JOHN Y. 1-9.

One of the gates of Jerusalem was called the Sheep-Gate, hecause the cattle for the use of the city and temple were chiefly brought in from the country through it. The word "market" instead of "gate" is supplied in the authorized version of John v. 2; and yet it is not altogether incorrect, as the market for cattle was usually then, as at present, held at or near the gate, towards that quarter from which animals are usually brought from the country. Near to this gate was an edifice, built over some salubrious springs, perhaps tepid or mineral springs, falling into a reservoir or pool, in which the diseased washed themselves at certain seasons, in hope of cure.

The springs which fed the basin seem to have been intermittent, and the healing virtue of the water was deemed to be most potent when an agitation was caused, pro- bably by a sudden influx of water, which popular opinion ascribed to the action of an angel, "who came down at certain seasons, and troubled the water; and whosoever then first stepped in after the troubling of the water, was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." This place was called Bethesda, or " House of Mercy ;" and it was provided with five " porches," or cloisters, in which a large number of persons usually waited, under shelter from the weather, for the moving of the waters. It naturally happened that many must be disappointed of being the first to step in, and would have to attend there long before this advantage could be secured. It was, in particular, bad for the lame, as they could not move to the water without help ; and especially bad for those who were both lame and poor, as they were not in a condition to secure the need- ful help of others. Only the rich could afford to have men in attendance to help them in at the proper moment. The poor had to ask the chance help of bystanders when the moment was actually come, and by the time they had found such help, others, more ii. i

34 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

ready, had secured the advantage. Such was the case with one miserable, helpless creature, who had laboured for thirty and eight years under utter impotency of limb and body, and who had lain in the porches of Bethesda year after year, and season after season, without being able to get down to the troubled water in time to profit by its healing virtues.

Jesus once visited this place, and he took instant notice of this poor man, whose unhappy case was at once apparent to him from whom nothing could be hidden. In a voice whose tones were full of pity, he said to him — " Wilt thou be made whole ?" What a question ! — as if to ask a thirsty man whether he will have drink, or one famish- ing with hunger if he desires food. The impotent man could not grasp the full meaning of the question. He could hardly suppose that the stranger really intended to offer him health. Yet with the ready tact which the afflicted soon acquire in guessing at the feelings of those who look upon them, the poor man saw that the stranger's counte- nance and manner were full of benevolence and the tenderest compassion, and he was therefore encouraged to tell him freely of his grief. The most that he expected might be money to purchase the help of others, or perhaps that this kind person would tender his own assistance to help him down to the water, if the movement in it should occur while he was there. How, therefore, was he astonished to receive an answer in the shape of a command — " Rise, take up thy bed, and walk !" Immediately, he felt new life and long-forgotten strength rush to all his limbs. He sprung to his feet, not in the ordinary feebleness of returning strength, but at once a hale and vigorous man, which he manifested by taking up the bed on which he had helplessly lain, and bearing it away upon his shoulder to his home.

s

Q

35

THE GREAT TEMPLE AT BAALBEC.

" To him were known— so Hagar's offspring tell — The powerful sigil and the starry spell, The midnight call, hell's shadowy legions' dread, And sounds that burst the slumbers of the dead. Hence all his might ; for who could these oppose ? And Tadmor thus, and Syrian Balbec rose." Heber.

In tlie book of Chronicles we read that king Solomon " built Beth-horon the upper, and Beth-horon the nether, fenced cities, with walls, gates, and bars : and Baalath, and all the store cities that Solomon had, and all the chariot cities, and the cities of the horse- men, and all that Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon, and throughout all the land of his dominion." 2 Chron. viii. 5, 6. That this Baalath is the same city with the Baalbec in the valley of Lebanon, whose magnificent ruins still astonish the traveller, is a belief now very generally entertained. That belief is not of recent origin. The Jews themselves entertain it, and it is the native tradition of the country. The Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the place in the twelfth century, thus speaks of it : " This is the city which is mentioned in Scripture as Baalath in the valley of Lebanon, which Solomon built for the daughter of Pharaoh. The palace is con- structed of stones of enormous size, measuring twenty spans in length and twelve in breadth ; no binding material holds these stones together, and people pretend that the building could have been erected only by the help of the Ashmedai (genii)." This, though it expresses the prevailing opinion of even the present day, is much less clear than it seems ; for there is no passage of Scripture which states that Baalath was in the valley of Lebanon, nor any which states that the palace which Solomon built for Pharaoh's daughter was either at Baalath or in any part of Lebanon. The notion seems to have been taken up from the natives, who know Solomon as a great king, and regard him as master of occult arts, and have habitually, from a remote period, ascribed to him every great work, in or near Palestine, the origin of which is not understood. No stress can be laid upon the similarity of names, for the first member of it, Baal, in which alone the similarity consists, is common to many places besides Baalath, which are named in the Holy Scriptures. Besides, it is known to those who have closely studied Scripture Geography, that Baalath, so far from being in Lebanon, must have been towards the opposite extremity of Solomon's kingdom ; for in Josh. xix. 44, it is described as belonging to Dan, at a time when the possessions of that tribe were con- fined to Southern Palestine ; and in conformity with this, Josephus places the Baalath

36 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

which Solomon rebuilt and strengthened, in the southern part of Palestine, near to Gazara.

It is often the hard and not very agreeable duty of an exact inquirer, thus to subvert many neat traditions and pleasant histories. It cannot be helped: for the claims of historical truth must be asserted in the face of the most neatly constructed fables.

Still there is some comfort for us ; for although it may be difficult to show that Baalbec is the Baalath of Solomon, tbere is still reason to regard it as a Scriptural site. There is in fact much to warrant the belief that it is the place which is repeatedly mentioned under the name of Baal-gad in the book of Joshua, and is distinctly described as being "in the valley of Lebanon, under mount Hermon." See Josh. xi. 17; xii. 17; xiii. 5. As this mount Hermon was part of Anti-Libanus, the intimative topographical agreement is sufficiently reasonable. It is also easy to show that the names Baal-gad, and Baal-bek are of precisely the same signification in the Hebrew and Syrian languages : and although these two circumstances may not be of much weight separately, their concurrent force is much greater than can be produced in favour of the identity of Baalbec and Baalath. Then, for our further satisfaction, there is, after all, some chance of connecting Baalbec witb the name of Solomon; for there are fair etymological grounds for supposing that the Baal-hamon, where Solomon is des- cribed in the Song of Songs as having possessed a famous vineyard, was no other than Baal-gad.

In these pages the critical arguments urged in support of these views cannot with advantage be produced. The interest of the subject has, however, induced us to indicate their purport, as suitably introducing the descriptions which we shall have other opportunities of supplying.

+.

s

I

v

^

37

THE FINDING OP MOSES.

POUSSIN.

" Poore orphane, in the wide world scattered, As budding branch rent from the parent tree And thrown forth, till it be withered." Spenser.

EXODUS II.

After some abortive attempts to reduce the Hebrew population, the rapid increase of which he beheld with apprehension, the king of Egypt issued a decree, that every male child born among the Israelites should be cast into the river Nile. This barbarous decree admitted of no doubt or compromise, and could not easily be evaded. But it was one of those enactments so revolting to all natural feeling, that by the very excess of their severity they frustrate their own objects. The sympathies even of the mothers of Egypt would be enlisted against it — the heart of every man not imme- diately connected with the court, would rise against it — and thousands would by their silence and connivance, if not by their active aid, concur in rendering it of no effect. God has so framed the heart of man — and even in his fallen estate, it remains such — that by the operation of its implanted sympathies, there is a point beyond which laws become inoperative, and the most stringent decrees are but idle breath — because all that is true in human nature arms itself for that passive resistance against which no force is availing. And this was one of these cases. We do not indeed know under what circum- stances the decree was recalled ; but can easily collect that it was not long in force, and may infer, that, after the first outrages on humanity which took place under it had been perpetrated, it was seen that it could no longer be enforced.

The scenes of " lamentation, mourning, and woe," which took place while this was carried into effect, may easily be imagined. They are not described by the sacred historian, who confines his narrative to one incident, the relation of which was histori- cally necessary.

It was during this period that a woman of the name of Jochebed, wife of a person called Amram, of the tribe of Levi, gave birth to a son. She had already a grown-up daughter named Miriam, and a son named Aaron — but this did not render the life of the fair child which now saw the light less precious in her maternal eyes. She kept him carefully hid for three months ; and then finding it impossible to keep him longer

II. K

38 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

undiscovered, she thought it better to trust the infant to the mercies of God, than that he should be slain outright by those who had been charged to execute the orders of the king. She prepared a kind of basket or cradle of rushes, and rendered it impervious to water by coating it within and without with bitumen and with the adhesive slime of the Nile. In this she softly laid her lovely babe, probably while he slept, and with many tears and blessings deposited the basket among the rushes that grew in the stream.

The child thus cast out, God saw, and had pity on him. Indeed, all that had hap- pened to him had been but parts of his great design — to render this forsaken child the deliverer of his people, and to place his name among the foremost of those that are highest and holiest on earth. It was therefore ordained that at this juncture, while the infant lay exposed among the reeds, the king's own daughter came down to that place with her maidens, to wash herself in the purifying waters of the stream which the Egyptians accounted sacred. The cradle among the reeds soon attracted the attention of this princess, and she directed it to be brought to her. When it was opened, a very beautiful child was disclosed to her view. He wept. At that moment, the Lord, who designed the child to grow up among all the advantages which only her protection could give, laid his finger upon her heart. Under that touch it filled to overflowing with all womanly compassion. " This is one of the Hebrews' children," she said. The tone in which she spoke disclosed the workings of her heart, and encouraged the child's sister, who had been watching at a distance, and had by this time drawn nigh, to ask | " Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?" The princess said, "Go," and the girl went, and called — the child's mother. Hard was that mother's task to hide her deep joy, to repress the strong emotions of her soul, when her own child, lately in such mortal peril, was consigned to her care by the king's daughter, with the charge : " Take this child, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." Ah, little need had that woman of wages, to induce her to nurse that infant well. But well she nursed him ; and at a proper age transferred him to the princess, who adopted him for her own son, calling him by the name of Moses [drawn out of water], because she had taken him from the water. As her son, he received a princely bringing-up. He was taught all the learning and science of the Egyptians, and became mighty in word and deed. Yet when he had attained maturer years, he nobly threw aside all the advantages and honours of his high place, and cast in his lot with his own people, oppressed and degraded as they were— " refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; and choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." — Heb. xi. 24,25.

The subject of the Finding of Moses has been rather a favourite one with the painters. None have treated it with greater skill and effect than Poussin, in the admi- rable picture from which our engraving is taken. It is in the Louvre, and, in the valuation of pictures taken in 1816, was estimated at forty thousand francs, or nearly 1700 pounds. It measures three feet seven inches by two feet ten.

39

EYOTJB SULTAN -MAUSOLEUMS IN EASTERN CITIES.

■ The glories of our mortal state Are shadows, not substantial things ; There is no armour against Fate, Death lays his icy hand on kings ;

Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade." Shirley.

Among the ancient Hebrews it was customary to bury the dead in the outside of towns, as is still the general usage of the East. An exception was, however, made in favour of princes and very eminent persons, who were allowed, as a matter of high privilege and honour, to have sepulchres in the cities. Thus the prophet Samuel was buried " in his own city," 1 Sam. xxviii. 3 : Manasseh was " buried in the garden of his own house," 2 Kings xxi. 18 : Asa was buried " in his own sepulchre, which he had made for himself in the city of David," 2 Chron. xvi. 14 : and the high priest Jehoiada was buried " in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel," 2 Chron. xxiv. 6. The exception, as well as the rule, is still the usage of the East ; and it is nowhere more strikingly exemplified than at Constantinople, where the different mausoleums of the sultans are among the objects which first engage the notice of a stranger, as the interior arrangements of several of these may be viewed from the streets, through latticed windows. These mausoleums are called Turbehs, and their number in Constantinople is above twenty. They are usually situated near, and in some cases are closely attached to, the mosques ; and this realizes the nearest approxi- mation which the East affords to our own disgraceful custom of burying in churches Every sultan usually builds a turbeh for himself and his children. If any one has during his life neglected this precaution, he chooses at his death one of the turbehs of his ancestors as the place of his own interment. But his choice is in this case subject to the will of his successor, who sometimes directs that he shall be entombed in another. In the turbeh, the body is deposited in the ground ; and over the grave, which is simply covered with earth, is erected a kind of canopy of plain wood, covered with rich stuff embroidered with gold, and ornamented with texts or mottoes from the Koran. To the part over the head of the deceased is generally applied a portion of the old coverings of the Kaaba at Mecca, or of the Prophet's sepulchre at Medina. Most of the monuments

40 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

are surrounded with a sort of rail, ornamented with mother-of-pearl ; and those of the monarchs and princes of the blood, are distinguished by a muslin turban laid upon the head of the tomb.

At the foot of the tomb is a large wax candle, and several reading-desks, placed there for the accommodation of the persons appointed to read the Koran throughout every morning. There are ten or fifteen of these readers, generally aged men ; each of whom takes two or three of the thirty divisions into which the book is divided, so that the task is accomplished with less expense of time and trouble than the size of the volume might seem to indicate. The candles are very seldom lighted; but the lamps, suspended from the roofs in the form of lustres, are kept burning every night.

The mausoleum seen in the present engraving, is not that of a prince, but of a famous Moslem saint, named Eyoub (Job), one of the companions of the Prophet. He perished with many other Saracens before the walls of Constantinople, in the year 672. His memory was held in high veneration by the Moslems ; and when after many ages, the Turks gained possession of the city, they were solicitous to discover the place of his sepulture. A vision revealed it to them 750 years after the saint's death ; and Mohammed II. proceeded to build over the spot a mosque, in which every succeed- ing monarch was to receive his inauguration. The distinction thus assigned to it was natural, as it was one of the very few spots in the Christian capital with which any old Moslem tradition could be connected. The mosque and the adjoining mausoleum are seen enclosed with trees. The latter is of pure marble, the windows are covered with gilded lattices, through which is seen the sacred tomb inside, consisting, as usual, of a catafalque surmounted by the supposed turban of the deceased.

In the engraving, the sultan is represented as returning from the mosque, after hav- ing been solemnly girded with a sword ; which is the usual act of inauguration. Until the present reign this was performed with the sword worn by Mohammed the Great at the conquest of Stamboul. This sword was lost by the late sultan. While ascending the side of the great ship of war called after himself, this sword, which he then wore, being a short one, disengaged itself, and fell into the deep waters of the Golden Horn. It could not be recovered ; and the circumstance cast a deep gloom over the city, being regarded as an omen of most direful significance.

fc

ytm 4.

■

41

ESTHER CROAVNED.

GUIDO.

" Eternal Providence, exceeding thought,

Where none appeares can make itselfe a way : A wondrous way it for this lady wrought." Spenser.

ESTHER II.

The book of Esther is peculiarly interesting, not only for the sustained march and progressive development of the story which it contains, and for the striking illustration of the operations of Divine Providence which it affords, but for the curious and valuable picture of the customs of the ancient Persian court which it exhibits. In that point of view, it would have been estimated as a most curious relic of ancient times, and would have been the subject of abundant comment and illustration, had it been found in any other book than the Bible. The description of an ancient Oriental court which the book contains, enables us to perceive that the usages of courts have altered much less than might have been expected in the course of more than two thousand years ; and there is consequently no part of Scripture which might receive more ample illustration from the existing usages of Eastern courts and governments. Nearly all that is related in the book of Esther might have happened at this day in Persia, and still more exactly perhaps in China, — the analogy of usages in which, engaged the attention of the Jesuit Missionaries of the last century, one of whom prepared an illustrative commentary on the book, founded on the history and customs of the Chinese.

We all know that comparatively few of the expatriated Jews availed themselves of the permission to return home to their own land, which the decree of Cyrus afforded. Nor need we wonder at this. Most of the Jews living at the time that decree was given, had been born and lived in the country in which they were then found ; and there they had for the most part settled prosperously, and were not excluded from high employments. Few but the poorer sort had much inducement to return — apart from the strong desire, which many of higher station doubtless experienced, to visit the city of their fathers' sepulchres, and to restore the waste places of Zion. Hence, it has been the invariable tradition of the Jews, that the nobler part of their nation remained in the East, even when authorized, and almost invited, by the Persian kings to return to the land which God had given to their fathers.

Among those who remained, was the family to which belonged a Jew named Mordecai, who dwelt in the metropolis of the Persian empire, and who seems to

II. L

42 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

have held some secondary employment which required his daily attendance in the precincts of the palace. Under his careful guardianship dwelt a fair niece with the pleasant name of Hadassah (myrtle,) or Esther — whose parents were dead — but who had found a father, and almost a mother too, in Mordecai. He contemplated for her no other lot than that she should in due time be espoused to one of her own nation, and become a mother in Israel. But a more brilliant, if not a happier destiny, awaited her. It was for her to influence the fate of nations, and to save the chosen people from the sword.

After the king Ahasuerus had degraded his queen, Vashti, and had issued his valorous, but doubtless impotent decree, that " Every man should bear rule in his own house," it was necessary that he should be provided with a new queen. The course taken for this purpose seems strange to us, but is remarkably conformable to Oriental ideas and usages. All the fairest damsels in the empire were to be sought for, and sent in to the chief of the eunuchs ; and such of them as met the approval of that great officer were introduced into the royal harem, and, after a due course of preparation, were in turn introduced to the monarch, and the one that pleased him best was to receive the diadem which had been taken from the brow of Vashti.

Among the damsels who were brought together on this occasion, as the most beautiful of the land, was Esther. It is hard to conceive that the lot thus imposed upon his beloved niece could be very pleasing to Mordecai : but in all matters of this kind, the power of the monarch was absolute ; and his subjects were so much trained by long habit to submission, that the father whose only daughter was taken from him, would as soon have thought of opposing the earthquake or the storm, as of resisting oi disputing this exercise of supreme power. Beautiful as Esther was, that she should eclipse all the picked damsels of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, must have seemed but an indifferent chance — while success itself could not bring pleasure with- out alloy to a right-minded Jew or Jewess : and Mordecai knew that when Esther once passed the harem walls, successful or not, he could never — never more gladden his eyes with one look at her who had from infancy been cherished in his bosom, who had eaten of his bread and drank of his cup, and had been unto him as a daughter.

From her first introduction to the harem, the young Jewess won the special favour and approbation of the chief of the eunuchs, who seems to have had a presentiment that he beheld in her his future mistress, and who spared no pains in preparing her for the critical day in which she was to be introduced to the king. She passed the ordeal well. There is reason to think that her good sense and modest demeanour won upon the king not less than the grace of her figure and the loveliness of her counte- nance. The singular combination in this Hebrew damsel of all that was beautiful with all that was maidenly and becoming, which had before gained for her " favour in the sight of all that looked upon her," had its full effect upon the master of the East. " The king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins ; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti."

*

■«

43

SOUK BARRADA. -PHARPAR.

" The winding vale now narrows on his way And steeper of ascent, Rightward and leftward rise the rocks." Southey.

The Barrada is one of the rivers which water Damascus ; and it is with sufficient reason believed to be the one called Pharpar, in the comparison made by Naaman between the waters of Damascus and those of Israel, when directed by Elisha to wash himself seven times in the Jordan, that he might be cleansed of his leprosy : " Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ? may I not wash iu them, and be clean ?" And it is added, " He turned, and went away in a rage." As it is clear that this insulting comparison was particularly levelled at the river Jordan, it may be proper to remark, that he had lately crossed that river ; and as he doubtless went by the usual route from Damascus, which would have led him over the river somewhere near to where Jacob's Bridge now stands, if not even higher, up towards the sources of the river, beyond the lake Huleh — where the Jordan is an inconsiderable stream iu summer — the comparison might naturally enough rise to the mind of one familiar with the abundant streams which bless Damascus, and which, in the lower part of their course greatly exceed the Jordan at the high point where it had been crossed by the Syrian noble. The comparison was unfair, because the waters of Damascus near their ending, are compared with the waters of Israel near their beginning : the conditions would have been more equal, had the Jordan at Jacob's Bridge been compared with the Barrada near Zebdani, at the point represented in our engraving; and that comparison would not have been to the disadvantage of the Jordan.

The course of the Barrada, before it issues out from a cleft in the mountains into the plains of Damascus, is picturesque and interesting. The traveller who proceeds from Baalbec, over Anti-Libanus, to Damascus, has opportunities of becoming well acquainted with the " Golden Stream " (Chrysorrhcea), by which name the ancient geographers knew the Barrada. This stream rises in the mountains behind the village of Zurgeia, which belong to the eastern declivities of Anti-Libanus. After travelling a day's journey among the gradually lessening ranges which terminate in the plain of Damascus, the traveller reaches the village of Zebdani, in a beautiful valley of the same name, which he finds to be traversed and abundantly irrigated by the same stream, the presence of which has at times cheered his way since the morning. At

44 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

this place the Barrada is joined by a rivulet which rises iu the mountains behind Zebdani. After passing through the beautiful gardens for which this place is cele- brated, the road for some miles quits the course of the river, and when we come upon it again, its stream is found to have been much increased by the tributaries which have by the way flowed into it. The road then follows the windings of the stream, through a grand pass in the mountains, hemmed in by dark perpendicular cliffs, through which the stream rushes, sparkling with white foam. A little beyond this, the stream forms a beautiful cascade of two falls, tumbling over the rocks, and numerous surging and boil- ing streams of water gushing through the broken and dissevered masses. It is not far below these falls that the river is crossed by the stone bridge represented in the engraving. This bridge is called Djissr es-Souk, and is at the head of the valley, which takes its name (Wady Barrada) from the river. At this part the mountains approach each other, and form a pass exceedingly wild and picturesque. On the right-hand side, and in places that seem quite inaccessible, are five or six chambers, cut in the scarped face of the rock. These are believed by the natives to be the work of the Christians (of the Greek empire) who possessed the country before the Arabian conquest ; and to them, indeed, most of the ancient structures of Syria are ascribed. About half a mile below the bridge is a small village called es-Souk (the market), so called from its being the seat of a considerable weekly fair or market. It is from this village that the bridge above derives its name of Djissr Souk, or Market-bridge.

From this place the course of the river through the widening valley is overshadowed by trees, and marked by a zig-zig of lively and refreshing green, contrasting finely with the white rocks around. And so it goes on, occasionally passing by other villages, and under other bridges, the road to Damascus coming out only occasionally upon its ver- dant banks ; until at length the river comes out in a copious and beautifully clear stream into the plain of Damascus, through a cleft in the mountains. It is then immediately divided into three smaller courses ; the largest, which is the middle one, runs directly to the city, and is there distributed to the different public fountains, baths, and cisterns, while the other two, branching off right and left, contribute mainly to the luxuriant vegetation which adorns the environs. South-east of the city, the scattered and gently diminished waters re-unite into one channel, and, after flowing towards the eastern hills for about five miles, are finally lost in a marsh called the Bahr el-Merj — the Meadow- Lake.

t

'

1

45

MARTHA AND MARY.

COYPEL.

" They also serve who only stand and wait." Milton.

LUKE X. 38-42.

We have already had occasion in this work to describe the peculiar intimacy and friendship which subsisted between our Lord and the family of Lazarus at Bethany. Lazarus lived there with his two sisters, Martha and Mary — of which it is manifest that the former was the eldest, and the mistress and manageress of the household. Indeed it is not unlikely that she was a widow, and the real mistress of the house — -her brother and sister lodging with her since her widowhood, for the house is called hers in Luke x. 38 ; and there she is described as the hostess — rather than Lazarus as the host — by whom our Saviour was received and entertained. The character of the two sisters, as discriminated by Saint John in his account of the raising of Lazarus — was also strikingly brought out and sustained on the occasion of this visit. Martha, impulsive, thoughtless ; apt to say whatever came uppermost ; active, businesslike ; her thoughts turning much on the material points of whatever objects her mind embraced; by the practical character of her intellect, prone to invest her feelings with material shapes, and hence thinking that her goodwill and respect, for any one could in no way be so well evinced as by her care for his material comfort and enjoyment. This was just the reverse of Mary's character ; and the contrast in its actual exhibition must have been interesting and amiable : nor did they like each other the less for this difference of character — but probably more — for we observe in every-day life, that contrasted character and temperament is often a strong element of mutual affection. Mary's character was quiet, sentient, reflective, adoring. Rest was her feast ; and she had small care for any other. It was enough for her to sit at the feet of Jesus, and to drink in with eager ears, and hoard up among her heart's best treasures, the precious words that fell from him. And she knew well that He would not misunderstand her, and that this quiet attention would be as much appreciated by Him as the more active labours of her busy sister for his entertainment. Not so thought plain, honest Martha, who, "on hospitable thoughts intent," was soon immersed in a world of cares, in her kitchen, with the roast and the boiled. She soon became fretful at having to get through

II. M

46 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

all this work by herself; and looking upon the passive occupation of her sister as not free from neglect and idleness, she soon made her appearance with her mouth full of complaints. As usual, she was too plain-spoken to attempt any delicate contrivance in inducing her sister to withdraw, but at once gave utterance to her uppermost thought, saying : " Master, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone ? bid her therefore that she help me." Poor Mary must have been somewhat hurt and confounded at this very abrupt assault, which, however, the customs of the East rendered less offensive than would seem to us. But she knew the Master too well, to feel any dread or doubt of his answer. It was kind to both. " Martha, Martha," he said, " thou art careful, and troubled about many things ; but one thing is needful : and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." It does not appear to us that these words, rightly understood, warrant the popular inter- pretation which construes them into a reflection upon Martha, and an avowed prefer- ence of her sister. The meaning seems to be — " Thou art careful, and takest trouble with many things : but of all these things for which thou carest, one is of paramount importance — is really needful ; and in that better part Mary shares thy interest, she has chosen that part as well as thou : and therefore thou mayest well excuse her lack of interest in these inferior matters." To suppose, as is usually understood, that Jesus intends to tell Martha that she had not, as well as Mary, chosen " the better part which could not be taken away from her," is surely a very harsh judgment upon one whom Jesus loved (John xi. 5.), and who had so much regard for his person, so much veneration for his character, and so much faith in his power and goodness, as all her history evinces. As, therefore, the text fully warrants and even requires the interpretation we have given, let us eschew a construction which shuts out of view the consummate tenderness and courtesy with which our Lord vindicates Mary without affronting her elder sister.

