again, and we should not have printed it, but that the messenger had gone out of our reach before we thought of the last objection. During the reign of that Pharaoh called Talma (the one who would not let the Israelites go, did you know his name was Talma?) certain noblemen engaged in a conversation of which I will give you an ac count. A. Don't you think something ought to be done for our order. I can't say that the cutting of X.'s hand because he held it awkwardly was not a little too strong. We ought to have privileges to exempt us from mutilation. B. I am conservative; I am sorry for X.; but if we once begin to change the Constitution every thing will go to ruin. There is Rad: he's your man; always talking about reform and humanity. C. Oh, Rad! he's a madman; he positively worries about the slaves, Jews! an inferior race, who are happier under the advantages of Egyptian masters than in their own filthy tents that they sigh for. Rad. Why do you say inferior race? Did the Almighty make any race to be ill-treated by any other? C. Yes; I say inferior. Where did you ever see a Jew distinguish himself in learning or art? Surely they have lived among the polished and intellectual Egyptians long enough to show mind if it was in them. They are fit for nothing but hard labor. Labor of that kind is necessary. This people was created to make our bricks and draw our water, while we think for them, and maintain in honor the greatest empire of the world. Rad. How can they improve in intellectuality when they are kept to brutal labors by hard task-masters? I grant that all masters are not cruel: I know that many of them are well-fed from bountiful flesh-pots; but their higher natures are systematically kept down. That they are capable of elevation is seen in instances where some opportunity has been offered. There is Moses, for example. C. Yes; there you have the very case. Moses! an insubordinate fellow. That rascal, owing to the princess's nonsense in petting him, has got knowledge enough to make him troublesome. Mark my words, that fellow will come to a bad end. I have an idea he is now stirring up an insurrection. He is dangerous. See what comes of instructing the Jews! Enter D. (in an excitement.) I have just come from the king's chamber. What do you suppose was the occupation of the day? You know the princess's protégé, that homicidal Jew, Moses, who ought to have been impaled long ago, actually came to the foot of the throne to ask Pharaoh to free his people!! A. How did Pharaoh receive it? Rad. With humbug and simulation, I'll engage. D. He said, "Moses, I have always been your friend; you have been kindly treated in my family; I have been ever known as a benefactor to the Hebrews; I have never sold any of my own away. I am desirous of their good; I am studying it. But, my good fellow, your people are not prepared yet to take care of themselves; if you lead them hence, they will perish for want; they are too ignorant to govern themselves. If all were like you and a few others, I would let them go instantly; but I keep them in subjection for their own good. In a few centuries of servitude, they will gradually improve; and then the Pharaoh of that day will certainly let them go, and they may become an independent people. You must not mind the sufferings of these now living when you think of what is in store for the descendants three hundred years hence." B. Well, was not that judicious, sensible, kind? D. Moses did not think so. He respectfully saluted the king, and said, "You will not help me; you throw me on my people to free themselves. Be it so! B. Ungrateful dog! I can stand a great deal, but not a nasty, long-nosed Jew talking to high-born, divinely-descended Egyptians of independence and equality. Bah! Hang them! whip them! D. Moses as he turned away said, "We will be protected by a higher power than Pharaoh. Yes, we will be free. Though all this generation perish in the wilderness, our children shall not serve the Egyptians. In time we will have our poets, our artists, our heroes. When Pharoah is an unknown, forgotten tradition, we will survive. THE EARL OF CHATHAM. To the last limped to his seat to protest against a preChatham opposed the blind policy of the mature and inglorious surrender. He leaned Court, by which millions of loyal sub- upon his son-in-law, Lord Mahon, and on jects beyond the Atlantic, who had never his son William that great William Pitt, dreamed of separating from the mother who was destined to organize a treaty, in country, were goaded into rebellion and after years, with the Transatlantic Repubraised into an independent State. From lic, and to recognise that independence his retreat he watched, with intense in- against which his illustrious father protested terest during