natives, who had evidently been in the Sultan's army and knew something of the use of firearms. And this had been the possession and the dwelling-place so long ago of that noble Shunamitish woman who had "dwelt among her own people." Was this the old garden of herself and her husband, attached to that old family mansion in which Elisha, as he passed from time to time along this mountain-path, as we were now doing, had a little chamber prepared for him,-with a bed and a table, a stool and a candlestick,-in which he might enjoy undisturbed opportunity for meditation and prayer? In that corn-field hard by, whose crop was now advancing to ripeness, the Shunamite's Ettle son may have gone out among the reapers and received that sun-stroke by which he died. Through openings among the trees, we had Carmel full in view about ten miles across the plain, where Elisha had his hermitage, and it was easy to imagine the anguished mother seated on her mule crossing the plain to the prophet's mountain-home to seek relief from her terrible sorrow. We know with what sympathizing alacrity the man of God obeyed her summons. She who had so often received the prophet in the name of a prophet, obtained more than a prophet's reward. This village on the mountain-side had once been the scene of a resurrection. Up and further up we climbed those grassy slopes, and rode with growing expectation over those rocky ridges, in search of Nazareth. At length, on our ascending the shoulder of a hill, We saw it at no great distance. There, at the Lead of a flowery glen, hanging on its western side, was the little mountain-town far removed from the busy world, wonderfully retired and silent. The first sight of Nazareth was a sacred moment in our life never to be forgotten. That was the home of our Lord's childhood, youth, and earlier manhood. What a power has gone out from that quiet hamlet, mightiest for good that the world has ever known or can know. “O mystery of mysteries! In that green basin in the hills of Galilee, amid simple circumstances, perhaps in the exercise of a simple calling, dwelt the everlasting Son of God; the varied features of that nature which he himself had made so fair, the permitted media of the impressions of out ward things, his oratory the solitary mountains, his purpose the salvation of our race, his will the will of God." We rode through the whole length of the town along its narrow tortuous streets, and pitched our tents a little way to the north of it, in a shady grove of olives, with a Christian cemetery on the one side, and "Mary's well" pouring out three full streams of water, not far from us, on the other. As there were some hours yet before sunset, we no sooner got rid of our horses, than we were back again in Nazareth. The population is estimated at 4000. Of these, only a few hundreds are Mohammedans: the rest are principally Christians of the Latin and Greek Churches, with about 400 Maronites and 100 Protestants. There are no Jews. The usual good influence even of corrupt forms of Christianity is seen in the superior character of the houses-which are all built of stone-in the bustle and variety of the bazaars and shops, in the dress of the women, and in the general look of independence and industry among the people. There is, of course, a large convent belonging to each of the two great Eastern communions, a Maronite chapel, and a small unpretentious mosque. We were shown the place where the synagogue had stood in which our Lord preached on that memorable occasion recorded in Luke's Gospel, the workshop in which he laboured as a carpenter with his reputed father, the table at which he was accustomed to eat with his twelve disciples, and other spots that have associated with them equally clumsy and unlikely traditions. But we soon became weary of this, and preferred to look on the unchanged face of nature on which He had looked, and to wander among the flowers which had been pressed by his blessed feet. There was the wild thyme, and the stately holyhock, and many a rock plant and meadow flower unknown in the flora of the Western world. Is there irreverence in conjecturing what may have been the solitary walks of Jesus around Nazareth, and what may have been the posts of observation from which he looked forth upon remoter scenes? We think not; though it is very possible to carry this kind of speculation to an irreverent extent. There is one eminence behind Nazareth to which Dr. Robinson first called at tention, which rises far above all the neighbouring hills, and commands one of the most extensive views in Palestine. Is it reasonable to doubt that Jesus must often have stood and gazed from that rocky summit? To the west the blue line of the Mediterranean is distinctly visible. Turning the eye slowly eastward, the plain of Esdraelon seems to spread its green carpet at our feet; behind it are the wooded ridges of Carmel, the rocky mountains of Ephraim, and the far-off blue