*

47

PERGAMUS.

" — Time has not rebuilt them, but uprear'd Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site." Byron.'

Pergamus lies about sixty miles to the north of Smyrna, and is the only one of the cities of the seven churches, besides that, which can be described as being still in a prosperous condition. This place was anciently the metropolis of a kingdom of the same name, founded by Philatserus, 283, b.c ; the last of whose successors died with- out issue in 133, b.c leaving his dominions to the Romans. After this event it con- tinued to exist as the chief city of the Roman province of Mysia, but declined as Ephesus rose in importance. It had the distinction of giving birth to Galen the physician, and to Apollodorus the mythologist ; but is more famous for the extent in which some of its kings encouraged the love of learning and literature, whence arose the discovery of parchment. The story runs, that when Ptolemy, jealous that the fame acquired by its library rivalled that of his own at Alexandria, thought to put a stop to its increase by prohibiting the exportation of papyrus from Egypt, the reign- ing king of Pergamus, Eumenes II., incensed by this ungenerous act, stimulated his people to provide a substitute, which they soon discovered in prepared skins ; which, from the place of discovery, took the name of charta pergamena, whence our parchment. Many other inventions of the highest importance have in like manner arisen from the restrictive policy of those who deemed themselves the sole possessors of an article of essential use. People would not submit to the restriction or privation ; and the utmost resources of human ingenuity have been on such occasions taxed, to provide a substitute. In an age when books were scarce and costly, the library of Pergamus contained two hundred thousand volumes, or rolls of manuscript ; and it somewhat distresses our sense of justice to learn that this immense collection eventually found its way to Egypt, to enrich the great rival establishment at Alexandria : and the two collections perished together, when that famous library was ruthlessly destroyed by order of the Khalif Omar.

The Apocalyptic message teaches us that Pergamus had early become the seat of a distinguished Christian church, which is commended, in that, although it dwelt "where Satan's seat is," it had held fast the name of Jesus, and had not denied his faith, even in those days of bitter persecution, in which an eminent disciple called Antipas had become a " faithful martyr," for the truth.

Pergamus was eligibly situated in a fine plain, with a strong acropolis, occupying a magnificent hill above the city, now crowned by the ruins of the Genoese fort. The approach to the modern town, which bears the name of Bergamo, is first indicated by

48 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

the tall cypresses of the cemeteries, by several minarets, and by some houses on the slope of the hill. On drawing nearer, the traveller is struck by the stupendousness of a ruin close to the gate, which towers over the petty modern structures around it, reducing them by comparison to utter insignificance. This is the ancient church of St. John, which is supposed to have been built by the Emperor Theodosius. The brick walls, as they are seen at the present day, are about a hundred feet high and two yards thick. It is now much dilapidated, and covered with storks' nests ; but is said to have been once decorated with handsome pillars and marbles taken from the ruins of heathen temples. The nave now serves as a court-yard ; and a subterranean room at one end, supported by two rows of four pillars each, is a manufactory for pottery; while the other, which appears to have been the chancel, is turned into a Greek school, where about a hundred and sixty children of both sexes are instructed in reading and writing. More ancient still is probably the mosque of St. Sophia, which is locally believed to have been the church to whose minister the Apocalyptic message was addressed. There is no necessity to believe this ; but the building certainly exhibits marks of high antiquity. It has indeed been altered and partly rebuilt, but the lower-walls remain in their original state. Four brick pillars six feet square support the roof, which is surmounted by three cupolas ; and the building contains the alleged tomb of Antipas, who is stated by tradition to have been burnt to death in a brazen bull.

Among the other ancient remains of the place are the subterranean water-courses, twenty feet high and as many wide, formed of large stones, which extend throughout the city, and were formerly used as its common sewers. There are also remains of two or three temples, of -the naumachia, and of the theatre ; and some very perfect and beautiful columns are found employed in comparatively modern buildings. One of the most curious antiquities of Pergamus is, however, found in a marble vase of great beauty, which now stands in the principal bathing-house of the city. The marble is six inches in thickness, and very fine. The interior diameter is forty-eight inches, the exterior sixty inches at the top. The outer surface is embossed in five parallel lines ; the centre and chief of which represents Amazons ; the next, above and below wreaths of flowers; and the two outer, lanceolate leaves. Three other of these magnificent vases have been found at Pergamus, one of which is in St. Sophia's at Constantinople, another at Brusa, and the other seems to be lost.

The present town contains about 13,000 Mohammedans, 1,500 Greeks, 200 Armenians, and 100 Jews — being the only one of the towns of the seven churches, besides Smyrna, which now contains any of the outcasts of Israel. This fact evinces the comparative prosperity of Pergamus ; for Jews are never found in unprosperous places. The minarets of ten mosques rise up among the buildings of the city ; and there is an unusually large proportion of Christian churches, many of which are of very recent erection.

: //„// ,///,/ ///>,/// "

49

CHRIST WITH THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS.

RUBENS.

" I know thee, Saviour, who thou art !" C. Wesley.

LUKE XXIV.

On the day whose morning had witnessed the resurrection of the Lord, two of his dis- ciples who had heen to Jerusalem at the Passover, returned to their home at Emmaus, a place about eight miles to the north-westof the holy city. One of them wasCleopas, other- wise called Alphseus, husband of Mary the sister of our Lord's mother, who is called in the history of the resurrection, ' Mary, the mother of James/ being one of the women who had visited the sepulchre early that morning, and who had been among the first witnesses that he had risen from the dead. These circumstances are of some interest as showing that this person was the husband of our Lord's maternal aunt, and, it would seem, the father of one of the apostles — unless James were the son of Mary by a former husband. The other disciple is not .named, whence some have thought that he may have been no other than Luke himself, seeing that he is the only one of the Evangelists who narrates the circumstances — and that with a degree of minuteness and special feeling which seems to indicate that the narrator was a party in the transaction. This is, how- ever, no more than a conjecture, and cannot be relied upon.

The two disciples, from the relation of one of them to Mary, were among the first to hear of the tidings brought by the women from the sepulchre ; and they very naturally discussed, as they went along, the matters which had during the last three days so strongly engaged their attention and interested their feelings, and which, in their view, seemed to involve in utter darkness the whole matter of their Lord's mission upon earth. They had expected that he would have accomplished something greater and more signal than he appeared to have done ; and that, whatever else he might have done or left undone, he would have delivered Israel from her oppressors, and have set her on high above the nations. How to reconcile that which actually had taken place, with the expectations they had formed, and with the view they had taken of the pro- phecies, was a matter which they argued with much earnestness, softened by the sadness which they felt at the loss of their beloved Master, and at his ignominious end.

As they were thus engaged, a stranger drew nigh j and, taking note of their earnest manner and troubled looks, he courteously addressed them, saying ; " What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad." Thus roused from their discussion, the two friends expressed their surprise that any one coming, as he appeared to do, from Jerusalem, should be ignorant of the things which

II. N

50 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

had just taken place there, by which the public mind had been greatly agitated, and which naturally formed the subject of their discourse and of their grief. The stranger asked, " What things ?" and they then proceeded to tell him of the prophet of Nazareth, whom they had regarded as the destined deliverer of Israel, but who had been con- demned to death by the leaders of the people, and whose history had been farther com- plicated by a report brought into the town that morning by the women, who declared " that they had seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive." This shows that they had left the city in the interval between the arrival of the first report brought by the other women, and that which was subsequently brought by Mary Magdalene, to whom the Lord himself had actually appeared. This is noticeable; because their not having heard the latter report would give them the less ground for suspecting that the stranger was no other than their risen Master. That they did not know him, may be sufficiently accounted for, even without the idea of a supernatural restraint, by his altered appearance, his change of dress, and, more than all, by their belief that he was dead — for it does not appear that the message which the women said they had brought by the angels, had convinced the disciples that he was alive.

The stranger patiently heard them state their doubts and difficulties ; but then he broke forth with ; " O thoughtless men, and slow of heart to believe all that the pro- phets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" He then gathered up the rays of light which, in varied luminosity, shone dispersedly through the writings of the prophets, and made them concentrate into one mighty focus of convincing light, to show that all the eternal purposes of God for man's redemption, as disclosed through the prophets, had been accomplished and not frustrated by the events which filled them with perplexity and grief.

Their ears drank in greedily his words ; and although the shades of evening had fallen, the time had seemed but short when they arrived at their destination. Their minds had been opened to receive and understand the whole mystery of that mighty plan under which it had behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again ; and in the joy of having their doubts and fears removed, and hoping to hear more of this rich discourse, they pressed the stranger to turn in and stay with them. He consented ; and entered the house. A plain refection soon appeared upon the hospitable table ; and the stranger, as one who felt himself the master there, " took the bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave it to them." The peculiar manner of this act, which they had so often seen the Lord perform, and the well-known intonation of voice with which the words were pro- nounced, revealed the risen Saviour to them — but in the moment of that recognition he vanished from their sight. No doubt, they reproached themselves that they had not sooner suspected who the stranger was. They recollected many circumstances which ought to have reminded them of their Master ; and they were now able to understand the strong influence which his words had exercised upon their hearts, and the powerful sympathies by which they had been affected. " Did not our hearts burn within us," they said, " while he talked to us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures."

fc

a Q
S
u
s
<

u

51

RHODES.

" A strong town Rhodei hit is, The castell is strong and faire I wis." Old Poem.

The island of Rhodes was in ancient times celebrated for its fine climate and for its wines ; but chiefly for the vast brazen colossus which bestrode the entrance of the port of the chief city, to which also the name of Rhodes belonged. In modern times it has received an increase of celebrity from its occupation by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, after their expulsion from Palestine, and from their heroic defence of the city for a whole year against all the power of the Ottoman empire — which purchased the recovery of the place at the expense of immense treasure, and at the loss of 90,000 lives which were spent before the place. This was in 1522, when the knights having lost Rhodes, retired at first to Candia, and eventually to Malta. The Scriptural interest of the place arises entirely from the visit paid to it by St. Paul in his last voyage to Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts xxi. 1. That visit was short — apparently only of one night and part of a day, and no particulars are given.

As the island is but eight miles from the coast of Caria in Asia Minor, it is distinctly visible from that coast, which itself bounds the horizon northward from Rhodes. The island itself presents a rugged aspect from the sea, the coast being in many places precipitous ; but the point in which the town stands is a low sandy beach, stretching down towards the sea. On it are rows of windmills, as shown in the engraving, which, with a few minarets, and the summits of the towers and fortifications, are all that takes the traveller's eye, till he enters within the small square modern harbour, which takes the appearance of a dock from its sheltered situation, and from the high walls and forts by which it is surrounded. Among the latter is the square Knights' Tower, which is seen to the left on the coast-line of the engraving, and which is memorable not only as being one of the finest monuments of the age to which it belongs, but because within its walls was made the last stand of Christian chivalry in the East ; and around it took place the last and consummating act of that fierce and enduring struggle between the Crescent and the Cross, which had commenced four centuries before, in the first crusade. Several other towers and castles, both round and square, raise their heads above the surrounding battlements; and in front is a handsome quay, which presents a scene of great and varied interest to a stranger

52

GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

fresh from Europe, being usually crowded with, the natives of many lands, differing

greatly in costume, language, and appearance, but all engaged in the one common

pursuit of mankind — gain.

" The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, Here mingle in their many-hue il array

The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, And gold-embroidered garments, fair to see ; The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon ; The Delhi with his cap of terror on, And crooked glaive : the lively supple Greek ; And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son ; The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak, Master of all around, too potent to be meek."

The town of Rhodes is not only finely situated, but very beautiful in itself. It still deserves the praise which the ancients bestowed upon it for the regularity of its streets ; and different parts of the town, particularly the Strada Cavaliere (Knight Street,) are enriched by the mansions and other buildings of the knights of St. John. This street, which is nearly in the centre of the town, consists of a row of palaces on each side, lead- ing to the gothic ruins of the council-hall of the Order. Other such palaces occur dis- persedly about the town. In an open space, where grew some noble plane trees, are remains of a splendid mansion, on the walls of which is a large panel with the arms of England emblazoned in good relief. This in all probability was the auberge, or ' inn/ as technically designated, of the English " tongue," or nation ; for we know that, as afterwards in Malta, each of the nations or "tongues," independent of the private houses of its members, had its own place of public resort, distinguished by the arms of the nation to which it belonged.

The ancient town which formed the Rhodes of the knights, is most completely and strongly fortified, combining the defences in use both before and after the general intro- duction of gunpowder. Among them, and in all parts of the town, are found marble shot in considerable numbers, some of them not less than twenty inches in diameter. There is perhaps scarcely any place now existing in which the defensive architecture of the fourteenth century can be so completely studied as at Rhodes.

Si

1

I

I

53

THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.

JOUVENET.

" None lose by the Saviour : once more at thy word The nets are extended beneath the blue sea ; The tribes of the wide weltering waves own their Lord , And hasten to pay their allegiance to thee." East.

LUKE V. 1-10.

O.v our Lord's return to the neighbourhood of the Lake of Tiberias, after his atten- dance in Jerusalem at the first passover since the commencement of his ministry, his paths were beset by great numbers of people wherever he appeared. His abode was in Capernaum, to which he had lately come from Cana and Nazareth. . At Cana he had healed the ruler's son, who lay sick unto death at Capernaum : and this signal miracle had, no doubt, a considerable share in procuring for Jesus the marked and somewhat inconvenient attention with which the people of that place and neighbourhood received him, when he himself arrived there. The curiosity to behold the man by whom such marvellous deeds had been wrought, the hope of being cured by him of their bodily ailments, and the desire to hear the new style of teaching which he had introduced, all tended to increase the crowd that followed his steps whenever he came abroad. He was one day out by the borders of the lake, when the crowd pressing too closely upon him, he got into a fishing-boat belonging to Peter, which lay there; and it having been, at his desire, pushed out a little from the shore, he from that convenient station addressed the people.

When the Lord had finished his discourse, he turned to Peter, and told him to launch forth his vessel into the deep waters, and let down his nets for a draught. There were two reasons which might have induced such experienced fishermen as Peter and his mates, to demur at this order. These were, that the night-time, and not the day, was the proper time for fishing with nets ; and the other was, that they had actually been out toiling all the preceding night without the least success. Peter stated this ; but added, with cheerful obedience at least, if not with much faith, " Nevertheless,

n. o

54 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

at thy word I will let down the net." And well was he rewarded : for the net had no sooner been let down, than it filled with large fishes ; aud the weight was so great and unexampled, that when they attempted to draw the net, it was in danger of breaking, so that they were obliged to beckon to their partners in another vessel, who came and took in part of this miraculous draught. The abundance was indeed so excessive, that both the vessels lay deeply in the water, and seemed likely to sink with their valuable burden.

The less Peter had expected before, the more was he struck by this great deed of his Divine Master — the truly miraculous character of which, his experience in these waters enabled him well to appreciate. He fell down at Jesus' s knees, crying : " Depart from me : for I am a sinful man, O Lord !" — These words may be, and have been, variously interpreted. It may be that they express his profound consciousness of his inability to render Him the homage and reverence to which by this act he had shown himself to be entitled, and that he had felt that a poor sinful creature, as he knew himself to be, was unworthy of being in his company. When we recollect that the vessel was Peter's own, we have the more ground for identifying the feeling his words express with that of the centurion — " I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof !" The answer of Jesus was full of meaning and of encouragement : " Fear not ; from henceforth thou shalt catch men " — or rather " take," or " captivate " them.

The profound impression which this transaction made upon Peter and his com- panions, is evinced by the fact, that from that time, they, to all the objects which had heretofore engrossed their care, became indifferent. Their pleasant homes, their trim fishing-boats, the familiar shore, the rich prey of fish they had just gained — all became of vastly lessened importance in their eyes ; and no sooner had they reached the shore than they " forsook all and followed him."

fc

4

*

n|

1

55

THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.

RUBENS.

" How dark and sad is Bethlehem's fate ; Her valleys gush with human blood ; Despair sits mourning at her gate, And murder stalks in frantic mood."

MATTHEW II. 16.

During our Lord's ministry on earth, the Jews could not understand — neither could even his disciples understand — that the kingdom of the Messiah was " not of this world." It is, therefore, not strange, that when King Herod heard that the " king of the Jews" had been born at Bethlehem — and recognized under that designation the expected Messiah, he thought only of an earthly sovereignty, which should absorb his own, and bring down the dynasty which he had, at the expense of much crime, much blood, and much treasure, laboured to establish. It had been his lot to

" Wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of morcy on mankind;"

and although a man of large views, whose heart had been sometimes open to generous impulses, he had more than once shown that no considerations of human pity stood in the way of his sweeping off, with a most bloody hand, whatever crossed, or threatened to cross, his path. So, now, when he found that the wise men from the East, to whom he owed his information, did not, as he had arranged, return to indicate the individual to whom this high destiny applied, his jealous soul was stung to madness ; and that the unknown infant might not escape him, he gave orders that all the male children of Bethlehem under two years of age should be destroyed.

In what manner this doom was accomplished, the Evangelist does not state; but much is to be understood from the quotation from Jeremiah, which he applies to the circumstances : — " In Rama there was a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." — " Doubtless," says Bishop Hall, " he which so privily inquired for Christ, did as secretly brew this massacre. The mothers were set with their children on their laps, feeding them with the breast, or talking to them in the familiar language of their

56 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

love ; when suddenly the executioner rushes iu, and snatches them from their arms, and, at once pulling forth his commission and his knife, without regard to shrieks or tears, murders the innocent babe, and leaves the mother in a mean between madness and death."

A subject like this must be a difficult one for painting. If the scene be represented iu its historical probabilities, and if the artist allow his imagination to follow the natural indications of the story, he is likely to produce a picture too shocking for nerves not firmly strung to look upon ; whereas, on the other hand, if he touches the subject too delicately, he will do so at the sacrifice of much natural truth and effect. The difficult medium between these extremes would doubtless be most effectual ; and we may expect that picture to be the best which most successfully imitates the true delicacy of the sacred writer, who depicts the whole scene by the single and most pathetic image of mothers weeping for their children.

In the great picture from which the present engraving is copied, Rubens is charged with having committed himself to the former of the indicated extremes — as a man so vigorous in his physical conceptions was likely to do. The work is in the Munich Gallery ; and Dr. Waagen, who saw it there, ventures, in his " Peter Paul Rubens," to call it, " an atrocious picture, which no perfection of execution could reconcile to any lover of art." He adds : — " I cannot now recal without shuddering the effect it pro- duced upon my own mind. It is a vivid proof that art has its due limits ; that although the purely natural, the purely ideal, and the artistic, blend into each other, yet that the servile imitation of nature, without selection or discretion, becomes a palpable false- hood— a contradiction of the truth, as regards effect. Thus there can be no doubt that, iu the real scene, the desperate mothers did defend themselves by biting and scratch- ing, yet, in the literal representation of these horrors, whatever was tragic and pathetic in the reality, is lost in the vulgar, the grotesque, and the ferocious ; and thus the truth of the effect is grossly falsified, and the true aims of art defeated." This is severe ; but contains much well-considered truth. Much of the revolting effect ascribed to the painting is, however, happily lost in the engraving, owing to the absence of colour.

t

I

^

I

57

TOBIT'S SIGHT RESTORED.

A. CARACCI.

" How oft do they their silver bowers leave To come to succour us that succour want ; . . . They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward, And their bright squadrons round about us plant : And all for love, and nothing for reward, O why should hevenly God to men have such regard." Spenseb.

TOBIT XL 11.

Apart from all question respecting its historical truth, the book of Tobit is one of the most interesting portions of the Apocrypha, from the unusually domestic and auto- biographical character of the story which it contains, and from the natural truthful- ness of the sentiments which that story embodies.

Among those who were carried away captive by the Assyrians, after Samaria had been destroyed and the kingdom of the ten tribes subverted, (734 b. c.) was a pious Israelite named Tobit, of the tribe of Naphtali. God blessed him in the land of his exile, and gave him favour in the eyes of the Assyrian conqueror, who advanced him to the important post of court-purveyor. A large part of the wealth acquired in this employment he distributed freely in alms and benefactions to his poorer brethren, and the rest he deposited for safety in the hands of his kinsman, Gabael, who resided at Rages, in Media. Sennacherib, the successor to his royal patron, was much more inimical to the Jews than Shalmaneser had been, especially after the disgraceful failure of his expedition against Hezekiah. Many Jews were by his orders slain on the slightest pretences, and their bodies exposed in the streets and market-places. But their bodies invariably disappeared over-night ; and it being discovered that Tobit had secretly removed them for burial, he was disgraced, and all his property taken from him. Still he persisted in the practice which had brought ruin upon him; and having one day rendered himself ceremonially unclean by burying a strangled Israelite, he was precluded from entering his dwelling that night, and therefore slept in the court- yard, close to the wall of the house. Some swallows had chanced to nestle just over his head; and their warm dung falling into his eyes, added bbndness to his other misfortunes.

In this seemingly lost and utterly ruined condition, Tobit held fast his integrity and hope ; while his wife Anna was more disposed to look back upon their prosperous days, and to complain at the virtuous zeal of her husband, through which they had been lost. Nevertheless, she was a good woman at bottom ; and supported the family by " taking in women's work to do ;" and she seems to have been kindly dealt with by her employers. ii. p

.58 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

Tobit at leDgth bethought himself of sending his son Tobias to reclaim the ten talents of silver which had been deposited with Gabael of Rages. His youth and inexperience, and his ignorance of the road, seemed to stand in the way ; but a suitable person pre- sented himself as his companion for the journey, who suffered it to be understood that his name was Azarias, of Tobit's own tribe and family; and who undertook the duty for a drachm a day and his keep — with the promise that if he brought the youth safely back, some addition should be made to his wages. On their way, the two travellers rested in the evening upon the banks of the Tigris ; and when young Tobias went into the water to bathe, " a fish leaped out of the river, and would have devoured him ;" but, encouraged by his companion, the youth seized the fish, and drew it to land. They ate him for their supper : but Tobias saved the heart, liver, and gall of the fish, by the advice of his companion, who assured him that the last was an excellent cure for blind- ness ; and that a fumigation of the heart and liver was a sovereign remedy against the machinations of evil spirits. And so it proved.

At Ecbatana the travellers took up their quarters with Raguel, who, as Tobias learned from his companion, was a near kinsman of his father, and whose daughter Sara, a maiden " fair and wise," had been sought by seven husbands, all of whom had in turn been destroyed by an evil spirit in the bridal chamber. The right to her hand now descended to Tobias, as next of kin ; and in reliance upon the charm which the heart and liver of the fish afforded, he resolved to claim this dangerous maiden for his bride. At the smell of the fumigation, the evil spirit took fright, and " fled into the utmost parts of Egypt." This deliverance had been so little expected by the damsel's father, that he rose early in the morning to dig a grave for his guest ; and great was the rejoicing when the bridegroom was seen to come forth safely from his chamber. So happy was Tobias here, that he had no inclination to pursue his journey, but sent on his companion with the proper vouchers, to receive the mousey left with Gabael at Rages. He soon returned with the ten talents ; and as Raguel gave Tobias half of all his sub- stance with his daughter, the party returned to Nineveh with considerable wealth.

Immediately on his arrival, Tobias, with pious haste, took hold of his blind father, who had stumbled at the door in advancing to meet him, and stroked his eyes with the gall of the fish, saying, " Be of good hope, my father." The application made the eyes of good old Tobit smart ; and he began to rub them strongly; on which "the white- ness pilled away from the corners of his eyes," and he saw his son, and fell upon his neck. After all the adventures of the journey had been detailed, and Tobit had received his daughter-in-law with patriarchal blessings, the father and son agreed to bestow a most liberal recompense upon the guide and companion of Tobias, to whom the latter frankly ascribed, under God, all the success which had befallen him. But the time was now come for the stranger to disclose himself: and when he was desired to take halt of all the treasure which had been brought, he said — " I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the presence of the Holy One."

*

m

32

« -s

©

59

w

D J E R A S H.

" Then would a splendid city rise to view." Thomson.