eight years, the progress of with his last breath. Every peer present that struggle which terminated so disastrous- long remembered Chatham's appearance ly to North in the Cabinet and Cornwallis on that day; and often told his children in the camp. He heard of the valour of how the veteran statesman held his crutch the insurgen's on Bunker's Hill, of the in his hand, while the tails of his rich Congress at Philadelphia, and of the peace- velvet coat flapped over his flannelloving Washington taking the field. He swathed legs. There was still a bright beheld thirteen colonies solemnly delare gleam in his eyes, and the arched nose of themselves free and independent, and Gen- his wizened face protruded from the depths eral Burgoyne surrender to the despised of a huge wig. He stood like an old tower, descendants of Quakers and Puritans at venerable in decay. Every word that fell the battle of Saratoga. In the February of from him was listened to with reverence. the year in which he died, he learned that No one felt disposed to taunt him with inDr. Franklin had signed at Versailles a consistency; for the Duke of Richmond — treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, who moved for an address to the throne between France and the United States; against prosecuting hostilities with America and then-breaking loose again from Lord any further-Lord Rockingham, and all Rockingham, with whose wise and moderate his friends in the House, respected Chatpolicy he had for several years concurred ham's patriotic ardour, even when it seemed -turning a deaf ear to the arguments to overpower his judgment. In profound drawn from the fact of the colonies in revolt being already severed from the empire, and from the dangers incurred by a twofold war with America and with France forgetting, as it should seem, his own oftrepeated assertion, that it was impossible to conquer America Lord Chatham went down, or rather was carried down, to the House, to raise his voice against recognising the independence of the victorious States. He could not endure the thought of the degradation of his country of her being humbled by the arms of her own children, and compelled to submit to the terms of rebels. He had saved her once from imminent peril, and how could he join now in sacrificing her honour? It was ignominious enough to yield to the dictation of our own colonists, but how much more so when that dictation was backed by our old enemies the French? No; come what might, England should hold out to the last, and lift her proud head above the waves. He was seventy years old when he silence they heard his hesitating remarks MR. SWINBURNE'S "Poems and Ballads" have been withdrawn from circulation. Whether this course has been taken by the author or adopted by the firm of Moxon & Co. is not a matter which concerns us. It is, at all events, the result of unequivocally expressed disgust by the press generally. Mr. Swinburne has it in his power, by pure and noble work, to induce the public to forget the insult flung at them through his book. He, too, "may win the wise who frowned before to smile at last."- Athenæum. ASPHALT OF THE DEAD SEA.- Much have been connected with extinct volcanic attention has been given to the origin of phenomena; secondly, on the presence, verithe fragments of asphalt which the Dead fied by M. Hebard, of bitumen in the limeSea throws up on its banks, and, from its stones, from whence emerge the thermal analogy with that of Hasbeya, it has been and saline springs of the Tiberiad, in which thought that it was brought down by the Dr. Anderson found bromine associated waters of the Jordan, forgetting that al- with organic matter; thirdly, on the analyses though bitumen is lighter than the water of of the water of the Dead Sea, which, acthe Dead Sea, it is much heavier than that cording to M. Terreil, contains an organic of the Jordan, and that this river must matter having the characteristic odour of have deposited it on its own banks in the bitumen, and which is particularly abuncourse of so long a journey. It has also dant in the neighbourhood of Ras Mersed, been supposed that vast sheets of bitumen, whose odours of sulphuretted hydrogen are accumulated at the bottom of the Dead noticed by all travellers, and which is the Sea, after hardening, have become detached place signalized for its bitumen by Strabo. and floated to the surface. This hypothesis As at Ras Mersed the bitumen has penetratis not justified by the numerous soundings ed the fissures of the calcareous rocks on made by the American expedition, nor by the banks, and is found in the saline dethose of the Duke de Luines' expedition in posits in a little grotto very near this point, which we had the honour to take part. everything leads to