Judean hills. Further east, Gilboa lifts his dusky brow, and far beyond the Jordan stream, where the rays of the western sun are falling, are the hills of Gilead and the grand Hauran mountains. In the midst of yon circle of grassy hills sleeps the Sea of Galilee; that town which sparkles like a crown far up upon the brow of a hill is Safed; and, behind all, the snowy Hermon looks down from his throne of clouds, as if he were the giant guardian of "thy beautiful land, O Emmanuel." of those instances in which his look disarmed his enemies, and he passed away through the midst of them unharmed? In front of this Maronite Church, and looking up on the "Mount of precipitation," there is one of the most interesting places in Nazareth. It is the little dispensary and hospital of Mr. Varten, a medical missionary, who was sent out and is mainly supported by the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society. This admirable labourer dispenses medicines and gives medical advice and surgical treatment during certain hours each day; while more severe and difficult cases are treated in the hospital. It is a neat, fastidiously clean, and well-aired house, with admirable contrivances for protecting the patients from noise, and from the glaring rays of the sun. One could easily read contentment and gratitude on the countenances of the patients, who had learned to value humane and intelligent treatment. Mr. Varten visits on horseback the villages around Nazareth, within a radius of fifteen or twenty miles; and besides the directly beneficent effects of his healing art, he has done much to strengthen the hands of Mr. Zeller and those other Christian missionaries who have Nazareth as their centre, and to associate Protestant Christianity in the minds of the people with superior skill and benevolent power. That little hospital, with millions of other institutions for the temporal good of men that are scattered over the earth, would never have existed but for Him who was called " a Nazarene," and condescended 1800 years ago to make this Nazareth his home. Early on the following morning we set off, with Mr. Varten as our companion, on an excursion to Mount Carmel. It was necessary that we should once more cross the Plain of Esdraelon, which was the work of more than three hours, and not without its adventures. needed even more than the careful pilotage of yesterday, lest we should sink with our horses into oozy bogs, from which it might have taken hours to extricate us. Now we came upon storks feeding in fenny places; and at other times we startled large flocks of beautiful gazelles, which fled before us with a nimble and bounding speed that defied all pursuit. We found it no easy matter to cross the Kishon, which flows along near the northern base of Carmel to the sea. There But there are two places in Nazareth itself which we may, surely, with a fair measure of certainty, connect with the presence of Jesus. That fountain near to our tent which is pouring out its three abundant streams into a spacious tank beneath, is the one great public well of Nazareth. Early on the following morning we saw multitudes of women coming to it with their pitchers, carried gracefully on their heads or shoulders, to draw water. There were mothers among them who brought their beautiful little children along with them, to play on the greensward in front of the well, while they rested their full vessels on its margin and talked with one another. Nothing could be more decorous than the conduct of those picturesque groups of maidens and mothers. Must not Mary, the wife of the lowly carpenter, have often come hither to draw water from Nazareth's only fountain; and must she not have often come to it leading by the hand her wondrous child. The other spot is a rocky precipice, between fifty and sixty feet perpendicular, immediately behind the Maronite Church, which is, in all likelihood, the real "Mount of precipitation," over whose brow the infuriated citizens endeavoured to force Jesus, after he had spoken his faithful sermon in the synagogue. Did he effect his deliverance by a miracle? or was it one We was a considerable quantity of water in its channel; | the top of Carmel, Jehovah will search and take and its banks were so precipitous on either side, them out thence." that the problem seemed equally difficult as to how we were to get down into its water, or to get out of it again. But we floundered through somehow, only one of our party being cast into the muddy stream, from which he emerged not improved either in appearance or in temper. As we approached the mountain, it struck us as a strange anachronism to see two telegraphic wires stretching along its side, and, as we afterwards learned, placing Beyrout in communication with Jerusalem. Beginning in a noble promontory that rises 1500 feet from the Mediterranean, into which it may almost be said to project itself, Carmel stretches into the centre of the