Ten cities, which resembled each other in their civic institutions and privileges, and which were inhabited chiefly by heathens, gave, in the time of our Saviour, the name of Decapolis to the region beyond the Jordan in which they were found. This name occurs in Matt. iv. 25. Gerasa, which was one of those cities, stood on the eastern border of Gilead, and was regarded as a border-town towards Arabia. This place, although not named in Scripture, is not unrenowned in the history of the Jews. King Alexander Jannseus besieged the place, and took it by storm, to possess himself of a large treasure which it contained j and it was in its neighbourhood that he died. At the commencement of the great and ruinous war with the Romans, Gerasa was burned by the Jews, in revenge for the massacre of their people at Csesarea, and the part of the city which this confla- gration had left uninjured, was destroyed not long after by one of the generals of Vespa- sian. It was afterwards rebuilt and fortified ; and its name sometimes occurs in the his- tory of the Arabian wars with the Greek empire, and sometimes in the history of the Crusades. But the site had for many ages passed out of knowledge, when it was, in 1806, discovered by Seetzen, and it has since been visited and described by some other travellers — but few in comparison with those who have explored the more accessible sites of the region on this side the Jordan.

The existing remains show that Gerasa was a very splendid city, presenting traces of a larger number of public buildings than any other site in Syria, and upon the whole, exhibiting a much finer mass of ruins than even Palmyra. The town is built on two sides of a valley, with a fine stream running through it, which a few miles south of the town empties itself into the river Zerka, the Jabbok of Scripture : the situation being, altogether, most beautiful. The town must have been principally composed of two main streets, crossing each other in the centre at right angles. The streets have been lined with a double row of columns, some of which are Ionic, and some Corin- thian. The pavement is still exceedingly good, and there is an elevated space on each side for foot-passengers. The principal ruins are those of two grand temples, one of which, as appears by a Greek inscription, was dedicated to the sun, like that of Palmyra ; and Burckhardt, who had ample opportunities of comparison, is of opinion that, next to that temple, this greatly excels in taste and magnificence every public building of the kind in Syria. It faced nearly east, and stood in the centre of an immense double peristyle court. The columns of the temple are of the Corinthian order,

CO GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

and of very fine proportions. They are of a brown free-stone, and eleven of their number are standing, but without the capitals. The pillars of the colonnade around the enclosing court are of the same order, but of smaller size, and must have comprised no less than one hundred and eighty-six columns in the original state of the building. One of the most remarkable peculiarities of this temple is an underground chamber, below the principal hall of the temple, with a bath in the centre. There are also among the ruins five or six other temples of inferior importance, in different parts of the town; and also the remains of two theatres, the scene of the largest of which is still in nearly a perfect state, presenting, in this respect, a singu- larity rarely witnessed. There are also traces of two grand baths : and two bridges, still in good preservation, cross the valley and the river. About three hundred yards from the south-west gate is the circus or stadium ; and not far from it a triumphal arch, which has been much admired. To the north-east there is a large reservoir for water, near to which are the remains of an aqueduct, by which this and the other reservoirs were doubtless supplied with water. Near to this is a picturesque tomb, fronted by four Corinthian columns. These ruins being overgrown with wood, are objects of much picturesque interest. The ancient cemetery, which almost surrounds the city without the walls, affords a large number of sarcophagi, most of which have been broken open, as if in search of treasure ; but scarcely any of them are highly finished, or of any antiquarian interest.

The town was nearly square, each side somewhat less than a mile. The walls crossed the river in two places at right angles, the other two sides being parallel to each other on the opposite sides of the hills. Insulated fragments of these walls still remain, showing that they were upwards of eight feet thick, and built of squared stones of middling size. About two hundred and thirty columns are now standing in the city. There are numerous inscriptions in all directions, chiefly of the time of Antoninus Pius, and most of them much mutilated. The stone of which Djerash is built is calcareous, of considerable hardness, the same as the rock of the neighbouring mountains. Burckhardt, to whom we owe the most minute description of the ruins, could not observe that any other stone was employed, and expresses his surprise at the absence of granite columns, " as they abound in Syrian cities of much less note and magnificence than Djerash." Of the private habitations of the city there are none in a state of preservation; but the whole of the area within the walls is covered with their ruins, forming a strong contrast to the remains of the public buildings which arrest the eye in all directions. The site is now wholly deserted except by the wandering Arabs, by whom it is occasionally frequented, and who are the sole and most regardless inheritors of a scene once vital with human activities, and which such great wealth was employed to aggrandize, and so much genius to adoru. Thus even cities are mortal; and in such a state as this, we view them still beautiful in death — before they are come to the common doom into which many great cities have already fallen, and share in the solemn sentence which pronounces the doom not only of man, but of all his works — " Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

/ ■

61

fc

THE GOOD SAMARITAN.

DIETRICI.

■ Stripped, wounded, beaten, nigh to death, I found him by the highway-side ; I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, Revived his spirit, and supplied Wine, oil, refreshment; — he was healed." Montgomery.

LUKE X. 30-37.

The Samaritans and Jews were hated by each other with an intensity of bitterness, of which it would be difficult to find any modern or even any ancient parallel. When, there- fore, our Lord had been inculcating the duty of loving one's neighbour, and was required by one of the by-standers to define the extent in which that term was to be applied, he could not give a broader or more significant application than by describing it as embra- cing these extreme points of national and religious antipathy. He did this in a parable, the scene and circumstances of which were so well laid, that the incident which it described might have been of daily occurrence — except in the essential point, of its overflowing mercy and human kindness.

Jericho was in those days a rich and populous city, and there was much intercourse between it and Jerusalem. But the road between them was then, as it is now, one of the most dangerous in Palestine. One part of it lay along the narrow ravines, and between the high cliffs of the mountains, whose numerous caverns afforded secure retreats to robbers and outlaws, who were enabled by the natural character of the region, and by the projecting points which it offered, to observe the motions of travel- lers, and to surprise those whom they deemed it safe to attack, without being them- selves perceived until escape was impossible, and defence difficult.

Now, the parable represents a man as being plundered and left for dead upon this road, when travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. At the latter city a great number of priests resided, and one of them returning home, soon after, from his turn of service at the temple, saw the wounded man lying in the road ; but, instead of yielding- to the natural impulse of compassion, and stopping to ascertain whether the breath of life was still in him, he passed hastily bv on the other side. He probably believed him dead, II. Q

62 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

and cared not to incur the penalty of ceremonial pollution which would arise from touching a corpse. Soon after, a Levite came along the road, and his better nature so far prevailed as to induce him to pause to look upon the man. It is probable that if there had been any visible signs of life, he would have assisted the sufferer ; but he was not equal to that self-forgetting humanity which would have led him to distrust the evi- dence of his sight, and, even at the risk of contact with a corpse, assure himself by the touch whether or not the warmth of life still lingered in him. He also passed on.

Presently after, a Samaritan came riding along upon his ass. He perceived the seemingly lifeless body, and must have seen or guessed that the man was a Jew. But no considerations of enmity between their races, no thought of ceremonial pollution, no dread of the consequences of detention in that dangerous place, had any weight with him. He hastened to the poor creature, and, finding that he still lived, he raised him up, and strove with the most tender care to revive and help him. His travelling stores were speedily opened, and the wounded stranger was refreshed with wine, and his wounds bound up and mollified with oil. As soon as he could be moved, the good Samaritan mounted him upon his own beast, and led him carefully to the next inha- bited place. This was a caravanserai, with the keeper of which he deposited his charge, leaving money to satisfy his present wants, and promising to defray on his return any other expense which his condition might render necessary.

Having related this parable, Jesus made to his qrestioner the pointed inquiry — " Which man of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour to him that fell among thieves ?" The other perceived his drift, yet, being unable to avoid the obvious infe- rence, answered, (as if hating to say outright " The Samaritan") " He that showed mercy on him." On which Jesus made the emphatic application — " Go, and do thou likewise."

*

s

E

s

g

63

A N T I 0 C H.

Where is thy crown, imperial Antioch ?

The name of Antioch is of frequent occurrence in the later Jewish, and in the early Christian history. From the time of its foundation by Seleucus Nicanor, about 300 years before Christ, to the subjugation of Western Asia by the Romans, Antioch repre- sented to the Jews the metropolis of that empire in Syria, to which at times they were subject, and with which, at other times, they contended. After that, it was of lessened political prominence in their viewr, in consequence of the direct intercourse which their rulers maintained with Rome ; but it was still the capital of the Roman provinces in Asia, and the seat of the chief governor, besides that a large number of wealthy and intelligent Jews had settled there, who were constantly visiting Jerusalem at the great festivals, and between whom and the native Jews a constant intercourse, religious and commercial, was maintained. To the first Christians it soon became of high importance, from the success which the preaching of the gospel there obtained, and from its becoming, in some sort, the centre of all those great operations which had for their object the conversion of the Gentiles. It was, in fact, the real metropolis of the Gentile church in Asia, as Jerusalem, while it subsisted, was the metropolis of the con- verts from Judaism. As the points in which the history of Antioch is connected with that of the Jews are less familiarly known than its political history, it may be satisfac- tory to state the leading circumstances of that connection.

Antioch was admirably situated, upon the river Orontes, about 300 miles to the north of Jerusalem. It3 founder built not fewer than sixteen other cities of the same name (Antiochia) ; but this one became the metropolis of his empire, and the residence of himself and his successors. The reputation which the Jews enjoyed for loyalty, for faithfulness to their engagements, and for their skill in the management of commercial operations, made them, in the opinion of the kings of the time, most valuable citizens ; and therefore Seleucus spared nothing to allure them, by high civic privileges, to the cities he had founded. Hence from the first, Antioch, as the chief of them, counted a large proportion of Jews among its population, who, through all subsequent vicissi- tudes, retained their original privileges, and continued to enjoy them even after the destruction of Jerusalem. How highly these privileges came in after times to be valued, appears from the fact that Jason, the profligate brother of the high-priest Onias the Third, offered Antiochus Epiphanes no less than a hundred and fifty talents for per- mission to establish a gymnasium in Jerusalem, and for full power of conferring on the Jews the citizenship of Antioch, which was much sought after, on account of the immu- nities connected with it. We must assume that what was sought was, to give the privilege to Jews not resident in Antioch, seeing that those who lived there were

04 GALLERY OP SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

already in the enjoyment of it. Tins was in 175 b. c, -when the Jews in Palestine had been long enough subject to the Graeco-Syriau empire, (having been previously under the Ptolemies of Egypt,) to acquire a dangerous taste for Grecian ideas and habits. This arose chiefly from their intercourse with the Jews resident in the towns of that empire, and from the frequent visits of persons in the higher classes to Antioch, to push their interests at court, or on business connected with the administration of affairs in Palestine. Many went so far as to conform to the Grecian idolatry, without pro- fessedly forsaking their own faith ; and this gave rise, in due course, to a Grsecising party, who favoured and promoted the proceedings which brought much misery on the country, till the patriotic party was eventually enabled, under the Maccabees, to gain the upper hand, and to establish the virtual independence of their nation. The Jason, just named, was a ringleader of this Greek party. Though a candidate for the high- priesthood, he conformed to the religion and manners of the heathen, and assumed the Greek name of Jason, in the place of his proper name of Joshua, or Jesus. He suc- ceeded in his object of gaining the high-prieshood ; and his brother Onias was called to Antioch, and kept there as a prisoner at large. Three years after, Jason himself was superseded by his younger brother, Menelaus, whom he had sent to Antioch with tribute and presents to the king. In fact, this man bought the dignity over his bro- ther's head, by the promise of a higher price than he could pay; and hence he directed his deputy to take some costly vessels out of the temple, and expose them for sale at Tyre, to raise the funds he required. This profanation of the temple filled the Jews, even at Antioch, with indignation ; and the elder brother — the deposed Onias — who lived in exile there, and was greatly esteemed for his many virtues, openly rebuked his degenerate brother for this enormity, and then fled for sanctuary to the grove at Daphne, in the neighbourhood of the city. At the instigation of that brother, he was allured thence by the person who governed the city in the absence of the king, and was then treacherously murdered. It was the son of this Onias — himself of the same name — who, losing all hope of attaining his father's dignity, to which he was entitled, fled to Egypt, and there erected a new temple, and established a new priesthood.

Thirty-six years later, when the Jews had rendered themselves almost independent under the leadership of the Maccabees, Demetrius Nicator having been expelled by the citizens of Antioch, who, weary of his tyranny, had rebelled against him, that prince applied to Jonathan the Maccabee, and promised him great things for his assistance. Jonathan accordingly despatched to Antioch three thousand well-armed Jews, who summoned the rebellious citizens to lay down their arms ; and, upon their refusal, fell upon them, put a great number of them to the sword, and set fire to the city. Although it is not so stated, there can be no doubt that this handful of assailants upon a great metropolitan city, reckoned upon, and obtained, the active co-operation of the large body of Jews within the walls.

These incidents help to fix the Jewish connection with Antioch ; and that which may be called the Christian history of the city will obtain our notice on another occasion.

I

1

*§

^

^

65

DAVID AND ABIGAIL.

RUBENS.

" How fares he in the wilderness ?" Wieland.

1 SAM. XXY.

The position of David in the wilderness, at the head of a band composed of some hundreds of bold men of desperate fortunes, opened a peculiar relation between him and the wealthy sheep-masters of Judah, who, during a part of the year, sent out their flocks, under responsible shepherds, to pasture in the uncultivated region to which he had retreated from the wrath of Saul. His presence was a most effectual protection to the flocks from the predatory attacks of the wandering tribes, of which the sheep-owners of the border districts were in constant dread. He might himself also, with small blame from the public opinion of his time, have helped himself freely from their flocks for the subsistence of his troop ; and his abstinence from any such operations must have been deemed no ordinary pitch of virtue by those who had been accustomed to the free pro- ceedings of outlawed men, who took to the wilderness in the same way that David and his troop had done. On these two grounds — because he restrained his own men from doing them wrong, and because he protected them from the aggressions of the Arabian tribes — David considered that the sheep-masters were bound to contribute to his sup- port. In the like circumstances such contributions are usually given with a ready and liberal hand ; and the formidable " protectors" have in general very small hesitation in enforcing their claim as a matter of right, on those very rare occasions when the slightest hesitation is perceived.

Such was the position of David when he heard that one Nabal, a very wealthy sheep-master of those parts, whose flocks he had protected in the wilderness, was shear- ing his sheep in Carmel.* This was a season of great jollity among the Israelites, and David knew that large preparations of good cheer must have been provided for the occasion. He therefore sent ten of his men with a most courteous request that some provisions might be sent to him, strengthened by a becoming allusion to the services which justified the application. But Nabal, who was of a most churlish temper, received the application with scorn, and answered it with such intolerable insult, that when David heard of it, his blood waxed warm, and ordering his men to gird on their swords, he swore that not a soul belonging to Nabal should remain alive by the morning dawn. * Sot Mount Cannel, but another Carmel, about five miles south of Hebron

II. R

6(i GALLERY OP SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

But the Lord saved him from executing this criminal and barbarous intention, through the discreet conduct of Nabal's wife, named Abigail, who was not less noted for her rare good sense than for her surpassing comeliness. She no sooner heard from Nabal's ser- vants of the gross manner in which he had repelled David's application, than she fore- saw the consequences which might be expected to follow, unless immediate steps were taken to avert them. She instantly made up a most bountiful supply of bread, parched corn, raisins, figs, and meat, and sent it forward on asses by her servants, and speedily followed herself, mounted upon a swiftly driven ass. It was as she had foreseen. She met David and his men on the way to wreak their vengeance upon Nabal and his house ; and when she saw him, she alighted from her beast, and cast herself at his feet. In a feeling and yet well-managed address, she successfully soothed his anger. She blamed her husband freely, as a fool whose words were not worth minding, and besought David to accept the present she had brought. She delicately hinted at the persecution to which he was subjected from Saul, and reminded him that when this evil day should have passed by, and he had become ruler of Israel, it would be no grief to him that he had abstained from shedding blood without sufficient cause.

David was much struck both by the manner and the matter of this discreet woman's address. He blessed her for her counsel, which had kept him from shedding blood ; and, having received her offering, dismissed her in peace to her own home. As for Nabal, the news of the great danger to which his own folly had exposed him, so worked upon a brain weakened by intemperance, that he fell into a kind of stupor, and in ten days was a corpse.

David had not forgotten Abigail ; and when, some time after, he heard that she had been widowed, he sent to invite her to become his wife. She was not unwilling. Attended by her maidens, she accompanied his messengers, and they took her to their leader, who received her as his wife. The marriage was no doubt one of mutual respect and affection ; and the wealth of which the bride appears to have been possessed, may be supposed to have had some influence upon David's subsequent movements, as we find that he then abandoned the roving life which he had hitherto led, and went to settle himself among the PhiUstines.

Rubens's painting of this subject, from which our engraving is taken, is regarded as one of his capital productions. Dr. Waagen declares it to be one of the finest pictures of Rubens with which he is acquainted. " It combines," he says, "nobleness and depth of feeling, with a sober yet powerful and clear colouring, and felt execution." The two female attendants of Abigail are supposed to be portraits of the artist's wives. It mea- sures five feet nine inches by eight feet two inches, and is in the Methuen collection at Corsham House. It is said to be worth 1500 guineas.

67

THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

" Thy wonders in the deep have I beheld ; Yet all by those on Judah's hills excell'd : There where the Virgin's son his doctrines taught, His miracles and our redemption wrought : Where I, by thee inspired, his praises sung ; And on his sepulchre my offering hung. Which way soe'er I turn my face or feet, I see thy glory, and thy mercy meet." Sandys.

That which hears to the eye the aspect of an elegant sepulchral chapel, under the great dome of the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, is in fact a natural grotto, lined on the inside, and covered on the outside, with fine stones shaped into architectural proportions. This is what is believed by nine-tenths of Christendom to be the tomb in which our Lord was laid ; nor until the present century has this belief been impugned, even by Protestants, only a small number of whom have given so much attention to the matter, as to be able to say that they disbelieve the common tradition. We shall not discuss the question ; but it is our impression that all the objections which have been urged against the identity of the spot can be answered, except this one ; namely — that our Lord was certainly crucified and entombed outside the city, and yet the sites now shown as those of his crucifixion and sepulture, are nearly in the heart of the modern city, and, from the nature of the site, it is exceedingly difficult to imagine any probable arrangement of the town-walls, which should at any former time have thrown this spot beyond them.

Such a spot will necessarily be the object of different emotions to minds differently trained and constituted. To the great body it must be an object of direct feeling, from the memories they suppose to be connected with it. And that feeling will be grief; but the grief will be mingled with triumph and joy in those who have crossed the great waters, or travelled the wilderness, that they might behold it ; and who believe, however vainly, that by that act they have brought their souls one step nearer to God. Others, not themselves consciously subject to this direct influence, will be kindled by a sympa- thizing emotion with those who are more visibly subject to it. After a brief struggle between the judgment and the feeling, the latter will often prevail, and the spot will become invested with high interest, as a great centre, around which the most earnest feelings and highest emotions of thousands, have year by year, during many ages, revolved. They will think of the times when the chivalry of Europe rose to arms, and changed the fate of nations, in order to rescue this little spot from the hands of the infidels ; and they will not forget, that for fifteen centuries this place has been that to which thousands have been constantly turning their hearts, and to which they have

68 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

wended with weary feet from the uttermost parts of the earth — content to suffer — con- tent to die, if they might kneel down at last upon that cold floor, and let their tears fall upon those sacred stones. To this class, or perhaps to hoth, belonged our excellent old traveller Sandys, who says : — " Thousands of Christians performe their vowes, and offer their teares here yearly, with all the expressions of sorrow, humilitie, affection, and penitence. It is a frozen zeale that will not be warmed with the sight thereof. And, O that I could retaine the effects that it wrought with an unfainting perseverance ! who there did dictate this hymn to my Saviour : —

" Saviour of mankind, Man, Emmanuel, Who sinlesse dyed for sinne, who vanquish) hell — The first-fruites of the grave — whose life did give Light to our darknesse, in whose life we live —

0 strengthen thou my faith, correct my will, That mine may thine obey : protect me still, So that the latter death may not devoure

My soul, sealed with thy seal. So in the houre When Thou, whose body sanctifide this tombc, Unjustly judg'd, a glorious judge shalt come To judge the world with justice ; by that signe

1 may be knowne, and entertained for thine."

Others, of sterner mould, will not give way to any of these feelings. They will look upon the whole concern as a delusion and a snare, whereby thousands of souls have been entrapped to their ruin, looking for Jesus in his forsaken tomb, and seeking for their souls an atoning merit in that act of " bodily exercise," while careless of making their own hearts his dwelling-place. Such will also reflect upon the ignominy brought upon the name of Christ, in the eyes of the unbelieving Moslems, by the disgusting mummeries which there accompany his worship, and by the acts of violence, falsehood and wickedness, perpetrated in a place accounted holy for his sake ; and when, besides this, they call to mind the rivers of blood which have been shed on account of this spot, they will turn away with sorrow and indignation from that which must appear in their eyes as one of the most defiled of the earth, whether they believe or do not believe that within these precincts the Redeemer laid down his life, and took it up asrain.

«t

G9

THE JUDGMENT OP SOLOMON.

RUBENS.

" She who, to save Her innocent from the sword, would with him part, And yield him to a cruel stranger's care, Is the true mother of the living boy." Texnie.

1 KINGS III. 16-28.

When a mere youth, like Solomon, ascended the throne, which had for so many years been graced by the matured judgment and piety of his illustrious father, there were doubtless many hearts in Israel that trembled for him — many who doubted whether, upon the whole, his elder brethren — first Absalom, and then Adonijah — had been wisely- set aside to make room for him. The responsibilities which rest upon an Eastern king are great, in proportion to the power with which he is invested; and more, therefore, of the happiness and safety of his subjects depends upon the personal character of the sovereign, than in such forms of government as that under which it is our happiness to live. Great therefore, in proportion, was among the Jews, and is among the modern Orientals, the anxiety with which the people watch the indications of character, ability, or bent of mind, which the first public acts of a new sovereign might afford. The younger the sovereign is, the more strongly will this anxiety be experienced, because he comes to the throne a comparatively unknown and untried man.

It was well for Solomon that there was no one in Israel who felt more strongly than he did the difficulties of his position; aud that there was none who knew better than he did where to apply for the strength which his high and difficult station required. It was while all Israel were eagerly watching the first acts of their young king, that they might augur what awaited him under his reign, that he was favoured with that vision at Gibeon, in which he was offered the choice of wisdom, or wealth, or length of days. Although he afterwards "spake three thousand proverbs, and songs a thousand and five," nothing he ever said could be more touchingly beautiful than the terms in which his choice was expressed : — " O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father ; and I am but a little child ; I know not how to go out or to come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people whom thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give therefore thy servant II. s

70 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad." It is no wonder that this answer " pleased the Lord ; " and because Solomon had cho- sen the thing absolutely best, the other gifts which, however dazzling, he had nobly postponed to this substantial good, were given in addition to him.

This high gift of surpassing wisdom — such as the world had never before, nor has ever since witnessed — was given to the young king, not to be hid in a corner, but to be exercised for the advantage of his people ; and the sooner that they became acquainted with his high advancement, the better would it be for them and for him.

In Israel, as in other Oriental states, the king is the supreme judge, and the duty of administering justice occupies no small portion of his time. The judicial acts of a king are usually much talked of; and, in the case of a new sovereign, his conduct upon the tribunal usually affords the standard by which his capacity is measured. A case soon came before Solomon, sufficiently perplexing to enable him, by his sagacious decision, to win the respect and admiration of his subjects, and to show forth the high gifts which God had committed to him.

Two women, of loose character, lived together in the same house. They had both infant sons of the same age ; and one night, one of the women overlaid her child, and it died; but in the morning, she, in whose bed the dead child was found, contended that the other woman had exchanged the children, and that the living child was hers, and the dead one belonged to her companion. This knotty matter was brought before the king for his decision ; and as it was precisely one of those cases which the Orientals regard as trying the capacity and penetration of the judge, Solomon could not be unaware of the importance which would be attached to his determination. He heard the two women patiently, and then told them, that since both claimed the living child, and both refused the dead one, there was no other way of settling the dispute than by severing the living child in two, and giving half of him to each of the claimants. He then called for a sword, and directed an officer to execute this sentence. But she, to whom the child really belonged, interfered, " for her heart yearned upon her son," and she said, " 0 my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it : " but the other, actuated probably by the feeling ascribed to her by the poet —

" Why should a living son be hers, when mine Must sleep i' th' hopeless grave," —

acquiesced, saying, " Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it." The king thus, by the true signs of natural affection, recognized the real mother, and, taking up her words, repeated with emphasis, " Give her the living child, and in no wise slay it, for she is the mother thereof ! "

The political importance which, in accordance with the view we have taken, attached itself to this acute decision, is shown by the further remark of the sacred historian : " And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged, and they feared the king; for they saw that the wisdom of God was with him."

I

BAZAARS.

" And here we enter the Bazaar, and view The varied forms of Eastern life anew."

The Bazaars or markets of the East are of two kinds, one an open place surrounded by shops, protected from the sun by a rude piazza, or by projections of various sorts thrown out from the fronts of the shops themselves. In the area of such market-places vegetable produce is usually exposed for sale in the early morning, but is for the most part cleared away as the day advances and the sun waxes hot, most of the marketing in animal and vegetable produce being generally over within two or three hours after sunrise. After that, the more active appearances of urgent traffic subsides, and the business is confined for the most part to the surrounding shops, which, if there is another bazaar in the place for manufactured goods, are such as are chiefly occupied in the pre- parations of food, and in the sale of perishable commodities. The other class of bazaars, which often open out into, or are connected in some way with the former, are those long arcades, or covered streets of shops, in which trades are carried on, and in which manu- factured goods receive that protection from the sun of summer, and from the rains of winter, which the construction of the shops, and the mode of exposing the goods, renders necessary. There will be another occasion of noticing this latter class of bazaars, and we therefore confine our present statement to the former, of which a very interesting specimen is represented in the engraving, and which is quite efficient for the purposes of Scriptural illustration, the usages of Northern Africa, to which this specimen belongs, being in most respects the same as those of Western Asia, where we have ourselves frequently traversed bazaars of this description.

