of the people are rapidly preparing for some great moral revolution; may GoD direct it to the advancement of the kingdom of his dear SON! This district is in an unsettled state in other respects; the most daring robberies are committed on all sides; and at Deesa the brigade is obliged to use all the precautions usually observed in the face of an enemy. I think, however, that these marauders are chiefly Beloochees and Mahrattas from Scinde and Gwalior, and that no disaffection in the country people is to be inferred from them. If it were so, they might give much trouble.

"I was attacked on the Deesa road, about twentyfive miles from here, by a gang of thieves, on the night of May the 14th; my escort cut down; my bullock-cart rifled of every thing, and myself narrowly escaping being murdered. My cart bears the mark of a savage sword-cut made at me while I was alighting, which, had not the Bheel providentially miscalculated his distance in the dark, must have cut me nearly in two. I escaped almost naked into the jungle, and after remaining half an hour in a hole at the foot of a tree, in a condition more easily imagined than described, without hearing any tokens of pursuit, I set off to the next village, about three miles, where I found the alarm already given. I had not a farthing, or any thing to barter; was two days' journey from home, and could get nothing without payment; so that for the next twenty-six hours I could obtain nothing to eat. Such an outrage, however, is a rare occurrence; as far as Europeans are concerned, they generally travel in safety."

From a Quarterly Paper of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

A PRAYER.

ALMIGHTY GOD, Who hast never found a hindrance to the execution of Thy Divine Will; All-merciful GOD, whose very nature is mercy itself, and Who pardonest the most hardened sinners, when they beseech Thee with humbled and contrite hearts; grant us the inestimable gift of a healthful continence ; restrain our passions and ill-ordered appetites by the fear of Thy judgments, by the apprehension of displeasing Thee, and inflame our hearts with pure and ardent charity; that so we may love Thee above all things, and our neighbour as Thou hast loved him, and for the love of Thee. And this we beg through the merits of JESUS CHRIST Thy SoN. Amen.

This world is fallen on an easier way;
This
age knows better than to fast and

pray.

Dryden.

St. Paul himself declareth the desire of his heart, which was to be dissolved and loosed from his body, and to be with CHRIST, which (as he said) was much better for him, although to them it was more necessary that he should live, which he refused not for their sakes. Even like as St. Martin said, Good LORD, if I be necessary for thy people to do good unto them, I will refuse no labour: but else, for mine own self, I beseech thee to take my soul.

Homily against Fear of Death.

Faith's meanest deed more favour bears
Where hearts and wills are weighed,
Than brightest transports, choicest prayers,
Which bloom their hour and fade.

Lyra Apostolica.

The Churchman's

Monthly Companion.

DECEMBER, 1844.

DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

THE destruction of Jerusalem is a subject of extreme interest on many accounts, but especially from its being a kind of pledge to us of the future destruction of the world. CHRIST, in foretelling the circumstances of the one, foretold the circumstances of the other the two predictions are so closely connected, that, in some parts, we cannot separate them. It seems, indeed, most probable, that the words are applicable immediately to the destruction of Jerusalem, but that from wishing that event to be a type, as it were, of the destruction of the world, our LORD purposely used language that will also describe that, and some of which was almost too magnificent for the humbler, though very terrible destruction of the guilty Jerusalem.

This destruction was foretold many centuries before Jerusalem was built it was foretold by Moses himself, in a noble passage of Deuteronomy. "The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth ;" and so on:-" and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst throughout all thy land.-And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:

A a

and

very

so that the man that is tender among you delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave.—The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son and toward her daughter, and toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children that she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates: if thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD."

Now this singular passage, of which I have quoted but a part, was uttered sixteen hundred' years before the event it foretold! It foretold, that if the Jews refused to obey the words of that law, and to fear that glorious and fearful Name, then their city should be destroyed. This passage was inserted in the books of the Jewish law, as a threat intended to secure the obedience of all to whom that law was given. And, like all Jewish prophecy, it is not vague, general description, but particular: a nation may lose all its armies in the field, and with them the heart and the means to make a successful defence of the capital: if the capital is defended, it may be taken by storm; its gates may be thrown open by treachery: or it may be surrendered when honour has been satisfied and success is hopeless. But Moses foresaw, not the destruction only of Jerusalem, but the manner of it: he foretold, not what was most likely, that some powerful neighbour (the monarch of Babylon, or Persia, or Egypt) should destroy it; but a distant nation, and that,

1 Exodus, 1586 or 1587 B.c. (Ordo Sæclorum).

after a siege, in which the Jews should suffer the most terrible distress by famine, so that even delicate women should devour their own offspring!

Well-sixteen hundred years passed away,-and few of them without some fearful addition to the catalogue of the nation's sins: the original prediction had been repeated and enlarged by the prophets, but then JESUS came-JESUS who would have gathered Jerusalem, as a hen gathereth her young ones under her wings, but she would not :-JESUS came, and pronounced the final sentence, and all the particulars of its execution.

"As for these things," (He said to His disciples, who were speaking of the goodly stones and gifts with which the Temple was adorned,) "the days. will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down!" His disciples were naturally eager to know the time of this event, and the signs of its approach. He foretold the coming of many pretended Christs,rumours of wars and commotions, the actual rising up of nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;-the occurrence of great earthquakes in divers places, and famines and pestilences;-and fearful sights and great signs should there be from heaven. He also told them, that before all these things, they should themselves have been persecuted as Christians, and brought before kings and rulers for His Name's sake. Now all this confessedly came to pass. The Christian teachers were persecuted and afflicted, they were brought before kings and rulers for CHRIST'S Name:-Peter and John were brought before the Sanhedrim, or Supreme Council of the Jews; James and Peter appeared before king Herod; Paul and Peter before Nero, the Roman emperor; and Paul, before the governors or rulers Gallio, Felix, and Festus. The wars and rumours of wars, and rising up of nation against nation, are notorious. The Romans had wars with the Syrians