music, faintly heard from a distance, gave notice that the procession was on the march. The old men and such of the squaws as could leave their employments hastened forth to meet it. In a little while it emerged from behind a hill, and had a wild and picturesque appearance as it came moving over the summit in measured step and to the cadence of songs and savage instruments, the warlike standards and trophies flaunting aloft, and the feathers, and paint, and silver ornaments of the warriors glittering in the sunshine.

The

pageant had really something chivalrous in its arrangement. The Aricaras are divided into several bands, each bearing the name of some animal or bird, as the buffalo, the bear, the dog, the pheasant. The present party consisted of four of these bands, one of which was the dog, the most esteemed in war, being composed of young men under thirty, and noted for prowess. It is engaged on the most desperate occasions. The bands marched in separate bodies, under their several leaders. The warriors on foot came first, in platoons of ten or twelve abreast, then the horsemen. Each band bore as an ensign a spear or bow, decorated with beads, porcupine quills, and painted feathers. Each bore its trophies of scalps elevated on poles, their long black locks streaming in the wind. Each was accompanied by its rude music and minstrelsy. In this way the procession extended nearly a quarter of a mile. The warriors were variously armed; some few with guns, others with bows and arrows and war clubs;

all had shields of buffalo hide, a kind of defence generally used by the Indians of the open prairies, who have not the covert of trees and forests to protect them. They were painted in the most savage style. Some had a stamp of a red hand across their mouths, a sign that they had drunk the life blood of a foe! As they drew near to the village the old men and women began to meet them, and now a scene ensued that proved the fallacy of the old fable of Indian apathy and stoicism. Parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, met with the most rapturous expressions of joy, while wailing and lamentations were heard from the relatives of the killed and wounded. The procession, however, continued on with slow and measured step, in cadence to the solemn chant, and the warriors maintained their fixed and stern demeanour. Between two of the principal chiefs rode a young warrior who had distinguished himself in the battle. He was severely wounded, so as with difficulty to keep on his horse; but he preserved a serene and stedfast countenance, as if perfectly unharmed. His mother had heard of his condition; she broke through the throng, and rushing up, threw her arms round him, and wept aloud. He kept up the spirit and demeanour of a warrior to the last, but expired shortly after he reached his home. The village was now a scene of the utmost festivity and triumph. The banners, and trophies, and scalps, and painted shields were elevated on poles near the lodges. There were war feasts and scalp dances, with

warlike songs and savage music; all the inhabitants were arrayed in their festal dresses, while the old heralds went round from lodge to lodge, promulgating with loud voices the events of the battle and the exploits of the various warriors. Such was the boisterous revelry of the village; but sounds of another kind were heard on the surrounding hills; piteous wailing of the women, who had retired thither to mourn in darkness and solitude for those who had fallen in battle. There the poor mother of the youthful warrior who had returned home in triumph but to die, gave full vent to the anguish of a mother's heart. How much does this custom of the Indian women, of repairing to the hill tops in the night, and pouring forth their wailings for the dead, call to mind the beautiful and affecting passage of scripture, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they are not."-Astoria, by Washington Irving.

SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES

MET.

BY DR. HEWLETT. Can Prov. xxiii. 29-32, be recon

ciled with Prov. xxxi. 4-7? "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." -Prov. xxiii. 29-32.

"It is not for kings, Q Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for

princes strong drink: lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."-Prov. xxxi. 4—7.

THESE two passages, far from contradicting each other, will be found, on minute examination, to elucidate and confirm the sentiments they contain.

Scripture is uniform in its testimony against drunkenness. The few instances of this sin it records are like fiery beacons warning against the snare into which many have fallen and perished.

But in no part of the sacred volume is the sin more fearfully depicted, and its prohibition more forcibly inculcated, than in Prov. xxiii. 29–32. In the 31st verse the incipient process of this sin is pointed out and strictly forbidden. "Look not thou upon the wine when it reddens itself, when it gives its colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright." The eye is the avenue by which many sins enter. Bunyan speaks of the necessity of having a good guard at Eye-gate. The term "reddens itself" alludes to a custom common among the ancients, of putting pomegranate juice, Brazil-wood, and other ingredients into their wine to give it a fine red colour. The guest looked on the wine sparkling and mantling in the cup; that which appeared pleasant to the eye was soon imagined to be pleasant to the taste; thoughts kindled into desire, and desire cherished flamed

into passion eagerly seeking gratification. Passion dethrones reason and blinds conscience. The pleasant potion prostrates moral consciousness and enthrals volition. A voluntary insanity is produced. Hence the terrific scene Solomon has depicted: "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine." The drunkard who has read his Bible, and continues in his sin, will perish without excuse, after this solemn warning from the mouth of God.

An old writer, speaking of this sin, says, "Drunkenness is a distemper of the head, a subversion of the senses, a tempest of the tongue, a storm in the body; the shipwreck of virtue, the loss of time, a wilful madness, a pleasant devil, a sugared poison, a sweet sin, which he that has, has not himself, and he that commits it doth not only commit sin, but is himself altogether sin." There are many and powerful reasons to enforce the command, "Look not thou upon wine." Avoid the first of a series of seductive influences.

The kings were accustomed to officiate as judges and to administer their own laws, 2 Sam. xv. 2; 1 Kings iii. 28. Sobriety, habitual sobriety, was essentially necessary for the king, in order that he might administer impartial justice. In a state of intoxication the wicked wealthy criminal might escape with impunity, and the innocent and the poor might be cruelly, because unjustly, punished. Philip of Macedon, while in a state of intemperance, passed an unrighteous sentence upon a poor widow; but when he was sober he revoked the sentence, and compensated the widow as far as he could for the injury he had done her. While temperance is binding on all, it is peculiarly binding on all who fill public stations, not only because the duties they have to perform are of a weighty and important character, but because the sphere in which they move is extensive, and the example they present is influential.

