their eyes; there shall be no fear or sorrow, no mourning or death; a friend shall never go away from thence, and an enemy shall never enter; there shall be fulness without want, light eternal, brighter than the sun, day and no night, joy and no weeping, difference in degree and yet all full; there is love without dissimulation, excellency without envy, multitudes without confusion, music without discord; there the understandings are rich, the will is satisfied, the affections are all joy, and they shall reign with God and Christ for ever and ever. Amen.

This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURES.

"THE house in which I am at present living gives what seemed to me a correct idea of the scene of Eutychus's falling from the upper loft while St. Paul was preaching.-Acts xx. 6-12. According to our idea of houses the scene is very far from intelligible; and besides this the circumstance of preaching generally leaves on the minds of cursory readers the notion of a church. To describe this house, which is not many miles distant from the Troad, and perhaps, from the unchanging character of oriental customs, nearly resembles the houses then built, will fully illustrate the narrative. On entering my host's door, we find the first floor entirely used as a store; it is filled with large barrels of oil, the produce of the rich country for many miles round: this space so far from being habitable, is sometimes so dirty with the dripping of the oil, that it is difficult to pick out a clean footing from the door to the first step of the staircase. On ascending we find the first floor, consisting of an humble suite of rooms, not very high; these are occupied by the family for their daily use. It is on the next story that all their expense is lavished; here my courteous host had appointed my lodgings: beautiful curtains and mats, and cushions to the divan, display the respect with which they mean to receive their guest. Here, likewise, their splendour, being at the top of the house, is enjoyed by the poor Greeks with more retirement, and less chance of molestation from the intrusion of the Turks; here, when the professors of the college waited upon me to pay their respects, they were received in ceremony and sat at the window. The room is both higher and also larger than those below; it has two projecting windows, and the whole floor is so much extended in front beyond the lower part of the building, that the projecting

windows considerably overhang the street. In such an upper room, secluded, spacious, and commodious, St. Paul was invited to preach his parting discourse. The divan, or raised seat, with mats or cushions, encircles the interior of each projecting window; and I have remarked that, when the company is numerons, they sometimes place large cushions behind the company seated on the divan; so that a second tier of company, with their feet upon the seat of the divan, are sitting behind higher than the front row. Eutychus thus sitting, would be on a level with the open window; and, being overcome with sleep, he would easily fall out from the third loft of the house into the street, and be almost certain from such a height to lose his life. Thither St. Paul went down, and comforted the alarmed company by bringing up Eutychus alive. It is noted that there were many lights in the upper-chamber. The very great plenty of oil in this neighbourhood, would enable them to afford many lamps; the heat of these and so much company, would cause the drowsiness of Eutychus at that late hour; and be the occasion likewise of the windows being open. Jowett's Christian Researches in the Mediterranean.

"In Persia, slaves often become favourite and confidential servants; and their children, from being born in the house, are considered in a light hardly less respectable than the relations of the family. They are denominated Khanahzad, or houseborn slaves." This recalls the passage in Gen. xiv. 14.—“His trained servants, born in his own house." Malcolm's History of

Persia.

"April the 9th, we were all called up, and acquainted that the walls were assaulted and scaled in five different places, though it was so exceedingly dark, that neither moon nor star was to be seen; yet the agent, and all the gentlemen of the factory (excepting a young gentleman, who was so obliging as to stay for me,) rose immediately, and made the best of their way for the creetu's mouth. In our way, the women threw tiles and stones at us from the tops of our houses, though we called to them in Arabic, to forbear, as we were English: they answered "we lied," for that we were Agema (Persians) in English dress; but as it was so very dark, that we could not see each other at four yards distance, we were obliged to run the gauntlet, and were so lucky as to escape without being knocked on the head, although we received many blows on the arms and shoulders, which left their marks for some days." This illustrates that passage of Judges, ix. 53.—" And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head." Parson's Travels in Asia,

REMARKS ON PEWS AND PEWHOLDERS.

No one can be at all conversant with parochial matters, without being painfully aware that Pews are a never-ending, still-beginning subject of animosity and ill-will. It seems as if the sin of making worldly distinctions between rich and poor in that House where all are equal, had brought with it its own punishment from the very first, in the strifes and contentions which have invariably attended the allotment and possession of pews. Almost every clergyman, probably, has been called upon to allay angry feelings, and to endeavour to make peace between parties who have contrived to quarrel with one another on some points connected with their pew-rights, real or imaginary;—almost every clergyman, perhaps, has been told by some ill-conditioned member of his flock, that he does not choose to come to Church till the churchwardens have given him a pew.

