"

THE PILGRIM.

On! there are pleasures in the world that mingle with the soul,

Joys that, through every swelling vein, in tides of rapture roll;

And there are realms of fancied bliss, that fadeless seem and free;

But what are all those fleeting joys, and all their charms to me?

With girded loins and sandal'd feet, my staff within my hand,

I am at best a pilgrim here, and seek a better land.

Oh! there are agonizing views of hell's destructive power,

And doleful, dark, malignant cares, that prison every hour;

And there are dread, foreboding thoughts of sorrows yet to be,

That cling around the sinking soul; but what are they to me?

With girded loins and sandal'd feet, my staff within my hand,

I am at best a pilgrim here, and seek a better land.

In all the pleasures and the pains that anxious mortals know,

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we see that at Bethel Abram "pitched his tent." The tents in present general use in the East, by Mohammedans and European travellers, whether in Syria or India, are formed of canvass or coarse cloth, occasionally dyed green by the Moslems, and decorated with stars and crescents of crimson embroidery; but the pastoral tribes and mountaineers about the Afghan passes form their tents of goats'-hair spun by their women, the advantages of warmth and facility of transit being considerably greater than attaches to the tent of cotton cloth; and as this species of movable house is supported on bamboos to be found in every Eastern forest, and may be fastened either to the thorny shrubs of the desert or stones of the hill side, its advantages are undeniable; and considering the early period in which Abram journeyed from Haran, and his patriarchal character, it is probable that the tent he pitched at Bethel was of hair woven from the produce of his flocks, by Sarai and her maidens.

In the 13th chapter and the 2d verse, we are told that "Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." The whole history of the patriarch's domestic condition is precisely similar to that which might be given of an Afghan or Belooche pastoral chief of the present day. I remember an instance in Sher Mohammed, who came to negotiate affairs in the province of Shikarpoor, and pitched his tent, with those of his wives and servants, on the desert. He was a fine-looking man, with a handsome beard descending to his girdle; a ponderous turban of white cotton encircled his head, and silver ornaments of

Pass onward to that heavenly clime where sorrows rise no more;

arms, and hands-for he, like Abram, was "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." And he carried his wealth of metal on the person of himself, his wives, and his children, as the custom is with Orientals;

evermore.

With girded loins and sandal'd feet, thy staff within thy hand,

Go forward, pilgrim, on thy way, and find that heavenly land."

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EAST, ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE PENTATEUCH,

BY MRS POSTANS.

In the 12th chapter of the Book of Genesis, from the 4th to the 10th verses, we read of the journeying of the patriarch Abram from Chaldea to Canaan"And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered." The people of the East ever thus travel, they and their families, with their substance. It has frequently occurred to me to see movements of a similar kind, sometimes the result of scarcity, when men have travelled from a province devastated by famine, to eat bread; sometimes the effect of political agitation, when the possessors of great flocks and herds among the pastoral tribes feared foray from their own military chiefs, or attack from bodies of horse sweeping down upon them from the enemy. This was particularly the case in Beloochistan, during the period of the late Cabul campaign, and the Kujjuck and other shepherd tribes of the hills brought their families down to the plains and villages of Cutchee for protection. While travelling, the head of the family commonly rode upon a camel, his sons and brethren, armed with sword and matchlock, following on foot and guarding the women, who were, with their servants and children, mounted on ponies; bullocks bringing up the ear with tents, watervessels, grain-bags, and all "their substance." And

their herdsmen, and were confined in pens about the tents. Sher Mohammed and his family subsisted on the milk and ghee they produced; and when I quitted the tent, the chief, with true Belooche hos pitality, pressed on my acceptance a kid of the goats, with butter in a brazen vessel.

