OUR FATHER'S FAREWELL.

SAY who are they that kneel and weep
By yon poor sufferer's dying bed?
A mother and her children keep
Sad vigils round his hoary head;
While in extremity of ill
Calmly he lies, resign'd and still.

A scene of trial just gone by
Has left him very faint and weak;
But life again beams in his eye,

And colour on his wasted cheek:
And on that prostrate group he gazes,

Whose hopeless prayers are turned to praises.

Another aged form is there!

Whose eye is dim, whose locks are hoary; He is a holy man of prayer,

One deeply learned in gospel story:

His errand! Jesu's love to tell,

Then bid his dying friend farewell!

He prays-in tones the prayer began
That reached the heart, but not the ear;
Long ere it closed, dear holy man,

His voice was strong, and deep, and clear:

And all intently as he listened,

The sufferer's eye with pleasure glisten'd.

In humble, penitential strain,

Pleading no merits of their own,

Pardon and peace he sought to gain, Through Jesus Christ, and him alone: Devoted was that faithful pastor

To his exalted Lord and Master.

Hush'd was the prayer-then prayer began,
'Twas simple, fervent, loud and long ;
God's love through Christ to fallen man
Form'd the chief subject of his song:
Blessed be God, that aged pair
Such commune held in praise and prayer.

Hand join'd in hand, and deeply griev'd,
Their farewell they essay'd to speak ;
And touching questions then received
Responses earnest, contrite, meek:
For both most deeply seem'd to feel,
That Christ alone their sins could heal!

They parted:-one amid the bands
Of saints and angels finds his home;
On Jordan's bank the other stands,
Waiting till Christ shall bid him come :
Ere long will both be near his throne,
My husband's father, and my own.

LETITIA BENSLEY.

JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS.

No. II.

THE whole country occupied by the Jews was called the Land of Canaan (Gen. xi.), from Canaan, the son of Ham, who settled there and divided the country among his eleven sons, each of whom became the head of a clan, which clans were known by the names of Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, &c., from their founders, all of whom were in process of time conquered by the Hebrews. The name 'Palestine,' by which the country was known in Moses' time, (Exod. xv. 14,) was derived from the Philistines, the most powerful of all their enemies, and the last subdued. It was likewise called the 'Land of Promise,' from the promise made by God to Abraham, (Gen. vii. 7, xiii. 15,) that his posterity should inherit all the country from the Nile to the Euphrates, (Gen. xv. 18,) a promise still to be accomplished, as it is not yet fully fulfilled. In the time of our Saviour's birth all this land was, by conquest, tributary to Rome, and divided into four separate regions, Judæa, Samaria, Galilee, and the country beyond Jordan, named Peræa. Their principal river, the Jordan, was so called from Yar, Hebrew for river, and Dan from its taking its rise in the neighbourhood. of Dan: the course of this beautiful river is about one hundred miles long, when it loses itself in a full deep torrent in the Dead Sea. All the lakes of scripture are

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termed seas, from the Hebrew phraseology, which always gives the name of sea to any large piece of water; thus the picturesque lake of Galilee was, in our Saviour's time, called the Sea of Tiberias,' from its contiguity to the city of Tiberius, the reigning emperor; it is sixteen miles in length and six in breadth, still remarkable for its abundance of fish ; it is likewise designated Genesareth, from the neighbouring land of that name. The Dead Sea is the same as is called, in the Bible, the Salt Sea,' the Sea of the Plain,' and the Lake of Sodom.' Josephus and modern writers name it the Lake Asphalties,' from the quantity of bitumen still found in it, from its having been the spot where stood the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah: it is said that nothing will live in its waters; it is seventy miles long and nineteen broad.

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Mount Lebanon is a beautiful romantic chain of mountains, at the northern extremity of Palestine : it was the same that the Greeks and Romans termed Libanus. It is still famous for its stately cedars, that may be seen growing among the snow at the loftiest parts of the mountain.

The city of Jerusalem was built on three principal hills, Sion, Moriah, a smaller mount (separated from Sion by a valley, over which was a bridge), and Acra, upon which stood the largest portion of the metropolis. The circumference, previous to its being besieged by the Romans, was between four and five miles.

Synagogues were buildings for prayer and reading the scriptures. Previously to the destruction of the holy city there were above four hundred in Jerusalem alone, besides others erected in almost every place in Judæa,

The Samaritans had their temple on Mount Gerizim: after the Jews' return from the Babylonish captivity they refused the Samaritan Jews (who were an intermixture of the rebellious ten tribes with the Heathen nations) permission to assist them in rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem: an inveterate enmity subsisted in consequence, and from other causes, between these two nations. The Samaritans reject all the sacred books except the Pentateuch.

In the wars of the Israelites all the men, (the priests and Levites even not excepted,) from the age of twenty to fifty, were liable to military service: they had no horses in their army before Solomon's time, nor did they ever use, like the nations around them, war-chariots.

During harvest the Jews were prohibited to reap the corn that grew in the corners of their own field, or any of the after growth, with the scattered ears; it was to be left for the poor: likewise, they were not permitted, after they had once shaken and beaten their olive-trees, to take those that still hung on them; so that all the fruit which did not ripen till after the season of gathering was left, in mercy to the poor.

When the Jewish nation was conquered by the Romans, they were obliged to pay them taxes, which they did with much repugnance: this accounts for their dislike to publicans, who were the tax-gatherers.

The Romans confined their criminals by a chain, one end of which was fixed to the right arm of the prisoner, the other to the left arm of a soldier, and thus coupled he was everywhere attended and guarded: St. Paul was confined in this manner, and fettered thus he delivered his apology before Festus.