But the sixth and seventh verses, so far from sanctioning drinking to excess, limit the only occasions on which wine or strong drink should be taken. "Give it to him that is ready to perish, and (v) to those that have bitterness of soul;" phrases which indicate extreme physical debility and exhaustion.

The seventh verse is not a command. It is one of those instances in which the future tense is improperly translated, as if in the imperative mood. "" He shall drink,” is the correct translation, and not "Let him drink." It is a simple assertion, and not a command.

Wine is thus placed in the same category as any other medicine. As medicine it was used alone, or as a vehicle for some drug dissolved in it. In an eastern clime it was no uncommon scene to witness a patient reduced to extreme poverty by having expended all his substance on physicians, and in almost a dying condition; a very small dose of wine

would rally his sunken energies, produce sound sleep in which he would "forget his poverty," and so far recover his strength as to "forget his malady," from which he had suffered. The medicinal use of wine in eastern countries is recognised in Christ's parable of the good Samaritan. It is also noticed by the Apostle Paul in his advice to Timothy, "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities," 1 Tim. v. 23. It was presented to Christ while suffering on the cross. In all these cases wine is viewed as a medicine.

Its effects in rousing latent energy and in producing the forgetfulness of sleep can be no argument for excess. If the human palate were to become so vitiated as to acquire a relish for a given medicinal mixture, it would be no argument for using that mixture to excess, because the recipe of the most eminent physician prescribed, "Take rhubarb and laudanum until the pain be abated." The application of this illustration is too obvious to require any further remark.

Again, to drink to excess is drunkenness; drunkenness is a sin; the word of God uniformly encourages to choose affliction rather than sin,

and it is wiser for us to yield to the truth in many passages easy to be understood, than to choose sin rather than affliction, because of the apparent sanction of one passage hard to be understood.

To use any of the gifts of Providence to excess is wrong. But to use them moderately and seasonably will be beneficial. We may use

them thus, and join with the psalmist in praising God, who not only giveth bread, but wine which cheers the heart, and which makes the face of man to shine.

Young persons cannot be too vigilant and prayerful against the least approach to intemperance. Let the exhortation of the apostle be ever kept in remembrance, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit. Let us walk in the Spirit, and we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," Ephes. v. 18.

FLOWERS OF THE HOLY LAND.

MARCH.

OUR beautiful island is now becoming more beautiful by the breakings up of winter and the openings of spring, and fields and woods and gardens are getting sprinkled over with the early blossoms of the year. Our search at present, however, is only after such flowers and plants as are also to be found in the Holy Land, and more than one of most interesting character may be found.

The Almond, dwelt on in our last, is now every where in glowing bloom; and when planted with a background of evergreens, stands out a

beautiful ornament. An abundant blooming of the Almond was anciently considered a sure earnest of a fruitful harvest.

This, as far as I know, is the only tree of Bible note commonly in bloom this month in our gardens or shrubberries. Of smaller flowers we have several easily obtained. The Narcissus is one growing in almost every cottage garden, and is found wild throughout Syria. The Polyanthus Narcissus (Narcissus tozeva), and the Poet's Narcissus (Narcissus poetica), are perhaps the most beautiful, and are the most celebrated in the East. The latter is found wild in some parts of England, and in great abundance all over Syria.

The garden Anemone is another flower of Palestine, and at this season gives an extremely beautiful and gay appearance not to our flowerbeds only, but to the fields in Syria, some of which are completely covered with it in early spring. Of the kinds mostly esteemed in the East, I may name our showy Poppy Anemone (Anemone corronaria), which grows on the hot and dry plains of Syria, and is the parent of the florist's flower; the Star Anemone (Anemone stellata), and the Anemone hortensis, commonly known as the garden Anemone with us. In the eastern bouquet the Anemone forms a choice part; and in many of the eastern poems figures away as a chosen object of beauty.

The Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) is another Syrian flower common with us in gardens, and found occasionally, though very rarely, even in our meadows. It is

called by the French La belle d'onze heures, from its opening at eleven o'clock and closing at five. By Linnæus and some other writers it has been considered the dove's dung of scripture, specially referred to during the famine in Samaria. (See 2 Kings vi. 25.) It is common about that city, and the root is used there and in other parts of the East for food. The dark brown or yellow Wallflower (Cheianthus cheiri) is now in bloom not only here, but on the walls of many an ancient eastern city, and amongst the ruins of proud palaces that are now crumbling to dust. Lamartine saw it in full bloom on Mount Carmel, and others have described it as still growing in many interesting spots of scripture note.

Some of the earlier tulips are now in bloom, as the Duc van Thol, and in Palestine are in full glory. The king of all the tribe (Tulipa Gesneriana) came from Palestine, and with other beautiful bulbous-rooted flowers forms one of "the lilies of the field," referred to by the Saviour. The beauty of the tulips in the plains of Sharon and about Joppa has been noticed by travellers; and so greatly is this flower esteemed in Turkey, that there is an annual feast of tulips, when the Sultan exhibits one of his grandest displays of oriental magnificence.

Some of the Irises are also from Syria, of which the Persian Iris (Iris Persica), and the dark purple, called Snake's Head (Iris tuberosa), may be mentioned.

Several kinds of Crocus grow wild in Syria, and specimens may hence be gathered now; but the Saffron