selves for neglect in not having their child vaccinated in her infancy. But the same prejudice prevailed then as now; it is only in the presence of actual danger from their dread enemy, that the working classes willingly consent to avail themselves of the great safeguard the providential discovery of Jenner has placed within their reach.

The agony of mind of the poor girl, when fully sensible of the great calamity which had overtaken her, cannot be described. But her cup of bitterness was not yet full; her excellent father was attacked, and sank under the fearful disease.

Who can describe the wretched mother's state of mind at this double calamity? Happily she knew where to look for support and strength; and in the midst of her own prostrating grief, she was able to offer consolation to her afflicted daughter. In this, however, she found great difficulty. Fanny's spirit had become rebellious; and when her broken-hearted mother reminded her that they must try to comfort each other, and that though their calamity was so crushing, she trusted their covenant God would not entirely desert them, she answered impatiently, Mother, mother, you cannot, or will not see how utterly helpless I am; had my sight been spared, I could have laboured to help you in obtaining a livelihood for us; but now, I must be a burden to you-a misery to myself as long as I live. I know you have a little fund in the savings bank, but that cannot last very long. Your own health is delicate, and I am unable to aid in the slightest manner. What a future is before us! Can this be just? What have I done to deserve such a fearful punishment as this? Is this a proof of God's love? Would I could have the same childlike trust I once had, but my mind is distracted, my spirit broken, my faith uprooted; my punishment is greater than I can bear."

The minister and two of the Sunday-school teachers visited the poor sufferer, and from time to time, endeavoured to console her, and turn her mind to better thoughts; every attempt was for a long time vain, but at length God blessed the efforts. The afflicted girl, painfully conscious of her rebellious and ungrateful conduct, earnestly sought for pardon and support; dreading her own weakness, she implored her mother and her kind sympathising friends to pray for her; gradually she was restored to tranquillity and comparative peace; she looked to and leaned upon her Saviour, and was never weary repeating his gracious promise, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

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She recognised God's love in her affliction; "My companions," she said, "had led me to the brink of ruin, my heavenly Father checked me in my mad career by sending this heavy trial. I can see it all plainly, and I can say with Job now, Though He slay me, yet will I trust him.' I fear no evil, I am safe in my Saviour's hands; and though poverty and distress appear in our future, yet am I full of peace, for I am persuaded, my heavenly Father will not lay upon me a greater burden than I can bear, and in his own good time and way he will either deliver me from my distress, or fully satisfy me that it is good for me still to be afflicted.

By the kind assistance of her minister and other friends, she was instructed in the blind alphabet; her delight, when she was at length able to read the Scriptures, was unbounded; and to all her kind friends she ever expressed her gratitude.

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Ten years had clapsed since her great trial had befallen her, when, in consequence of the mother's inability any longer to support her, and the shattered health of the poor sufferer herself, application was made to the Union for relief. In the discharge of my duty as a guardian, I visited the blind girl to investigate her case. I was delighted with her frame of mind. So much had she interested me, I frequently called upon her; and from time to time she told me her little history as I have narrated it. It was indeed a great privilege to visit her, and I never left her without a feeling of thankfulness I had been there; so full of peace and love she was, so confiding was her trust, so unbounded her faith. It was a favourite idea of hers, that ours was a compensating Providence: "True," she said, "I am deprived of my sight; true, I have had to encounter with my dear and valued mother poverty and distress; but dark and heavy as the cloud has been, and still is, it has ever had a silver lining. The loss of my sight appears to have given increased power to every other faculty; my memory, especially, has been a constant, never-failing source of comfort to me. The scenes of my girlhood are as vivid now as at the moment they occurred; the village, the church, the school, the dear children I instructed, the features and peculiar expression of every friend, the surrounding country, every field, and nearly every tree, are so strongly impressed on my memory that they appear to be engraved, mapped out as it were on my very brain. Again and again, in my loneliness, have I reproduced those mind pictures, and at such times have for hours been quite unconscious of the calamity I was suffering. In one respect, however, these scenes vary from those of my younger years,a soft yet glorious light illuminates the landscape; there is no pain, no sorrow, no anxiety there, but all is love and peace and joy, Dear sir, do you not think this is a foretaste of our heavenly home? And in scenes as bright as these, may I not hope to meet again many kind relatives and sympathizing friends? Many a delicious hour have I spent in such thoughts as thesc. I have found in my affliction the 'pearl of great price,' the true riches, the unfailing wealth, and the peace the world, with all its power and advantage, can never give; I once was blind, but now, but now I see."

