cause he had taken too little, the potter suddenly changed his mind, crushed his growing jar instantly into a shapeless mass of mud, and, beginning anew, fashioned it into a totally different vessel. This idea, also, Paul has expounded, and employed in the ninth chapter of his epistle to the Romans, to soften some of those things which Peter says are hard to be understood: "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?"" Certainly he has, and I saw him do it; but I did not see thereby much farther into the great mystery which the apostle was illustrating. That, I fear, will ever remain among the hard things "which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction."

It is evident, from numerous expressions in the Bible, that the potter's vessel was the synonyme of utter fragility; and to say, as David does, that Zion's King would dash his enemies in pieces like a potter's vessel, was to threaten them with ruinous and remediless destruction. Is this true of all native pottery?

We who are accustomed to strong stone-ware of considerable value can scarcely appreciate some of these Biblical references; but for this country they are still as appropriate and forcible as ever. Arab jars are so thin and frail that they are literally dashed to shivers by the slightest stroke. Water-jars are often broken by merely putting them down upon the floor; and the servant frequently returns from the fountain empty-handed, having had all his jars smashed to atoms by some irregular behavior of the donkey. The coarse pottery of this country is so cheap that even poor people throw it aside in contempt, or dash it to pieces on the slightest occasion, as do the Metâwileh, for example, when one of another sect has made use of it. The threatening to which allusion has been made may have included this further idea of worthlessness, or even of defilement, implying that the wicked would be broken. and thrown away as useless and unclean.

The Metâwileh, I suppose, borrowed the custom of breaking defiled vessels from the Jews, who were commanded to break all 3 Psa. ii. 9.

1 Rom. ix. 20, 21.

22 Pet. iii. 16.

SHERD AT THE HEARTH AND THE PIT.

37

earthen vessels into which any unclean thing had fallen, as we read in Lev. xi. 33, and elsewhere.

The Jews may be the nearest source of the custom; and the Metâwileh bear a singular resemblance to them, both in features and manners, and they doubtless came originally from the same. part of the world. But many Oriental customs are older than Moses himself, and this may have been one of them. It is very interesting, however, to learn from this ordinance of Moses that the same kind of coarse and cheap earthen-ware that our servants heedlessly dash in pieces must have been used in much the same way in this land over three thousand years ago; for if the "earthen vessel" had been of much value, Moses would not have thus commanded its destruction, since it would have been impossible to enforce the order.

To what does Isaiah allude in the fourteenth verse of the thirtieth chapter, where he says, " He shall break it as the breaking of the potters' vessel that is broken in pieces; he shall not spare: so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit?"

Your inquiry refers, I suppose, to the "sherd to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit." It is very common to find at the spring or the pit pieces of broken jars, to be used as ladles, either to drink from or to fill with; and bits of fractured jars are preserved for this purpose. If you take your stand near any of the public ovens here in Jaffa in the evening, you will see the children of the poor coming with sherds of pottery in their hands, into which the baker pours a small quantity of hot embers and a few coals with which to warm up their evening meal. Isaiah's vessels, however, were to be broken into such small bits that there would not be a sherd of sufficient size to carry away a few embers from the hearth, nor to take water out of the pit. These comparisons are exceedingly expressive where the actions referred to are of constant occurrence, as they are throughout this country at the present day.

People in the East have no proper hearths, in our sense of the word, nor have they any of those pleasant associations and memories of home which our word hearth suggests. Indeed, they have

no equivalents, either in fact or phrase, for our "hearth and home" -two things closely connected and mutually dependent; for where there is no fireside nor hearth-stone, it will be scarcely possible to realize the full meaning of "Home, sweet home," as sung by millions in the world, whose fondest memories in after-life cluster around the family fireside of their childhood's days.

Sunday, April 6th.

In our conversation yesterday morning, you remarked that a traveller who wanders hastily over this country, simply to see its mountains and plains, its rivers and lakes, or merely to visit its sacred sites and historic scenes, fails to obtain the special advantages which such a tour ought to confer. To what, in particular, did you allude?

To the grand fact that Palestine is the birthplace and true home of the Bible, from whence is derived the religious language which we employ every day, in all our acts of acceptable worship. Here was its origin and development, and here are found its best illustrations.

I am not sure that I understand at once the full import of this comprehensive proposition.

