coldest air, flourish there plentifully; there are palm-trees also, which grow best in hot air; while fig-trees and olives grow near them, which yet require an air that is more temperate." Much as the soil and productions of Palestine have deteriorated since the land has been trodden under foot of strangers, and much as the climate itself has changed, from the clearing away of forests, there yet remains in the vegetable and animal kingdoms of the Holy Land, and in the agricultural habits of its people, a striking confirmation of the allusions to soil and climate in the life of Christ. Did John the Baptist appear in the wilderness, living upon locusts and wild honey? The uncultivated, uninhabited region of Judæa toward the Dead Sea, whose trees and rocks drip honey from the nests of wild bees, is there to certify to the story. The contemporary Pliny informs us, that the Parthians esteem the locust a choice food,* and that some tribes of the Ethiopians subsist on nothing but locusts, which are smoke-dried and salted as their provision for the year; † and a modern Jewish Rabbi, long resident in Palestine, mentions that in 1837, when myriads of locusts covered the land, "the Arabs roasted these insects and ate them with much relish." The camel, as of old, is the beast of burden, and his hair is woven into a coarse cloth for garments such as the Baptist wore. The banks of the Jordan are lined with reeds "shaken by the wind." The fox still has his hiding-places in the hill-country of Palestine, where the Son of Man was a homeless wanderer; serpents and vipers abound, to illustrate the comparison of the Pharisees to their venomous brood; the scorpion haunts ruins, and hides in the crevices of the walls, its terrible sting representing the fierceness of "the enemy," over whom Jesus gave his disciples power. If an ass or a camel die by the roadside, wheresoever the carcass is, the eagles or vultures are quickly gathered together. The ravens, true to their instinct, drive out their young from the nest to seek their food, having neither storehouse nor barn. The dove is still the favorite bird of the house and the grove, and is held sacred by Mohammedans, as the symbol of harmless *Book II. c. 32, 35. † Book VI. c. 35. Schwartz's Palestine, p. 300. ness and purity. The sparrow is still so annoying by its numbers upon the house-tops, and so little relished as food, that two might be bought for a farthing. The ox and the ass are still the favorite beasts of burden, and the ass's colt is the common saddle-beast of the poorer people, even as when Jesus came meekly "riding on the foal of an ass." Sheep and goats, however, are the most numerous of the domestic animals of Palestine; and every allusion to these in the parables and discourses of Christ may be verified among the flocks and sheepfolds of the country as one sees them to-day. At certain seasons of the year the shepherd lives with his sheep in the open air, abiding in the field keeping watch over the flock by night. At other times, when cold or danger threatens, all the flocks of the village are gathered within a walled enclosure, whose door is in the keeping of the porter. In the morning each shepherd calls out his own sheep, and they, knowing his voice, follow him to their feeding-places, where, armed with sling, staff, or other weapon, he watches them against the wolf or the robber. When the time of dividing the flocks comes, the sheep are separated from the goats. In the open country - the fields unbroken by fences and traversed by the highway-the sower may drop seed upon stony places or on the wayside, to be trodden under foot of men. When the wheat is in the ear, the traveller, following the path through the field, may pluck his hands full, rub out the grain, and eat. In marshy spots the zowan, or tare, will often spring up and choke the wheat, where only good seed had been sown. The barley-loaf remains a common article of diet. At harvest-time one sees the oxen treading out the grain upon the great stone floor in the open air, where the wind carries away the chaff, or the fan in the hand of the husbandman thoroughly purges his floor of dust and refuse. At evening, in the doorways, the women, usually two, sit together at the millstones, grinding the meal for the next morning. For the baking, as wood is scarce, dry weeds and grass are gathered to be cast into the little oven of earth, and burned. If the traveller in Palestine would rest by the wayside, as he approaches a village, he will find the well or the fountain to which the women resort to draw water; and he may sit under the wide-spread branches of the sycamore, wholly unlike the American tree of that name, reminding himself how easily Zaccheus, from such a tree, could scrutinize the crowd as it passed along; and also how great must be the faith that would pluck up this deep-set tree by the roots. Perhaps near by he may see the mustard-seed grown to a shrub in which birds make their nests; or by some brook or moistened valley, near Tabor or Nazareth, his eye may feast upon the lilies of the field, with which all the glory of Solomon could not compare. The plain of Jericho might still furnish palm-branches for the royal welcome of the Son of David; the fig-tree would still illustrate his parables; the olive would yield its oil to the good Samaritan; the vineyard, with its wine-press and tower, with its well-pruned vines and abundant fruits, is at hand as a commentary upon the last discourses of Jesus; while the buckthorn and a