land in a south-easterly direction, until it links itself on to the less lofty hills of Samaria. Our aim was to come upon it at that point which leads up to the scene of the great contest between the prophet Elijah and the priests of Baal. We had ample opportunity, as we toiled up the mountain, to verify the Biblical descriptions of it as the emblem of fertility and beauty,-"The excellency of Carmel and Sharon shall be given unto thee." At the point where we ascended, it was thickly wooded to its summit,-so much so that our servants, who were following us at no great distance with provisions, lost their way, and were so effectually hidden from us by the trees that we could only let them know where to find us by firing a succession of muskets. And the variety, alike in the flowers and the trees, was wonderful. Not only the evergreen oak, the hawthorn, and other hardy trees, but the fragrant myrtle and the delicate jasmine, and many lowly scented shrubs and beautiful creeping plants, among which we welcomed our old familiar friend the honeysuckle. It was a perfect paradise for botanists. One enthusiastic German naturalist has said that "a botanist might spend a year on Carmel, and every day be adding a new specimen to his collections." We were able, before we left the mountain, to add our testimony to the multitude of natural caverns with which it abounds, and to which it is supposed the prophet Amos alludes when, speaking of the vain attempts of the wicked to escape the knowledge or the punishment of God, he says: "Though they hide themselves in To our mind, Lieutenant Van de Velde has entirely succeeded in identifying "the burnt place" as the scene of Elijah's sublime sacrifice, in which the question was reduced to experiment, "Who is the God?" The scene presents every condition which is required by the minutely graphic narrative in the eighteenth chapter of the Second Book of Kings. First, there is a vast natural amphitheatre, which we may imagine to have been covered with myriads of eager spectators, summoned to the spot by the authority of Ahab. Then a platform rises a few feet high towards the centre, on which we may suppose Elijah to have reared his altar, and around which he drew the trenches which were afterwards to be filled with water. About two hundred and fifty feet lower down, there is a large and deep fountain arched over by an overhanging rock, and further screened from the sun's rays by the thick foliage of an ancient oak. From this the water could easily be brought in barrels of convenient size, and poured into the trenches and upon the altar and the dripping sacrifice. The climax of the scene arrives when, after the frantic Baal priests have for hours invoked their god in vain, the calm and solitary Elijah, stepping forward and confronting them, prays for the divine signal of acceptance, and the moment afterwards the awestricken thousands, with expectation strained to the utmost, behold the flame descending from the blue heaven and consuming at once the sacrifice and the altar. The Kishon flows at the foot of the mountain, and there, on a green mound, whose margin is washed by the stream, and whose traditional name is "the hill of the priests," those ministers of idolatry who had misled the people, are slaughtered, their blood in a few hours to crimson the Kishon, when, after the coming rain, it rolls again in full current to the sea. After this awful tragedy on the river's brink, Elijah ascends again to the scene of his great triumph, and Ahab with him, probably to join in the accustomed feast after the sacrifice. And now the prophet who had brought down fire from heaven by his prayer, pleads for rain to revive the long weary and parched land, and his servant is sent up to a loftier eminence from which the Medi terranean-the quarter from which the rains of Palestine come can be seen, with directions to report the earliest sign of the coming blessing. We found, on ascending to a higher point that rose a little to the west of the place of sacrifice, that the Mediterranean came into view in five minutes, so that it would not be long until the seventh report told of "the little cloud no bigger than a man's hand" that was rising from the sea. Elijah knows the sign well; and as Ahab's chariot stands waiting down at the base of Carmel, the prophet's servant now bears to him the urgent request to make haste along the plain to Jezreel, whose site we could dimly descry from "the burnt place." But why does the prophet descend the mountain also, and run all the way beside the king's bounding chariot, until it enters the palace gate? The action which many, not understand ing, have wondered at as lowering the prophet's dignity, was a most touching revelation of his zeal for the Lord God of hosts. He, no doubt, expected that, after such a direct testimony from heaven, there would be an immediate renunciation on the part of Ahab and all his court of the worship of idols, and