ful retrogression in matters of faith and testimony; and that there are those amongst us who, like Simeon and Levi of old, would "in their self-will dig down a wall." B. WAS MOUNT HERMON THE SCENE OF THE TRANSFIGURATION. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. SIR,-Will you permit me to call your attention to a turn of phrase in your excellent article, "On some aspects of the Transfiguration," (Christian Observer, February, 1864,) which might lead to a misconception? You refer to two writers, whom I conclude to be Dr. Robinson and Dr. Thomson, as fixing the locality of the Transfiguration "on the high-peaked summit of Mount Hermon." I think it will be found that they scarcely assert so much. Hermon is a mountain above 10,000 feet high, its summit covered in spring and early summer with snow, of which it never loses the visible traces; hence one of its names, Jebel eth Ihelj, "the snowy mountain." Apart, then, from many local obstacles, it would hardly seem probable that our Lord and His apostles passed there even a part of that wondrous night. The most reliable conclusion appears to be, that the event took place upon one of the southern spurs of Hermon, perhaps on the ridge above Bâniâs (Cæsarea Philippi), where the preceding incidents had occurred. The first setting aside of Tabor and its absurd legends for Hermon is, as far as I can discover, due to Lightfoot (Hora Hebraica, in Mark ix. 2), and is fully confirmed by the local investigations of Dr. Robinson and his successors. An interest ing account of the mountain and its ascent is given in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1854, and by the same writer, Mr. Porter, in the Handbook for Syria and Palestine. The interest of the question, although, as you say, "not of vital moment," must be my excuse for trespassing upon you.-Believe me yours very truly, Hawkhurst, Staplehurst; March 29, 1864. J. EUSTACE PRESCOTT. OBITUARY. THE FIFTH EARL OF ABERDEEN. GEORGE John James Hamilton Gordon, son of the late Premier, held his Earldom only three years and three months. He died a few minutes after midnight of Monday, March 21st, aged forty-six years. During the brief period of his Earldom, he resided at Haddo House, the old family mansion in Aberdeenshire; which county he had represented as Lord Haddo for six and a half years before his succession to the peerage in December, 1860. But the last ten years of his life were for the most part a long conflict with the disease which ultimately carried him to the grave. In fact, when he was elected member for his county, in August, 1854, he was at Malvern, under Dr. Gully, for his health; and twice in those six and a half years, in 1854 and in 1860, he visited Egypt and lived on the Nile; the first time with extraordinary benefit, as one rescued from the verge of death. The rest of that period, before his father's death, he spent chiefly at the Ranger's House, Blackheath, a royal residence on the edge of Greenwich Park; which the Queen, on the decease of the Princess Sophia, lent to the Premier for his life. But notwithstanding the influence of a constant and very irritable disease, wherever he was, whether at Blackheath, or in Egypt, or at Haddo House-there he had his family altar morning and evening; there he accepted the religious responsibilities of each new position, and to the utmost of his strength-nay, beyond his strength-strove to fulfil them; and there he left tokens, neither few nor ambiguous, that the life which he lived, "he lived by the faith of the Son of God, who" (he was persuaded) "had loved him, and given Himself for him." To be content to be a pilgrim and stranger upon earth, to be not of the world even as his Lord and Master was not of the world, was his distinct and earnest desire. This desire he had entertained long before his illness; but it received from his illness a fresh and peculiar impulse. From the first, indeed, a natural shyness, and extreme sensitiveness of disposition, discernible from his childhood, mingled their hues and influences in the manifestations of his religion before men, and stood in the way of its being fairly appreciated, or correctly understood. When illness was added to natural shyness, it introduced habits of seclusion, and in some things deviations from the ordinary customs of his high station, for which sufficient allowance was not made by the outer world. Some of those proofs, therefore, of his genuine piety, to which allusion has been made, we trust will be collected and preserved for the benefit of his family and friends, and of the Church at large. The present notice, connected more particularly with his last days, is now given from the belief that its publication will be for the glory of God. Although the Earl of Aberdeen had been so long ill, no appre hension was entertained, even on the morning of the day that he died, that the end was so near. Only a month before, it was observed that now "he did not improve," as he had manifestly improved during the preceding summer; and the non-improvement was attributed in February to the extraordinary severity of the weather; a gale on the 13th of which month had uprooted thousands