the present day parables and apologues drawn from trees are among the favourite methods of conveying moral lessons, or of insinuating unpleasant truths in the least offensive manner, over many parts of the East. We select two from a considerable number that are mentioned by Mr. Roberts. Does a man in low station wish to unite his son in marriage to the daughter of one who is of higher parentage, an Oriental gossip will say, reporting the fact, "Have you heard that the pumpkin wants to be married to the plantaintree?" Or has a man given his daughter in marriage to one who treats her unkindly, he will say, "I have planted the sugar-cane by the side of the margossa (bitter) tree." We paid a short visit to the Samaritan synagogue. It is a plain oblong building, with three recesses, and is roofed by two domes supported on pillars. Our chief wish was to see the famous MS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which is more precious than the fabled apples of gold to its custodiers. A copy of a rather juvenile appearance was first shown to us, which did not correspond with the descriptions we had read of the original; but a seasonable use of the money argument prevailed in drawing forth the genuine article with its crimson scarf and its other beautiful and costly adornments. We were not allowed to lay our profane fingers on an object so venerable. But the portions we saw appeared dim, blotted, and weather-stained-the explanation probably being that it is that part which is usually shown to visitors, and which is exposed on one of the days of their great annual festivals. We were willing to believe that it was very old; but its claim to an antiquity of between three and four thousand years, and to have been written by Abishua, the grandson of Aaron the high-priest, has no one to credit it except the Samaritans. Every scholar knows how unduly this version was estimated and extolled by learned men for a long period even above the Hebrew original of the books of Moses. But the arguments of Walton did much to reduce the estimate to its proper level; and the laborious investigations of Gesenius have placed the opinion beyond doubt, that with few exceptions it is much less pure than the Masoretic text. There are exceptions, however, of a chronological kind, which have an important bearing on some modern discussions. No one has given the history of the fierce and long-waged controversy on this subject with more candour and clearness than our learned fellow-traveller, Mr. Deutsche. Fuller has written about it with his characteristic quaintness and wit: "For three things, saith Solomon, the earth is disquieted, and the fourth it cannot bear, namely, a handmaid that is heir to her mistress. How much more intolerable then is it when a translation which is, or ought t be, the dutiful servant of the original, shall presume (her mistress being extant and in presence to take the place and precedency of her, as here apographum doth of the autographum, when the Samaritan transcript is by some advanced above the canonical copy in the Hebrew !" The chief points in the faith of the Samaritans, as stated by themselves, are easily enumerated They believe that there is one God, but deny the plurality of persons in the one Godhead, and they have even been accused by some of tampering with passages in the Pentateuch which appear to give pre-intimations of a Trinity. They acce the five books of Moses as their only canonical books. They hold every part of the Levitic law to be still in force, and profess to confor themselves in all things to its ceremonial requirements. They therefore practise circumcision, and keep the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week with most rigid literality. They observe the Passover, the Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles and the Great Day of Atonement, on which day they offer a sacrifice of six lambs on that part of Mount Gerizim where they suppose the altar of their temple to have stood. They expect the advent of the Messiah; but they conceive of hi as a mere man, a lawgiver and a prophet inferio to Moses, and somehow they have come to mingl with this the notion that he will appear whe their numbers have been reduced to seventy. They also believe in the resurrection of the dead, an in a future state of rewards and punishments They have been accused by some of certi idolatrous practices, such as the worship of Venu under the form of a dove; but this is a charg which has never been proved, and probably thos who have made it have mistaken some mysti emblem for an idol. We confess to our having been curious to o tain a glimpse into the domestic life of those Samaritans, and though their customs and traditions were against our admission into their housebold, we succeeded in receiving a welcome, after a good deal of diplomacy. Our physician with his wife found in his profession a charm that threw open all doors to him. Three generations were living under the same roof, and were even gathered into the same