In the 16th chapter and 3d verse, we see that "Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife." I recollect a fact very similar to the giving of the Egyptian maiden to Abram, in the family of his highness the Nuwaub of Junaghar in Western India. The prince, according to the privilege of Moslems, having four wives, but being still unblessed with offspring, at length the chief wife gave her slave girl to the Nuwaub, and a son was born. This infant was introduced to me as the child of the Burrah Beebee, and was always treated and spoken of in the harem as such by the other wives. The mother, indeed, nursed the boy, but herself called it the son of her mistress, and it was only after inquiry that I discovered he was in fact the offspring of the Beebee's bondwoman. A similar circumstance occurred in the family of the Rao of Cutch; but when the prince married the daughter of a Rajpoot chieftain, who bore him a son, a little lad whom I saw, like the son of Jacob, clad in a "coat of many colours," the bondwoman and her son were cast out, or at least the son of the bondwoman was no longer considered as heir to the Musmud of Cutch, with the son of the free woman..

In the 12th chapter of Numbers and the 10th verse, we read, "And Aaron looked upon Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous." And again in the 14th "Let her be shut out from the camp seven verse, days." The plague of leprosy in India is lamentably

common, and among the lower classes the "reddish spot" upon the dark skin, showing uncleanness, may be constantly observed. I recollect looking from my window at Anjar in Cutch, when the door of a hut opened, and a woman came forth, whiter than a European, to wash her cooking vessels. I imagined she might be a soldier's wife, perhaps deserted in this miserable village, and sent to inquire; but in answer found that she was a Hindu, who had thus become "leprous, white as snow." On the Guzerat peninsula of Western India, I visited the temple of theDatar Chelah." This man had been a great priest, and enjoyed the reputation of a saint for his benevolence, which the word datar, or giver, conveys. The power of the saint is supposed to be peculiarly felt in this spot. To it those afflicted with leprosy resort, their clothes rent and their "head bare," to beseech healing from the saint. The temple is surrounded with a dense forest, and in these wild solitudes lepers from every part of India" dwell alone," until they are cleansed, or devoured by wild beasts, with which these jungles abound. I felt it to be a very touching sight; these unclad lepers, with their emaciated bodies and streaming hair, in earnest prayer, beseeching that "the merciful and good datar would restore them to their children, and to their beloved but far-distant homes." For thus, unless they would bring a curse on their descendants to 'the third and fourth generation, must these poor creatures, afflicted with the plague of leprosy, "dwell without the camp" until they are cleansed, or death relieves them from their misery.

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In the 11th chapter of Deuteronomy, and at the 10th and 11th verses it is written, For the land whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs. But the land whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven." The minute description of the method of irrigation, in a land depending for its supply of water either on springs or the inundations of a river, deserves attention. Neither in Egypt nor in Sindh, countries in the same latitude, can rain ever be expected to fall, and the crops of fine jowarree, to be found equally on the banks of the Nile and the Indus, depend on irrigation from the river. In both countries the cultivation forms but a belt on either side of the stream, and beyond it the eye falls on an arid waste; but in India and Arabia, which are lands of hills and valleys, that drink water of the rain of heaven, the traveller sees the whole face of the country studded with clumps of trees, plats of cultivation, fields of waving corn. After the inundations of the Nile and Indus, on the rich alluvial deposit, the farmers scatter their seed, and it is then watered with the foot "as a garden of herbs;" the method pursued for this mode of irrigation I have seen constantly practised in my own gardens in India. The ground sown with seed, or planted with young plants, is divided into square plots, and round each, as in England we might place a bordering of box or thrift, is raised a little division of earth. Similar embankments inclose a water-course leading from the well, which every garden possessed: at dawn, the Moat Wallah, as he is called, brings his bullocks, yokes them to the machinery, and then sitting easily on the ropes, urges and encourages by turns his welltrained beasts, as raising the full water-bags they quickly descend the inclined plain; and after a brief halt, the sparkling, gurgling, frothing water falls over into a trough, hollowed usually from the hewn stem of a palm-tree, and thence flows along the small channels I have described; but, as the rush of water would otherwise wash away and destroy the young

me.