A short time after this, our last conversation, she passed from time to eternity, full of joyful anticipations of her future, and implicitly trusting the heavenly Friend who had comforted and sustained her in her crushing affliction.

Reader, are you suffering any calamity? Is your cross a heavy one? Think of the poor blind girl; note her humility, her love, her patience, her never-failing faith and trust; like her, cling to your Saviour for support and strength; and then, like her's, your last end shall be peace.

THE CEDARS OF LEBANON.

THE most recent and the most scientific account of the cedars of Lebanon is that given by Dr. Joseph Hooker (of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew) in the "Natural History Review" (1862):—

"So far," says Dr. Hooker, "as is at present generally known, the cedars are confined on Lebanon to one spot, at the head of the Kedisha Valley; they

have, however, been found by Ehrenberg in forests of oak, &c., on the route from Bsherre to Bsinnate. The Kedisha Valley, at six thousand feet elevation, terminates in broad, shallow, flat-floored basins, and is two to three miles across, and as much long; it is here in a straight line fifteen miles from the sea, and about three or four from the summit of Lebanon, which is to the northward of it. These open basins have shelving sides, which rise two thousand to four thousand feet above their bases; they exactly resemble what are called corrys in many Highland mountains. The floor of that in which the cedars grow presents almost a dead level to the eye, crossed abruptly and transversely by a confused range of ancient moraines which have been deposited by glaciers, that, under very different conditions of climate, once filled the basin above them, and communicated with the perpetual snow with which the whole summit of Lebanon was, at that time, deeply covered. The moraines are perhaps eighty to one hundred feet high; their boundaries are perfectly defined, and they divide the floor of the basin into an upper and lower flat area. The rills from the surrounding heights collect on the upper flat, and form one stream, which winds amongst the mornines on its way to the lower flat, whence it is precipitated into the gorge of the Kedisha. The cedars grow on that portion of the moraine which immediately borders this stream, and nowhere else; they form one group, about four hundred yards in diameter, with an out-standing tree or two, not far from the rest, and appear as a black speck in the great area of the corry and its moraines, which contain no other arboreous vegetation, nor any shrubs but a few small berberry and rose bushes that form no feature in the landscape.

"The number of trees is about four hundred, and they are disposed in nine groups, corresponding with as many hummocks of the range of moraines: they are of various sizes, from about eighteen inches to upwards of forty feet in girth; but the most remarkable and significant fact connected with their size, and consequently with the age of the grove, is that there is no tree of less than eighteen inches girth, and that we found no young trees, bushes, nor even seedlings of a second year's growth. We had no means of estimating accurately the ages of the youngest or oldest tree. It may be remarked, however, that the wood of the branch of the old tree, cut at the time, is eight inches in diameter (exclusive of bark), presents an extremely firm, compact, and close-grained texture, and has no less than one hundred and forty rings, which are so close in some parts that they cannot be counted without lens. This specimen, further, is both harder and browner than any English-grown cedar or native deodar, and is as odoriferous as the latter. These, however, are the characters of an old lower branch of a very old tree, and aro no guide to the general character of the wood on the Lebanon, and still less to that of English-grown specimens, which are always very inferior in colour, odour, grain, and texture. Calculating only from the rings in this branch, the youngest trees in Lebanon would average one hundred years old, the oldest two thousand five hundred, both estimates no doubt widely far from the mark. Calculating from trunks of English rapidly-grown specimens, their ages might be put down as low respectively as five and two hundred years, while from the rate of growth of the Chelsea cedars the youngest trees may bo twenty-two, and the oldest six hundred to eight hundred years old."

Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, in "The Lands of the Bible," says that he had before him half a hundred accounts of these far-famed trees, when writing the narrative of his own visit, which is one of the best we possess. "As first seen by us from Jebel Makmel," says Dr. Wilson, "they appeared merely as a speck of green beyond the snowy wreaths which intervened between us and them. The perpendicular fall of the mountain to thom is 2400 feet, for they are 6000 feet above the level of the sea; but the road winds so cautiously down the side of the mountain, that loaded horses and mules can get to them without difficulty. They stand on the shoulder of Lebanon, on ground of a varying level. They cover about three acres. The venerable patriarch trees, which have stood the blasts of thousands of winters, amount only to twelve, and these not standing close together in the same clump; but those of a secondary and still younger growth, as nearly as can be reckoned, to three hundred and twenty-five. A person can walk easily round the whole grove in twenty-five minutes. We measured all the larger trees, one of which, at least, we found to bo forty feet in circumference. We were sorry to observe the names of many travellers, including that of Lamartine, the poet of France, most savagely cut on their trunks."

Dr. Hooker joins M. Salle and some other travellers in doubting whether this was the tree used in the building of the Temple. He thinks it improbable that the "almost inaccessible valleys of the Lebanon should have been ransacked for a wood that has no particular quality to recommend it for building purposes."

"The lower slopes of the Lebanon," he continues, "bordering on the sea, were and are covered with magnificent forests; so that there was little inducement to ascend six thousand feet, through twenty miles of a rocky mountain valley, to obtain a material which could not be transported to the coast without the utmost difficulty and expense. It is further to be remarked that it is difficult to reconcile the hypothesis of the former great extent of the cedar forests with the fact of almost the only existing habitat being the moraines of one of the most populous valleys on the mountains. The cypress (also called cedar by the ancients), the Pinus Halepensis, and the tall, fragrant Juniperus of the Lebanon, with its fine red heart-wood, would have been far more prized on every account."

The writer of a very interesting article in a recent number of the " Quarterly Review" (July, 1863), quotes these remarks, and agrees with them. Dr. Wilson, however, had already fully discussed the subject, and while admitting that the Hebrew word "Erez" is a generic term including various trees (as in Leviticus xiv. 6, where it cannot refer to the cedar) maintains the affirmative in the discussion. Some portions of the wood taken to Edinburgh were found by botanists and by workmen there to be of remarkably fine grain, compact, and solid, and capable of being carved into ornamental pieces of furniture. The quality of the wood cannot be judged by the softer and degenerate specimens of more rapid English growth.* The natives of the Lebanon still use the word "Elarz" to denote the cedar. As to the remoteness and small number of the existing trees, there is no reason to doubt that in former times the forests covered larger

Three cedars grown in Bedfordshire, at the age of thirty years attained the girths respectively of 5 feet 8 inches, 6 feet, and 6 feet 6 inches." (" Gardeners' Chronicle," 1858.)

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Similar remarks are made by Dr. Keith, in his "Evidence of Prophecy," in quoting Volney's reference to "the no very magnificent remains of the boasted cedars, only four or five of which deserve any notice." "Lebanon," says Dr. Keith, "was celebrated for the extent of its forests, and especially for the size and excellency of its cedars. It abounded also in the pine, the cypress, and the vine, etc. Its forest was a Scriptural figure of the glory of Assyria and of Egypt; and its fall too was a figure of theirs. The high ones of staturo shall be hewn down. Lebanon shall fall mightily.' (Isa. x. 33, 34.) To itself the prophecy exclusively applies, 'Lebanon is ashamed, and withered away. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Howl fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen, because the gallants are spoiled.' (Zoch. xi. 1, 2.) In describing Egypt's fall, it is said, Thou shalt be brought down with the trees of Eden, unto the nother parts of the earth.' (Ezek. xxxi. 18.) The forest of the vintage is come down-but still, as in other things, a gleaning remains, even of the glory of the forest of Lebanon. Where anciently it stood, the region, for many miles around, is bleak, desolate, and bare, as if not a single tree of renown had ever there adorned the wilderness. But seen at a distance, in descending from the loftiest heights of Lebanon, there is one covered spot-as if by a left sheaf in a shorn field-in which a few cedars worthy of Lebanon are seen, of which the writer may now testify, having rested during a sabbath under their shade."