There can be no doubt the " markets" mentioned in the Scriptures, were of one or the other of the kinds indicated. The reader unacquainted with the East, can affix no more determinate idea to the word "market," as it occurs in Scripture, than that it was a place of customary traffic. But to one who has this knowledge, every occurrence of the word, taken in connection with the context, suggests the kind of market, the nature of the commodities sold there, and brings up a vivid idea of the usual scenery and cir- cumstances of the place. This is an advantage open to few, as it can only be realized by actual travel in the East, and by a personal acquaintance with the analogous customs which it offers. Pictorial representations offer the only substitute — and by no means a bad one — for this living knowledge. The reader may, for instance, be assured that to markets, not in any material respect different from that which the present engraving portrays, the following passages of Scripture may be referred.

72 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

la Matt. xi. 16, children are represented as "sitting in the market-place ;" and it is precisely in such markets as this that children set their tables, or lay out their small1 wares upon the ground. This they could not do in the narrow covered bazaars, nor in such crowded places could they " call one to another," as they are said to have done, with any hope of being distinguished by those to whom they called. In the twentieth chapter of the same Gospel, the lord of the vineyard goes forth repeatedly into the " market-place," to hire labourers for his vineyard ; and this he did at all hours of the day, and even towards the evening he found men, who declared that they had been wait- ing there all the day to be hired. This could not be in the narrow passages where manufactured goods are sold, the proper use of which would have been obstructed by their presence ; biit in some such open bazaar as this, which are in fact at this day the sort of market-places to which labourers resort to be hired. So, there are several passages in the Gospels, where the Pharisees are characterized as those who loved " greetings in the market-place," which shows that the " market-place" was among the Jews as among other Orientals, and in the time of Christ as now, a favourite resort and lounging place. There, for instance, in our engraving, is a person of distinction loung- ing and enjoying himself, in the usual quiet way of the Orientals. If any passed him, knowing his rank — and they would guess it from his dress — they would salute him ; and if he " loved salutations," the public place in which he has chosen to seat himself, is, of all others, that in which his vanity would be the most abundantly gratified. In the Apocryphal book of Tobit, the Assyrians are described as casting out " into the market- place," the dead bodies of those Jews whom they put to death, whence Tobit himself withdraws them secretly by night to afford them interment. This was of course such an open market-place as the present, for it is in such places that, in fact, the dead bodies of those who have been executed are still exposed.

I

I

*

-1

\

73

ESTHER BEFORE AHASUERUS.

POUSSIN.

" If weeping Esther should prefer a groan Before the high tribunal of thy throne, Hold forth the golden sceptre." Quarles.

ESTHER III. 4-5.

In the time of the Persian king, who had bestowed the crown of Vashti upon a Jewish maiden, the chief powers of the state were swayed by a person named Haman, whose power, as is usual in the East, seems to have rested not more upon his official station, than upon the personal favour of the sovereign. This Haman was an Amalekite — one of that race whom, of all others, the Israelites considered their natural enemies, and whom in times of old they had striven to exterminate.

In the East the man who enjoys the favour of a king, seldom lacks the most reverent homage from all who come near him. So, all the men who stood in the king's gate bowed their heads very low, as the prosperous Haman passed — all, save one, and that one was Mordecai, the Jew. His marked omission of the usual obeisance which others rendered, at length drew the notice, and awoke the resentment, of the haughty favourite. On inquiry, he soon learned that the man was a Jew ; and that fact must have made him sufficiently aware of the feelings by which his conduct was dictated. Believing these feelings to be such as were shared by all the Jewish people, and remembering how often they had sworn of old to blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven, Haman scorned to satisfy his vengeance by a single victim, but resolved to stretch to the utmost the great power with which he was entrusted, to crush the hated nation to the ground.

It was, however, necessary that the consent of the king should be obtained ; and this he knew his master too well, to despair of securing. One evening, when the king and he were at their wine, the wily favourite ventured to broach the subject. Without directly naming them, he drew an exceedingly unfavourable picture of the Jews, describing them as a people whose customs and religion were different from, aud adverse to, all others, and whose character was in all respects so hateful, that the state would be advantaged by their extermination, except to the extent of the capitation tax which they paid, and which he himself undertook to make good to the royal treasury out of his own fortune. This astonishing proposal ought to have satisfied the king that there was a deeper personal feeling in the matter than his minister had chosen to avow. But, confused by wine, impatient at having state -business thrust upon his hours of leisure, and accustomed to rely upon the judgment of another, the king readily assented to all that Haman suggested ; and, resolving to be troubled no more with the business, he presented the favourite with his signet-ring, thereby authorizing him to issue what orders he pleased in the matter, and to enforce obedience by all the powers of the state.

II. T

74 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

The blood-thirsty Amalekite was not slow to give vent, under the powers thns bestowed, to'the fierce hatred against the Israelites which burned within him. He dispatched swift messengers to all the provinces of the empire in which any Jews existed, with a royal ordinance, enjoining the governors to destroy on a given day all the Jews within their jurisdiction, and to give their goods for a spoil to the destroyer.

Here was a danger great and imminent — such as had never before threatened the people of God : but He, who had foreknown this danger, had also provided the instru- ment by whom this danger should be turned aside. This was Esther. Mordecai found means to acquaint her with these circumstances, and to urge upon her the duty of exerting herself to save her people. Her woman's heart trembled at the task, and she directed the chief of her eunuchs, through whom she communicated with him, to make known to him that it was death for any one — even for her — to intrude unbidden on the presence of the king, and that thirty days had now passed since she had been last called before him. But Mordecai insisted that it was her plain duty to risk this or any other danger for the deliverance of her people ; and gathering strength from his power- ful words, she resolved to undertake this perilous task. Three days she devoted to prayer and fasting ; and, at her request, the Jews of the metropolis gave themselves up in like manner, during these days, to earnest supplication.

Upon the third day Esther arrayed herself with care, in the rich robes becoming her high estate, and then, attended by her maidens, passed out of the harem into the court of that quarter of the palace which formed the proper residence of the king. He was seated on a throne in the hall of audience fronting the court, attended by the officers of state. It was a critical moment, big with the fate of Esther, and of the great cause which seemed to rest upon her intercession. There was no calculating upon the humour of a capricious despot. He might be displeased at her unauthorized intrusion, and do nothing to relieve her from the dread penalties which the act itself incurred. If he held forth to her the golden sceptre in his hand, she was safe : but it must be his spontaneous act, for until he did so, she could not speak — could only make her appear- ance in the court, as one who sought audience and favour from him. Even the hearts of kings, as the Scripture teaches, are in the hands of the Lord, and he can turn them wheresoever he will ; and this influence was not wanting on this important occasion. The king's heart was touched, and he hastened to relieve her fears, by holding forth to her the golden sceptre of his mercy ; on which, as custom required, she advanced, and, with the high emotion of one who had been delivered from mortal danger, reverently touched the top of the sceptre. The king knew that only some great request could have driven her to such a step ; and he said — " What wilt thou, Queen Esther, and what is thy request ? for it shall be given thee, even to the half of the kingdom." But the circum- stances were not suitable to the disclosure of her errand, and etiquette did not allow a request of importance to be thus abruptly produced. She therefore said, " If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have pre- pared." The king said that he would come, and sent to order Haman to attend also.

<2

z

3 id

75

ft

B E I E 0 U T.

Kai Tvpov wyvyiijv, Btjpvrov t' alav Ipavvrfv

Ogygian Tyre, and Beryth's pleasant land. Dionysitjs Periegetbs.

In the second book of Samuel (viii. 8), a city called Berothai is named among those in the dominion of Hadadezer, the defeated king of Zobah, from which David "took exceeding much brass." This is supposed to have been the same city known to the ancients by the name of Berytus, and which still exists and flourishes under that of Beirout. Zobah indeed, which gave its name to this kingdom, was on the other side of Lebanon ; but Hadadezer was a great king, whose conquests had been extensive, and it is not impossible that Berytus may have been subject to his rule. Again, a place named Berothah is mentioned by Ezekiel (xlvii. 16), as upon the northern border of the pro- phetic realm ; and as this is mentioned next to Hamath, there is very much reason to think that Berytus is here also intended ; and, indeed, of the two texts, this more certainly than the other would seem to indicate Berytus.

Berytus probably received its name from the wells with which it abounds. Indeed, Stephanus Byzantinus says, that the Phoenicians themselves — within whose territory it lay — thus accounted for the origin of the name : " for with them Beer signifies a well." So it did with the Hebrews, and so it does with the Arabians. Hence Beeroth (plural), easily recognized in the existing name of Beirout, signifies " wells." The Romans changed the name of the place from Berytus, or rather Beruth, to Felix Julia ; but the names imposed by the Romans upon the old sites never took any root in Syria.

Beirout is pleasantly situated upon the sea-coast under Lebanon, about twenty miles to the north of Sidon, and on the south side of a river of the same name, which comes out from the mountains. At this place the coast recedes, and forms a wide, open, crescent-shaped bay. A small part of the town, lying nearest the water, appears rather closely built ; but a great part of its buildings, consisting of houses or villas, with gardens belonging to them, stand out dispersedly over the gentle rise of the hill. Indeed the entire face of the plain and ridge on which the town is placed, is quite covered with trees — chiefly mulberry, almond, olive, and apricot, and consequently not of imposing size. The side of the hill next the city, and west of it, is all cut up into small plots, and much of the kind of labour with which the cultivators of these parts are familiar, from their expe- rience in the terrace-cultivation of Lebanon, has been expended in making these plots level. The side of the bill is thus thrown into terraces, one above another, but without anything like regularity or order, the plots of ground thus secured being exceedingly various in their shapes and dimensions. A stone wall is built up at the lower end,

76 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

forming the face of the terrace, and the earth is drawn to a level at the top. Upon the wall, the species of cactus called the Indian fig, or prickly pear, is usually planted, to form a fence. The gardens, as usual in the East, are not planted with flowers or vegetables, but with trees, mostly of the fruits already mentioned ; and it is this which gives to the place that arborescent appearance in the distance which has been indicated. Gardens of flowers would have made no such figure in the distance, nor would they have been so agreeable near at hand, shade and water being the ingredients of enjoy- ment chiefly coveted under such climates as that which Beirout enjoys.

To the south and south-west of the town, commencing about a quarter of a mile from it, extend what may be called the sands. It includes the highest part of the pro- montory, and much, if not all, the south-west side of it. A few shrubs and bushes are sprinkled here and there ; but most of the surface is a very fine sand, which is more or less subject to the action of the wind ; and as the wind blows much from the south, the sand has the appearance of advancing nearer and nearer to the town. At the place where it stops, and where the gardens begin, the sands are much higher than the gar- dens, forming a bank ten, fifteen, or twenty feet high ; and this bank advances, by the sand being driven forward by the wind, and rolled down into the gardens.

The mountains which back the view, rise in successive heights, according as they recede, disclosing many aspects of grandeur and beauty. Thus, with the sea in front, with the mountains behind, and with trees all around, Beirout may certainly be regarded as affording one of the most pleasant inhabited sites that Syria can now offer.

+*

;■
8
^\
^

■*

,1

JOSEPH INTRODUCING HIS FATHER TO PHARAOH.

F. BOLL.

" The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home ; Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, And stand upon the threshold of the new." Waller.

GENESIS XLVII. 7-10.

That was an interesting and important day to Joseph, when he introduced his venerable father to the presence of the great king who had bestowed upon him his confidence, and who had raised him from the prison-house almost to a throne. He could, however, have no fears for the result. He knew the cordial sentiments of the king towards him and his ; and he knew that the heart of his father overflowed with gratitude for the many honours wherewith this foreign prince had honoured his beloved and long-lost son. Joseph was by no means ashamed of his father. It appears by the result of his history, that he counted it a greater honour to be his son, and to take a share in the heritage of his blessings, than to hold his high place near the throne of Egypt. Nor could he apprehend that the patriarch who had spent his life among tents, and was unacquainted with the ways of courts, would discredit him by any unbecoming demeanour. The natural dignity of his age and character, and the instinctive courtesy which belongs to a great pastoral chief, would keep him right, would enable him to say and to do the properest thing in any given circumstances, although he might be unacquainted with the artificial rules by which the homage and the intercourse of courts were regulated.

In this confidence Joseph led his father into the presence-chamber of the Egyptian king. Are we curious to know what was the act of homage, salutation, or respect, which the feelings and habits of Jacob dictated? It is told in three words — "Jacob blessed Pharaoh." It is true that " the less is blessed of the greater," (Heb. vii. 7) ; and in earthly station the Egyptian king was greater than the patriarch : but there was that doubtless in the appearance, in the words, and in the manner of Jacob which rendered this act perfectly consistent with, and indeed a becoming expression of, the respect and gratitude he must have felt towards the prince to whom, of all men then II. u

78 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

alive, he was, on his son's account, the most beholden. The word which we render " bless," is indeed often employed to denote an ordinary salutation : but even the ordinary salutations of pious Hebrews assumed the shape of a prayer to God for the health and peace of the person addressed ; and such, no doubt, was the blessing which Jacob bestowed upon Pharaoh.

All the particulars of this remarkable interview do not seem to have been recorded by the sacred historian ; but only those particulars which seemed most remarkable, and which most distinguished this from ordinary audiences. We further learn that the king was much struck by the venerable appearance of the patriarch. There were doubtless many men of much greater age than Jacob, but few that looked so old ; for he had been a man of many trials and griefs, which had left their marks upon his bodily frame and his countenance, although they had not broken his spirit or worn down his soul. He accordingly asked him his age. The peculiarly striking and impressive answer of Jacob fairly intimates, rather than expresses, the causes of the discrepancy between his apparent and his actual years : " The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage." That he calls a hundred and thirty years " few," must be understood with reference to the fact, that although this is nearly double the utmost term of the present rate of life, it was much below what had been witnessed in immediately preceding generations, and that it was not until several ages after, that the term of human life was brought down to its present standard. The age which Jacob had reached was, in proportion, scarcely equal to sixty under the present term of life ; and a man of his age did not probably look older than a man of sixty does now : but it is evident from the question of the king, that he looked like a man of extraordinary age, probably as old as a man of eighty does at present. His calling the term of his existence a "pilgrim- age," conveys an affecting and true image of human life under all its conditions, but was peculiarly appropriate to the kind of life which had been led by himself and his fathers — wandering up and down in a land that was not theirs.

t

S I D 0 N.

" I am of Sidon, famous for her wealth." Cowper's Homer.

In the most ancient book of Scripture, Sidon occurs as the name of the eldest son of Canaan, the son of Ham, Gen. x. 15. It is generally supposed, on the authority of Josephus, that the city of Sidon was founded by him, and derived its name from him. It might be so ; for it is allowed that the city was among the most ancient in the world; but we should be inclined to prefer the opinion that Sidon was rather founded by those who claimed the son of Canaan for their forefather, and who bore his name, which they transferred to the city that they built. These questions about the origin of cities are, however, too much affected by a latent impression that great cities were great in their origin. But this has been very seldom the case. Most great towns had very small beginnings ; and it is not only possible, but highly probable, that Sidon, which at length became so great a city, was originally but a fishing-village, not too important, or too soon after the Deluge, for a great-grandson of Noah to have founded.

Sidon must seemingly have taken some ages in acquiring that importance which it possessed at the time that the conquest of Canaan made the Israelites the near neigh- bours of the Phoenicians, and which is indicated by the fact that in Josh. xix. 28, it is distinguished as the " Great Sidon." There is another somewhat curious indication of its prosperity, in Judges xviii. 7, where, of Laish, or Leshem, a city near the sources of the Jordan, about a day's journey from Sidon, it is said — " The people who dwelt in it were careless ; after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and secure ; and there was nothing to molest them in the land : they possessed also riches without restraint." Most of the conditions of this statement seem to be intended to apply by comparison to the Sidonians also. Indeed, the place seems to have been in some dependence upon Sidon, for it is, further on in the same chapter, assigned as a reason for the facility with which a division of the tribe of Dan was able to take Laish, that " there was no deliver- ance, because it was far from Sidon . . . and the people had no intercourse with other men." It is disputed whether Sidon itself was included among the cities assigned in the original allotment to the Israelites. The passage which seems to imply that it was, in Judges i. 31, speaks not of Sidon but of the Sidonians, and may apply merely to the territory beyond their own boundaries, upon which they had encroached, and from which it was intended that they should be expelled. But we know that the Israelites were so far from being able to expel them, that they became themselves subject to some oppression from the Sidonians. This appears from Judges x. 12 ; and the amount of all this evidence, coupled with the fact that Tyre is scarcely mentioned, although its

SO GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

site was considerably nearer to the heart of the Hebrew territories, is, that Sidon was in the height of its power at the time of, and for some time after, the Hebrew conquest of Canaan, although she had already established, about fifteen miles to the south, as a staple for her own wares, that Tyre which was destined, in no long time, to become much greater and more illustrious than the mother-city. This had already taken place in the time of David and Solomon, who cultivated friendly relations with the Phoeni- cians, but in the history of whose reigns Tyre is described as great and prosperous, while Sidon is scarcely noticed, although it was then that the border of the Hebrew dominion impinged more closely upon the Sidonian district than it ever did before or after.

But although " Great Sidon " had then become, and long remained, only the second of the Phoenician cities, she was still rich and mighty, and secured in a great measure bv her excellent harbours from ruin and decline, so long as the maritime commerce of the Phoenicians should endure. In fact, the mother has long survived the daughter ; and while Tyre has long been, as the Hebrew prophets foretold, a desolate place, Sidon has remained to this day a town of considerable trade — considerable under the compa- risons which the existing circumstances of the country afford, but woefully insignificant under any comparison with its condition when first the parent, and then the rival, of the city " whose merchants were princes."

The modern town of Sidon, or, as it is now called, Saida, is admirably situated on a rising ground, overhanging the sea. The ancient city extended further to the east, and along the coast, than the modern. Our present engraving gives an excellent view of it, as seen on the approach from the north, by the way from Beirout. The rising ground upon which the town stands projects considerably into the sea. It is enclosed on the eastern side by a high fortified wall, and two mosques are seen to tower conspicuously over the other buildings in the town. The most striking object is the fortress, built upon a rock in the harbour, and connected with the town, formerly by a mole, but now by a causeway upon arches. This fortress was built by the celebrated Emir Fakr ed- Deen, and is a good and imposing specimen of Saracenic fortresses. Upon an elevation on the south side of the city, commanding the town, are seen some interesting remains of another and more ancient castle, which is usually ascribed to Louis IX., and which certainly belongs to the age of the Crusades. Between the town and the mountains lie richly cultivated gardens ; and beyond these the mountains of Lebanon arise in five ridges, one above another, the highest being of course the most remote. Into the bay on this side the town flows a considerable stream, fed, like the other streams that in this region come direct from the mountains, by the snows of Lebanon.

At Sidon the stranger will look in vain for any of those vestiges of ancient grandeur which the descriptions of the ancient historians might lead him to expect, and which indeed arg still to be seen in most of the other celebrated cities of the East. All wears a modern aspect, and that too of the most ordinary kind.

fc

1

I

St

1

81

DEATH OF SISERA.

NORTHCOTE.

" War, with his train'

Of rapine and carnage, careered o'er the plain ;

And the conquest-crown'd banner of Jabin was borne

To the dust with dishonour, and trampled and torn ;

And Hazor was whelm'd in affliction and grief,

And Harosheth wept for her champion and chief." Anon.

JUDGES IY. 15-22.

After the mighty host of Jabiu, king of Hazor, had heen put to the rout by the Israelites under Barak, the general of the defeated army, whose name was Sisera, fled swiftly in his chariot. But finding that he was hotly pursued, he imagined that the chances of escape or concealment would be greater without the chariot, and he there- fore alighted, and sped his way on foot. At length he came to the encampment of a pastoral chief, named Heber. This person was a Kenite, or belonged to the descend- ants of those Midianites, of Jethro's family, who had followed the Israelites into the land of Canaan. It is the policy of persons circumstanced like these Kenites, to maintain a good understanding with all the tribes or nations within, or on, the borders of whose territories they settle. There was thus a convention of peace between the house of this Kenite and the king whose hosts Sisera had led to battle. Hence, Sisera felt no hesitation in accepting, in full confidence, the refuge of Heber's tent, which that chief's wife — he being himself absent — hastened forth to tender to the distin- guished fugitive, whose person, it appears, was known to her, or whom she recognized by his attire and ornaments. She cried : " Turn in, my lord, turn in to me ; fear not !" He did turn in ; and seems to have been received into the inner or woman's part of the tent, which no pursuing Israelite could violate, without inflicting upon the Kenite chief, to whom the encampment belonged, the most grievous insult and wrong, which, under that form of life, is known. Here the fugitive commander asked for water to appease his thirst; and the woman brought him not water, but curdled milk, the refrigerating qualities of which are to this day much extolled in the East. Here was a three-fold assurance under which Sisera might repose in safety — the alliance between his master and Heber — the sacred shelter, freely offered, of the tent which none but an enemy of its owner, and scarcely even an enemy, would dare to violate — and the still more binding obligation of the partaken draught, which forms of itself a bond of protection, the force of which is well understood by those who are familiar with the n. x

82 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

customs of the East. The amount of security thus afforded was so great, that Sisera had been a monster if he had ventured to distrust its value. He did not. He laid himself down upon the ground, upon a skin or mantle, probably, and, wearied with the fatigues of the battle and the flight, he was soon asleep. Whether it was the view of this powerful person lying helpless before her, that first suggested to Jael the mur- derous intention which she executed, or whether she had entertained it from the first, it is not possible to say ; but we are at liberty to adopt the former opinion, as, of the two, the least discreditable to her. Of her motives it is difficult to suppose any other than, that, finding the alliance of the defeated king had become of little value, she was resolved to seize the opportunity of ingratiating herself with the victors, by laying them under what seemed to her an essential obligation, or at least by showing them that for their sakes, her house had, by her deed, sacrificed its alliance with the Canaanites. Her husband had left behind him no weapon with which her full purpose could be con- veniently executed. She therefore took one of the pins by which the tent was fastened to the ground, and with the mallet usually employed in driving them down, she, by one mighty and horrible effort, smote it through bone and brain, from temple to temple, pinning his head to the earth.

Leaving him thus, Jael resumed her watch at the tent door; and ere long perceived the pursuers advancing, headed by the Hebrew general in person. Without waiting to be questioned, the woman advanced to meet him, and said : " Come in, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest." He accordingly entered the tent with her, " and when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead, and the nail was in his temples." What Barak thought of this spectacle does not appear. He probably was not sorry to find the enemy of his country dead — and he would probably have put him to death himself had he caught him. The war-usages of the time would have sanctioned this in him ; but it is possible that he abhorred the mode by which his death had been com- passed, except in so far as it disgraced the cause of the enemy, that its leader had fallen by a woman's hand. But, although we are unacquainted with the impression this spectacle made upon the mind of Barak, we know very well in what point of view it was regarded by his renowned coadjutor, Deborah, who, in her triumphal song, praises the act of Jael, and blesses her for it. This was perhaps not unnatural in her, under all the excitements of the occasion ; but it is painful to think that her applause of the deed has been by many good men construed into the Divine approbation of an act which we have no hesitation in regarding as one of the most unjustifiable treacheries and revolting assassinations which history records. " Yea, let God be true, and every man a liar" — and let us not make Him an approver of that which is abhorrent to all that remains true in our nature. The death of Sisera was doubtless in accordance with the designs of his providence; but it does not therefore follow, that He sanctioned, much less dictated, the murderous treachery by which it was accomplished.

-

>\:

83

THE FLEET OF OPHIR.

MELVILLE.

" For thee his iv'ry load Behemoth bore, And far Sofala teem'd with golden ore ; Thine all the arts that wait on wealth's increase, Or bask and wanton in the beams of peace." Hebek.

2 CHRON.YIII.ia

It is no small proof of the political sagacity of King Solomon, that he perceived, early in his reign, the commercial advantages which might he derived from the possession of those ports on the eastern branch of the Red Sea, which had formerly belonged to the Edomites. It has indeed been urged that the Edomites before him had carried on this traffic, and that Solomon, under whose yoke they lay, merely took possession of their advantages. But there is no proof of this. The possession of ports does not, of neces- sity, create a maritime and commercial people ; and if the Edomites had been such, Solomon, who was then their sovereign, would not have needed to seek of the Phoeni- cians the ships and the mariners which already existed among his own subjects. It may also be remarked, that although the Edomites ere long became independent, and are frequently mentioned by the prophets, there is not a word to intimate that they were of those who go down to the sea in ships, and have their business in the great waters.

It is difficult to suppose otherwise than that a prince, so learned and so covetous of knowledge as Solomon — one who cultivated the natural sciences so carefully, as to qualify himself for writing those books on zoology and botany which the sacred historian ascribes to him — must have had some regard to what would now be called " the interests of science " in this undertaking. He would be anxious to enlarge his knowledge by obtaining accurate accounts of the countries bordering that great ocean into which he was aware that the Red Sea opened, and he would not neglect to obtain specimens of such of their rare and curious products as admit of being transported by sea. This is not merely conjecture ; for we know, in fact, that such products were brought to him, and there is every probability that they were secured under special instructions from him, if, indeed, he did not send persons in the fleet specially qualified to make the observa- tions, and commissioned to form the collections, he desired.