a restored allegiance to the true God. The terrible disappointment of the morrow, when a price was set on his head, drove him into despondency, his life seemed a failure, he only was left, and he fled into the distant wilderness and wished to die. When we rode through Nazareth to our tents among the olives, four hours after our leaving Carmel, the sun was disappearing behind the highest ridge of the mountain, and the muezzincry from the top of the little mosque was calling the few Mohammedans in Nazareth to prayer. BASLE AND ITS "JAHRES FEST." [The Editor is happy in being able to present to the reader notes by an eye-witness of the mission festival of Basle, held so lately as the first week of July this year. The Church in that city is a grand outstanding example of the blessed influence exerted by missions on those who send them. The blessing comes back like an echo from the ends of the earth. In visiting the missionary institute of that city some years ago, the Editor was informed by the student who conducted him, that the National Church of Basle is not overrun with Rationalism, as in most of the other Protestant cantons. The good works which the truth produced seem to have been the means of preserving the truth that produced them.] HE old city of Basle must ever be an inter- | esting place, both from its quaint architecture-preserving so much of the character of past centuries-and from its many associations with the celebrated men of Reformation times, when it was often a harbour of refuge for persecuted Christians. But to me it will ever have a special interest, as a place where I received a practical illustration of the great and blessed truth of the true brotherhood in Christ that still exists, in spite of the many divisions and offences that rend his Church. Arriving there as a perfect stranger, without any introductions, my inquiries with regard to the great annual week of meetings of religious societies in Basle were the occasion of my being received, not as a stranger, but a sister in Christ. At the office of the Mission House (where many students are trained for work in mission fields in all parts of the world) the names of those strangers who desire to attend the meetings are received, and also the names of those inhabitants of Basle who are willing to receive these strangers, and show them a free hospitality. My name was thus received, and I was welcomed by those who, though I had never seen them before, I may now ever count as dear friends in Christ. The series of meetings continues for eight days, and they are in many respects very different from anything I had before seen, either connected with the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, or the great Exeter Hall meetings of London. Things seemed altogether on a more simple and natural footing. What at once struck me was the very large proportion of the lower classes in those meetings, the absence of whom from our week-day missionary meetings is so conspicuous. Nor were they only the lower classes of the town of Basle. The peasant costumes of the Continent are so marked in their diversity, that I could at once trace whence many of the people came, and was amazed to find what distances some of them must have travelled. In the house where I was so kindly entertained, besides other guests, were two peasant women, who, for love of the work of the Lord, and from desire to hear of the spread of his gospel, had come a whole day's journey from their quiet Swabian village. Wurtemburg was well represented in the meetings. Many a man dressed in short-waisted, long-tailed coat, waistcoat ornamentel with large silver buttons, breeches, and long boots, and many a woman bonnetless, and with long tail of plaited hair and ribbon (that reminded me of Chinamen), showed by their face of keen interest that the cause of missions has taken a deep hold on the country population of that land. Then there were also to be seen many of the curious head-dresses of Baden, huge black bows of ribbon standing out at least a quarter of a yard on each side of the head. The picturesque costume of Canton Berne was not wanting, and the curious stiff caps which I can recollect as a child often seeing on the heads of the "Buy a broom" women. I know not to what land they belong, or why they now hardly ever are seen in Scotland. Another thing that appeared new and extraordinary to me, was the remarkably intelligent interest displayed by these peasants. They were evidently all educated, and compulsory education is evidently a useful thing. These peasant men and women did not gape wonderingly at what they heard, or sleep through the speeches; a very large proportion of them were prepared with note-book and pencil to write down what particularly struck them. Amidst these peasant costumes were seen many of the white caps worn by the deaconesses of the various institutions, daughters of Kaiserwerth. Some that I knew of were there from