THE REV. THOMAS RAFFLES, D.D., LL.D. A STRANGER passing through the streets of Liverpool, on the morning of the 24th of August last, would probably have been arrested by an immense funeral procession. His inquiry for the cause of a testimony so deep and wide would have been met by the information that it was not found in the deeds of a warrior, nor in the measures of a statesman, nor in the speculations of a philosopher, nor in the discoveries of a man of science, but in the useful life of a good man. It was the spontaneous homage of a great community to a carcer of unstained honour and benevolence, at which it may be interesting for us to glance in these

pages.

Dr. Thomas Raffles was born in London, where his father was a solicitor, on the 17th of May, 1788. In common with thousands of the ministers of Christ he found himself, at birth, in the arms of a godly mother. By a uniformly firm and gentle rule she won the gratitude and affection of her child, who to the end of his life acknowledged that he owed more to her than to any other human instructor. It was his own belief that his heart was opened by the Divine Spirit when he was not more than ten years From that period he accompanied his

of age.

Dr. Collyer, struck with the fine talents and fervently affectionate piety of the youth, encouraged him to aspire to the Christian ministry, and eventually procured his admission into the Independent college at Homerton, at that time presided over by the learned Dr. John Pye Smith. He was then only seventeen years of age, and distinguished less by application to abstruse study than by engaging manners and ardent zeal. The congregations in need of occasional " supplies," were not long in discovering his power to interest them, and his public services became so numerous as to awaken the solicitude of the cautious and conscientious President. Taking him into his own room, one day, he said, with an expression of unfeigned anxiety, "I am afraid, Mr. Raffles, this publicity is premature, and it is perhaps hardly right that you should appear in clerical robes, at the Adelphi and other places, so early in your course." warning was well received; but what with the effect of his fine elocution on the congregations, and his great facility of composition, few Sundays passed without a more prominent appearance than fell to the lot of most students of his standing.

The

At the close of his collegiate course, ho accepted an invitation to the pastoral office over a church at Hammersmith, and there ho was ordained on the 22nd of June, 1809. The services being limited to the morning and afternoon, he was enabled to preach in the evenings to many of the London congregations. He was still only twenty-one years of age, and being slender in person and of a bright and animated expression, he seemed even younger. When he ascended the pulpit steps before great waiting congregations, strangers sometimes imagined him to be the boy whose office it was to carry up the books and adjust the lights. Their mistako vanished when they perceived the manly grace with which he took his seat, and rose to begin the worship.

His residence at Hammersmith, though there was a strong mutual attachment between him and his flock, was not to be long-continued. In the autumn of 1811, immediately on his return from Edinburgh, where he had been preaching for six weeks, the monthly lecture" was delivered in his own chapel by the Rev. Dr. Leifchild of Kensington. At the close of the service, a young man came into the vestry and said abruptly, "Spencer of Liverpool is dead." Every one was thunderstruck, and half in anger and half in dread, Leifchild, with equal abruptness, told the bearer of the ill-tidings to "hold his peace." "It is true though," he answered, and drew a letter from his pocket, which left no doubt of the fact.

The Rev. Thomas Spencer, many of our readers may know, had for the few previous years awakened an extraordinary interest in the nonconformist congregations of London. When his term of study was completed at Hoxton college, he visited Liverpool, and one of the congregations there secured the coveted prize of his ministry. He seems to have descended upon the whole population of that town, then less than a fourth of its present size, like an angel of light.

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By a charming natural eloquence, he enchained persons of all ages, characters, and degrees of culture. Merchants, lawyers, physicians, divines, side by side with ship-carpenters, porters, and market-women, were often in tears together. There might be differences of opinion among those who judged of him by report, but there was no resisting the strange spell which he flung over all who came within reach of his voice. There was in that influence something higher and less capable of analysis than oratory. Numbers of persons were born again, and there were few congregations in the town which were not both increased in numbers and revived in religious feeling, through the power which God made to accompany his word. Evangelical preaching was then little known in the neighbouring national churches; but from that time the demand for it became importunate, and one sacred edifice rose after another in which the great doctrines of the Reformation began, and have ever since continued to be proclaimed.

