fight; and that banner shall float victorious on all the storms that rage through the field of conflict; your steps shall be heard at length at heaven's gate as the steps of a conqueror, and shouts of triumph shall ring through the arches of the heavenly temple, as you bend before the Captain of salvation to receive your crown.

Sermon vii.

Sinai. The Revelation of the Divine Name.

"I am the Lord thy God."-Exod. xx. 2.

If we are right in the identification of Rephidim with the Wâdy Feirân, the great Oasis of the Desert, we shall have the less difficulty in determining the site of the Mountain of the Law. This giving of the law to the Jewish people, is the most solemn and pregnant event before the Christian era; it has but one parallel-the advent of Him who giveth the law to the whole human world. The sentence is profoundly true, that that day was the birthday of history. The whole significance of the exodus was developed before Sinai; and History, as well as Israel, was baptized there in the name of the Lord God" of all the earth." In the heart of that terrible and magnificent wilderness, He wrote His name above the tabernacle of man's history. Like the name of the architect of the Pharos, it has been overlaid by that of the kings, conquerors, and divine heroes of this world; but the clay crumbles away through

the wear of the ages, and the name of the Lord God of Israel stands out grandly before us as at first.

4

The general term, Sinai, is applied to the centre group of the great mountain system of red and grey granite, which occupies the southern portion of the angle enclosed by the two arms of the Red Sea. The western group is known by the name of Serbâl, the eastern is Um-Shômer, the highest peak of the region; and the central group, loftier than Serbâl, lower than Um-Shômer, is Sinai. It consists of a cluster of summits, of which the highest, Djebel Katherin, commands a most magnificent panoramic view of the whole peninsula, and the two Gulfs, Suez and Akaba, intensely blue. The second and lower peak, Djebel Mousa, is the traditional scene of the giving of the law. Towards the north those two ridges blend in an elevated rocky plateau, which stretches some miles in a northerly direction, and flinging up some of the wildest and sharpest peaks in those regions (Râs Saseâfeh), descend suddenly in a sheer precipice on a perfectly level plain, enclosed by mountains on every hand, except to the east; there it bends round the spurs of the mountains, and joins the Wâdy-es-Sheykh, the great highway of that part of the Desert. Every traveller describes this scene as peculiarly grand,

and even sublime. The plain, the Wâdy-erRâheh, is about a mile and a half in length, perfectly level, surrounded by steep cliffs on every hand; and in front of the traveller, as he descends the rough mountain pass, Nakb Hôwy, which is the nearest though most difficult route from the Wâdy Feirân to the Convent of Sinai, there is this range of magnificent precipices, Râs Saseâfeh, descending sheer into the level of the plain, and forming one of the most impressive panoramas which can be contemplated by the eye of man. As the traveller looks down on this level plain from the wild pass, Nakb Hôwy (the Pass of the Wind), it seems to be locked on every side by mountains; only on advancing it is seen to bend to the left round a bold promontory of rock, and to mingle with the great highway of the Desert; which, avoiding the Nakb Hôwy, sweeps round the outside of the mountain chain, from the entrance of the Wâdy Feirân to Sinai and Akaba.

The desolation in this land-locked sea of sand is utter; the silence profound. It is the inner sanctuary of Nature's great mountain temple. "If I were to make a model of the end of the world," writes one, "I would make it from the Convent of Mount Sinai.” The forms of the granite cliffs which enclose the plain are singularly bold and strong. They have, at the same

time, a certain grand uniformity, like the avenue -the dromos—of sublime sculptured forms which led on to the shrine of the Egyptian temples. God carved and piled the approaches to this great mountain sanctuary, where His sublimity was to be revealed.

I dwell on these particular features because I believe in their significance. I believe that God has established a special relation between races of men and the forms of nature in the country they inhabit; and that, further, there is both mental and moral discipline to an awakened, attentive spirit in the haunts of nature which it frequents, and in the midst of which the inner life brings forth its fruits. The jaded head and heart, in our day, fly for solace and refreshment to the glorious mountain regions, where, amid the solemnities of glaciers and snow peaks, our fretful spirits may gather strength and calm. The valley of Chamounix, the Grindelwald, the Bay of Naples, the orange groves of Sorrento, have been temples of worship and revelation to many an over-weary heart and spirit. God is not more there than here, but our spirits catch there more quickly the key-note of communion; they put off their veils, and pass more simply, more wholly, from before the face of nature to the face of God. Mere fancy! one tells