the supposition that Lastly, Dr. Anderson had a notion that there still exists one of those submarine under the bituminous deposit of Nebi-Musa springs which in former times emitted conthere existed considerable layers of asphalt, siderable masses of bitumen, and which now intercalated with calcareous rocks, and the confine their operation to exceptionally prolonged outlines of which stretched under enriching the water in bitumen, chlorides, the Dead Sea, and yielded to the erosive and bromides, and so disengaging sulphuaction of its waters the specimens which retted hydrogen gas. In thus unfolding the travellers noticed on its shores. This opin- reasons which lead to the belief that the bituion does not appear to us more admissible bitumen has been brought by the hot and than its predecessors. We do not see why saline springs, and that it has impregnated the the fragments of bitumen dispersed on the limestones after their deposit, we do not inbanks, and of which no trace is found in tend to decide the question whether this bituthe ancient alluvium or the ancient deposits men has been brought up direct from the of the Dead Sea, should not come in part depths, or whether the hot springs met with from the debris of these floating islands of carbonaceous matter in their course, and reasphalt, as well as, perhaps, from the disin- acted upon it. It is known that there exists tegration of the bituminous rocks which in the Lebanon, in the system of sandstone the waters of the Wady-Mahawat and below the cretaceous rocks, which are those of Wady-Sebbah bring down at cer- impregnated with bitumen, considerable tain seasons. As for the occurrence of masses of lignite, of which the analogues bituminous emanations in the bottom of may have existed in the Anti-Libanus and the Dead Sea or on its shores, or along the in the Dead Sea. In this hypothesis, which Valley of the Jordan, we believe that they supports the observation of traces of vegeare connected with a system of thermal, tation found by Dr. Anderson in Dead Sea saline, and bituminous springs which extend asphalt, the heated waters may have been along the major axis of the dislocation of able to extract from the lignites their hydrothe basin. This conviction rests first on carbon products, such as M. Daubrée has the alignment of bituminous deposits along been able to show in his beautiful experithe same axis on which we find the rare ments illustrative of metamorphism. representatives of springs which seem to Louis Lartet in Comptes Rendue. M. DISCOVERY OF CAPERNAUM. - Mr. Keith Johnston and other gentlemen engaged in the exploration of Palestine recently made an important discovery. At Mr. Johnston's suggestion, who believes that Tell Hum is the true site of ancient Capernaum, they dug into the mould, hoping to find the remains of the synagogue there, popularly called the "White Tem ple," and, according to letters just received, were rewarded with complete success, finding the supposed building nearly or quite entire. Should these tidings prove correct, the explorers have found the only building in which the Saviour actually was when on earth which can be identified at this day. "THE day must come when we shall die." In youth how vague that thought appears, Far off and easily put by 'Mid crowding hopes of onward years! With what a careless glance we read On many a monumental stone The young, the old, the yearned-for, sleep The blood is dancing in our veins ; The glorious hills, the flower-gemmed And so the quick years roil along On wheels that glitter as they go; And Life is but a saucy song, A pastime, and a pleasant show, Through raptures of the nascent Spring And passionate joy of Summer hours, And Autumn's fulness,- vanishing In barren Winter's sleety showers. Till, all at once, DEATH standeth near! In vain. Earth looms too faint and far; That crosses æther and is gone: The troubled soul in fear is driven Fall of the year, and of the leaf, — from every wood and flower The bloom past by, the glory fled! That, whether late or early come When summoned for that last farewell! And rise prepared to meet our God. And cheerful leave the day behind. So may we, Mary, trustful wait, Like you, the glory of that dawn; That shows the lesser light withdrawn: And solemn friend of suffering man, When first our round of days began: For pardons, and for fond farewells; - Macmillan's Magazine. No. 1172. Fourth Series, No. 33. 17 November, 1866. POETRY: Our Master, 447. SHORT ARTICLE: Our Sermons, 386. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year; nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money. Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars. Second " 20 The Complete work 88 66 Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers. |