84 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

Solomon possessed no ships, and his own people had no knowledge of the sea ; but this seemingly formidable obstacle to maritime undertakings gave way before the strong purpose of the king. The most friendly relations already subsisted between him and Hiram, the king of the great maritime state of Tyre ; and he eagerly assented to take part in a congenial enterprise, which the king of Israel could not undertake without his aid, and which he could not himself undertake without the concurrence of Solomon. He agreed to furnish the ships and mariners, and Solomon was to send some of his own people, and, it would seem, to bear the principal expense of the equipment. It must have been an interesting sight, to behold this great commercial fleet — the first in which Israel had interest — set forth upon its long and perilous voyage. Considerable uncer- tainty prevails with respect to the situation of the place to which this voyage was directed. It is said to have been Ophir, which some would find in Ceylon, some in Arabia Felix, and others on the eastern coast of Africa. We are disposed rather to agree with those who suppose that Ophir was a general name for the rich countries of the south, lying on the African, Arabian, and Indian coasts, as far as at that time known. From its taking three years to perform, it would appear to have been directed to a distant region ; but if we consider the half-yearly monsoons, and that the vessels visited different and distinct coasts, and also remember that the expression "in the third year," as it should be rendered, admits of an interpretation which would much abridge the total duration, the distance will not appear so great.

It must have been one of the most exciting days which Jerusalem had seen, or which the king had experienced, when the news came, that after such long delay, the fleet had arrived richly laden in port. It is highly probable that the king and the nobles of his court went down to Ezion-geber, to view the weather-worn fleet, and to survey the curious objects and the rich treasures which it had brought. The fleet was laden with commodities which could not come from any one place in the Indian Ocean, and which indicate the different coasts it had visited. There was an immense quantity of the finest gold, together with precious stones, ivory, and fragrant woods. Of living creatures, intended for the special gratification of Solomon, apes and peacocks are par- ticularly mentioned as the most remarkable specimens of the whole. It is not said that any plants were brought, nor perhaps were the circumstances and the length of the voyage favourable to the transmission of plants ; but it is hardly to be supposed that the persons who brought the apes and peacocks, would neglect to bring some seeds of the curious vegetable products which must have attracted their attention ; and it requires no great stretch of fancy, to suppose that the plants which they yielded con- tributed to enrich the famous gardens which this king had in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem ; and on the site of which, plants are to this day growing — self-propagated, it would seem, from the seeds of foreign plants — which are not to be found in any other part of Palestine.

t

85

THE FIRST DEATH.

VANDERWERP.

" O Abel, speak to me ! Awake, arise, And let me hear again thy tuneful voice. He will awake no more !" Pbnnie.

GENESIS IV. 1-8.

The Scriptural account of the first human death is very full of interest. But it suggests more than it states. In the perusal of it the most sober mind is irresistibly led to imagine, to invent, and so to supply the connecting circumstances and the consequences which the narrative omits. In regard to the motive of the fratricide — tliis seems to be clearly intimated in the account which is given of Cain's previous wrath on finding the offering of his brother accepted, and his own refused. It was from the envy with which the malignant mind beholds the highly -favoured, and from the hatred with which such a mind regards the goodness which it lacks. With this agrees the intimation of the Apostle, which is indeed authoritative on the subject — "And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous," John iii. 12. Not satisfied with this, however, the old traditionists supply other, and certainly less credible and natural motives. One of the Talmudical traditions is, that Cain and Abel divided the world between them, the one taking possession of the movable, and the other of the immovable property. Cain then desired his brother to betake himself to the air, for that the earth on which he trod was his ; and Abel in return said to him, " The garments which thou wearest are mine ; take them off" !" From this the conflict between them arose, which ended in the death of Abel. Another tradition, from the same source, alleges that the brothers contended for a twin-sister of Abel's, whom the latter claimed because she was born with him, while the former urged his rights of primogeni- ture. It is added, that it was at length agreed she should be given to him whose offer- ing God accepted, and hence Cain's displeasure at the acceptance of his brother's offering, and the envy and hatred which led to that brother's destruction. This latter tradition is that which the Moslems believe, but it was of earlier existence among the Jews, to whom indeed may be traced most of the traditions regarding Scripture per- sonages which were adopted by Mohammed.

II. Y

86 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

The Scripture narrative states that "Cain talked with Ahel his brother; and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him." From this we do not know whether the act was premeditated, or was the spontaneous impulse of passion, excited by the talk they had together in the field. The latter is the most probable, and is the view which has been taken by Gesner in his once popular "Death of Abel," which, although a poem, is really a very judicious work. Others, however, conceive thatCain cherished his deadly purpose from the time his offering was rejected, and went out with him into the field with the intention of taking Abel's life ; and in favour of this view, they point to an apparent omission in the present Hebrew text, which is supplied in the Septuagint, according to which we should read — " And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go forth into the field ; and it came to pass," &c. This invitation to the field, it is urged, implies an intention to do the deed which was done there : but even if we accept the clause thus introduced, the argument built upon it is hardly conclusive, although its tendency is in favour of the conclusion which has been drawn from it. It cannot indeed be urged, as some have urged, that Cain could not know that an act of violence would occasion death ; for he knew that since the Fall the race of Adam had become subject to death : the deaths of animals from blows and wounds must have taught him what death was, and how it might be inflicted ; nor could his own life have been so entirely free from ordinary accidents, as to have left him igno- rant of those pains which in their excess are mortal.

The consequences of this awful crime as regarded the murderer are familiarly known; but it is not stated how the bereaved father and mother were affected by it. The first manifestation in a human creature of that death which their sin had brought into the world, must in any case have been a matter of amazement, grief, and horror to them ; and all these feelings must have been terribly enhanced when they witnessed its mani- festation in the person of their beloved son, prematurely cut off, by violence, in the sweet morning-tide of his existence.

The traditionists have not neglected so fine an opportunity of supplying the silence of the sacred writer. According to one of them, the dog which had watched Abel's flock, guarded also his corpse, protecting it against the beasts and birds of prey. Adam and Eve sat beside it, and wept, not knowing what to do. But a raven, whose friend had died, said, " I will go and teach Adam what to do with his son." It digged a grave, and laid the dead raven in it. When Adam saw this, he said to Eve, " Let us do the same with our child."

This curious account has been adopted, with some alterations, by the Mohammedans. In their account, however, it is Iblis (Satan), in the form of a raven, who instructs, not Adam, but Cain himself, how to dispose of his brother's corpse ; " so that," says the Koran, " Adam was long in ignorance of the fate of his son, and shrunk together through care and sorrow. It was not until he had fully learned what had befallen Abel, that he resigned himself to the will of God, and was comforted."

87

ANTIOCH, FROM THE WEST.

That name, than other names more dear, Had here its source — was given here.

As there was much intercourse between the numerous Jews who were natives of Antioch, and those of the parent country — and as large numbers of the former fre- quented the holy feasts, and on their return took home the most recent news of the holy city — the history, the teaching, the miracles, and the death of our Lord must soon have been known and much talked of there. Not less attention was excited by the accounts which were brought of the proceedings of the Apostles, and their confident declarations that the crucified Jesus had risen from the grave, had ascended into heaven, and was now set down at the right hand of the Majesty on High, from which hereafter he should come to judge the world, which he had died to save. These were strange tidings ; and, when to this it was added that the Apostles themselves wrought miracles, and that not only they, but many others of the disciples, spoke with languages they had never learned, attention was awakened to the utmost. At length, many Hellenists who had been converted to the faith of Christ at Jerusalem and in other places, returned to their homes in Antioch, and they, with others who passed through or visited the place, boldly proclaimed the gospel of Christ not only to the Jewish, but to the Gentile citizens. This course, which would hardly have occurred to Palestine Jews, was easy and natural to those who had all their lives been in habits of considerable intercourse with the Gentiles among whom they lived. Their teaching was attended with perhaps even more success than they had anticipated. Many of the Gentiles entered into the fold of Christ by the door which had been opened, and the prospects of the further progress of Christianity in that great city, the metropolis of Roman Asia, became most encouraging. ,

The intelligence of this important event excited great interest among the Christians at Jerusalem. The prejudices which would have confined the benefits of our Lord's mis- sion to the seed of Abraham, had been strong at Jerusalem, and the intelligence would probably have been received with no great satisfaction, had not these prejudices been broken down by the vision of Peter, (which taught them that nothing which God had cleansed, was to be accounted common or unclean,) and by its subsequent appli- cation in the conversion and baptism of Cornelius — in which the operation of the Spirit was too signally manifested, to leave it in any degree doubtful that God intended the Gentiles to be the partakers of his mercy in Jesus Christ. But there still, and long after this, lingered among them a feeling of mistrust against those Gentile believers, who did not feel themselves bound, by their conversion to Christianity, to

88 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

incur the obligation of observing the Mosaical law. Yet, desiring to act discreetly in this important matter, the church at Jerusalem concluded to commission Barnabas to visit the Gentile converts at Antioch. This eminent disciple stood high in the general confidence, and, being himself an Hellenist, was well suited to deal with Christians of the same class. On his arrival his heart was gladdened by the numerous examples of true discipleship which he witnessed, and by the cheering prospects of large accessions in this quarter to the Redeemer's kingdom. The harvest seemed to him so plenteous, that he felt the need of efficient assistance, and therefore sent over to Tarsus to invite Paul, who had meanwhile been very active in Cilicia, to become his fellow- labourer at Antioch. Paul, always on the alert to follow the openings for evangelical labour which the providence of God presented, or which his Spirit indicated, hastened to join Barnabas, who had acted with peculiar friendship to him formerly at Jerusalem ; and Antioch remained for a considerable time the centre of the missionary operations which these two great fathers of the church prosecuted in that quarter with great diligence and with marvellous success.

It was here, at Antioch, that the name of Christians was first given to believers. Among themselves they were called "the disciples of the Lord" — "the disciples of Jesus" — "the brethren" — "the believers;" while among the Jews they were known by names which implied under- valuation or contempt, such as "the Galileans" — "the Nazarenes" — "the Paupers." They would not have dreamed of giving to the followers of Jesus a name which signifies the adherents of the Messiah. This name, therefore, originated with the Gentiles, who had hitherto, on account of their observance of the ceremonial law, which formed the most marked distinction of Judaism, not known how to distinguish them from Jews ; but now that the religion of Jesus had extended itself among the Gentiles, apart from the observance of the ceremonial law, those who followed it appeared as an entirely new religious sect, requiring, for the sake of common distinctive indication, a separate, if not an accurate, designation; and as the term Christ, (the Anointed,) was held to be a proper name, the adherents of the new religious teacher were distinguished by a word formed from it, just as the adherents of any school of philosophy were wont, at that time, to be named after its founder.

From this time Antioch occupied a most important place in the propagation of the Christian faith, for which there were now two central points ; for that which Jerusalem had hitherto been for this purpose among the Jews, Antioch now became, for that great, and eventually predominating, portion of the church which was gathered from among the Gentiles.

*

■

I

I

89

JOHN BAPTIZING.

POUSSIN.

" Observ'st thou, Psyche, how that silver stream Its limpid self doth through the girdle wind : This Jordan is, and there the people seem

At busy crowding strife who first shall find A better baptism in those floods, which may Their fruitless legal washings wash away. Beaumont.

MATT. III. MAEKI. LUKE III. JOHN I.

When the time came for the son of Zacharias to commence his ministry as the har- binger of the Messiah, he commenced preaching in the wilderness of Judea; and the burden of his utterance was constantly — " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The distinction of his priestly parentage, the very remarkable circumstances of his birth, and the austere and solitary life which he had now for a long time led, had already fixed the attention of the Israelites strongly upon him, as one from whom great things might be expected when he should see proper to disclose the mission with which he was intrusted. This prepared attention, together with the freshness of his teaching and the importance of his announcement, drew crowds after him, whom he led to the banks of the Jordan, and there exhorted those of them who felt true repentance to receive from him baptism, for the remission of their sins. As the whole of John's vocation and office was to prepare the minds of his countrymen for the reception of the Messiah, this act seems to have been designed as symbolical of that cleanness — that freedom from earthly stain and earthly lust, which became those who had received his message, and who had thereby declared themselves to be awaiting that Holy One whom the prophets had so long foretold.

The real purport of John's mission was not distinctly understood by all who heard him. Some were inclined to suppose that he might be himself the Messiah ; and when the humble and earnest harbinger understood this, he at once applied himself in a very distinct manner to remove all doubt on the subject, by directing their attention to one greater than himself who was yet to come. " I indeed baptize you with water," he said ; " but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose," — that is, to whom I am unworthy to perform the office of the meanest ser- vant ; — " He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."

Not long after this, Jesus presented himself for baptism to John. But the latter demurred at this, saying — " I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest thou to me ?" II. z

90 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

but when Jesus persisted, he proceeded to baptize with water the person whom he at least suspected to be that Mightier One of whom he had spoken. His suspicions were changed for conviction, when, as Jesus came up out of the water, lie beheld " the Spirit of God descending in a bodily shape, like a dove, and alighting on him ;" and at the same time heard a voice from heaven, saying, " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This, it seems, had already been disclosed to the Baptist as the sign by which he might recognize the Messiah ; and from that time he bore steady testimony to Jesus as the Christ of God.

This movement among the people, and the singular proceedings of John, excited much attention among the higher class of the Jewish nation. The Sanhedrim (or council of seventy) at Jerusalem, which considered itself specially charged to watch over matters of doctrine and public teaching, at length took the subject into considera- tion ; but before arriving at any decision in regard to it, they wisely concluded that it would be best to send a deputation to Bethabara, beyond the Jordan, where John was then baptizing, to observe his preaching, and question him as to the character in which he appeared, and the authority by which he acted.

They began their task plainly enough by asking the Baptist, " Who art thou ?" Thev knew very well that he was the son of the priest Zacharias, but they wanted to know whether or not he claimed any higher or different character. He did not answer them in direct terms ; but knowing that they fancied he would claim to be the Messiah, he told them plainly, and with much emphasis, that he was not the Christ. On receiv- ing this unexpected answer, they said, " What then, art thou Elias ?" This question was founded on the belief of the Jews, that Elijah the Tishbite was to come before the Messiah, to anoint him. [The Hebrew Messiah, and the Greek Christ, equally mean the Anointeh.] They also supposed, that besides Elijah, some other of the old pro- phets, particularly Jeremiah, was to return to the Jews before the advent of the Mes- siah. When, therefore, he denied that he was the Elijah they expected, they further asked him if he were " that prophet," and on his answering this also in the negative, they were somewhat nonplussed ; but speedily reverted to their first question — " Who art thou ?" that they might be able to give some satisfactory information to those by whom they had been sent. He replied by applying to himself a text from Isaiah : " I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord." This alludes to the custom among Eastern princes to send messengers before them on a journey, to prepare their way, and announce their approach. Not clearly apprehend- ing the illustration, the delegates pressed him with the close question — by what autho- rity he took upon him to teach and to baptize, if none of the characters which he had disclaimed belonged to him ? To this he replied by repeating to them the declarations which he had already made to others, respecting the greater dignity and higher office of the Messiah ; adding the startling intimation — " There standeth one among you whom ye know not — He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose." By this it seems that Jesus was present at this remarkable interview, and heard this signal testimony to himself.

<*
	■
'■i.
I
r<
£
■«
j
2
^3
E

91

LANDING-PLACE IN THE SMALL HARBOUR AT RHODES.

Once more I tread thy shores — Once more thy walls behold.

The first thing that strikes the attention of a spectator from a vessel approaching the town of Rhodes, while the town itself is still concealed for a while by a projecting cape, is a plain covered with fourteen windmills, as shown in the engraving given at page 51. On a nearer approach, the castle and fortifications burst into view with a pleasing suddenness. The port is seen to be divided into two parts by a mole projected from the town, at the extremity of which, upon the solid rock, is a massive square tower, surmounted by a large octagonal and two small circular turrets, whose style of architecture points it out as a work of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, in the fifteenth century. Their arms, indeed, appear on it, and the cross of the order is everywhere conspicuously displayed. This is the famous tower or castle of St. Nicholas, which makes so large a figure in the history of the exploits of the knights at Rhodes, as the castle of St. Elmo, similarly situated, does in the history of their great acts at Malta, to which they retired when expelled from Rhodes by the sultan Solyman. Behind this the city appears, with its minarets, domes, and houses; while on one side, unique and solitary, stands the castle, a grand and gloomy structure. The entrance to the other division of the port is partly closed by two moles extended from the two towers that flank it, approaching each other towards the centre, and leaving a narrow channel for the ingress and egress of vessels. It is this channel which some suppose to have been bestrode by the celebrated colossus, whose feet is assumed to have rested on the extremities of these moles where they approach each other. But the exact site of the colossus is still an unsettled point.

The view of the city, whether contemplated from the port, or from the hills behind, is full of various interest — especially to any one whose mind is possessed of the historical associations which the scene is calculated to suggest ; for it has been the singular lot of this city to sustain the two most furious sieges known in ancient or in modern history, — defended, in times of old, by native heroism against the powerful Macedonian ; and in a more recent age, by foreign zeal against the barbarous Turk. The former of these sieges was the more remarkable, and is deserving of the more consideration from the friend of humanity, from its being the only one recorded in ancient history, in which a cartel was agreed on for the lives and ransom of the besieged.

Which of these sieges, or what other siege, produced the enormous stone balls which are seen in considerable numbers in and about the city, is a curious question. The largest is twenty-six inches in diameter. There is no cannon in Rhodes capable of carrying such balls as this ; and it appears that such of the residents who know any.

92 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

thing of the ancient history of the place, believe them to have been thrown against the city from balistae by the ancient Greeks ; in confirmation of which, many of tliem built into the wall arc pointed out. Yet it is hard to believe that the ancient Greeks had machines of war for such balls as these, however much the machines used by Demetrius in his wars with the Rhodiaus may have been admired by the ancients ; nor do we hear of any siege of Rhodes by the Romans so considerable as to warrant the idea that they were projected from their engines. Mr. Turner, who seems to have paid more attention to the matter than any other traveller, inclines to the opinion, that Sultan Solyman, who is known to have exerted all his force to take the place, brought against it the cannon made by his predecessor, Mohammed II., which were afterwards carried back. The measure of the guns at the Dardanelles, is indeed, by his own reckoning, but two feet, whereas these balls are twenty-six inches ; but this, he says, " does not prevent my thinking they might be fired from these guns ; for besides that the instruments of measurement which I used in both these cases were clumsy, and it was therefore likely not to be perfectly accurate, it is known that there was at Con- stantinople a cannon larger than that at the Dardanelles."

Another memorial of the former wars of this now peaceful place is maintained in the exclusion of all Christians from the city at night. They may be there during the day, and transact business and carry on trades, but, before the gates are closed for the night, they must quit the place, on which account they all reside in the suburbs. The gates of the town are also closed against them every Friday, which is the Moslem sabbath, until half an hour after noon. These precautions are said to be owing to the Christians having once surprised the garrison, or, as others allege, to the prediction of some santon, that they will some day do so during the hour of prayer. This exclusion does not extend to the Jews, of whom there are about a thousand in Rhodes. It seems to us very likely, that to this fact of their having no home in the town, may be ascribed the evil custom among them which is mentioned by the Rev. J. A. Jetter : — " There exists a very bad practice among the working-classes of the Greeks. In the evening, returning from their labour, they bring some salt fish, a piece of bread, and their pipe, and go into a wine-shop, where they drink wine to their meals, and sit till late, never caring whether their wives and children have anything to eat or not. What domestic happiness can there be among such people ?" The same question, and from the same cause, might be asked nearer home — where, indeed, it unhappily would sound less strangely than it seems to do at Rhodes. It should be observed, that wine is in the Levant not more of a luxury than beer in England, if so much so. The substantial food which the excellent missionary ascribes to them seems but a sorry fare for a soil so fertile, and a clime so happy; but the well-being of a people is often in an inverse ratio to such advantages; and Mr. Jetter confirms the inference here, by adding: " I was told that they subsist the greater part of the year on raw vegetables and a little bread, children as well as adults. It is a wonder how they can preserve life; indeed, very many children die. Last year, in a neighbouring island, all the children died of an epidemic gastric fever, and at Rhodes also many were swept off."

fc

Lnka

LA NATIVITE DE NOTRE SEIONEUR.

■-■..■

93

THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

GUIDO.

" The pastoral spirits first Approach Thee, Babe divine, For they in lowly thoughts are nurs'd Meet for thy lowly shrine. Sooner than they shall miss where thou dost dwell Angels from heaven will stoop to guide them to thy cell." Keble.

LUKE II. 6-18.

To those who had not formed very exact notions of the nature of that mission which the Son of God had undertaken, when he came down from the high heavens to deliver man, it would have seemed likely that heaven would have sent forth all its angels to announce him, and that the earth would have been moved through all its realms to receive him. But it was not so. The mission of the Redeemer required that he should be " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" and this would not admit of those manifestations of greatness, which would have been inconsistent with the high pur- poses for which he clothed himself with flesh, and for which, "when he took upon him to deliver man, he did not abhor the virginV womb."

Yet the admiration of Heaven could not be altogether suppressed, nor was it per- mitted that the Holy One should visit without some greeting the world which received its existence from him, and which he had left his Father's bosom to redeem.

There were some pious shepherds watching that night their flocks in those fields near Bethlehem, where David, in his youngest, and perhaps happiest days, had fed his father's flocks of old. Suddenly they were roused from that sort of slumbering wake- fulness, which suffices for the shepherds' watch in quiet folds, by a great light which shone upon them ; and, looking up, they beheld an angel clothed with the glory of the Lord, from which the light had come upon them. They were terrified. But the angel said to them, " Fear not : for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." What tidings were these, which were of such large concernment to all people ? " Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Tidings of great joy, indeed: — but how should the heaven-

II. 2 A

94 ' GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

born stranger be known? " This shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." In a manger ! — had the world no better bed to offer to the Son of God ? The shepherds asked not this ; for suddenly the angel, who had spoken to them, was seen to be accompanied by a multitude of the heavenly host, who broke forth into an exulting song ; and as the shepherds listened, they caught the words : — " Glory to God in the highest — and on earth peace — good- will towards men !"

When the song which these good shepherds alone heard, had ceased, and when the vision which they alone had seen had disappeared, and they had somewhat recovered from their amazement, they said one to another, " Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us." But feared they not to leave their flocks, which had till then been the objects of their care ? Not they. " Those that left their beds to tend their flocks," says Bishop Hall, "now leave their flocks to inquire after their Saviour. ... It is not possible that a faithful heart should hear where Christ is, and not labour to the sight, to the fruition of him." They therefore hastened to Bethlehem, and soon found Mary and Joseph in the stable in which they had found shelter, with the new-born babe lying in the manger — by which sign they knew him for the Saviour, of whom the angel had spoken, and rendered to him their humble but hearty homage — the first that he received on earth.

*

95

THE PLAIN OF T-HE JORDAN.

" Jordan we now plainly viewed." Pennie.

In topographical strictness, the plain or valley of the Jordan should be understood to embrace the whole extent of the valley through which the Jordan flows, not excluding the borders of its lakes, from its sources under Lebanon to the bituminous sea in which its waters disappear. But in popular usage, which we find it convenient to adopt on the present occasion, the term is confined to that portion of this extensive valley which lies between the Lake of Gennesareth and the Dead Sea. The direct distance from one of these lakes to the other is about seventy-five miles ; and the fine plain or valley between them, which the Jordan glorifies, averages in its northern half a breadth of five or six miles from the eastern to the western hills. But in the southern half, approaching the Dead Sea, the valley, as represented in the engraving, widens greatly. The natives call it, by way of eminence, the Ghor (el-Ghor), a name which is restricted to depressed plains of large size, and which in Palestine is borne by that of the Jordan only. The great number of rivulets which descend from the mountains on both sides the Ghor, and form numerous pools of stagnant water, produce in many places a pleasing verdure, and a luxuriant growth of wild herlage and of grass ; but the greater part of the whole is a parched desert, of which a few spots only are cultivated by the Arabs who dwell or sojourn in it. They are its sole inhabitants, with the exceptions of the town of Bysan, the ancient Bethshan, in the northern part ; and the poor village of Rihhah, supposed to represent the ancient Jericho, in the southern. Near these two places a few trees are found ; but hardly elsewhere throughout the whole plain. The river itself flows through an inner valley, about three-quarters of a mile in breadth. This valley is considerably lower than the general plain of the Jordan, and is for the most part covered with trees, shrubs, and luxuriant verdure, presenting a very signal contrast to the sandy slopes which border it upon both sides. It is this lower valley, and not the upper plain, which is overflowed about the time of the barley-harvest, from the melting of the snows in Lebanon. Josh. iii. 15. Then the beasts which harbour in the thickets are driven to the upper plain, and hence the image used more than onoe by Jeremiah — " He shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan" — though it must be confessed that this phrase has sometimes received a not untenable explanation, which impairs the force of the illustration as applicable to the river's overflow.