seedlings and the tender herbs, the gardener watches its progress, and as it flows along he, with his foot, breaks away in rotation a morsel of the embankment of each plot, and thus suffers the water to flow gradually into it, and soak round the roots of the plants. As each bed receives sufficient moisture, he replaces with his foot the earth previously removed, and the little stream, turned back to its course, flows on to the next line of plots, which in similar manner the gardener waters with his foot, and "the garden of herbs" looks fresh and green under the burning sun, although the "rain of heaven " may not have fallen on it for a period of eight months. In the 20th verse of the same chapter we read-" "And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, and upon thy gates." This command concerned the statutes or "words" given as commandments to the children of Israel, that they should have them always in remembrance, and by every possible means consider, speak of, and meditate on them, at all times and in all places, as we are told in the preceding verse. While residing in the family of Meer Jaffur Ali, a Mohammedan nobleman in Bom-! bay, I was much struck by the manner in which the words of the Koran, with prayers and invocations to the Deity, were constantly used by the persons about On the books the Meer read was commonly inscribed, "In the name of God the most merciful." He entered his carriage with a prayer for safety, and descended from it uttering a thanksgiving. For several hours during the day, and at midnight, he read the Koran, and meditated thereon. A verse of the Koran was, in a beautifully written character, inclosed in a golden amulet, which the Meer wore! on his arm: "Bind them for a sign upon your hand," was the order of the Jews; and though devoid of all other knowledge, a Moolah taught the Koran earnestly day by day to the Meer's little daughters, as we suppose a righteous Jew, by means of a rabbi, might have obeyed the injunction, "Ye shall teach them your children." On the sides of wells, over the doors of houses, on the gates and guard-rooms of Moslem cities, we see, looking like arabesque ornaments, verses of the Koran; the tent of his highness Meer Ali Moorad had a succession of such words wrought in seed pearl round the interior of a tent in which I saw that chief at Mobarickpoor in Upper Scinde. The large court-yard of the Jumma Musjid at Ahmedabad in Guzzerat is richly painted with such sentences; over the door of a house they are supposed to ward away the evil eye, and thus, instead of a "bell and a pomegranate," very common decorations in the rich wood-carvings of the old Hindu houses, we see in Mohammedan cities emblazoned verses of the Koran, in blue, and gold, and scarlet, as we suppose in the cities of Syria cunning painters may have written "on the door-posts" of the Jewish houses, and upon the "gates "the ordinances of the God of Jacob.

Among the curses for disobedience in the 26th chapter of Deuteronomy, we read, at the 40th verse "Thou shalt have olive-trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil." The Hindus always anoint themselves with fresh oil; they believe it to protect the skin from the heat, and also to preserve it from the bites of insects and stings of mosquitoes. The vegetables and trees of India produce large quantities of berries and fruits yielding oil; and every village has its oil-mill, turned by a camel or a bullock. The oil of the castor-tree is much used, and mustard-oil in large quantities; these are perhaps most frequently employed by the natives for anointing their bodies, while the finer cocoa-nut oil they store for lights and cooking. Sandalwood oil is also used for anointing the person, by

men of rank, ladies of the harem, and dancingwomen; but the anointing of themselves with oil after ablution, by all ranks, seems so essential to ease, health, and comfort in the East, from the beg gar to the prince, that no curse could perhaps more heavily afflict a native of India than depriving him of the means for doing this, as it doubtless did afflict the Israelites when they were told that their olivetrees should each "cast his fruit." And yet there came even a heavier curse upon them, as we read in the 42d verse-"All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume." I have already alluded to my observation of the devastating effect of a locust band in Cutch, which came so thickly, that the servants in going out to the bazaar were constrained to roll their heads up in heavy cloths, and arm themselves with staves, to avoid being hurt and wounded by the flying of these insects against their faces. During the day, by means of tomtoms and shrill trumpets, the locusts were prevented from settling, but at night devoured every green thing in the fields of the poor cultivators, remaining as a curse on the land for three days and nights, while the want and misery that followed were indeed great, for those who had taken much jowarree seed into the field, gathered in but few ears at harvest, for the locust had consumed it in the blade.-Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature.

OF MINISTERS' MAINTENANCE.
BY THOMAS FULLER.-1660.

MAINTENANCE of ministers ought to be plentiful, certain, and in some sort proportionable to their deserts.