apartment, so that it was quite a sample of patriarchal life. The high-priest himself, with his long snowy beard, had a venerable, melancholy look, not without intelligence. His son, the heir-apparent to the high-priesthood, was tall, sharp-featured, and watchful. He wanted the native dignity of his father, and his bare legs and unsandalled feet certainly did not contribute to his venerableness. The high-priest's eldest grandson, a youth of twelve years of age, was the most beautiful lad we ever looked upon. What a noble expanse of brow! How those features had been chiselled with a more than Grecian gracefulness! How the ruddy glow of youth beamed and blushed through that bronzed skin! Such a youth we can imagine David to have been when he first came down from his Bethlehem mountains and stood before Saul. We do not wonder that Holman Hunt has transferred hat boy's features to one of his grandest pictures of the East. Beside this lad of twelve, there tood a young Samaritaness of the same age, who ad already been betrothed to him for years. Let not our reader be offended when we mention Lat the two young creatures were to be married n a few months, for twelve is the statutory age or marrying all over Palestine and Syria. It was striking to find the old Levitical law in all force in this apartment. In one corner the wife of the high-priest's eldest son was separated by a regular fence of stones from all around her. She had become a mother three weeks before, and it required another week to exhaust the prescribed period of her separation. Her infant lay in a little cot outside the fence. It was lifted out and placed in our arms—a very tiny Samaritan. Its little nails were already reddened with henna, and its bright yes were made to look brighter by artificial appliances which had been begun almost from the y of its birth. While we were endeavouring rough El Karey to keep up a conversation with the old high-priest, our physician's wife was quietly occupied in a corner in transferring his features to her drawing-book. When her work was far advanced, one of the elder children, stealing behind her, at once recognized her grandfather's features. This struck an unexpected chord. The second commandment had been broken! "Woe, woe be unto thee!" she exclaimed; "for behold thine image." The drawing-book was abruptly closed. We suspect that in some transactions into which those ecclesiastics sought to drag our learned friend from the British Museum, there was not the same fastidious scrupulosity about some other parts of the decalogue. Those men have often been accused of greed. But we should be tender in judging them. Three generations are dependent on fifty pounds a year, and on such occasional "bucksheesh" as may be given to them by travellers like ourselves. Theirs is the avarice of want, and not of morbid acquisitiveness. When the wolf is often at the door we are in some danger of becoming ourselves wolfish. In the afternoon we climbed to the top of Gerizim, eager to look on the site of the old Samaritan temple. We wound our way up a rich valley gorgeous with a splendidly-varied foliage, and musical with the voice of bright streams, and with the songs of innumerable birds. Patches of corn-fields succeeded as the road grew steeper, and in less than an hour we were on the broad plateau on the summit. The foundations of the old schismatic structure which was destroyed a century and a half before Christ, can still be so distinctly traced as to give us the ground-plan of the whole building. Indeed, there are parts of the walls which at this day are a good many feet above the surface. We were shown the place where the six lambs are slain on the great day of the Passover, and the oven of stone in which their carcasses are roasted whole; indeed, the calcined bones and ashes of last year's sacrifice lay in a little heap before us. To those travellers who have been so fortunate as to be present at the Samaritan Passover, the spectacle must have gratified a sentiment much deeper than that of mere curiosity. It must have given a clear and accurate impression of the sacrifices of the old Jewish ritual. The slaying of the lambs at sunset, the touching of the worshippers on the forehead with us was, 66 their warm blood, the roasting of the entire bodies, | century will probably see this ecclesiastical Dudo the subsequent feast, until everything was con- in its sepulchre. sumed; and all this in haste, with their loins girt, and with staves in their hands,— -were a vivid reenacting of the far and remote past. What a conspicuous object the Samaritan temple must have been when it shone from the lofty summit of this mountain! To the travellers coming north from Bethel, to the dwellers on the far-stretching plain of Muckhna, to watchers looking down from the hills of Ephraim, and from the more northerly mountains of Samaria, it must have been an object of mighty fascination. The view from this commanding summit was glorious. We could see across the Jordan to the mountain walls