species of cactus, simulating the grape and the fig, remain to point the proverb that "men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles." Perhaps in the early season one might be attracted to a figtree by its promising foliage, to find "nothing thereon but leaves only," a symbol of a cultivated intellect with an unbelieving heart. The life of Christ must take its place in history among the realities of earth and time. We may not be able to trace its every link, to identify its every footstep; "here, perchance, we may wander; there miss the right clew; yet, if with a true and living faith we seek to bring home to our hearts the great features of the Evangelical history, to journey with our Master over the lonely mountains of Galilee; to sit with him beside the busy waters of the Lake of Genesareth; to follow his footsteps into remote and half-pagan lands, or to hang on his lips in the courts of his Father's house, we shall not seek in vain. The history of the Gospels will be more and more to us a living history." The patient study of that history, in the candid and liberal spirit of true criticism, can lead only to the conclusion of the reality of the life of Christ as * Ellicott, pp. 141, 142. there recorded. And whatever harmonistic and chronological difficulties may yet remain in certain passages of that life, we may gladly observe, with Bishop Ellicott," that order and connection have been found where there was once deemed to be only confusion and incoherence, that the inspired narratives are regarded no longer as discrepant, but as self-explanatory, —and that honest investigation is showing more and more clearly, that what one inspired writer has left unrecorded another has often supplied, with an incidental preciseness of adjustment which is all the more convincing from being seen and felt to be undesigned.". For such a study we know of no more agreeable and instructive helpers than the two authors whose works we have now brought to the notice of the reader. Each should be read in its own order; Mr. Andrews's, for the thorough historical and geographical groundwork of the life of Christ; Bishop Ellicott's, for the devout realization of that life upon this basis of actuality. Mr. Andrews preserves the calm, exact, critical style of the historian, never indulging in homiletic reflections or in devotional meditations; yet he is not wanting in fervor of conviction or in vivacity of narration. His work is by far the most complete, trustworthy, and satisfactory digest of the later results of criticism upon the life of Christ that has appeared in the English language. Nothing of importance seems to have escaped his notice, and no point has been evaded or slurred over because of unresolved difficulties. Bishop Ellicott's volume retains the popular and hortatory style of discourses which assume the inspired character of the Gospels. They are therefore less forcible as an argument for the credibility of the Gospels, but are rich and eloquent in the portraiture of the life of Christ. Nor are they wanting in a critical analysis of doubtful points, which is carefully elaborated in learned notes. Thus the two works supplement each other; and if we study them connectedly, the things narrated of the earthly life of Christ "will seem so close, so near, so true, that our faith in Jesus will be such as no sophistry can weaken, no doubtfulness becloud." *Page 220. We do not moot the question of inspiration, the fact of which Bishop Ellicott assumes. ART. IV. 1. The Duty of a Rising Christian State to contribute to the World's Well-being and Civilization, and the Means by which it may perform the same. The Annual Oration before the Common Council and Citizens of Monrovia, Liberia, July 26, 1855, being the Day of National Independence. By ALEXANDER CRUMMELL. London. 1856. 2. The English Language in Liberia. The Annual Address before the Citizens of Maryland County, Cape Palmas, Liberia, July 26, 1860, being the Day of National Independence. By ALEXANDER CRUMMELL. New York. 1861. 3. The Relations and Duties of Free Colored Men in America to Africa. A Letter to Charles B. Dunbar. By ALEXANDER CRUMMELL. Hartford. 1862. 4. Proceedings at the Inauguration of Liberia College, at Monrovia, January 23, 1862. Published by Order of the Legislature of Liberia. The 5. Liberia's Contributions to Letters and Theology. Future of Africa. By REV. ALEXANDER CRUMMELL, Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy in Liberia College. Liberia's Offering, being Addresses and Sermons. By REV. EDWARD W. BLYDEN, Professor of Languages in Liberia College. 2 vols. New York. 1862. It is impossible to read any ordinary account of Africa without having the mind filled with images of sadness, and the heart aroused to a painful sympathy. Such a picture of desolation, ignorance, cruelty, and general degradation, with the thought that the people are our fellow-beings, that their aggregate numbers approach a hundred millions, and that every avenue to their relief seems sealed, — death, in some fearful shape, guarding every portal, is indeed most appalling. Nothing so reproachful to our humanity is to be found on all God's earth. It is as if the ocean the silent highway which brings into happy contact all other lands had in the case of Africa served only to wash away the tie of blood that bears witness to the universal brotherhood of man. We compass Arctic seas and dare the most horrible fate in pitiless wildernesses of ice, to find the bones of one dead man; but it is |