I. It should be plentiful

1. Because their education was very chargeable to fit them for their profession, both at school and in the university: their books very dear; and those which they bought in folio shrink quickly into quartos, in respect of the price their executors can get for them. Say not that scholars draw needless expenses on themselves by their own lavishness, and that they should rather lead a fashion of thrift than one of riot; for let any equal man tax the bill of their necessary charges, and it amounts to a great sum, yea, though they be ever so good husbands. Besides, the prices of all commodities daily rise higher; all persons and professions are raised in their manner of living; scholars, therefore, even against their wills, must otherwhiles be involved in the general expensiveness of the times; it being impossible that one spoke should stand still when all the wheel turns about.

Objection. But many needlessly charge themselves in living too long in the university-they are never a whit the wiser for it; whilst others, not staying there so long, nor going through the porch of human arts, but entering into divinity at the postern, have made good preachers, providing their people wholesome meat, though not so finely dressed.

Answer-Much good may it do their very hearts that feed on it. But how necessary a competent knowledge of those sciences is for a perfect divine, is known to every wise man. Let not men's sufferings be counted their fault,

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nor those accused to "stand idle in the market, whom no man hath hired." Many would leave the university sooner, if called into the country on tolerable conditions.

2. Because ministers are to subsist in a free, liberal, and comfortable way. Balaam, the false prophet, rode with his two men; God's Levite had one man. Oh, let not the ministers of the gospel be slaves to others, and servants to themselves! They are not to pry into gain through every small chink. It becomes them rather to be acquainted with the natures of things than with the prices, and to know them rather as they are in the world than in the market otherwise, if his means be small, and living poor, necessity will bolt him out of his own study, and send him to the barn when he should be at his book, or make him study his receipt book more than all other writers. Hereupon, some wanting what they should have at home, have done what they should not abroad.

3. Because hospitality is expected at their hands. The poor come to their houses, as if they had interest in them, and the ministers can neither receive them nor refuse them. Not to relieve them were not Christianity, and to relieve them were worse than infidelity, because therein they wrong their providing for their own family. Thus sometimes are they forced to be Nabals against their will; yet it grieveth them to send away their people empty. But what shall they do, seeing they cannot multiply their loaves and their fishes? Besides, clergymen are deeply rated to all payments. Oh, that their profession were but as highly prized as their estate is valued!

4. Because they are to provide for their posterity, that, after the death of their parents, they may live, though not in a high, yet in an honest fashion, neither leaving them to the wide world nor to a narrow cottage.

5. Because the Levites in the Old Testament had plentiful provision. Oh, 'tis good to be God's pensioner, for he giveth large allowance. They had cities and suburbs (houses and glebe lands), tithes, free-will offerings, and their parts in first-fruits and sacrifices. Do the ministers of the gospel deserve worse wages for bringing better tidings?

6. Because the Papists in time of Popery gave their priests plentiful means-whose benefactors, so bountiful to them, may serve to condemn the covetousness of our age towards God's ministers, in such who have more knowledge, and should have more religion.

Objection. But in the pure primitive times the means were least, and ministers the best: and now-a-days, does not wealth make them lazy, and poverty keep them painful? Like hawks, they fly best when sharp. The best way to keep the stream of the clergy sweet and clear, is to fence out the tide of wealth from coming unto them.

all things, which prophets have foretold, saints have prayed for, confessors have gloried in, martyrs have died for, and the zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall fulfil in its time.

