tion was attracted by a number of black tents, altogether unlike the tents of Bedouins. These proved to belong to none other than to a band of gypsies. Their language was found to be so like the Indian dialects, that Dr Wilson and Dhanjibhai carried on conversation with them, both here and afterwards at the lake of Galilee, and then in Hungary. This has led the Doctor to suggest; "Who knows but ere long we may send from India a native as a missionary to the many thousands of them who are to be found in the east of Europe?" P. 770. They are numerous on Lebanon; but the most interesting interview with them took place at Majdel, the ancient Magdala, at the side of the lake of Galilee.

"Near Majdel we observed a number of tents made of dried reeds, unlike any thing we had seen elsewhere in the country. We dismounted at them, and entered into conversation with some of their inmates, or rather owners, for they were working in the plots of ground contiguous to them. We found that they were gypsies, and on my addressing them in one or two of the dialects of the north-west of India, they declared to me, through the same media, that I was one of their brethren. When I answered them in the negative, they cast their eyes on Dhanjibhái, and said, 'Then he is a Nawar.' They set us down at once as friends, and called to their companions at a little distance to join our company. We sat with them for half an hour, the greater part of which I spent in writing down a list of some of their words. These, with others which I acquired elsewhere, I give in another part of this work. The Indian scholar will at once admit that the gypsies must have originally come from the banks of the Indus. When we told them that their language is still there current, and that their ancestors must have come from that locality, they gave us implicit credit, though they had no distinct traditions of the fact. In the valley of Genesareth they have been settled for years, though hitherto they have not been brought to notice, or observed by any travellers in these parts They act as tinkers and musicians, having some rude instruments of their own, as well as cultivators. They also make fans and large wooden needles for sale. They say that there are many persons of their kin in Syria, but only forty or fifty near Tiberias. They are all Muhammadans." Pp. 306, 307.

At Tiberias, the Jew Hayim, and his wife Rachel, received them most hospitably, bringing out their plate in honour of the travellers. But as if to give an instance before their eyes of poor Israel's oppression in their own land, a Moslem who passed the house seeing the plate, deliberately walked in, and helped himself to a silver salt-celler, and absconded. All this was done in open day, and in presence of the guests, yet no justice could be obtained from the Aga. This case, however, was nothing compared with one that had occurred a few days before at Nablus. There a Moslem dervish came to buy tobacco from a Jewish lad. The lad, naturally enough, asked the money before he delivered the tobac

co; but the dervish would insist on his opening his hand and taking it without counting. Another Jew who stood by, said, "why do you mock the lad?" The dervish replied, "I shall show you that," and forthwith went off, brought a Turkish soldier, and directed him to fire a double-barrelled pistol at the heart of the young Jew as he was rising to go home. Death followed soon after; and yet there was no likelihood of any justice being done to the criminal. All the Jews there were thrown into great terror by the event. How truly still is it said of poor Israel, "Thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled ever more, and no man shall save thee.... The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only op pressed and crushed alway, so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of their eyes which thou shalt see. The Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee." Deut. xxviii.

There is a note at p. 270, where Dr W. speaks of the baptized Jews in connexion with the London Society, which, we think, deserves attention. The note runs thus:

"We were almost sorry to notice a change made on the names of the converts, on occasions of their baptism. Eliezer was transmogrified into Christian Lazarus, and among the others we got a Paul and a Simon Peter."

Such a change of name is decidedly wrong. We observe in the Missionary Record of our Church, that our own missionaries in Jassy have been practising this custom. It is altogether unauthorised by Scripture, and is fitted to give improper views of the ordinance. "Besides," says Dr W., "it is felt by the unconverted Jews to be an insult." It is evident from Romans xvi. that the early converts retained their original names, even when they were derived from those of heathen gods."

We cannot undertake to give our readers any proper idea of the accumulated mass of valuable matter contained in the "General Researches." We have interesting notices of the Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Nestorian or Chaldean, Coptic, Abyssinian churches. The story of the two youthful converts from Abyssinia, familiar to the readers of our Missionary Record, is given at full length here. There is next information as to the Papal churches, the Greek Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Maronite, and the like. A considerable space is devoted to the Jews, both in their own land and in the regions near it; and some interesting matter regarding the Samaritans. Mahometans are not forgotten; the state of the Bedouins and the Druses are points of great interest. Last of all we have Idumea and its ancient inhabitants, and then the Joktanites and Hemyarites. There is a valuable list of the ancient sites of cities in Palestine that have been identified; among which

we find-Argob, now Rajeb; Edrei, now Edhraa; Eleale, now El-Al; Golan, now Jaulan; Hamoth, now Hamah; Mahanaim, now Mahanah; Riblah, still bearing that name; Thebez, now Tubas; Zedad, now Sadad; Ziph, now Zif, and Zuph, now Suba. These are merely specimens of the somewhat rare names.

But we must now take leave of these volumes, replete with facts and important observations, and always interesting even where the style is somewhat clumsy. We cannot conclude, however, without noticing the dedication of the work to Dr Chalmers, connected as it is with the last days of that patriarchal man. As the author was proceeding southward, it so happened that Dr Chalmers and he met at Alnwick. The one was going north, the other south; but while horses were changing, they saluted each other, as travellers might have done in the desert. Dr Chalmers, during the few minutes' interview, heartily thanked the author for having dedicated to him "The Lands of the Bible"-which had been done under the impulse of that "admiration and affection" which every one that knew that man of God could not fail to feel. They soon parted. The day was brilliant, and Dr C. spoke of being "quite charmed with the scenery, seen under an unusually glorious sun." "He is now in the regions of bliss, and before the throne on high. He will dwell for evermore in that city which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."