of Gilead in the far east; we could look down into many a valley, and upon many a village embosomed in its gardens of olive; we could see shepherds tending their flocks as they may have done in Jacob's days; and now and then, far-off Hermon would look through his veil of clouds and show us his sparkling diadem of snow. How soon will this Samaritan Church, on whose fading glories we were now treading, be a mere thing of history! It will not be absorbed into another and purer faith, but it will dry up and die out. With a wondrous tenacity of life, it clings to its ancient birth-place as its last refuge; but another By five o'clock on the following morning we were roused by one of our Arab servants. The poor lad had a very scanty stock of English vo cables, and having put himself under the training of other servants who knew better, they some times played upon his simplicity by giving him wrong words. His regular morning salutation to Good afternoon, my dears," an achieve ment in our language of which he was evidently proud; and we did not disturb his self-complacency. It is necessary to obey the morning summons promptly, and to avoid all folding of the arms to rest; for those unceremonious fellows very soon begin to take down your tents, and if you do not rise at once, you will have to make your toilet in the open air. An exciting hour follows: the rapidly-snatched breakfast; the packing of portmanteaus and boxes; the loading of mules with monstrous unwieldy bags, tent poles, cooking utensils, and provisions; loud eri for lost things; the scolding of servants; th howls of stricken Arabs, and the mounting restive steeds. But a little after six we were i motion northward. We had a long ride bet us; for that night we were to sleep in Naz reth. SCRIPTURE AND NATURE.* HIS is a remarkable, instructive, and suggestive book. As a whole, the logical arrangement is defective; this defect, as a matter of course, involves frequent repetitions. But from the nature of the subject, and the manner in which it is treated, the reader does not lose much by being led a second time over the same ground. author combines a devout belief and love of the Scriptures, with an enthusiastic admiration of Nature. He finds God both in his Word and in his work, and luxuriates in tracing the same truths on both these parallel lines. The The specific analogies on which he seizes are the horticultural processes of engrafting and budding: and the spiritual lessons are given with ingenuity and boldness, accompanied by a never-failing reverence of the inspired From "Scripture and Nature (Two Immutable Things) Testifying to Christ; or, The Analogy between Horticulture and Divine Human-Culture, Interpreting the Highest Spiritual Truths. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Word. The discussion throws new and interest light on several texts of Scripture. The author refe approvingly to two papers in this journal in the year 1866 on "Make the Tree Good," which he had not see till his own work was completed, and which bring very articulately the same analogies. The last extract-about the form of the cross in t ding-we give as an example of the author's simple naïve originality. He is careful to make nothing mo of it than a "singular coincidence ;" and if we escl superstitious views, the observation of the fact is most interesting. To those who, by experience of betculture, are capable of appreciating the circumstances they are arresting and even startling. This preser writer has often performed the operation: if it sho be his fortune to perform it again, the dying of the Lar Jesus will certainly, in point of fact, be vividly present. to his mind in the act. As he binds the bud of a bette tree, the new creature, on the miniature cross, and waits for a consequent regeneration, he will, through help f the suggestion in this book, hear a still, small voice issuing from the secret chambers of Nature and whispering, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”—Ed. L-ANALOGY BETWEEN ENGRAFTING AND THAT particular anomaly of Nature in the practice of horticulture, to which attention is now invited—namely, the grafting of trees, is an operation or process very common to the gardener, and well known to all who take an interest in the culture of fruits and flowers. And the Scriptures make use of the term and its action to illustrate the action of the grace of God-divine grace-by some one, briefly but accurately defined in its twofold action as "the good will of God towards us, and (equally necessary) the good work of God within ;" its objective and subjective action. In two instances only, however, do we find the operation of grafting, its action and results, made use of by the divine writers in express terms; yet in other passages they are strongly implied, and many also are found to be in exact harmony therewith. If, however, these two direct instances had been absent, the illustration and the argument they suggest would remain of undiminished value. The genius of the gospel