which he still clings with such blind yet heart-felt sorrow. What it shall be, who shall say? The restoration of Judah to her own land appears to be most distinctly foretold in the same sacred page, where we read the records of prophecy which have been so wondrously fulfilled in the doom of Jerusalem. The time to favour Zion shall yet come. The city of David shall resume her ancient glory, and Palestine once more be a land flowing with milk and honey. "O happy once in Heaven's peculiar love, Though, Salem, now the spoiler's ruffian hand Though weak, and whelm'd beneath the storms of fate, Thy house is left unto thee desolate; Yet shalt thou rise;-but not by war restored, Not built in murder,-planted by the sword: Yes, Salem, thou shalt rise: thy Father's aid Shall heal the wound his chastening hand has made; The Lion, Judalı, from his destined reign." It is painful to think that the oppression and unjust exactions of Mohammedan tyranny are even now the chief impediment to the restoration of the once favoured land, as a scene of happiness and plenty. Yet situated as Jerusalem is upon the summit of the lofty table land, which slopes thence, with successive intervening ranges of hills, towards the coast, it is obviously more adapted for the capital of a peculiar and isolated people like the ancient Hebrew commonwealth, than as the centre of great commercial traffic, for which the enterprise of the modern Jew seems so peculiarly adapted. The site of Jerusalem was evidently divinely chosen, with a view to the peculiar constitution of the Hebrew polity. Had it been situated on the coast of the Levant it would have become a great maritime city under Solomon, when the fleets of Tyre brought the wealth of the world to enrich the temple and the palace which he built. It would have been alike exposed to greater temptations in peace and to greater dangers in war. If Israel is to be restored as a temporal kingdom, and to retain, as she doubtless will, the ancient city of David as her capital, this circumstance alone will exercise a considerable influence in modifying the national characteristics of the restored race. How marvellous would it be to see Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, all yielding up their thousands of despised wanderers and outcasts, to return in triumph and re-possess the promised land! CHAPTER VIII. RUINS OF PETRA. Rough as the hand of Esau is the site Of Edom's capital, yet fair her towers, Though strange, as is the glance of eastern maid's Within the harem's ward,-apt simile For that strange valley, with its rock-hewen piles. ANON. THE ruins of Petra, the rock-built city, the capital of Idumea or Edom, differ entirely from those of any ancient capital we have yet noted, and stand unique among the |