Do thou, my soul, beware, beware, lest thou in sleep sink down; That day, the day of fear, shall come: my soul, slack not thy toil, But light thy lamp, and feed it well, and make it bright with oil; Who knowest not how soon may sound the cry at eventide, 'Behold, the Bridegroom comes! Arise! go forth to meet the Bride !"1 Beware, my soul; beware, beware, lest thou in slumber lie, And, like the five, remain without, and knock and vainly cry; But watch, and bear thy lamp undimmed, and Christ shall gird thee on His own bright wedding-robe of light, the glory of the Son. To meet the Bride.-This variation is warranted by a reading in one of the Greek MSS. of Matthew: "Went forth to meet the bridegroom and the bride." The bride in that case represents the Church; and the parable is consistent with the Eastern custom of the bridegroom going to the house of the bride to lead her to his own home. This hymn is the "Midnight Hymn"' of the Eastern Church, translated from the Greek by G. Moultrie. TOO LATE. But Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." (Matthew xxv. 11-13.) LATE, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! No light had we: for that we do repent;. No light so late! and dark and chill the night! Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. Have we not heard the Bridegroom is so sweet? ALFRED TENNYSON." 66 'Relent, feel compassion for; par- which keeps the door shut;" but the don. The meaning is, "When the answer comes,- 'Too late, too late! ye Bridegroom learns that we repent be- cannot enter now.” cause we had no light, he will surely have pity on us, and recall the order | Note 5.) Alfred Tennyson. (See p. 22, THAT DAY OF WRATH! THAT day of wrath!1 that dreadful day, When, shrivelling like a parched scroll, Oh! on that day, that wrathful day, Though heaven and earth shall pass away! translated into modern languages. 2 Heavens together roll."The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. (2 Peter iii. 10.) " 1 That day of wrath. This hymn | ite with poets, and it has been frequently is an adaptation and abridgment by Sir Walter Scott of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), a famous Latin medieval hymn on the Day of Judgment. The authorship of the hymn is generally ascribed to an Italian monk of the thirteenth century. Wesley's hymn, "Lo! he comes, with clouds descending," and Newton's "Day of Judgment, day of wonders," are also founded on the Dies Iræ. It has always been a great favour 3 The high trump that wakes the dead.—“We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible." (1 Corinthians xv. 51, 52.) PART II. THE TIDAL BORE OF THE TSIEN-TANG. IN the open expanse of the Southern Ocean, as well as over a large portion of the Pacific, the tidal wave1 rarely exceeds five or six feet in height, and in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans perhaps eight or ten. In bays and gulfs, however, opening broadly to its course, and narrowing towards their interior recesses such as the Bay of Bengal, the Bristol Channel, and the Bay of Fundy in America—it may rise to twenty, thirty, or, under favourable circumstances of wind and season, even to fifty or sixty feet in height! And where such seas terminate in river-estuaries, the wave, still converging, forms a high head or wall of water, termed a Bore, which ascends the river with sudden and destructive force, Tidal bores of considerable magnitude occur in many rivers, such as the Severn, Garonne, Amazon, and Hoogly; but that of the Tsien-tang in China appears to excel them all in grandeur, especially at spring-tides and during strong easterly gales. Dr. Macgowan gives the following graphic account of it in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society: "Between the river and the city walls, which are a mile distant, dense suburbs extend for several miles along the banks. As the hour of flood-tide approached, crowds gathered in the streets running at right angles with the Tsien-tang, but at safe distances. My position was a terrace in front of the Tri-wave Temple, which afforded a good view of the entire scene. "On a sudden, all traffic in the thronged mart was suspended; porters cleared the front street of every description of merchandise, boatmen ceased lading and unlading their vessels, and put out into the middle of the stream, so that a few minutes sufficed to give a deserted appearance to the busiest part of one of the busiest cities of Asia. The centre of the river teemed with craft, from small boats to large barges, including the gay 'flower-boats.' "Loud shouting from the fleet announced the appearance of the flood, which seemed like a glistening white cable stretched athwart the river at its mouth, as far down as the eye could reach. Its noise, compared by Chinese poets to that of thunder, speedily drowned that of the boatmen; and as it advanced with great rapidity—at the rate, I should judge, of twenty-five miles an hour-it assumed the appearance of an alabaster wall, or rather of a cataract four or five miles across, and about thirty feet high, moving bodily onward! Soon it reached the advanced guard of the immense assemblage of vessels awaiting its approach. "Knowing that the Bore of the Hoogly-which scarcely deserves mention in connection with the one before me-invariably overturned boats which were not skilfully managed, I could not but feel apprehensive for the lives of the floating multitude. As the foaming wall of water dashed furiously |