sustains the idea. The Apostle James, in that laconic and almost only allusion in express terms to this abnormal fact, speaks of the communication of divine grace as "the ingrafted Word, which is able to save our souls." And the Apostle Panl, in his argument on the Jewish and Gentile Church (Rom. ii. 24), found the then novel process of grafting to suit his purpose as an illustration, but it so happens that he employed it in a sense "contrary to nature," as he admits the reverse of the natural grafting, in which the good scion communicates its efficacy to the wild stock. In his argument the good stock imparts its virtue to the wild branches, which by the divine power were "graffed" into it. This only direct mention of this process by St. Paul will, in one instance only, be again referred to; but his very suggestive indirect statements and allusions in several of his epistles, especially in that to the Romans, will be abundantly quoted as exhibiting by implication the following version of the emblematic gospel of Nature, and as thereby endorsing it. In horticulture, grafting is the non-natural, but beyond estimation, productive and beautiful method of inserting a small branch or scion of one tree into the grown-up stock of another, so that the scion may receive nourishment from the stock; and being so nourished, it produces an entirely new tree, like the superior one from which the scion was taken, and the joint union of the non-natural branch so inserted becomes by growth as firm and compact as a natural branch. The use of grafting is to propagate any curious or excellent sorts of fruits, so as to be sure of their kinds. When grafts or buds are taken from such trees as bear good fruit, no alteration or failure need be apprehended. (See Rom. iv. 16.) Another method of grafting, technically called "budding" (or inoculation), more minute and delicate than the former, is the inserting of a "bud" of one tree within the bark of another. The result of both methods is the same in trees, fruits, roses, and others. Few persons are ignorant of the difference in taste, quality, and size, between the acrid, sour crab-apple and some of the choice kinds of apples so universally enjoyed; though many persons may not be aware of the fact that the crab-tree is made, by the process of grafting, to discontinue bearing crabs, and ever after to produce only one or other of the many kinds of this favourite fruit. Exactly the same remarks are true in relation to our most beautiful specimens of the justlyadmired rose as the result of budding on the wild brier. The operation of grafting in general is assumed to be a close representation of the principle or doctrine of spiritual regeneration. And the grafted crab-tree and the budded brier are introduced as graphic types illustrating the potent action of this great doctrine, with its attendant circumstances and results. That the value of this natural representative of spiritual things may be the more obvious and its truthfulness the more apparent, the question may be premised-Has God, in any other of his creatures, animal or vegetable, given any other similar sign or equal emblem of this fundamental spiritual truth? We venture to think that he has not. And what adds to its assumed value is this, that it not only harmonizes thoroughly with the inspired teaching in general, in regard to man's recovery by grace, the specific design being, as in the tree so in the man, to renew the individual nature, and permanently elevate the character-it is also so essentially one in kind with that only one other physiological example recorded in the Scriptures of a somewhat kindred change, selected by our Lord and also by St. Paul-that of the seed-corn before alluded to. These are "two immutable things," two witnessing emblems in Nature, of twin doctrines in grace, upon which depend the glorious hopes of the universal Church. In pursuing this analogy of the action of natural grafting, the God of grace will be seen receiving, as it were, witness from himself, the God of Nature. Because he could appeal to no other, he appeals to himself—to his own instance of a superinduced anomalous work in another province of his domain; selecting trees, at the head of the vegetable kingdom, to instruct his far nobler creature Man, at the head of the animal kingdom; and by his renovating treatment of degenerate trees under human instrumentality, showing his own corresponding method of regenerating and recovering to himself fallen degenerate men. And assuredly we are not presumptuous in saying, How like God it is, that when he would enlighten his people on any of the mysteries of his kingdom by his works in Nature, the emblem employed is never some far-fetched prodigy discovered in some remote cavern, nor some curious exotic found growing only in the torrid or frigid zone, where few persons comparatively could profit by the illustration, its process and results; but like the freeness of the gospel dispensation and the plentifulness of our Bible supply, we