being often built up of mud, the inside covered with curtains, the floor strewn with rushes or straw, and the roof plentifully blackened with smoke. Their amusements were often rather of the coarse, rough kind, there being none of the sources of mental gratification which we enjoy. Then, we shall all be aware that the general condition of the labouring people was one of slavery; often they were bound to the land and sold with it, just the same as the cattle that grazed over it, and they were bequeathed by the great in ther wills, just as a man in the present day would bequeath his land, his money, or his cattle.

All this was changed for the better now, but still there were good features even then, and because of these might we look back with pride and pleasure to Alfred and his times. But if because of the good in Alfred's times we could delight in them, how much more might we delight in our own time, for though dark clouds might pass over our skies now and then, yet, despite of them, if the people of England would do their duty and be true to themselves, they should rise among the peoples of the earth, and spread the name and honour of their island-home all the world Be it ours then, concluded Mr. Chown, to share in the struggle, and then it shall be ours to share in the blessing and reward; ours to hand down the glorious boon to our posterity, and heaven's richest blessing shall be with us all.

over.

NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BIBLE,

BY L. H. GRINDON.

Author of "Life," "Figurative Language," &c., and Lecturer on Botany at the Royal School of Medicine, Manchester.

[One of a Course of Lectures delivered to the Teachers and elder Pupils of the Manchester Phonetic Sunday School.]

The subject of the "Natural History of the Bible," requires that we should first understand the two terms of the title. I advert to the Bible as a glorious Eastern book, stored to the very brim with delightful knowledge, of immemorial antiquity, and possessing the highest claims upon our affection and our interest; leaving out of the question, for the moment, such attributes as its Divine inspiration, and merely looking upon it as a sea of rich poetry, and of varied, and curious information; as a vast accumulation of historical matter-in fact, a work in every way illustrating the majesty of the human intellect as expressed in language.

Secondly, as to the term "Natural History." This term I use in the sense of the living products of our earth, the animals and the plants. The study of Natural History means the study of whatever lives and grows on the surface of our planet. The Natural History of the Bible then means the consideration of all those animals, birds, fishes, trees, flowers, and plants, that are anywhere referred to in the Bible.

The consideration of these different forms of nature, when mentioned in ancient writing, has always commended itself to thinking minds, and poetical minds also, as full of interest. Those who are acquainted with literature know that old Homer, and Anacreon, and every ancient writer has had commentaries written upon the Natural History that he has introduced into his works. I could refer you to essays upon the flowers that are mentioned by Homer; and in recent days we see the very same love of integrating what a man has dealt with, in works on the plants and insects mentioned by our own Shakspere. One of the pleasantest books we have in our libraries is devoted entirely to the insects mentioned by Shakspere.› If there has been found so much to captivate us, to invite us, in the Natural History of these secular writers, how much more may we expect in a book of such vast celebrity as Scripture, in which, moreover, a larger number of animals and plants, trees and flowers are mentioned than perhaps in all the ancient pagan poets put together. One of the most eminent critics of Scripture has spoken of the Old Testament as pre-eminently the botanical poetry of the world. The poetry consists in its fine rhythm and its general structure, and he terms it the "botanical poetry," because it abounds so with allusions to trees and flowers.

It would take many lectures to consider all the animals, and plants, and flowers, that are alluded to in the Bible, in fact, it is the subject matter of several volumes. Different authors of both sexes have dealt with this subject-one taking more particularly the quadrupeds, another the trees and flowers. There is one work in our Chetham Library, which you may read some time, if you will, devoted entirely to the Trees of the Bible, and a very curious old book it is.

The great variety of allusions that we find in Scripture to these natural productions will intimate to us, without making any further inquiry, how very

rich and fertile must be the countries in which the Bible was written. And here I may just remark (in parenthesis) that when we speak of the Bible we are not to think of it as one book, that one man might address himself to write, in the way that Macaulay set himself to work on his History of England, beginning at the beginning, and going on till he had finished it in a complete form. So far from that, the Bible, instead of being one work, is in reality about forty-forty different volumes-forty different little works, some on historical subjects, some of a devotional character, some treasure-houses of oracular wisdom, such as the Proverbs; others prophetic. The period of the composition of those forty different books extended over an era of between two and three thousand years; they were preserved by successive generations, until at last, some few hundred years ago, they were bound up, so to speak; much after the same manner that you might yourselves during a long lifetime collect such little tracts and pamphlets as might be most interesting, and finally have them bound together in one volume. We must think therefore of this Bible as referring to two or three thousand years of time, and to a great number therefore of successive and different generations of men; and as having reference also to a large extent of country, partly to Egypt, partly to Palestine, partly to Greece and the Isles of the Mediterranean, partly even to Rome.

To attempt then to go through this matter of the Natural History of the Bible completely, would be far too weighty an undertaking for one afternoon; I shall therefore take one department only. We will leave out of consideration to day, the animals and birds, and I will merely call your attention to the trees and to the flowers; only to a small part even of these will time allow me to advert.

There are about twenty-five different trees mentioned in the Bible, and perhaps about twenty-five

flowers and other herbaceous plants; and they are naturally those that are most admired for their beauty, or most valued for their usefulness, by the natives of the countries where the Bible was written. Those countries, if you have ever looked at the map, you will have observed, from the very position of the Holy Land, to be singularly favoured by Providence. The position of the Holy Land is the most remarkable of any plot on the face of the earth. It is about

mid-way between the "tropics "—the hottest part of the earth-and the cooler part, or the "temperate zone." It is preserved from the scorching heat of the tropics by the proximity of the four seas, that send their breezes from no very great distance to temper the air-the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian. Those four seas, if you look at the map, all of them approach very near towards this favoured Palestine. The breezes coming off the water would mitigate the heat, and the fact of their being also near the water ensures that in the winter time they do not suffer from the cold in the same degree with other parts of the temperate zone; because the very same breezes off the sea that in summer keep the air cool and pleasant, in winter serve to lessen the coldness of those stormier blasts that come down from Tartary and other cold countries, and which would otherwise render it cheerless and inhospitable. The most delightful country to live in at any time is one near the sea. Hence a country near the tropics, and with four large seas round it, must be, as it were, a kind of island in the midst of a beautiful Indian Ocean; and yet not an island, because of the highways leading to the continents round about. We have thus in the Holy Land a country partaking both of the benign influences of the tropics, and also of the more friendly and placid influences of the temperate zone.

Under those influences we see that almost all kinds of trees and flowers will come to perfection in and