of trees on his own estate. But about a fortnight later, which was a fortnight before his death, his increasing weakness excited alarm; and the prayers of friends were asked, unknown to himself, that the unfavourable symptoms might be removed, if it were in accordance with the will of God; and that his illness might be blessed to him and all his family. Meanwhile, notwithstanding his extreme attenuation, he continued to conduct family prayers morning and evening to the Tuesday evening before his death, when he said, that even being wheeled along the corridor in the chair, which had been done for two or three previous days, was too much for him. From the Wednesday, therefore, he did not leave his own room, and on Friday he took to his bed. Yet, on the Saturday evening, when it was his constant habit to teach some of his men-servants, in order to raise their intellectual status, he sent for one of them to come to him in his bedroom, corrected his sums as usual, and explained to him the discovery of America, and, as he could not raise himself in his bed, desired Lady Aberdeen to trace on the globe for the servant the line of Columbus's Voyage. The servants appreciated all this interest of their master in their social improvement; and it made them all the more attentive to the remarks which he made on the Scriptures in the morning and evening family prayer. His family prayers therefore were no forced attendance, no religious drill; but a real delight to them, and an interesting subject of conversation one with another. On Sunday he was very weak, and slept a good deal; but his devoted wife heard him in the afternoon remark on that text, 2 Peter iii. 15, "Account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation :"-" I suppose that just means that God is determined to save us; and that all we have to say is, Wonderful!” This was followed by his saying to himself once or twice, "Free grace! free grace!" On that Sunday also he spoke to Lady Aberdeen about the fault of only trying to please worldly people, and be kind to them; instead of trying to save their souls. "We must endeavour," he said, "more than we have hitherto done, to bring souls to Jesus;" evidently looking forward to a prolonged life. The same day he asked her for a pencil to mark a verse of a hymn for her. It was this: "In vain the trembling conscience seeks This was the last day but one of his life. On Monday morning, for the first time, his voice showed some signs of failing, yet on that morning he was actively engaged; far more actively than any one would have thought possible within a few hours of his death. On that day, first he dictated a lease for a small tenant, making it a condition that the man's old father should continue to enjoy the house and garden, and promising to provide the rest of the father's maintenance himself, if the son paid towards it sixpence a week. Next he saw the surveyor who drew the plans of his new cottages,* To explain the interest he took in these cottages, it should be premised that on coming into his estate the Earl found his peasantry ill-lodged, crowded together, without proper separation of the sleeping rooms for boys and girls, and lodgers; and, as a natural consequence a prevalence of immorality, which afflicted his righteous soul. He therefore at once set himself to apply that part of the remedy which especially is in the landlord's hands; viz., by building for his tenantry tenements more healthy and commodious, and in which both moral and sanitary requirements were attended to. At first the Earl made some mistakes, as might have been expected. His buildings were too fine for farm labourers; at a very moderate rent-and the Earl required such rent, knowing that without a moderate rent he should only pauperise the people and entered into particulars with him, charging him to have the attics warm and dry, as the children's beds would be there. After the surveyor had left, he wrote a cheque for one of his farmers who had been in difficulties-to be given to the wife, as perhaps the safer repository of his bounty, and sent it to her by his own son, the Hon. James Gordon, in a kind note written at his dictation by Lady Aberdeen. As a fourth occupation of that morning the post brought him from the press the proof-sheet of a little tract, which he had compiled from a published one, as far as the end of the third page; the conclusion in the fourth page being his own. These were his last written words. A copy of this little tract was given to every one of the 700 persons who attended his funeral, on Tuesday, the 29th of March, at Methlic. It was one o'clock by the time all this was done, and then he desired to be left alone, that he might rest for half an hour; and as a neighbour (Sir William Seton) had called, he bade Lady Aberdeen go down to luncheon, and to take care that Sir William had the wine he liked best. On her return he had a mutton chop for his dinner, and drank a little milk after it. He then said, he felt perfectly comfortable; and composed himself, as she thought, to sleep, while she read aloud a few verses from the 10th and 11th of St. John-the chapters of the Good Shepherd and of