ART. III.-The Protector: a Vindication. By J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D.D. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. 1847.

HISTORIANS possessing no other than a worldly guage by which to measure the character and objects of Cromwell, have imputed to him towering ambition, and unmitigated selfishness. To gratify these, his imputed ruling passions, he is described as looking out on the temper of the times, marking that of the majority, and adopting it as his own. This hollow adoption of sentiments to gain an end, and profession of principles which his heart repudiated, and his conscience held in light esteem, was hypocrisy. The Protector has been treated for two centuries as a hypocrite. Had the following out of his principles led him to Tyburn, he might have got credit for being an honest man and true. They did lead him to the toilsome life-destroying exertions of the general, and ultimately, to those of the protectorate, and because these include power, therefore he was a hypocrite! So history

has judged, and "history was never guilty of a greater error," says Dr Merle.

That industrious and picturesque historian does not think he can estimate the man, when he has merely listened to his parliamentary harangues, or read his public despatches. He does not judge his general only in siege or camp, or his politician, only in his instructions to his ambassador, or his secretary. No; he penetrates deeper. He pursues him to his retirement. He finds him studying the divine law, and the law of his country; comparing its capabilities, and its genius, and its temper, and state of advancement, with the Scripture rule of liberty, religious and civil. He finds him mourning over its evils and his own. He sees him prostrate on the ground, pleading for himself, his family, and his native land. He searches out the patriot and the Christian in his letters, the most hurried and the simplest, to his sons and daughters; and in his dying prayer for his country, "of which it has been said by way of reproach, that it was the invocation of a mediator between God and his people, rather than that of a poor sinner," Dr Merle discerns "the chief of a great people, supplicating as a dying parent for his children, at the very moment when God is resuming the reins he had placed in his hands, and is calling him to eternity. We cannot forbear wishing that God would give all the rulers of the earth that love of their people, which is stronger than death, and of which the Protector has left us one of the noblest examples recorded in history." (P. 353.)

We fancy we see the generous historian musing over the character of the much-wronged patriot;-noting his indomitable resolution, yet his Christian subjection, his oneness of object, and all the bye-ends with which he is charged; the unjust suppressions of facts, and the equally unjust representations of what are no facts; the misleading of men's minds from age to age, till the indolent, the simple, and the partizan have adopted the idea, that instead of the benefactor of England, Cromwell was its betrayerand instead of a single-hearted, earnest man, that he was full of all deceit and treachery. We think we see Merle d'Aubigne, thus musing till his generous indignation burst forth, and flowed from his pen in eloquent and convincing testimony to the wrong done, not to the Protector alone, but to historical truth, and to the cause of religious and civil liberty in the civilized world. The object of the Vindication is to prove that Cromwell had ruling passions, but those the very reverse of selfishness and ambition, religious liberty, the greatness of England, and the prosperity of Protestantism. These three ruling passions, in fact, form but one, though they are acted out on different plat

forms. For, if England were possessed of liberty, both civil and religious, how could she fail to be great, and also how could Popery be in the ascendant? Liberty of mind, liberty of action, liberty of feeling are the results of enlightened Christianity. All these does Popery crush and trample down. Well did that noble soul discern that the measures of the king, and of his Popish queen, tended to Romish thraldom. Cromwell had died farming his own estate in the distant country, and brewing his ale far from the stir of men and collision of party, had he not been roused to observation, and called into action first by Laud's shameless persecution of the Puritans, and next by the no less shameless treachery of King Charles. Strange it is, that the word hypocrisy should never be applied to the king, in the midst of all his smooth words, and cruel deeds, and ensnaring promises unblushingly broken, while it has been awarded without reserve to the man whose singleness of purpose, and firmness of resolve, were conspicuous from the hour he was called into public action.

It is no marvel that the friends of the one should be the enemies of the other. Charles's object was to keep the crown, whatever became of the constitution,-Oliver's, to right the sinking constitution, whatever became of the crown. Their aims and objects were entirely opposed, but not more so than their method of approach to what they aimed at. The king, tortuous and slippery; the patriot, downright and blunt. "What are we to expect?" was Oliver's first question in the house of commons. His eye looked far beyond the temporary expedients for gliding along without encountering shipwreck for a few added months, to the gradually rising tide of despotism, about to everwhelm the British constitution. The stealthy encroachments of Popery, to oppose which was to offend the queen, were with him matters of import too solemn to be waived on any ground of courtesy, or etiquette. "What are we to expect?" asked the far-seeing man of his compatriots, and because danger, encroachment, treachery were what he expected, he planted his foot at once to repel and resist the danger. The king,-resolved to reign at any price,publicly professed amity and concession, while he privately dealt with foreign countries to induce them to throw their troops into his own. "Trouble not yourself about my concessions as to Ireland -obey my wife's orders, not mine." His wife, then residing at the French court, and acting under the dominion of the Jesuits! Unhappy king! balancing between treating with the Scotch army, or the English,—trying his weak hand at gaining the leader of the Iron-sides by promised honours, and at the moment writing to his queen, "when the time comes, I shall know very well