Stuttgart, and other distant places, employing the time they were having for refreshment after hard work, in Christian intercourse, and in learning more of what the Lord honours weak men to do in his service. The first meeting of the series was held on Sunday evening, June 30th, in the garden of Herr Christian, the well-known friend of missions and all good works. There, after we had been kindly welcomed, and partaken of refreshments, handed round by members of the family as well as servants, we sat on benches under the trees, while several short and stirring addresses were given by Herr Christian and others; and a hymn written for the occasion was sung, read out line by line, as is often done among us, but sung as I never heard hymn sung among us-all singing, and all taking the parts that suited their voices. The birds in the trees seemed roused to do their best also, and joined their notes to swell the anthem of praise arising from God's intelligent creatures. One especial subject then, as well as at other times dwelt on, was the humiliating confession of the lack of men ready to come forward "to the help of the Lord against the mighty" powers of superstition and unbelief both at home and abroad. This want was at once traced to its true source, the lack of lively devotedness among Christians. Christian parents were especially addressed on the subject. Their sinful eagerness after the good things of this life, both for themselves and their children, was set before them in all plainness of speech, yet lovingly and humbly, as by one who felt his own shortcomings. It was shown how all, seeking their own, not the things of Christ, they-instead of recognizing the fact that the very highest vocation their children could have would be to serve the Lord, whether at home or abroad, not only in a godly life, but in a life given up to spreading the gospel-sought to give them the professions where they could gain the most money, or reputation, and distinction in the world. And then the children, seeing the parents so set on having them high in this world, all too readily followed as they were led, parents and children together forgetting our Lord's words, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" It was a very home-speaking, stirring address, and I could only earnestly desire that all Christian parents in my own land would lay the same subject to heart. It is vain to pray the prayer taught us by our Lord, that the Lord of the harvest would send forth labourers into his harvest, if we are unwilling either to work ourselves, or to let others over whom we have control or influence go forth to work wherever the Lord may call them. Surely the prayer can only come appropriately from those who, like the disciples, to whom the charge to utter it was given, are themselves seeking to do the Lord's work, and to lead all about them to Christ and his service. I rather think I was the only representative of Scotland in Herr Christian's garden. One Englishman I know was there, a clergyman, who, though utterly ignorant of German, came to be present in the assembly of God's people, and by the kindness of the gentleman in whose house I lived, was able to understand much of what was said; for Herr K., standing by him, interpreted the speeches as they went on. Monday evening, the regular greeting of the mission guests took place. The Basle Bible Society, as the senior religious society of the city, takes this duty on it. In a crowded meeting, an address of welcome was given, followed by many short addresses from gentlemen from: different countries, telling of the good done by Bible-distribution in the various parts of the world from which they came. Among others, one of the Herschells, of London, gave interesting details of the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and a gentleman from Russia made a strong appeal for his land, that it should not be forgotten in the efforts for spreading God's Word. All were listened to with the deepest attention. There was nosound of applause, it seems a thing unknown in these meetings; but the vigorous use of pencil and note-book showed when some fact of special interest touched the hearts of the listeners. Sometimes the interest was too deep for note-taking. Overflowing eyes could not see to write. I noticed an instance of that tearful interest especially at the meeting of the Jewish Missionary Society, when one of the speakers told, in simple words, of the conversion of a Jewish rabbi; and of how, at the baptism of the rabbi and several of his family, a poor old woman came forward, and, looking in his face, said, "Ah, I have prayed for your conversion for eighteen years; and now God has given you to me." And then the speaker turned round and asked if any of us had ever prayed thus for any soul. That inquiry seemed to go to many a heart. Each day brought two, sometimes three, meetings in the various large churches, which were crammed to over |