The widest part of the whole plain is, as already intimated/in the south, towards the Dead Sea. Here the mountains on the western side of the river very considerably open, or recede from those on the opposite side. The line of the eastern mountains, or rather

96 GALLERY OP SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

cliffs, which bound the plain on that side, remains unchanged ; and the river, which had flowed nearly in the middle of the narrower valley, still pursues the same direction, so that the increased breadth of plain is wholly on the western side of the river, forming what is distinctively known as the plain of Jericho. The breadth across in this part, from the western mountains to the eastern cliffs, for an extent of about eighteen miles, varies from ten to twelve miles ; and a very adequate idea of its general appearance and character may be formed from the engraving.

The great depth at which this valley lies, within an amphitheatre of barren moun- tains and cliffs, produces, by the concentration and reflection of the sun's rays, a warmth of climate scarcely equalled by that of the valley of the Nile. This degree of heat inva- riably produces the most exuberant vegetation wherever water is present, and the utmost barrenness where it is absent ; and these effects are fully exhibited throughout the valley of the Jordan, and especially in the plain of Jericho. Wherever there is water, the spontaneous vegetation is most exuberant, and under proper treatment there might be, and in part is, a rich return of such vegetable product as, beyond the limits of the valley, can only be successfully cultivated in a more southern latitude. Thus, upon the whole, the vale of the Jordan may be regarded as a zone of almost tropical climate, extended through a temperate region.

The plain of Jericho is now in great part a desert. But how richly fertile it might become by proper culture and careful irrigation, is shown by the appearance which more favoured spots still exhibit, and which abundantly confirm the accounts of ancient writers, who describe this as the most fertile district of the whole country. Josephus calls it a " divine region," and speaks of its beautiful gardens, and its groves of palm-trees. And his description is borne out by Scripture, in which Jericho is described as the " city of palm-trees," Deut. xxxiv. 3 ; Judges i. 16. The region, also, according to the Jewish his- torian, produced honey, opobalsamum, the cypress-shrub (or el-Henna), and myrobalanum, as well as the common fruits of the earth, in great abundance. The Scripture adds the sycamore-tree to the number of its products, Luke xix. 4. Of all the productions which once distinguished the plain, and the greater part of which it enjoyed in common with Egypt, very few now remain. Only one solitary palm-tree lingers in the plain ; the sycamores have altogether disappeared ; the celebrated opobalsamum is not known ; and the myrobalanum alone appears to thrive, being probably the thorny shrub, called zukkum, growing wild in the plain, from the kernels of whose green nut is extracted what is now known as the balsam of Jericho. •

The view represented in our engraving is taken from a height on the eastern side of the Jordan, looking towards the Dead Sea. Jericho, and the scanty plantations around it, are indicated on the right, towards the mountains ; and on the extreme right, its base scarcely visible, stands the mountain Quarantina, which tradition regards as the scene of our Lord's temptation in the wilderness.

>*

*

.1

*

97

THE FALL OF DAGON.

POUSSIN.

" Dagon his name, sea-monster, upwards man, And downward fish." Milton.

1 SAM. IV. Y. VI.

When the Israelites had been smitten in battle by the Philistines, but still maintained the field against their enemies, they resolved to send for the ark of God, in the vain hope that its presence would secure for them the Divine assistance, and render them victorious in the final conflict which was approaching. This notion was in full accord- ance with the besetting sin of that age — to materialize the idea of God, and to con- centrate the homage of the soul on sensible symbols and impersonations. There was, in fact, a shade of idolatry in this ; and it behoved the Almighty to correct the growing tendency to make an idol of his ark. A general movement in the Hebrew host, accom- panied by an exulting shout which shook the earth, announced to the Philistines that some great event had taken place ; and when they learned that the ark of God had been brought to the camp of Israel, they, under the strange influence of the same ideas, were filled with consternation. They cried ; " God is come into the camp : — Woe unto us ! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. Woe unto us ! who shall deliver us out of the hands of these mighty Gods ? these are the Gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness !" This curiously illustrates the notions which the neighbouring heathens entertained of the God whom the Hebrews worshipped, and the profound impression with respect to His power which the wonders wrought by His hand in Egypt and in the wilderness had even to this distant time left upon their minds. Nevertheless, the Philistines were a very warlike and valiant people, very superior in arms and discipline to the other nations of Palestine. This we perceive not only in so much of their history as the Bible contains, but from the existing monu- ments of Egypt, in which they are represented under many circumstances of military action and array. Such men do not easily give way to despair ; and after a little while they sufficiently recovered from the shock, to derive from this unwonted circumstance only a new incentive to vigorous and daring action. They cried encouragingly to one another, " Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Quit yourselves like men, and fight !" And fight they did, and that to such purpose, that the Israelites were utterly defeated, and the ark of God was taken.

The joy and triumph of the Philistines at this event, which filled the Israelites with despair and horror, was as great as their previous alarm had been. They sent the captive ark to Ashdod, and placed it in the house of their god Dagon, setting it there beside the image, partly human and partly fish, by which that god was represented. Their object in this disposal of the ark has been a matter of some controversy. Some n. 2 b

98 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

interpreters have conceived that they intended to render honour to the God of Israel, by setting his ark in a place which they accounted sacred. But it seems much more probable, that they acted in conformity with the general usage of the ancient heathen, of consecrating to their false divinities the memorials of those triumphs which they ascribed to their favour and protection. Whatever victories they gained were regarded as triumphs of their own gods over those of their enemies, and hence, the images and sacred symbols of the conquered people, were treated as captives, and borne about in triumph as the most signal monuments of the downfall of their worshippers. So Isaiah prophesies that Cyrus should treat in this manner the idols of subjugated Babylon : — " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth ; their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle ; your carriages were heavy loaden ; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together ; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity." Isaiah xlvi. 1, 2. Daniel also prophesies that "a king of the south," (Ptolemy Euergetes,) should carry the idols of the Syrians captive into Egypt, Daniel xi. 8. There are similar predictions in Jeremiah, xlviii. 7, and in Amos i. 15 ; and illustrative examples of such triumphs abound in the ancient heathen writers.

But although the Lord had suffered the ark to be taken, to correct the vain confi- dences of his people, it behoved him to vindicate the glory of his own Great Name from the aspersion which the act of the Philistines had cast upon it. This he knew well how to do. In the morning, when the priests of Dagon opened the doors of their idol's temple, they found his fishy image prostrate on the floor before the ark of God. This was an ill omen ; but still it might be an accident, and therefore they set it up again upon the pedestal. But the next moruing it was still worse, and they found, with horror, that not only had their idol fallen, but had been broken in pieces by the fall. There lay the object of their adoration, broken in two at the part where the fishy termination was joined to the human form ; and there lay against the threshold the head and hands, separated, like those of an executed criminal, from the human part. There was no mistaking this. But an event so striking, and so well calculated to show them the vanity of the idol they served, had no salutary effect upon themselves. It only served to produce a new form of idolatrous debasement ; for, from that time they abstained from touching with their feet the threshold against which the head of their god had fallen. Nevertheless, it had the effect of inspiring them with a salutary dread of the God of Israel ; and, their conclusions being hastened by a cruel disease with which the inhabitants of the town were smitten, they resolved ; " The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us ; for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god." Yet they knew not well what to do with it. They were reluctant to submit to the dis- comfiture which would be implied in sending it back to the Israelites; and they therefore sent it from place to place in their own territories. But wherever it went, plagues and calamities followed it, and affright and horror were the harbingers of its approach ; till at last those to whom it was brought, rose in wild clamour to refuse it a place within their lands, and no choice was left but to restore it to the Israelites. It was accordingly taken with due respect over the border into the land of Israel, and left there with a trespass-offering of gold.

t

99

ALEXANDRIA.

" Xoble was the enterprise to join

Divided continents, and thus combine,

On what was erst a barren spot and drear,

The wealth and produce of each hemisphere ;

To sandy rocks, uncouth and naked strand,

Succeeded palaces and cultured land,

O'erflow'd with Nile's soft waters ; the blue aea

On either side pour'd forth its treasury

Of countless vessels — 'twas a glorious sight,

To view their glittering sails, by morniug light,

Sweep o'er the smooth and wide-extended bed

Of Mareotis' lake." Salt.

The only book of canonical Scripture in which the great city of Alexandria is men- tioned, is the Acts of the Apostles. In this it is named twice ; first, as the birthplace of Apollos, and then as the port to which belonged the corn-ship in which Paul and his fellow-prisoners were embarked for Italy, and in which they suffered shipwreck, Acts xviii. 24 ; xxvii. 6. From such scanty intimations it would have been impossible to guess the important place which the city occupies in the later history of the Jews, and the large place it filled in the view of the Hebrew nation in the time of Christ, and before and after.

The city owed its origin to the genius of the great conqueror from whom it derived its name. It was founded by him in the year B.C. 332; and all the effects flowed from its establishment which his political sagacity had foreseen and contemplated. It brought about, or at least consolidated, new and enduring relations between the East and West, and facilitated a more direct intercourse than had hitherto subsisted between Greece, Egypt, and Judea. Sidon had been utterly ruined twenty years before by Artaxerxes Ochus ; and Tyre had just suffered the same fate from Alexander himself. The estab- lishment of a new commercial metropolis was thus facilitated ; and when Ptolemy suc- ceeded to the government of Egypt, he was not slow to appreciate and follow out the policy in which the city originated. Under him, Alexandria became, in the largest sense of the word, the emporium for the East and West; for even the Indian trade was diverted from its usual course up the Euphrates into the channel of the Red Sea ; and the new Egyptian capital soon became a centre of attraction not only to Greeks but to Jews, who, during the captivity, had acquired that taste and aptitude for commercial pursuits which they have ever since retained. Nor did they lack direct encouragement to take a foremost rank among the inhabitants of the city. Their known commercial tendencies rendered them most valuable citizens for a place like this ; and the fidelity they had manifested to the Persian government, raised their character in the esteem

100 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

of those by whom that government had been overthrown. The religion of the Jews, though, from its exclusive character, and from its reprobation of all idolatry, more dis- liked by every heathen sect than any other system opposed to its own, did not here stand much in their way ; for the Greek rulers of Egypt having brought themselves to tole- rate the religion of the Egyptians, had by that act acquired a habit which disposed them to extend the same toleration to the Jews. They were therefore invited, by the offer of the highest civic privileges, of the enjoyment of their own laws, and of the most com- plete toleration, to settle at Alexandria ; and the number who availed themselves of this advantage was, in the course of time, so very considerable, that the Jews of Alex- andria eventually became one of the most considerable and most prosperous sections of the Hebrew people. They do not, indeed, figure so conspicuously in the history of that people as their relative importance might, at the first view, lead one to expect. But they had a separate history, and separate interests of their own ; and the religious connection with Palestine and Jerusalem, which formed the tie binding all the Jews dispersed among the nations into one people, was in them weakened, if not altogether severed, by their abandonment of their ecclesiastical dependence upon Jerusalem and its temple, and setting up for themselves a separate temple and a separate establishment. Out of their peculiar necessities arose also that translation of the Old Testament into Greek, which, under the name of the Septuagint, is still preserved, and has proved no unim- portant help to the critical study of the Holy Scriptures. They were not, however, backward to claim, on every prominent occasion, their place among the sons of Abra- ham, and failed not to manifest a lively sympathy in all the wrongs and sorrows of their people. Neither were their enemies unmindful of the connection, and they were rarely suffered to escape unscathed from any blows aimed by foreign hands at the honour or safety of the Hebrew nation. It is manifest that they did not and could not amalga- mate with their heathen fellow-citizens, by whom they were most cordially hated, and who lost no opportunity that circumstances offered of subjecting them to contumely, and of raising tumults against them. Yet a considerable number of Jews have always clung to the place, under all circumstances of change and decline. When the city was taken by the Saracens under Amru, he reported the number of the Jews at forty thou- sand. In the twelfth century, according to Benjamin of Tudela, there were about three thousand ; and in its present comparatively reduced condition, they number not less than a thousand. They are no longer, however, among the first merchants of the place, but rank in the third class, the highest among them being only sarafs, or money- changers. The general population of Alexandria had been, until lately, greatly on the decline, and is reported to have been at one time reduced to six thousand souls ; but under the government of Mohammed Ali it has greatly recovered, and is now reckoned at sixty thousand, exclusive of the garrison and the sailors of the fleet, who make about twenty thousand more.

V.

101

JOHN THE BAPTIST REPROVING HEROD.

LE BRUN.

What doth he here— the prophet clad in hair ? Ah, what hath he to do in palace courts ? — In the rude wilds that voico was heeded well, But in these halls may cry ' Repent ' in vain.

MATTHEW XIY. 2-5. LUKE III. 19,20.

John the Baptist, like his great prototype Elijah, was a reprover of kings, and was, like him, called upon by the sacred duties of his vocation to rebuke iniquity in high places.

The districts of Galilee were at this time, through the sufferance of the Romans, under the immediate government of Herod Antipas, one of the sons of Herod the Great, with the title of Tetrarch. The conduct of this person was, in most respects, actuated by the loose principles, and was disfigured by the moral stains, which seem to have characterized the family of which he was a member. The dependence of the princes of that family upon the favour or caprice of the Roman emperors, neces- sitated close connections with Rome, and required occasional visits to the imperial city. On one such occasion, Herod, in his way to the coast, called upon his half-brother Philip — an unambitious, quiet man, living contentedly in a private station. This Philip had espoused his niece Herodias, the daughter of his brother Aristobulus. This lady was celebrated for her beauty, and Herod became deeply enamoured of her. No con- sideration for the honour of his brother, or for the peace of his own wife, deterred him from disclosing his unholy love to her; and she made little difficulty in promising to leave Philip and become his wife, on the condition of his divorcing the Arabian princess, to whom that station then belonged. This he readily promised to do when he should return from Rome : but meanwhile his wife being acquainted with this design

ii. 2 c

102 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

against her, fled to her father Aretas. On his return to Palestine, Herod delayed not formally to divorce her, and took Herodias as his wife. But her wrongs were not unavenged ; for her father took up arms against the tetrarch, and utterly overthrew by a most signal defeat the army which Herod sent against him.

These transactions made a great stir at the time ; and the general opinion in regard to them may be learned from the statement of Josephus, that the people looked upon the destruction of Herod's army as a judgment from God against him for this gross iniquity. Many must have feared to disclose their sentiments of his conduct to the tyrant and his abandoned paramour. But not so the prophet. He feared God only : and he scrupled not to tell Herod plainly that he had been an evil-doer, and that it was altogether unlawful for him to take his brother Philip's wife. It seems that he told him this to his face, in the presence of his court — and possibly of Herodias herself. Herod deeply resented this reproof, and would fain have punished the prophet of the wilderness even with death for it. But public opinion is never without influence, even in such governments as his ; and, for fear of the people, by whom John was held in high esteem, he forbore to shed his blood. As for Herodias, her wrath against the prophet was deep and inexorable. It was at her instance probably that Herod, although he feared to slay the Baptist, cast him into prison, where he remained until his death was compassed by the contrivance of this most abandoned and wicked woman, who was, in some sort, a Jezebel to the Elijah of the New Testament.

''/,,//?,/,■,///>,/,.),,■

103

*

THE DAUGHTER OF JA1RU8.

DELONNE.

" The Saviour raised Her hand from off hor bosom, and spread out The snowy fingers in his palm, and said, ' Maiden ! arise !' — and suddenly a flush Shot o'er her forehead, and along her lips And through her cheek the rallied colour ran, And the still outline of her graceful form Stirred in the linen vesture, and she clasped The Saviour's hand, and fixing her dark eyes Full on his beaming countenance — arose."

Willis.

LUKE YIIL 49-56.

When our Lord was at Capernaum, after his return from the country of the Gadarenes, he was one day accosted hy one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, who, in the anguish of his spirit, cast himself at his feet, and implored him to have pity upon him. He had a daughter — his only child — and she lay at the point of death. Among the griefs of this life — and they are many — there are few, there is perhaps none, harder to bear than the loss of an only daughter. The prospect of a home desolated by such a loss, was terrible to this poor man ; and clinging to the only hope now left, he, with all the earnestness of an afflicted soul, besought the far-famed " prophet of Nazareth," to come and lay his hands upon his daughter, that she might live. No troubled spirit ever groaned to Jesus in vain ; and he delayed not to' follow the sorrowing ruler.

We may guess the man's impatience as he hurried on, trembling lest the breath of life should have left his child before the Healer came. Great, therefore, was doubtless his concern at the interruption and delay occasioned by the discovered attempt of the woman, renowned for faith, to steal a cure for her sore diseases, by secretly touching the hem of the Redeemer's garment. The faith of the ruler was not equal to that which this woman manifested : and he doubtless deemed his anxiety to be justified by the event; for while this transaction still engaged the Lord's attention, messengers came from the ruler's house, to apprise him that all was over — his daughter was dead. Alas ! alas ! who shall comfort now that miserable man, whose life was bound up in the life of his child? — Behold, the Comforter is near ! and he says : "Be not afraid — only believe — and she shall be made whole." What words are these ? — " Only believe." Believe what? — believe that the dead shall be made whole. That was hard. The ruler could believe that Jesus of Nazareth could heal the sick ; but that he should raise

104 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

the dead had never entered his contemplation, and was beyond the scope of his faith. But Jesus kept moving on ; and it was not for the bereaved father to repel any prospect of relief, which might be offered to him by one whom he regarded as a man of God — for we know not that he as yet recognized in Him, God's only begotten Son.

They came to the house. That had already become a house of mourning. The wail for the dead was already heard through the house, and the minstrels poured forth their melancholy notes. No sooner had Jesus entered the house, than he said, " Why make ye this ado, and weep ? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." But the hired mourners not apprehending his deeper meaning, laughed him to scorn, knowing well that life had wholly departed from her. But he sent them away, and with his three most favoured disciples, and the father and mother of the maiden, entered the chamber of death. The scene that there met their view has been beautifully imagined by the poet, some of whose lines have furnished a motto to this paper :

" Like a form Of matchless sculpture in her sleep she lay — The linen vesture folded on her hreast, And over it her white transparent hands, The blood still rosy in her tapering nails. A line of pearl ran through her parted lips, And in her nostrils, spiritually thin, The breathing curve was mockingly like life ; And round beneath the faintly tinted skin, Near the light branches of the azure veins — And on her cheek tho jet lash overlay, Matching the arches pencilled on her brow. Her hair had been unbound, and falling loose Upon her pillow, hid her small round ears In curls of glossy blackness, and about Her polished neck, scarce touching it, they hung Like airy shadows floating as they slept."

After a brief pause of unutterable sympathy and divine compassion, Jesus took the dead maiden by the hand, and said unto her, "Talitha cumi," which signifies " Damsel, I say unto thee, Arise !" And she arose — not only to life — but healed of all diseases. She who had long lain upon the bed of languishing, had become strong — she walked. She whose soul had loathed the most delicate food, and had rejected all nourishment, now felt the wholesome hunger and appetite of perfect health. By the Lord's direction, food was placed before her, and she did eat.

Such happiness as Jesus had by this act brought to that house, had hardly been known on earth then. Some hearts — parental hearts — may conceive it faintly, but no pen can describe it. It was not the Saviour's wish that this great deed should be made known : but gratitude so mighty and joy so great as that which the parents felt, could not be pent up. It found utterance ; and the rumour of this miracle spread rapidly through the country, and contributed in no small degree to fix the attention of the people upon the person and the chums of the Son of David."

*

1

%

I

1

3

•^

X

105

THE TRIUMPH OF DAVID.

POUSSIN.

" Homeward the son of Jesse bends liis way,

Each scene recalls, and hymns Jehovah's praise.

Their homage to the victor rush to pay

Salem's fair daughters, and with rapt'rous lays

Sing, as they hail him safe escap'd the plain,

' Thousands hath Saul, ten thousands David slain !' " H. S.

1 SAM. XVII.

The hosts of Israel and of the Philistines faced each other in battle-array on the oppo- site sides of the valley of Elah. It was in those days not unusual for actions to begin with single combats, which drew on the general conflict : and it was even sometimes agreed that the result of a combat between two redoubted champions should determine the victory. Now at this time the Philistines had a champion from whom they expected great things. This was a monstrous giant from Gath, of the name of Goliath — a great, blus- tering fellow, some ten feet high, and with more strength and valour in proportion to his size than men of huge stature usually possess. He was one of a family of giants, and he had at least two brothers as gigantic as himself, one of whom had, moreover, six fingers upon each hand, and six toes upon each foot. The appearance of this enormous warrior — resplendent in brazen armour, and wielding ponderous weapons proportioned to his vast bulk — as the champion of the Philistines, filled the Israelites with dismay. Daily he strode forth from the Philistine ranks, and with loud and boastful tongue challenged the host of Saul to send forth a man to meet him in mortal combat, and so decide the quarrel of the adverse nations. The most valiant hearts of Israel shrunk from the fearful odds of such a conflict, and vainly did the heralds make daily procla- mation through the camp, that the king would give his daughter in marriage to the warrior who should lay that Philistine low, and would make the house of his father free in Israel. And yet not all in vain — for one day, when all men despaired, a young shepherd from Bethlehem arrived in the camp to see his elder brothers, who were with the army. This youth, whose name was David, heard the scornful defiance of the Philistine giant, and, strong in that faith which adorned his future career, he heard him with undaunted heart, while his soul burned with indignation that the proud infidel should thus insult " the armies of the living God." He observed, with concern, that no one stood forth to take up the challenge which the giant scornfully cast down ; but that, on ii. 2d

106 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

the contrary, the stoutest veterans and the most tried heroes shrunk with fear before him. Such dread was unknown to the son of Jesse, and he unhesitatingly offered himself for the affray. Those to whom he first spoke derided his attempt ; but he was, neverthe- less, brought before the king, who, in compassion for his youth, discouraged him at first from the enterprise. But his words, full of modest confidence, founded not upon the strength of his own arm, but upon his trust in God, moved the king, who at length decided to accept the youthful shepherd as the champion of Israel against the cham- pion of Gath. Anxious for his success, Saul would have laden him with his own well-proven armour ; but David, unused to such encumbrance, declined this kindness, and stepped lightly forth without defence, and with no other weapons than his shep- herd's staff, with a sling, and a few smooth pebbles which he had picked up from the brook that flowed through the valley.

Tremendous was the fury of the giant at the indignity of having so contemptible an adversary. His great eyes glared with indignation as he cried — " Am I a dog, that thou comest against me with staves ;" and he forthwith proceeded to curse the young hero by his gods ; concluding with the dreadful words — " Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field I" Nothing daunted, David retorted — " Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield : but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand ; and I will smite thee, and take thy head from thee . . . that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel." The giant disdained to reply, but strode forward to smite down his slim opponent — but he was met half-way by a smooth pebble from the sling of David, which smote him in the forehead, and sank deep into his brain. The weapons of war dropped from his hands, and he fell, in all his armour, with a great crash to the earth. His agile conqueror was upon him in a moment, and with his own enormous sword struck his head from his shoulders.

At that sight a fearlul cry arose from among the Philistines ; while, with a triumphant shout, the Hebrews rushed forward against them, to pursue the advantage that had been gained. But their opponents turned and fled ; and their pursuers found little more to do than to destroy those whom they were able to overtake. Young David was the hero of that day. The exploit was calculated to awaken the enthusiasm of the people to the uttermost. It was felt by every one, that, under God, to his illustrious act was due that great victory which had changed the fear of that morning into the joy and triumph of that even-tide. So strong was this feeling, that even their respect for the king, and their knowledge of his jealous temper, did not prevent the daughters of Israel from placing the name of the son of Jesse foremost in the triumphal songs with which they greeted the returning warriors, as they passed through the towns and villages of Israel. They came forth singing and dancing to meet them, "with tabrets, with joy, aud with instruments of music :" and this was still the burden of their songs —

" Saul lias slain his thousands — David has his ten thousands sluin '."

t

107

THE ISLAND OF RUAD.

' Then towns he quicken'd by mechanic arts, And bade the fervent city glow with toil ; Bade social commerce raise renownod masts, Join land to land, and marry soil to soil." Thomson.

The short line of coast anciently occupied by the Phoenicians, was rich in bays and harbours, and was also covered with lofty mountains, many of which ran out into the sea, and formed promontories, whose heights, covered with forests, furnished the most valuable materials for the fleets and thj manufactures of the Phoenicians. The sea, which broke with great fury upon this rocky shore, had probably separated some of these promontories from the continent, and which formed little islands, at a small distance from the shore. These islands are not less worthy of note than the mainland itself, being everywhere covered with extensive coknies and flourishing cities. The most northern of these island cities, was that called by the ancients, Arad, or Aradus ; but which is known in Scripture as Arvad, and at present bears the name of Ruad. On the coast opposite the island was Antaradus, which derived its name from it, and was dependent upon it, or rather formed one state with it, the inhabitants of which, collectively, were the Arvadites of the Scripture. Arvad, at the northern extremity of the Phoenician territory, seems, in form, size, and relative position to the continent, to bear very much resemblance to what insular Tyre must have been before it was con- nected with the mainland by the isthmus of Alexander. Like the Tyrians, the Arvadites were also originally a colony from Sidon; and like them too, eventually formed an independent state, which had a king of its own. Yet in the time of the Hebrew prophet§ they appear to have been in some dependence upon Tyre, as were indeed most of the other Phoenician states ; for, in common with the Sidonians, they are described by the prophet Ezekiel, as furnishing contingents of mariners and soldiers to that great city : " The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were thy mariners. . . The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about." Ezek. xxvii. 8, 11. The Arvadites took their full share in the maritime traffic for which t,l e Phoenicians were celebrated, and to which they owed the high prosperity they enjoyed. After Tyre and Sidon had fallen under the dominion of the Graeco-Syrian empire, Arvad seems to have risen to a higher degree of relative consequence than it had before enjoyed ; which, however, may have been rather owing to the greater comparative decline of the others than to its own positive aggrandisement. The Arvadites early secured for themselves the

108 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

advantages of an alliance with the Romans ; and Arvad is named, in the history of the Maccabees, among those allied states to which the consul Lucius formally made known the alliance into which the republic had entered with Simon Maccabseus, 1 Mace. xv. 23. It eventually helped, in conjunction with Tyre and Sidon, to form the city of Tripolis, by the union of the colonies which each of the three contributed ; and it enjoyed, besides, a command upon the continent, which extended northward as far as Gabala — the Jebeil of the present day — which the Scripture calls Gebal, and designates the inhabitants Giblites.