When the effects of this ministry are surveyed, it fills one with surprise to learn that it lasted for only six months. But the manner in which it was withdrawn gave to it a striking emphasis, and indefinitely prolonged its power. No failure of health, no lingering sickness, no shocking disease or mutilating accident brought it to an end. On the Monday morning, after a sabbath's service of the profoundest interest, the young preacher, after having prepared his paper and pen for a new composition, left his home to refresh himself by bathing in the Mersey. He was seen to enter the water, and shortly afterwards to disappear. When the body was found the countenance was sweet and tranquil, but the spirit was with Christ. The veil had fallen between him and this world. He beheld the glory, and they whom he had left behind only the mystery. Never did such a death thrill so great a population. Business on the exchange was suspended. Every one seemed to have lost a friend. The mourning, indeed, extended over England. The Rev. Robert Hall, himself one of the most eminent of English preachers, attached this note to his celebrated sermon on "The Discouragements and Supports of the Christian Minister," which was published several months after the loss of Spencer: "The sensation excited by the sudden removal of that extraordinary young man, accompanied with such affecting circumstances, has not subsided. . . . The unequalled admiration he excited while living, and the deep and universal concern expressed at his death, demonstrate him to have been no ordinary character, but one of those rare specimens of human nature which the great Author of it produces at distant intervals and exhibits for a moment, while he is hastening to make them up among his jewels. . . . The writer of this deeply regrets his never having had an opportunity of witnessing his extraordinary powers, but from all he has heard from the best judges he can entertain no doubt that his talents in the pulpit were unrivalled, and that had his life been spared, he would in all probability have carried the art of preaching, if it may be so styled, to a greater perfection than it ever attained, at least in this kingdom. His eloquence appears to have been of the purest stamp-effective, not ostentatious, consisting less in the striking preponderance of any one quality requisite to form a public speaker than in an exquisite combination of them all; whence resulted an extraordinary power of impression, which was greatly aided by a graceful and majestic elocution.

To these eminent endowments he added, from the unanimous testimony of those who knew him best, & humility and modesty, which, while they concealed. a great part of his excellences from himself, rendered them the more engaging and attractive. When we reflect on these circumstances, we need the less wonder at the passionate concern excited by his death." The sudden announcement of this event in the vestry at Hammersmith was followed by a request on the part of the bereaved congregation that Mr. Raffles would come and visit them. As he had just returned from an absence of so many weeks, he thought it would be unjust to his own people to comply with the entreaty, but when he laid the letter before them, they said, with the most prompt cordiality, "Go and comfort them." They little imagined how fully and for how long a period he would carry that injunction into effect. Nor had he any premonition of the fact that he was proceeding to what was to prove the chief scene of his life's labours. Just before leaving Hammersmith he took a house for what he intended to be his future residence, and set out on his journey to the north-west capital. "In November 1811," was his language at a private meeting of ministers precisely half a century afterwards, "I crossed the Mersey from the Cheshire side in an open boat, for they had no others then, and set my foot for the first time upon her shore. The great and rapidly-increasing town opposite to us, destined ere long to have its representative in the imperial parliament, did not then exist. It was a perfect solitude; a park filled with splendid oaks once appertaining to the ancient abbey of Birkenhead. And what was Liverpool then ? Under a hundred thousand in its population. . . . The first Great George-street chapel was only just covered in,* nor were its walls more than a few yards above the ground when the admirable Spencer was carried past them to his early tomb. To his lodgings as well as to his pulpit I succeeded; and, seated in his own chair, in his own study, on his own table, and with the last pen he ever used, I wrote his life; and there, after days of labour and hours of study, ofttimes carried far into the succeeding morning, upon his own couch I laid me down to rest."

The first and most useful of Mr. Raffles' literary productions was that biography of Spencer. The story is told with a fine appreciation of the character it describes, and the few events of the short but unusual life are invested with a charm which much extended their influence. The young persons of the period were not alone in confessing its power. Fuller, the theologian, during one of his journeys. sought the hallowed apartment, and having thrown himself into the vacated chair, gave himself up to thought and deep emotion; while a large number of ministers of religion from the United States, in which the volume was circulated even more widely than in England, have come from year to year to testify on the same spot their obligations to the narrative as the instrument of their most lasting sacred impressions.

This structure was totally destroyed by fire in February, 1840, and replaced by a handsomer one on the same site. A few years afterwards he published "Letters" written during a tour on the Continent made in company with his cousin Sir Stamford Raffles, the enlightened governor of Java. This passed through several editions. His only other work of importance was one entitled "Lectures on Faith and Practice," in two vols. 12mo.