enjoy the sight of the symbols continually around us. We may therefore well and wisely feel cautioned by the rebuke akin to that of our Lord's to the Jews, "Ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; how is it that you do not discern" this significant symbol? "The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way" into the kingdom of God is by regeneration. The budded standard rose-tree, having a complex nature and other typical peculiarities, is selected for the illustration proposed, with occasional allusions to the apple-tree, and to grafting in general. "Who hath despised the day of small things?" Numerous are the scriptural similitudes to indicate the radical change necessary to salvation, such as the gift of a new heart and right spirit, the law written in the heart, passing from death unto life, from darkness into marvellous light; but none would appear so thoroughly to take up the purpose and consecutive appliances of divine grace in the sinner's conversion and complete redemption as that of our blessed Lord, "Make the tree good," and corroborated by that of the inspired James, already quoted, The Word of God engrafted, the Word of omnipotent, life-giving, quickening grace, "able to save our souls." And this remark is sustained by the fact that this figure in botany includes the impregnation of the essential qualities of the engrafted bud or scion, and the argument rests on the principle that like causes produce like effects. The proposition we are aiming to demonstrate is, that in the Christian experience, true scriptural faith, embracing Christ, the sinner's friend (the result of, or simultaneous with, the new birth), is pre-eminently exemplified by the efficacious action of the transforming graft in horticulture; its true analogue, the origin, the process, the result obviously corresponding, as may be seen and tested by references to Scripture in general, but especially to the latter portions of revealed truth in the epistles of Paul, James, Peter, John, and to the Hebrews, with our Lord's own profound sayings to the same effect. The painstaking care bestowed on the budded rosetree by the florist, and the gracious work of the Holy Spirit upon or within regenerated man, present throughout the whole process in each case a parallel quite remarkable, and to the attentive observer a profitable study richly suggestive. Let both subjects be looked at, first, in their natural and low estate, and afterwards in their changed condition, renewed and beautified; they will show, in the one case, the wild, unsightly, mischievous brier transformed into the queen of flowers -the fragrant, brilliant rose; and in the other, the mystery of "the life of God in the soul of man," making him "a new creature in Christ Jesus." II. THE ANALOGY AS PRESENTED IN SCRIPTURE It is proposed to carry out this inquiry by the ail particulars to be ascertained by induction from the analogies of Nature-human and vegetable-and from the tenor and statements of the written Word; these are assumed to elucidate, corroborate, and fortify each other. The following texts, and many others, assert or imply the relationships under consideration: John iii. 3.-" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kinglond God." 1 Peter i. 23.-"Being born again; not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, who liveth and abideth for ever." 1 Peter ii. 2, 3.—“As newborn babes, desire the s cere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1 Peter i. 3.-"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope." James i. 18.-"Of his own will begat he us with t Word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-frus of his creatures." James i. 21.-"Receive with meekness the inger Word, which is able to save your souls." John i. 12, 13.-"As many as received him, to the gave he power to become the sons of God, even to th which believe on his name. Who were born, not of the will of man, but of God." Rom. viii. 14, 16, 17, 19.-" As many as are lely the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. The Spit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are l'a children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs God, and joint-heirs with Christ. The earnest expes tation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation the sons of God." 1 John iii. 1, 2.-"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be calle the sons of God. Beloved, now are we the sons of God. Gal. iii. 26, 29.-"Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then ar ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal iv. 6, 7.-" Because ye are sons, God hath sen forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God thro Christ." "Make the tree good." The germinating text from the Apostle James has been repeatedly quoted-“R ceive with meekness the ingrafted Word which is a to save your souls." Without going into critical inquiry whether "the Word" here used is of precisely the san import as "the Word" found in the first verse of |