The island is now, as anciently, covered with buildings, so that it has no cultivable soil, and must obtain all its supplies of provisions from the adjacent shore. It is low and rocky ; and from its southern edge extends a long broken reef, showing itself above water at intervals, and following nearly the direction of the coast. It has, however, a clear entrance around the northern point, and within this there is good shelter from the prevailing winds of the sea between the island and the main. The inhabitants, who are said to amount to nearly two thousand, exclusive of a considerable number of strangers, are still wholly engaged in commerce, which seems to be entirely of a transit character, and a considerable number of vessels — considerable at least for this coast — may usually be seen at anchor there. Pliny says, that between the island and the shore there was a fountain of fresh water, rising from the bottom of the sea, where it was fifty cubits deep, and from whence the water was conveyed to the surface in leathern pipes. Of this submarine spring the present inhabitants seem to have no knowledge. — There are no ruins of any kind in Ruad. The portion of the island represented in our engraving embraces the pier, with the old Saracenic castle, which is the only building of any interest it contains. Tortosa is seen on the opposite coast, with the Anzeyry hills behind.

*

i

4

I •4

I

100

THE LEPER CLEANSED.

VAN DYCK.

- And lo ! the scales fell from him, and his blood Coursed with delicious coolness through his veins, And his dry palms grew moist, and on his brow The dewy softness of an infant stole. His leprosy was cleansed." Wixlis.

LUKE XVII. 11-19.

It is difficult to conceive any state of life more unhappy than that of lepers in the East. The condition of such persons among the Hebrews was, in some respects, better than among other nations. There were, and there are at this day in the East, nations which regard the leprous taint as ineradicable ; and when a man once becomes affected by this terrible disease, he can never more recover his former position, but remains, in the eye of the community, a leper to the end of his days. Such men are, of all that live, the most miserable, for they live without hope. But it was not so with the Hebrew lepers. The law of Moses, indeed, deemed it necessary to protect the community, by subjecting the persons tainted with leprosy to grievous disqualifications ; but means were carefully provided, which prevented any one from being subjected to them, without the most satisfactory evidence of his being really affected with leprosy, and regulations were made which ensured his restoration to society as soon as the disease had passed from him. So the Hebrew leper lived in hope ; and Israel did never witness the truly distressing spectacle — now witnessed in some countries of the East — of persons restored to perfect health, still subjected to aH the miseries of the leprous condition, and cut off from all intercourse but with lepers. Among the Hebrews, any one suspected of leprosy was brought before a priest competent to decide upon his case, and if he, on examina- tion, declared the disease to be leprosy, the unhappy man was obliged to rend bis clothes, not only to testify his grief, but that the rent robe might distinguish him as a leper from other men, who wore their garments closed in front. Nor was this all — his head was to be bare, and his lips were to be covered either with his hand, or with the skirt of his garment thrown over his head, after the manner of mourners ; and wherever he went, he was obliged to proclaim bis own misery, by crying with a loud voice, " Tamee ! tames ! " — that is, " Unclean ! unclean ! " This was to give warning to others of his presence or approach, lest they should contract pollution by approaching him too nearly. In this melancholy state, the leper was rigidly shut out from towns,

II. 2 E

110 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

and excluded from camps, that none might have intercourse with him but such as were leprous like himself. On the other hand, when a man who had been thus afflicted and cast out, had reason to suppose himself restored to health, he repaired to the priest, provided with two birds ; and if the priest considered him clean, one of the birds was killed, and the other was let fly, to signify the departure of his uncleanness — borne away, as it were, upon that bird's wings. He then washed his person and his clothes, and shaved off all his hair ; but lest any undetected taint of leprosy might still rest in him, he was not admitted to the full rights of society till after seven days, when, if nothing appeared to create suspicion, he was, after repeating his ablutions, and making an offering suited to his circumstances, fully restored to the bosom of his friends. It was believed that leprosy was incurable by any medicine, and therefore no means of cure were sought. The leper's only hope was that the disorder might in time wear itself out, or that the vigour of his constitution would cast it off. Hence any act of healing must, under this view, be miraculous ; and no persons could more distinctly recognize the miraculous nature of the cures which our Lord performed, or manifest more faith in his power, than those lepers who came to him to be healed. It was asking him to cure — it was believing that he could cure — a malady beyond all human help. This was beautifully manifested by the first leper whom He healed, and who applied to Him with the words, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." This was faith, and strong faith; and Jesus bestowed upon it an ample reward in the immediate answer, "I will. — Be thou clean." Another time ten lepers waited for him outside a village in which he then was, but into which, as lepers, they durst not enter. As Jesus was passing, they raised their voices — being obliged to keep at a distance — and implored his help. They doubtless expected, from what they had heard of the former cure, that Jesus would at once have healed them. But their faith was less manifest at once than that of the leper who had been the first that sought his mercy ; and he therefore subjected them to a small trial. He told them to go and show themselves to the priests for examination. This presupposed that they would be cured before they made their appearance. If, feeling that they were still miserable lepers, they went not, it would evince a lack of believing trust ; but if they went under these conditions, their faith would be mani- fested. They went, probably with varying degrees of hope; but to all of them the stake was too important to be risked. As they were on the way, they looked upon one another, and every one saw that the leprosy of his companions had departed, and every one felt a new life tingling in his veins. With glad hearts they hurried to show them- selves to the priests, and to claim at their hands formal deliverance from their miserable state. All went on, save one — he lingered, and then turned back, even to the delay of his happiness, to pour forth the gratitude of a full heart at the feet of his Redeemer. That man was a Samaritan. When he again came to Jesus, the Saviour took notice of the deep emotion with which he glorified God, and poured forth his thanks. And He noticed more : " Were there not ten cleansed ? but where are the nine ? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger." Then he said to the man, " Arise, go thy way : thy faith hath made thee whole."

■-Mi ,S:M:

Ill

I

THE LAKE OF T IB E It IAS.

" And far below, Gennesaret's main

Spreads many a mile of liquid plain, (Though all seem gather'd in one eager bound,)

Then narrowing cleaves yon palmy lea

Towards that deep sulphureous sea, Where five proud cities lie, by one dire sentence drown'd." Keble.

To Christian feeling, the Lake of Tiberias, otherwise called the Lake of Gennesaret, is of even more interest than the Dead Sea, from the manner in which its borders and its waters are connected with many remarkable incidents in the history of Christ. Apart from such associations, however, it offers little to engage the attention of those who have seen the lakes of England and Scotland — not to speak of those of Switzerland. The shores do not even exhibit such romantic scenery as the shores of the Dead Sea occasionally offer. The sight of a fine sheet of limpid water is, however, always pleasing ; and this the Lake of Tiberias offers in a deeply depressed basin — eighty-four feet below the level of the sea — from which the shores in general rise steeply and continuously all round, except where a ravine, or sometimes a deep river- valley, occa- sionally interrupts them. The hills are, however, rounded and tame, with little of the picturesque in their form ; they are decked by no shrubs or forests : and when the verdure which clothes the hills in spring has ceased, under the heat of advancing summer, to retain its greenness, the aspect of the whole is naked and dreary.

The extent of the lake has, until lately, been much over-rated. Its actual length in a straight line, does not appear to exceed eleven or twelve geographical miles, and its breadth is from five to six miles. There are numerous indications which show that its bed was formed by some ancient volcanic eruption of which history has preserved no account. The waters are very clear and sweet, and abound in various kinds of excellent fish, the taking of which once formed the occupation of many of the Apostles. In the time of our Lord, the borders of the lake were well inhabited, and covered with numerous towns and villages, but the shores are now almost desolate,

112 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

aud the fish and water-fowl are but little disturbed. In place of the numerous passage- boats and fishing-vessels which the lake once bore upon its bosom, the traveller may count himself fortunate if he obtains sight of a little boat with a white sail gliding over the waters ; and on inquiry he will find that this is the only boat upon all the lake.

The aspect under which the lake has been here described, is that which it offers during the greater part of the year : but as travellers have commonly visited its shores in the spring, when the shores are covered with the most beautiful verdure, and the small rivers have not ceased to pour in their streams, they have for the most part spoken of the scene in higher terms than its general character will warrant. So, when the American traveller Dr. Olin, who first obtained view of the lake at sunset, and at the end of April, writes : — " The sun had just set behind us in a blaze of red light, which filled the western sky for many degrees above the horizon, and was slightly reflected from the smooth, glassy surface of the beautiful lake, where opposite there was visible for many miles on the right and left, rising abruptly out of the water an immense continuous bulwark, several hundred feet in height, grand and massive, but softened by graceful undulation, and covered with a carpet of luxuriant vegetation from the summit quite down to the water's edge. Beyond the lake stretched out a vast, and to our eyes a boundless region, filled up with a countless number of beautifully rounded hills, all clad in verdure, which at this moment was invested with a peculiar richness of colouring."

Both descriptions are true, and both pictures are like. Take away from the latter what it owed to the sunset, and to the vernal season of the year, and you have the lake under its more ordinary and permanent aspect, as previously described.

*

Is

1

a %

t

113

THE WISE MEN'S OFFERING.

POUSSIN.

" A star, not seen before, in heaven appearing, Guided the wise men thither from the East To honour thee with incense, myrrh, and gold ; By whose bright course led on, they found the place, Affirming it thy star, new-graven in heaven, By which they knew the king of Israel born." Miltox.

MATT. II. 1—12

The visit of the Eastern magi, or "wise men," to the manger which formed the cradle of the new-born Saviour of men, is not one of the least interesting of the remarkable circumstances which have been related of his birth and infancy. Indeed, there are few of these circumstances more provocative of inquiry and curious investigation. Who were they ? where did they come from ? what was the star by which they were guided ? what did they suppose it to denote ? what was the significance of their offerings ? and what the nature of the "worship" which they rendered to the infant Redeemer? — all these are questions of great interest, and on which a large body of discussion has been first and last expended.

The name of magi which is given to them means, as translated, " wise men," or philosophers, particularly such as were conversant with astronomy, and the other sciences, which were in those ages regarded as occult ; and the fact, that this title designated in a more specific manner the men of this class in Persia, has led to the general notion that they came from that country. This may be. They are said to have come from " the East," a term applicable to any countries lying in an easterly direction from Palestine, such as Arabia and Persia. There is nothing, therefore, adverse to the notion that they came from that country ; and a probability that they did so is excited by the fact, that the religion of that country was distinguished by many important elements of truth from the " dark idolatries " which then disfigured the earth, and that it offered many more points of assimilation to the Jewish religion than any existing system afforded. It had even the idea of a Zozeish, or expected Redeemer, who, however, they supposed would come from the family of their Zoroaster.

With regard to this " star," it is confessedly difficult to understand what it was.

That the phenomenon was a meteor in the form of a star obviates some difficulties, and

seems to agree best with the passage, which states that it stood over the house where

the young child was, which might be correctly predicated of a meteor, but not of a star.

ii. 2f

114 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

Yet under that interpretation there remain difficulties which have led many to conclude that a real star must be intended, and if so, it may be supposed that it had been dis- closed to the wise men, that when this star should be seen under certain conjunctions, the time for the mysterious advent had arrived. Or it may have been a new star, then first seen in the heavens, with which a similar intimation had been connected.

At all events, the magi were satisfied that the star had fulfilled its office, not only in indicating the time of this illustrious birth, but in manifesting the child to them. And when they saw him, they hesitated not to recognize in him the object of their search ; and in acknowledgment of his high character, " they fell down, and worshipped him ;" and then they opened their treasures, and presented the gifts which they had brought — gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It was usual to approach with gifts the pre- sence of a high personage, the value of which is proportioned to his rank and to the means of the offerer. The gifts which they offered do not necessarily indicate that the offerers came from Arabia, as some have supposed ; for although the articles were usually regarded as the products of that country, they were diffused through all Eastern countries, as things necessary for worship, and even gold formed part of the usual offerings made to the gods. From this peculiar character of the gifts, from the myste- rious intimations of the " star," and from the circumstance that the birth of one who was merely " king of the Jews " was not an event in which the Eastern sages were likely to feel any deep interest, there is much reason to conclude, that they were enabled to recognize a spiritual, if not a divine character, in the infant before them ; and this is more than the act of " worship" would alone indicate, as the word is often applied to the homage rendered to sovereigns and other high personages.

Owing to the prophetic declarations of the Old Testament, describing monarchs as bringing their offerings to the Messiah, which have been supposed to refer to this event, the magi were early considered to have been kings, and tradition has given them the names of Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. Some old writers have gone so far as to furnish us with very minute descriptions of their persons and attire, which descriptions the painters have for the most part followed ; and the reputed relics of the " three kings " have, for many ages, been the possession in which the city of Cologne has exulted. There is nothing in the Scriptural account to show that the sages were three in number ; but this has been deduced from the fact that three descriptions of gifts are specified, and it has been very unnecessarily imagined that each of them presented a different kind of offering, whereas it seems clear that each of them, whatsoever were their number, might present, and probably did present, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The subject has been a favourite one with the painters, probably from the striking contrasts it has enabled them to exhibit. Poussin alone has painted it four times. The very beautiful painting of his from which our engraving is taken is in the Dulwich Gallery, and is supposed to be the same picture which was sold in the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds. It measures five feet seven inches by five feet four inches.

t

<s

115

>

L A 0 D I C E A.

" High towers, fuire temples, goodly theaters, Strong walls, rich porches, priucelie pallaces, Large streets, brave houses, sacred sepulchers, Sure gates, sweet gardens, stately galleries, Wrought with faire pillours and fine imageries ; — All these, (O pitie !) now are turnd to dust, And overgrowne with black oblivions rust." Spenser.

Laodicea was one of the seven cities in Asia Minor, containing the Christian churches to which the Apocalyptical messages were addressed. Lukewarmness is the character- istic ascribed to the church of Laodicea, and is the subject of the emphatic and very significant denunciation addressed to it in Rev. iii. 14 — 22. The flourishing circum- stances of the great body of the persons composing this church, seems to have lain at the root of that character in it, with which God was not well pleased, and which drew down upon it rebuke and threatening. " Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing : and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

Laodicea was the capital of Phrygia Pacatiana, and was situated on the river Lycus, a little above its junction with the Maeander, and not far to the south of Colosse and Hierapolis, in connection with which places it is mentioned in Col. ii. 1 ; iv. 13, 15, 16. Its original name was Diospolis ; but it was much enlarged and improved by Antiochus Theos, and it received from him the name of Laodicea, which was that of his wife. It enjoyed great prosperity under the Romans ; but the frequency of earthquakes, to which this district was in a remarkable degree subject, co-operating with altered times, gradually reduced its prosperity, and eventually destroyed it altogether by one great overthrow, in which many of the inhabitants perished, and the remainder were con- strained to abandon the spot, and disperse themselves into other cities. It is now still a deserted spot, bearing among the Turks the name of Eski-hissar (old castle) ; which is also borne by a small hamlet not far off, which gives the only trace of subsisting vitality to the neighbourhood.

116 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

The site still exhibits traces of the importance it once enjoyed, as the seat of the Roman governors of Asia Provincia, under the emperors. The most remarkable of the remains are an amphitheatre, in uncommon preservation ; three theatres ; and what appears to have been a Christian church — probably the ancient metropolitan church of Laodicea. There are, besides, ruins of several other public buildings, exhibited in large masses of masonry, to which no specific character can be assigned. In the amphitheatre is an inscription, and by comparing the date it gives with that usually assigned to the Revelation of St. John, we find that it must have been in course of erection when the Apocalyptic message was addressed to the church of Laodicea, and that it was not long after completed. There is little above ground — apart from the sacred associations which belong to the spot — to reward the visit of a traveller to the place. Deserted by all but wolves and jackals, not a single human being dwells there, and in the neighbouring hamlet only a few squalid Turks are to be found. The ruins of different kinds are very extensive, and appear to indicate that the ancient city was situated upon six or seven hills. It is the opinion of Colonel Leake that there are few ancient cities more likely than Laodicea to preserve many curious remains of antiquity beneath the surface of the soil : its opulence, and the earthquakes to which it has been subject, rendering it probable that valuable works of art were often there buried beneath the ruins of the public and private edifices.

t

§ §

^

> ^

*

Is

55.

k-

117

MORDECAI'S EXALTATION.

DETROY.

Be of good cheer : God's hand doth hold thee up, Aud thou art safe from all that seek thy hurt. In his own hour their heads shall sink low down, And thine shall rise on high.

ESTHER V. YI.

In the Persian court it seems to have been a point of etiquette and politeness not to bring a serious suit before the king without a good deal of ceremonious preparation. So Esther, pressing as her business was, when she had obtained grace of the king, and had secured the promise of his favour — only asked him to come with Haman to her ban- quet ; and when he had come, and had declared himself ready to grant the petition which he knew lay in the rear of all this preparation, she only ventured to ask him to come again the next day.

In the interval between these two banquets some very remarkable things happened.

Haman, as he passed out of the palace after the banquet, to return to his house, beheld the man he hated most — Mordecai the Jew — as imperturbed as usual, and still, as formerly, refusing to render to the powerful favourite the homage which he consi- dered due to his high place. With difficulty he restrained his wrath till he reached home — and then it overflowed. He sent for his friends and his wife Zeresh, and summed up to them all the high honours which the king's favour had bestowed upon him, winding up with : " Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared, but myself; and to-morrow am I invited unto her also, with the king." "Yet," he added, bitterly — "yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the king's gate." Haman's wife and friends listened to his complaints with all the attention which the complaints of the great have never failed to secure : and they recommended to him the sharp and decisive remedy of erecting a gallows fifty cubits high, and of speaking a word to the kiug to get this Mordecai hanged thereon. Haman might consider that the king, who had but lately made him a present of the lives of a whole nation, could not be likely to refuse him this small boon, especially when the man him- self was one of the doomed race. It was but a word — and Mordecai would trouble him no more. It was so easy — that Haman could not resist the temptation : and although he held, as it seemed, the neck of all Israel under his foot — he could not deny him- self this sweet antepast of vengeance upon the most hated of the obnoxious race. The gallows was made : and Haman, at the usual time, went to court, to be in attendance when the sovereign should leave his private apartments in the early morning — intending to take that opportunity of asking from the king the small favour of Mordecai's life.

But meanwhile the providence of God had been at work in the palace, preparing a very different lot for the uncourtly but upright Jew. ii. 2 o

118 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

The king could not sleep that night upon his hed ; and to pass the time, he directed the chronicles of his reign to be brought and read before him. The attendant read on, and the monarch's wakefulness was so extreme, that even this had not soothed him to sleep when the morning began to break, by which time the reader had come to the page which recorded the conspiracy to slay the king, which had been detected and disclosed by Mordecai. This, in the providence of God, roused the attention of the king — " What honour," said he, " hath been done to Mordecai for this ?" and when he heard the answer — " There is nothing done for him ;" he was struck with remorse for his neglect, and under the strong impulse of this self-reproach, he conceived the idea of bestowing upon him even higher honours than in the. first instance he would pro- bably have judged necessary. The king asked, "Who is without?" Now Haman had just come in, with the intention of asking the king's leave to hang this very Mordecai ; and when the king heard he was there, he said, " Let him come in." Little conceiving the thought that reigned in Hamau's heart, Ahasuerus asked him, as the chief of his counsellors, what was the thing he would advise to be done for "the man whom the king delighted to honour." Now Haman thinking that the king could delight to honour no one but himself, and being already too nigh the pinnacle of greatness, to render any but the very highest distinctions of any further value to him — named honours not very greatly inferior to those due to royalty itself, but perfectly in accord- ance, in the circumstances, with the taste that has always prevailed, and does still pre- vail, in the same country. He said : — " For the man whom the king delighteth to honour, let the royal apparel be brought that the king useth to wear, and the horse •that the king rideth upon, and the crown-royal that is set upon his head, and let this apparel and horse be delivered into the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him — ' Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.'" The king approved of the suggestion, and said : — " Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse — and do even so to Mordecai the Jew that sitteth in the king's gate. — Let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken !" — Here was a stroke ! There is nothing so neat, so sudden, so complete, in the way of what is popularly called " turning the tables," in all history or romance. Haman advises that a "noble prince shall be the instrument of rendering certain honours which he supposes to be intended for himself — and he is required to carry out his own suggestions by taking the place of " the noble prince" who shall render these honours to the very man whom he had just come to get leave to hang.

Even Haman must have turned pale at this. It was as if a sword had pierced through his liver. But he durst not suffer his feeling to appear in the royal presence, or to be guessed by the courtiers. He therefore laid a strong grasp upon his rising emotions, to keep them down — and, with all customary reverence, left the place to execute the sovereign's order — to invest with all but regal houours the man he hated, and to march through the city at his horse's head, proclaiming : — " Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour."

V

2

^

119

MOUNT HERMON-DJEBEL ESH-SHEIKH.

" Where over rocks and sands arise, Proud Sirion in the northern skies." Keble.

About mid-way between Mount Tabor and Monnt Gilboa, and directly opposite to and parallel with the latter, on the north of the valley of Jezreel, is a mass of shapeless aud barren hills, called Djebel ed-Duhy, which were formerly regarded as constituting the Mount Hermon of Scripture. This impression arose from the way in which Tabor and Hermon are mentioned together in Psalm lxxxix. 12 — " Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name." But this does not imply vicinity ; and the other passages in which Hermon, also called Sirion, is mentioned, requite that it should be a far greater mountain, forming the northern frontier of that fine country beyond the Jordan, which the Hebrews conquered from the Ammonites. Since, therefore, the more exact observation of modern travellers has made us better acquainted with that country, no doubt has been entertained that the Hermon of Scripture is the mountain which bears the present name of Djebel esh-Sheikh, which is not only in the situation required, and meets all the conditions which the Scriptural intimations involve, but is by much the highest and most grand of all the mountains in or near Palestine.

This Djebel esh-Sheikh is a south-eastern (and in that quarter, culminating) branch of Anti-Lebanon. The lofty central summits of the proper 'Lebanon ' chain are far away to the north, and were much beyond the ordinary notice — such notice as begets comparisons and figurative allusions — of the Israelites : but this other mountain is visible from Mount Tabor, and both together are visible from the plain of Esdraelon — a circumstance which is alone sufficient to explain the passage from the Psalms, which has been so often cited to prove the near vicinity of Hermon and Tabor. It is likely that the height of Djebel esh-Sheikh is little if at all inferior to these more distant summits of the upper Lebanon ; and it has been thought even to rival Mont Blanc, although the high ground on which it stands detracts greatly from its apparent altitude, and renders it a far less imposing object than the king of European mountains, as seen from the Italian valley of Aosta. The top is covered with snow throughout the

120 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

summer, and it must therefore rise above the point of perpetual congelation, which in this latitude is about 10,000 feet — but how much above that point, has not been ascertained. In the ravines, in which, as being less exposed to the sun's rays, the frozen snow lies in lengthened white streaks, descending down as it were from the top ; and in this a resemblance has been fancied to the head and beard of an aged man ; and it is believed to be from this striking analogy, that it derives its name of Sheikh's, (or Old Man's) Mountain.

To show the degree in which this mountain must have been under the notice of the Israelites in Palestine, we may cite the words of Dr. Olin, who, coming from the south, first caught sight of it from the high grounds of Samaria. " I was surprised at the large prospect which opened before me on the north and west. The first object that attracted my gaze was a lofty mountain, capped with snow, and gloriously refulgent in the sun's meridian beams. It traversed high above the whole immense region within the range of vision, and was situated at a great distance before me, in a direction a little cast by north. By subsequent reference to the map, I found it could be no other than Mount Hermon, the Jebel el Sheik (esh-Sheikh) of the Arabs." And this view, it will be observed, was obtained in the central part of the holy land. The same traveller, afterwards looking in the same direction from the top of Tabor, says : — " In the remote distance, though full in view, the snowy top of Hermon was still glittering and basking in the beams of the sun, while a chaste cool drapery of white fleecy clouds hung around its base;" a circumstance often witnessed in the distant view of lofty mountains.

>

'\nAemtK

<vf //,■ //, ■////</, •////,//////.> n&rfw, ,////,//{,/?/,■,/.

Muih-~

>

121

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

VANDERWERF.

" Behold the mother ondefiled !

Behold her bahe, — the Holy One ! And do they wander forth alone,

By Israel slighted or forgot ? And when the Highest seeks ' his own,'

Do e'en ' his own ' receive lain ' not ?' " Dale.

MATTHEW II. 13-2L

As the whole of Palestine was under the dominion of Herod the Great, any one in the south of that country who was in danger from his suspicions or his wrath, would find Egypt his nearest and safest refuge. The mountains of Lebanon, or the region of Damascus, might have afforded a refuge as safe ; but to attain it, the whole length of the land under the rule of Herod must have been traversed. When therefore the holy family, while still at Bethlehem, was in danger from the search of that tyrant, who was determined to discover and destroy the child whom the Eastern sages had said to have been " born king of the Jews" — Egypt was the place to which Joseph was directed to retreat. This journey to, and residence in, a foreign country, might have been difficult to persons so poor; but the providence of God had already provided amply for their wants, by the gifts which the magi had presented.