There seems a reasonable ground, however, for hope, that the tide of fashion which has set in so long and so steadily in favour of these "sleeping-boxes," is at length beginning to turn. Good people have become thoroughly ashamed of them, and of themselves for having tolerated them; all the new Churches which have any pretensions to Catholic arrangement, have got rid of them; and as it generally happens that the steady resolution of a few influential persons constantly directed to one point, is, in the end, successful in carrying that point, we may reasonably expect that when the various church-building societies have shewn their resolution to discourage the system, by withholding grants from all Churches in which the erection of inclosed seats is contemplated, we shall gradually find people disposed to return to open sittings. Meanwhile, there is one circumstance which may well cause the lovers of pews to look with apprehension as to the results of the fashion of which they are so fond. The pews of the wealthy few have driven, in many places, the poor from our churches. One great box after another has been erected till there is no longer room for the humbler ranks of worshippers. And what has been the consequence? The many, now rendered lawless and unmanageable, because no longer under the constraining influence of the Church, are beginning in our large towns, to give the selfish few hints, which it will be their wisdom and their safety to profit by ere it be too late. "It is not a little striking," as Mr. Faber has truly observed in one of his beautiful tracts on the Church and her Officers," it is not a

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little striking that in several places of late, the people have come in bodies to occupy the churches and cathedrals, and assert their equal right to them. This shows that even this trifle has created a soreness, and therefore to a thinking person has ceased to be a trifle.”* What, then, it may be asked, is it proposed to throw our Churches open, like those in foreign countries, and let the congregation seat themselves where and as they can-one day here, and another day there, as chance may direct, or as places may happen to be vacant?" By no means: all that is insisted on is, the necessity of getting rid of distinctions between rich and poor in God's house, and utterly destroying the great unsightly packing-boxes which at present deform our Churches.

There ought to be in every Church a certain number of seats, free and unappropriated, for the use of strangers and casual visitors; but these need not form more than a very small portion of the whole all the rest should be appropriated; every householder in the parish should have a definite place allotted to him, for himself and his family. English people have inherent in them a sort of independence, which coming (rightly or not, I do not say) to Church with them, makes them like to feel sure of a seat again, there is another English feeling, shamefacedness, which ought not to be set at nought, and which we have all seen painfully roused when some young lad or country-woman, on arriving at Church, finds their usual seat pre-occupied; and not to mention other circumstances, there does seem somewhat in the English character and habits which makes appropriated seats desirable. Let all seats, therefore, in our Churches, be appropriated (with the exception of a few for strangers); but let them all be uninclosed,—of one uniform pattern,-those for the poor being as good and as well-placed as those for the rich, and let them be so arranged as that "high and low, rich and poor," shall worship one with another."-Rev. F. E. PAGET.

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HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF IMPORTANT PLACES MENTIONED IN HOLY SCRIPTURE.

CHAPTER III.

ARMAGEDDON. Mentioned in Rev. xvi. 16; otherwise called Megiddo, is a city in the great plain at the foot of Mount Carmel, which has been the scene of much slaughter; under this character it is referred to in the above text, as the place in which God will collect together his enemies for destruction.

* See Faber's "Churchman's Politics in Disturbed Times," p. 44.

ARMENIA. A considerable province of Asia, having Media on the east, Cappadocia on the west, Colchis and Iberia on the north, Mesopotamia on the south, and Euphrates and Syria on the south-west. Care should be taken to distinguish Armenia from Aramea or Syria, with which it has been sometimes confounded. The name Armenia is probably derived from Harminni, the mountanous country of the Minni or Mineans, who are noticed in Jer. ii. 27. In Gen. viii. 4, Moses says that the ark rested on the mountains of Armenia; in the Hebrew text, the mountains of Ararat; and in 2 Kings xix. 37, it is said that the two sons of Sennacherib, after having killed their father, escaped into Armenia; in Hebrew, the land of Ararat.

ASIA. The ancient Hebrews were strangers to the divisions of the earth into parts or quarters; and hence we never find the word Asia in any Hebrew book. It occurs only in the book of Maccabees and the New Testament. ASIA is separated from Europe by the Tanais or Don, the Euxine, Egean, and Mediterranean seas; and the Nile of Egypt divides it from Africa. This part of the globe is regarded as having been the most favoured. Here the first man was created: here the patriarchs lived: here the law was given: here the greatest and most celebrated monarchies were founded; and from hence the first founders of cities and nations in other parts of the world conducted their colonists. In Asia, our blessed Redeemer appeared, wrought salvation for mankind, died and rose sgain; and from hence the light of the Gospel has been diffused over the world. Law, art, science, and religion, all had their origin in Asia. The soil is fruitful, and abounds with all the luxuries as well as the necessaries of life. It was generally divided into Major and Minor.

ASIA MINOR was a large country, (Acts xix. 10.) lying between the Euxine or Black Sea northwards, and the Mediterranean, southwards. It is now called Anatolia, or Natolia. Asia Major denotes all the rest of the Asiatic continent. The provin ces of Asia Minor are Bithynia, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, Mysia, Troas, all of which are mentioned in the New Testament; Lydia, Ionia, and Eolis, which are sometimes included under Lydia, Caria, Doris, and Lycia. Of these, Lydia and Caria, taken in their larger acceptations, the latter including Doris, with Mysia, and Phrygia, including Troas, formed the Roman pro-consular Asia, which has been thought by some to be the same as the scripture Asia. But it is much more reasonably supposed that Mysia, Phrygia, and Troas, are reckoned by the sacred writers as distinct provinces