Probably not, and yet I believe it to be one of supreme importance; and we may well devote part of this quiet Sabbath morning to the consideration of it.

This is all the more appropriate, since we are to start on our journey to-morrow. The subject is rather new, and a more definite acquaintance with it is necessary, if it is to be of any practical advantage to me in our travels through the country.

It will not be necessary to enter into any long discussion, historical or critical, to show how, and to what extent, our spiritual vocabulary has been derived from Palestine. Instead of this, we will select a few examples, taken from the poetry of the Bible, which, if I mistake not, will better answer the purpose.

That our religious language has been largely enriched from this poetic source is too obvious to need either proof or illustration. The Church, the universal Christian Church, has, in fact, transferred the entire Psalter bodily into her bosom; and with

PALESTINE THE HOME OF THE BIBLE.

39 out it her children would not know how to conduct the devotions either of the closet, the family altar, or the public worship of the sanctuary. But this of itself would not establish our proposition. It must be further shown that this poetic dialect is essentially Palestinian. This is the exact point to be made and illustrated. The elements of poetry, the phenomena upon which its existence and culture depend, are not, of course, confined to this country. The material out of which it is woven exists in all lands; and for certain varieties of poetry, it may be found elsewhere in higher perfection than here. But what we attempt to show is that those phenomena, both natural and moral, which inspire spiritual poetry, are more numerous, beautiful, and suggestive in Palestine than elsewhere; and further, that they are concentrated in this very small territory. Palestine contains within itself specimens-hand-specimens, if you choose-of all which elsewhere lies scattered and dispersed over regions widely separated. Here all are grouped together as in a cabinet. Palestine is the true birthplace of the sacred psalm, the devout hymn; and for this purpose we believe the Divine Author of our religious life and language made special provision when creating, furnishing, and adorning this home of the Bible. God made both the Holy Land and the Sacred Poet, the one for the other. Both were necessary. Neither could realize the divine intention alone. They must be brought together, and act and react upon each other. Without this grand Palestinian orchestra, built by the Creator, no performer, however gifted, could have called forth the heavenly harmonies that here lie slumbering in the recesses of Nature's vast organ. But this external and physical machinery was not enough. It needed, also, and it was actually associated with, an endless array of moral influences and historic incidents of transcendent interest. In no other country have these been so numerous, so impressive, or so admirably adapted to the work of the sacred poet. Nowhere else have the alternations in human experience been so extreme and violent, from the utmost prosperity and the highest material happiness to the deepest abyss of poverty and wretchedness. Every chord in the human harp has here been struck in turn by the great Performer, now evoking sweetest harmony, now

crashing down its thousand strings in harshest discord. There is not an emotion, desire, fear, or hope possible to man's heart but has here been awakened and expressed. In this field there is nothing left for him "that cometh after the king" to know or experiment upon. Between these wide extremes, and all along the vast domain that lies within them, there can be no new regions to explore and possess, no untrodden height to which the poet can soar, no depths unfathomable in which to sink, no unknown joy to gladden, no untasted cup of sorrow to drain. The entire material out of which poets build their lofty verse has been gathered up and appropriated.

If this be so, how comes it that Palestine has never produced any great poet or grand epic?

The answer is that Biblical poets had a different and far higher mission than Homer or Virgil, Milton or Shakspeare, or any other name among the sons of song. They were commissioned and inspired to reveal to man the thoughts of God, to be his interpreters and messengers to a benighted world. On this high plane they stand unrivalled and alone, have no peers and no parallels. The specific aim of this inquiry, however, is not to establish the superiority of Hebrew poets or poetry, but to notice in what ways and to what extent our religious vocabulary has been enriched from this poetic source. For this purpose we may begin at the beginning, that is, with the very first Psalm, as well as anywhere else. A very simple process of analysis and comment will show. that, in this sacred lyric, not only the illustrative comparisons, metaphors, and figures-the entire ornamental drapery and costume are specifically Palestinian, but that the very thoughts themselves were suggested by things and conditions in this land. Take the first verse, and analyze it with this idea in view. To walk in the counsel of a person, to stand in the way, to sit in the seat, are forms of expression so familiar that one can scarcely realize the fact that he is not using words and phrases in their original prosaic sense; and yet they are, one and all, employed in this verse figuratively—transferred, by easy and obvious analogy, from things natural to those which are moral and spiritual. Nor is this the whole truth in the case. There is a distinct Palestinian