To what part of Egypt the holy fugitives repaired, what happened to them there, or how long they stayed, we are not informed. Traditions have not been wanting to supply the silence of the Evangelists ; and although they are not of the slightest his- torical value, they are curious for their antiquity, and from the suggestions which they offer. In Isaiah xix. 1., we read; "Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt ; and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it." This text some of the Fathers apply to this visit of our Lord to that country, and construe " the swift cloud " to mean the mother of Jesus, in whose arms he was carried. The ancient tradition of the Greeks go a little further, and venture to assure us, that when the infant Saviour entered the land, its idols were overthrown before him. Evagrius declares, that he had himself seen a temple, the idols of which had fallen when the Lord came there. Deserted temples and subverted idols were not, in the time of these writers, scarce in Egypt, and it was not difficult to connect the events. The limitation to a particular temple that he had seen, intimates that Evagrius did not consider the visitation as other than local. The same traditions fix the residence of the holy family to the town of Hermoopolis, and near Matariyeh, which seems to indicate the site of the ancient On or Heliopolis, spots deemed to have been rendered venerable by their presence, were for many ages pointed II. 2 H

122 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

out to the admiration of pilgrims and travellers. Our own excellent Sandys thus speaks of the place : — " We rode to Metarea, five miles north-east of the city (Cairo). Here they say that our Saviour, with the blessed Virgin and Joseph, reposed themselves, as they fled from the fury of Herod, when oppressed with thirst ; and a fountain forth- with gushed forth at their feet to refresh them. We saw a well environed with a poor mud wall, the water drawn up by buffaloes into a little cistern, from whence it ran into a laver of marble, within a small chapel, by the Moors (in contempt of Christians) spitefully defiled. In the wall there is a little concave lined with sweet wood (dimi- nished by affectors of relics) and smoked with incense : in the sole is a stone of porphyry, whereon, they say, she did set our Saviour. Of so many thousand wells, (this thing most miraculous) this only affordeth gustable waters, and that so excellent, that the Bassa refuseth the river, to drink thereof, and drinks of no other; and when they cease for any time to exhaust it, it sendeth forth of itself so plentiful a stream, as able to turn an overfall mill. Passing through the chapel, it watereth a pleasant orchard ; in a corner whereof there standeth an overgrown fig-tree, which opened (as they report) to receive our Saviour and his mother, then hardly escaping the pursuers ; closing again till the pursuit was past, and then again dividing as it now remaineth. A large hole there is in one of the sides of the leaning bulk : " this," ( they say) " no bastard can thread, but shall stick fast by the middle. The tree is all to [altogether] be-hacked for the wood thereof, reputed of sovereign virtue."

The Jews have a tradition of their own on the subject, derived from the Talmud, to the effect that Jesus went to Alexandria in Egypt, in company with Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah, who they allege was his master, and remained there many years, till he had acquired the wisdom and occult sciences of Egypt — a manifest corruption, and that a most malignant one, of the gospel account. There was a vast number of Jews at Alexandria, and as Herod's power could not reach to Egypt, it is not unlikely that the holy family would have proceeded thither, had their stay been protracted to any length of time, or that they did go thither, if their abode in Egypt exceeded the few months which was probably its actual duration. But the matter is too entirely conjec- tural to require discussion.

We know that they stayed till news came to Egypt of the death of Herod, when Joseph was assured by an angel that the danger was over, and that he might return safely to his own land.

The very fine picture by Vanderwerf, from which our engraving is copied, was intended by the artist as a present for his daughter, and he therefore bestowed his utmost care upon the finishing, and it is regarded as one of his master-pieces. The daughter was induced to sell it for four thousand florins, or three hundred and sixty pounds, to M. Van Schuylenburgh, at the sale of whose collection, at the Hague, in 1735, it was sold for two thousand five hundred florins, or two hundred and twenty-five pounds, and passed into the Cabinet of the Stadtholder, from which it was transferred to the Louvre by the French, but was restored in 1815, and is now in the Royal Museum at the Hague. It measures one foot six inches by one foot two inches.

*

a

123

THE SLAVE MARKET.

" 0 avarice ! What canst thou more, who hast subdued our blood So wholly to thyself, they feel no care Of their own flesh?" Dante.

There is no direct mention of a slave market in the Holy Scriptures ; but the existence of such markets in ancient times is known, and is implied even in Scripture by the not unfrequent references to the purchase and sale of slaves. Thus, without doubt, Joseph was taken to a slave-market by the Ishmaelite merchants, and was there purchased by Potiphar. So also, the Jews are warned by their Lawgiver, that their disobedience would be punished by many calamities, concluding with : " Ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you." Deut. 28 — 68. This is as much as to say that they should be enslaved in such numbers, that the slave-markets would be glutted with them. This was doubtless fulfilled more thau once ; and we know of one instance in which it was very signally accomplished. This was after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, when, after nearly a hundred thousand of men who had been made captive, had been sold for slaves, the different slave-markets were so satiated with them, that no one would offer the smallest sum for them, and the residue were then slain, or given away. One of the markets at which they were exposed for sale, was at the fair annually held near Hebron, under the great terebinth tree, which was supposed to have shaded the tent of Abraham.

The existing slave-markets of Constantinople and Cairo, are probably those of the present day which best represent those of the times to which we refer, as they were seen under ordinary aspects, without the circumstances of horror and distress which attend the sale of captives taken in war. Possibly, the markets for males and females were, except perhaps at such times, separate from each other — as they are at present, although it would seem that the separation is of comparatively recent date at Con- stantinople.

Many scenes of great distress in the slave-markets might be witnessed during the Greek war, when the captives would be sent to Constantinople and Egypt to be sold ; but this has now ceased. The black slaves, whether male or female, have for the most part learned to look upon their lot with light hearts, by the time they reach the markets ; and the white slaves from Circassia and Georgia, usually regard themselves as entering upon a career more replete with hopes and pleasures, than that which they have left — and to which they have been introduced, at their own desire, by their parents and friends.

Any one, therefore, who enters the slave-markets of Constantinople or Cairo, in the expectation of being heart-smitten at the sight of human grief, will find himself greatly mistaken, although he may still be shocked at the lightness with which human beings enter upon a condition which he has been accustomed to regard with horror; but which, indeed, beyond the revolting fact of sale and purchase, is in the East invested with few of those odious features which exist where the soil is cultivated by slave-labour. This

124 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

is never the case in the East, where the duties even of the blacks are entirely of a domestic nature.

The slave-market at Constantinople is a square court, of about two hundred feet area, three of whose sides are built round with low stone rooms or cells, beyond which projects a wooden peristyle. At present the blacks alone are seen in the open court, where they remain squatted in merry groups, according to their nations, till called by the owner to show themselves to an intended purchaser. The Circassians and Georgians remain in the closed apartments, in order that they may not be need- lessly exposed to the idlers in the court. The black women, the scarred cheeks and striped dresses of most of whom announce them to be from Darfur and Sennaar, often manifest considerable impatience to be disposed of, and endeavour by a strange gibberish, accompanied by shouts of laughter, to attract the notice of a stranger, and induce him to become a purchaser. No wanton cruelty is practised in the slave-market, nor is any idle insult permitted — for in fact neither the slaves themselves, their present masters, nor their intended purchasers, look upon their condition as in any way degrading. To the white female slaves the time is for the most part regarded as the day-spring of their hopes. They are approaching that condition which they have been trained to look forward to as the fruition of all the heart of woman can desire. They know that their high price will prevent any but the great ones of the place from becoming their purchasers; and once introduced into their harems, they know that no indulgence can be spared them, no severity practised towards them, and that they stand a fair chance of becoming its mistress, and of taking their place among the highest ladies of the laud. They have been trained from childhood, and even by their own parents, to regard the fortunes that await them in the great city, as the most illustrious, the most satisfying to which the heart of woman can aspire ; and although we could tell her that the con- dition of woman admits of higher and happier destinies than these, she knows it not, and perhaps has never occasion to suspect it; and when she actually enters upon her new career, there is nothing in the splendour and ease to which she is introduced, as contrasted with the hard living and mean dwellings of her native land, but what tends to assure her that the brightest of her dreams have been accomplished.

The young white females are mostly sold by their own parents and friends, with their own consent, and indeed at their eager desire, to the slave-factors — many of whom are Jews. When a female of great beauty has not been sufficiently provided by her own friends with those accomplishments which are prized among the Turks, the master himself often gets her suitably instructed, thereby greatly enhancing her value, before he finally disposes of her ; and very extravagant prices are sometimes given for those who are both beautiful and highly accomplished. The usual price for a young white slave is about a hundred pounds ; while a black one, intended merely for domestic service, may usually be had for about sixteen pounds. — What is there painful in all this ? There is much that is so : but chiefly, that we find nothing in all this of the culture of the woman's mind, and see no opportunity for the spontaneous exercise of those true affections which God has given to her, and which, in their development, nnke her blessed, and render her a blessing.

>

ss

^

X

o

125

\

MEETING OF JACOB AND JOSEPH.

REUBENS.

Once more I see thy face — once more I hear Thy voice — and, lo, my Rachel lives in thee ; And for her sake — and yet for thine — I shed These tears — not all of joy, nor all of grief, But such as fall from the dim eyes of those Who find the fountain of their hearts unsealed, Which had been closed long since.

GENESIS XLVI. 28-30.

Strong in faith, and firm in the confidence that God — who had permitted him to seek a refuge from famine with his long-lost son in Egypt — would, in his own good time, bring forth his children thence, the aged Jacob was enabled to take his journey across the wild region between Palestine and Egypt, in a most free and happy spirit. With emotions unchilled by age, the venerable patriarch dwelt with eager anticipations upon the approaching interview with the son of his heart, whom, until these few days, he had long regarded as numbered with the dead. Yet did he not suffer his yearning desire to press that son to his heart, to render him unmindful of that prudence which became his age and experience, and which a younger man might have overlooked.

The first impulse of his affection would at once have led him to proceed direct to the ■metropolis, where his son had his abode. But aware of the prejudice of the Egyp- tians against foreigners — and, of all foreigners, against the pastoral tribes — he deemed it more prudent to proceed at once to the district of Goshen, which Joseph had already name« to his brethren as their future habitation, and to send thence the announcement of his arrival. The same nice tact which formed one of the distinguishing traits of Jacob's character, was also manifested in his choice of the messenger. This was Judah ; whose admirable conduct when Benjamin was in trouble, must have won for him the special favour and esteem of his illustrious brother.

No sooner was Joseph apprised of his father's arrival, than he caused his chariot to be made ready, aud hastened to meet him. There is much in this interview to ii. 2i

126 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

excite the imagination, and affect the heart. On the one side stood the great state- officer of Egypt, with all the splendid appointments of his high place, and with such attendance as became his rank ; while on the other stood a troop of manly but simple pastors, headed by a venerable old man, whose eyes were dim, and his beard white with age and sorrow. It was under the conviction, probably, that the heart could well supply all the circumstances of this meeting between a father and son who loved each other so well, and who had so long been separated, that the sacred historian affords very few details of this impressive interview j but is content by a few simple and touching words to indicate its character. When Joseph alighted from his chariot, and stood before his father, the latter " fell upon his neck, and wept upon his neck a long while." At length his emotion found utterance in a few broken words: — " Now let me die — since I have seen thy face — because thou art yet alive !" Not that he then wished to die — but he declares that he could now die contentedly, since it had been permitted to.him to behold his Rachel's son once more. No doubt this emotion was fully reciprocated by Joseph — but, with marked truth of nature, the historian dwells rather on the emotions of the father; for, as a Jewish commentator remarks, " abundant tears are far more natural to the aged father, who, after years of sorrow and despair, recovers his long-lost son, than to the latter, who, in the prime of life, has reached the summit of dignity, power, and success."

TWjliV; ''rj *..1>*.JK'-

v G. B". A3coek,

'4////, ■ '4//// //■/</ //,7.>n ///<:>/ //'-■// ///<■:

.

CW,-M.

Fisfcfflr. Sal r- St ftris.

127

CONVERSION OF SAUL.

POUSSIN.

" Whose is yon form, stretched on the earth's cold bed,

With smitten soul and tears of agony, Mourning the past ! Bowed is the lofty head

Rayless the orbs that flashed with victory. Over the raging waves of human will

The Saviour's spirit walked — and all was still." Rosooe.

ACTS IX.

Among those who took an active part in the martyrdom of Stephen, and who exerted themselves with the bitterest zeal against the disciples of Jesus in the persecution that followed that event, was a young man of Tarsus, in Cilicia, whose friends were in that condition of life which enabled them to send him to Jerusalem to complete his education in the law of Moses, as taught at that day, under the most eminent teachers in the holy city. In his enthusiasm for the law, and in the sincerity of his hatred and indignation against those by whom that law was supposed to be disparaged or rendered of none effect, this ardent young man solicited of the Sanhedrim the commission of being sent to Damascus, to hunt out and bring in bonds to Jerusalem, for trial and punishment, such persons as might appear to be infected with this abominable heresy.

This man — with his heart overflowing with rancour against the Christians, and whose zeal and reverence for the law was beyond all bounds — this was he, whom, of all the men in the world, God, in the miracles of his providence, had chosen from among men to be the great teacher of the doctrine which he now laboured to destroy. This, to human calculation, would seem all but impossible. But all things are possible with God. It was necessary that a man of this temper should be violently arrested in his high career — that he should be convinced by some great stroke of the might which he opposed — and that a subsequent interval for collected thought and earnest prayer should be forced upon him.

What was the tone of his thought as he drew near to Damascus, at the head of the band of men entrusted to him by the Sanhedrim, we are not told. The poet has pro- bably correctly imagined the antecedents of one of the most remarkable events in the history of the Christian church : —

" The leader of that martial crew Seems bent Borne mighty deed to do,

So steadily he speeds. With lips firm closed and fixed eye, Like warrior when the fight is nigh,

Nor talk nor landscape heeds." Keble.

It was at such a moment that the great Head of the church struck down the pride and hatred of his heart, called him by his name, and set his seal upon him. Suddenly, as by a flash of lightning, the heavens were illumined by an intense glare of light,

128 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

the shock of which cast him blinded to the ground; and from the midst of that glory, which his eyes could not endure, he heard a voice, saying, " Saul, Saul, why perse- cutest thou me?" Well might he ask, "Who art thou, Lord?" — and he could not but have been quite aghast at the answer, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest ;" — and the voice added, in mingled pity and reproof, * It is bard for thee to kick against the goads" — a phrase derived from the action of a vicious ox, in kicking, to his own injury, against the pointed goad by which he is urged along.

Deeply impressed by what he had seen, and still more by what he heard — oppressed by the sudden perception of the glory of Christ, against whom he had so often blas- phemed, and whose saints he had so furiously persecuted — Saul was utterly subdued. Trembling and astonished, he asked, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" This was the very best thing he could have said ; and, in answer, he was directed to proceed to Damascus, where, in due time, his destined path would be disclosed to him.

Then he rose from the ground, but he was still blind; and he who but a few minutes before had been careering gallantly along — stern of purpose — breathing forth threatening and slaughter — and high in pride of place, was constrained to be led helplessly along the highway to Damascus.

Three days he remained without sight ; and during these days no food or water passed his lips. These were, in all probability, days precious to his soul, and in which he was enabled, by the clue he had now obtained, to trace out the accomplishment of all the high promises and types of the ancient Scriptures — which he had studied much — in Jesus of Nazareth, who bad disclosed himself to him, and by the excessive light of whose glory he had been made blind.

At the end of that time, a disciple residing in Damascus, named Ananias, was directed in a vision to proceed to the street called Straight, and, at the house of one Judas, inquire for Saul of Tarsus. That name, so terrible to believers, startled even Ananias, who ventured to mention the fearful things he had heard of this famous per- secutor. But he was stopped by the words, " Go thy way : for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake."

It is worthy of remark, that he who became the greatest in action of all the other apostles, is here, at the outset, taught the great things he should be called to suffer, rather than the great things he had to do. We see by this, that the Lord knew his own work, and feared not to try it in the furnace, by exposing to the new convert all the pains and trials of the path that lay before him.

Ananias no longer demurred, but proceeded on his mission. On entering the room which the disarmed persecutor occupied, he forthwith laid his hands, as he had been commanded, upon his eyes, saying, " Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared to thee on the way, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost." At that word the blinding films fell from his eyes, and he saw plainly. He was forthwith baptized ; and the church of Christ then received into its bosom one who was destined to shine there like a star to the end of time.

129

TYRE.

" And this was Tyre," said lie ; " how hath decay Within hev palaces a despot been ! Ruin and silence in her courts are met, And on her city rock the fisher sproads his net." Mary Howitt.

The great commercial city of Tyre — whose name has long been the symbol of all that is rich in manufacture, and of all that is illustrious in commerce — was, as formerly stated, (p. 80,) founded by the more ancient Sidon, as a staple for her own wares, and is hence called in Scripture " the daughter of Sidon." But the daughter, from her more advantageous and defensible position, soon eclipsed without extinguishing the mother, and already in the time of David and Solomon, Tyre had become the greatest of the Phoenician cities — and the student of the sacred Scriptures becomes then interested in its condition and history, by the part taken by its king in supplying materials and workmen for the buildings of the two Hebrew kings, and from the active share which the Tyrian prince took in the commercial enterprises of Solomon. This elder Tyre was built upon the mainland, and a vivid picture of its prosperity is drawn by the prophet Ezekiel in his twenty-seventh chapter, which furnishes the most inter- esting record in existence of the most ancient maritime commerce which history has made known to us. At that time Tyre was in its most flourishing state; but not only this prophet, but Isaiah, who was before him, were enabled to see through the mists of time its eventual decline and overthrow. It continued a powerful, rich, and flourishing commercial city, till the time of Nebuchadnezzar, who, in extending the frontier of his empire westward to the Mediterranean, was not likely to leave Tyre unmolested. In fact, the city had to defend itself against his forces, during a siege and blockade of thirteen jears, at the end of which it seems to have been taken by storm, according to the predictions of Ezekiel, xxvi, xxix. This blockade was probably so much protracted, by the facilities of receiving supplies from the sea, which the besiegers could not wholly exclude. But, indeed, the greater part of the inhabitants during the blockade, took refuge in a neighbouring island, already furnished with numerous establishments and buildings, and thus founded the island-city of Tyre; which, by favour of its strong position, soon equalled the parent city, and not only outlived the Babylonian and Persian empires, but continued to increase as the ancient Tyre declined. It was finally captured by Alexander, after a most obstinate resistance ; but not until the conqueror had found it necessary to connect the island with tlie mainland by a mole, before he could render his resources available for the effectual ii. 2 k

130 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

assault of the city. Alexander sullied his name by his barbarities upon those valiant men, as much as he glorified it by this great work, which although constructed for only a temporary purpose, has survived through the long subsequent ages, and which, to the present time, renders the ancient isle a peninsula. In constructing this mole, Alexander made use of the materials of the old city, thereby accomplishing two remark- able prophecies : " They shall lay thy stones and thy timbers in the dust, in the midst of the waters," Ezek. xxvi. 12 : and "thou shalt be no more; though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again," verse 21. But the conqueror injured Tyre far less by his arms, than by the foundation of Alexandria, which thence- forth became, what Tyre had been, the emporium for the traffic of the world. Yet Tyre maintained its ground as a place of some commerce — respectable, though no longer grand — for many ages ; and was a place of some importance — military rather than commercial — so late as the time of the Crusades. It was almost the last place in Syria which the Crusaders abandoned to the Moslems ; and as its strong fortifications, which constituted its sole distinction, were then demolished, the place has never since been of any consideration. Successive travellers describe in emphatic language, its desolate condition. Yet a few miserable inhabitants seem to have always lingered about the spot, and about eighty years ago a part of this peninsula was walled oif from the rest, and a town founded there by the Metoualies, under the name of Sur, which still exists, and carries on some small traffic in the products of the neighbourhood. Its population never exceeded, and does not now reach, 3,000 souls ; and it sustained great injury from the earthquake of 1837.

Of the original city the superficial remains are few, but there is an abundance of prostrate columns and massive foundations which can only be referred to the ancient history of the place. The most marked ancient remains is the wall of the port, of which we give a view, looking towards the mainland. It was strengthened at intervals by massive towers, of which, as the engraving shows, some interesting relics still sub- sist. The causeway of Alexander is now covered by a vast accumulation of sand, which has, no doubt, mainly contributed to its preservation. It is situated to the right, and beyond it are the remains of an aqueduct of considerable extent, but of poor character ; and still further, a hill crowned with a mosque. Most travellers have observed fishermen dragging their nets on the ancient walls, and have pointed.it out as a manifest fulfil- ment of the old prophecy ; " They shall break down the towers of Tyrus, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea."

Aia**1y R*u«

Lafrt.Twi 'br J.JKLtdsA.

■ ;/// . '/,///!/,>'///,/// /////■ //«■ /Mr/, ,////. j/////// ////, ,

ft 'aris.

131

CHRIST'S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.

POUSSIN.

" Lord, come away : Why dost thou stay ?

Thy road is ready ; and thy paths, made straight, With longing expectation wait The consecration of thy beauteous feet. Ride on triumphantly : behold we lay Our lusts and proud wills in the way. . Hosannah ! welcome to our hearts." Jeremy TAYLOB.

LUKE XIX. 28-40.

The signal miracle of our Lord in raising Lazarus from the dead at Bethany, was cal- culated to excite, and did excite, a most lively sensation among the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and prepared many of them to expect that Jesus would ere long come for- ward, and take his stand among them as the Messiah promised to their fathers, whose character and office, however, they most grievously misconceived.

After that miracle, our Lord had withdrawn to the neighbourhood of the Jordan ; but, on his return to Jerusalem to celebrate the ensuing Passover, he tarried at Bethany, and partook with divine complacency in the happiness he had bestowed. The news of his arrival was rapidly carried over to Jerusalem, and many persons went down to the village, to gratify their feelings and their curiosity by seeing him and Lazarus together, which they had an opportunity of doing at the supper in the house of Simon, where both were among the guests.

It was well understood that Jesus would enter Jerusalem the next morning, and the public attention was highly excited by the expectation of something remarkable. Many of the most eager, the most believing, and the most ready to recognize his claims, left the town, according to Eastern custom, and went forward to meet him as far as Bethphage, which was about midway between Jerusalem and Bethany. Observing the favourable disposition of the people towards him, our Lord concluded to render it instrumental in making an abiding and important impression upon the minds of his disciples, when they should afterwards come to reflect upon the manner of his entry into Jerusalem. The prophet Zechariah had foretold that the Messiah should come as one meek and lowly, riding upon an ass ; and it was necessary that the disciples should be able to recognize so clear an intimation as having been fulfilled in him. Horses

132 GALLERY OF SCRIPTURE ENGRAVINGS.

had, at this time, become common in Palestine ; and the rulers of the land no longer, as of old, rode upon asses. It was therefore a mark of lowliness, that one who claimed to reign should ride into his metropolis upon an ass. This, however, our Lord purposed to do — as indeed it was essential that in him all the Scriptures, concerning the Messiah, should he accomplished. But how was " the ass, and colt, the foal of an ass," to be provided. Jesus told two of his disciples to go forward, and, at a certain place, they would find a young colt, which they were to bring to him. This they did ; and although the owners questioned this proceeding, they no sooner heard that the colt was for Jesus, than they cheerfully consented that it should be, taken to him. The dam followed her foal, and the disciples, not exactly knowing on which he would like to ride, spread their outer robes upon both. He mounted the colt; and, in this humble parade — glorified by its deeper meaning, and by the earnestness of all who took part in it — the journey to Jerusalem was continued. The people, generally, were too well versed in the prophets, and had been too much in the habit of hearing and discussing those passages which were understood to refer to the Messiah, not to recognize the reference which this act bore to the prophecy of Zechariah. The recognition was acknowledged by a loud burst of exulting shouts, and the crowd hastened to rend the branches from the palm-trees, which they waved to render his march a triumph, while they gave their homage by casting their outer robes before the feet of the animal he rode. The nearer disciples of our Lord fully shared in the deep emotion thus awakened, and when the procession reached the brow of the Mount of Olives, and came in sight of the city, which lay spread out before them, the whole party burst forth into singing the verses from the 118th Psalm, which were usually sung at the Feast of Tabernacles, and which were justly regarded as bearing a special reference to the Messiah : —

" Hosanna ! Blessed be the king of Israel That cometh in the name of the Lord ! Blessed be the kingdom of our father David — That cometh in the name of the Lord ! Hosanna in the highest !"

Thus singing, thus rejoicing, thus waving their triumphal palms, the crowd, greatly increased by the way, descended the Mount of Olives, and crossed the valley of the Kidron, and ascended to Jerusalem.

P

" * ^i

»-■• 1

•:> -\

•"op**

■ • »>

• -»» .

■ >» >».

»>s> » "%

SflS

"">»-*<	■
► ^
°-&-> .-*>''
» > j3> >'	E *

1A1

> >.

i>>*T3S

3CL

Of) 3 ^ ■ *§» '

_ »> ©_ >¥

». , >■ > >

A2U»:»>:X

3>.

I - "J

3K'i .■>

9f

*&