My Christian friends, there is one revolution that must be raised: there must be a cry for another kind of liberty. Set free the Bible! The cry has been raised-Liberty for the French! Liberty for 2 the Poles! Liberty for the Neapolitans! Liberty for the Italians! But another cry must be raised. Slavery is abolished in France: we must abolish the slavery of the soul, set free the captive Bible. All the sovereigns in Europe should lift up the cryLiberty for the Bible! Set the Bible free! Let the revolutionizer, and regenerator, and emancipator of the world be free as the air we breathe, or the sun that illuminates our dwellings! We read in the thrilling narrative of the expedition that went out to free from Algerian pirates the captives from many nations, who were held bound in the dark dungeons of Algiers, a flag of truce was sent to the commander. They asked what was wanted. His simple answer was-"Bring up the prisoners." They tried to evade the demand; but still the bold British sailor replied "Give up the prisoners." At last the cannons opened their fire. Again they asked-"Will you be satisfied with such a ransom, or such terms?" "No," said the admiral; "give up the prisoners." And at last, in the extremity, the dark holds were thrown open to day-light; rusty chains in many instances were knocked off from the poor prisoners; the dark dungeon doors were thrown wide open; and there, in the face of our brave British deliverer, sprang up the Spaniard, the talkative Frenchman, and our own fair countryman, shedding tears, and some falling on their kness, and all crying out, "Liberty! liberty! we are free!" And so, my lord, we must say to the dark dungeon over which the despot of Rome presides, whatever terms he would make-" Give up the prisoner! give up the prisoner!" And if he would ask us to compromise the matter, and accept some political or other advantages, still I trust we shall answer— "Give up the prisoner! give up the prisoner! And when that blessed prisoner is set free, we may imagine that all the sons of earth-at least all the hundreds of millions from which Popery at present keeps out the free use of the Bible-would leap and rejoice as the roe, because the grand emancipator of all was set free.

SINNER, BE ENTREATED.

Ir is thus that a writer of the olden time sets himself to plead with such as you:-Never did Jacob with such joy weep over the neck of his Joseph as thy heavenly Father would rejoice over thee upon thy coming in to him. Look over the story of the prodigal. Methinks I see how the aged father lays aside his state, and forgetteth his years. Behold, how he runneth! Oh, the haste that mercy makes! The sinner makes not half that speed. Methinks I see how his bowels turn, how his compassions yearn.

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How quick-sighted is love! Mercy spies him a great way off, forgets his riotous courses, unnatural rebellion, horrid unthankfulness (not a word of these), receives him with open arms, clasps his neck, forgets his rags, kisses his lips, calls for the fatted calf, the best robe, the ring, the shoes, the best cheer in heaven's store, the best attire in heaven's wardrobe. Yea, the joy cannot be held in one breast. Others must be called in to share. The friends must meet and make merry. Angels must wait, but the prodigal must sit at table, under his father's wing. He is the joy of the feast, the object of the father's delight. The friends sympathize; but none knows the felicity the father takes in his new-born son, whom he hath received from the dead. Methinks I hear the music and the dancing at a distance! Oh, the melody of the heavenly choristers! I cannot learn the song, but methinks I overhear the burden, at which all the harmonious choir, with one consent, strike sweetly in, for this goes round at heaven's table, "This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."

It is no toilsome pilgrimage on which he asks you to set out, in order to reach his dwelling. He himself has come to you, nay, sits by your very side, as did Jesus by the side of the woman of Sychar. He does not bid you climb to heaven in order to find grace there. Neither does he tell you to go down into the deep in order to obtain it there. He has opened the fountain at your very side. He takes up the vessel and presses it to your lips. "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, THOU SHALT BE SAVED."- (Rom. x. 8, 9.)

To thee, thou lover of pleasure, thou dreamer of earth's dreams, God is telling this day the story of his free love, that, receiving it, thou mayst not perish, but have everlasting life. That free love thus received into your heart in believing, would fill you with joy unspeakable. It would be like fragrance from the flowers of Eden, like sunshine from the very heaven of heavens. It would be better to you than pleasure, or gold, or lust; better than all the joys of earth poured into one jewelled cup. It would demand no price of you, neither would it call on you to wait till you had made yourself ready for receiving it. It would come into you at once, like sunlight into your lattice, without insisting that your chamber be adorned for its reception. It would cost you nothing but the giving up of that which is far better lost, and the gain of which would be a poor recompense for a ruined soul, and an eternity of hopeless sorrow.-Story of Grace.

A DEDICATION AND PRAYER. LORD, I resign myself to thee. With the poor widow, I cast my two mites, my soul and body, into thy treasury. All my powers shall love and serve thee. All my members shall be instruments of righteousness for thee. Here is my good will. Behold, my sub