Lazarus. His lips moved, as if in prayer suggested by those exquisite chapters. But he spoke no more. At three o'clock that afternoon he became unconscious; and, except that once, as the clock struck four, he took his beloved wife's hand, and drew it close to him, that unconsciousness continued till midnight; when, at ten minutes past midnight, "the gentle, quiet breathing ceased, and after a few more beats the heart too was still, and he was for ever with the Lord. All that time his countenance wore a calm and heavenly expression, and his forehead looked smooth and white as marble. Thus was fulfilled to him what he once long ago remarked was a wonderful promise in the 23rd Psalm; not 'I shall feel no evil,' but I shall fear no evil.' He was spared the dread of death and the pain of parting; and, without knowing that he was going to do more than fall asleep for an hour, he fell asleep in Jesus." Such a death as this, preceded as it was by a holy life of many years' standing, and growing in grace, especially during the last on his property-was a grievance to those who had been used to live in hovels for next to nothing. Dirt and bad smells, and no drainage, cost nothing; but the poor tenant is slow to learn that health and purity of morals are worth paying for. It was Miss Edgeworth's Irish story repeated, of the benevolent landlord expecting gratitude and a rise in rent to go together, however small and unremunerative the rise, and however superior the accommodation. After one or two painful experiments of this kind, the Earl made his cottages not less healthy and moral, but less ornamental and less expensive, till he came down to the rent of 31. 5s. per annum, with a quarter of an acre for garden ground. Of these new cottages the Earl had built more than fifty in three years, which were occupied, or preparing for occupation. And these were the cottages which had some of the thoughts of the last day of his life. winter, has filled the hearts of his family and of his friends with deep thankfulness. It was a beautiful death, more like a translation than a death; and in one respect very peculiar and instructive. It was a removal without notice, a suspension of life in the midst of its activities. Apparently he expected to the last his restoration to at least a measure of health equal to his former exertions. Not a word escapes from him that speaks of approaching dissolution. We have therefore none of its solemn preparations, nor tender partings, nor last exhortations and messages, nor, what might be still more desired, the prayers for the dying, and the last holy communion, in the memorials of the Saviour's dying love, together with those nearest and dearest. What have we instead? The ordinary current of his daily life; the quiet discharge of the business of a Monday morning; nothing great, nothing solemn, and yet all Christian, all penetrated with religious principle. Whatever is done, is done as to the Lord. A lease drawn up, but in it a recognition of the fifth commandment; filial piety set forth, and a poor tenant shown the right path, and stimulated by the promise of help to take it. Then the cottages and the surveyor's plans; and in them a remembrance of the health and the morals of his tenantry. Then the last cheque he ever drew. It is a charitable gift to a farmer's wife, but the tender delicacy of the manner of the gift excels the gift, whatever it might be. The sick Earl dictates the letter from his sick bed; his lady writes it; and his own son conveys it to its destination. "Let love be without dissimulation." "He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity." "He that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness." Here there was more than cheerfulness. Finally, his little tract, being directly religious, and the most striking part of it his own conclusion, speaks for itself. He would arrest, by short and vivid sentences, the farmers and labourers around him. He would rouse them from their torpor to think of an eternity which might be near, very near. He would set before them the tests of a true conversion of heart to God. And without intending it, he was describing his own state of mind. "Are you reconciled to God? Can you approach Him as a friend? Do you love Him as a Father? Do you love His Word-His people -His day ? . . . Are you, like Jesus, going about doing good? Do you visit the sick, pity the poor, and seek the salvation of all around you?" And in all this, when his physical strength was reduced to an infant's weakness, he still desists from no duty, no service which he considered to be a part of his stewardship to the Lord. "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God," is written on the actions of that morning, as on a page of his ordinary diary. May we not, then, accept the secularities thus made holy of the last day of life, as evidences of a Christ-like spirit, equal, at least, to high devotional exercises, and an express confession of faith. They are, at any rate, a fairer sample of a man as he is every day. Here there is nothing to be ascribed to the excitement of an awful hour, in which the world of sense retires before the world unseen, eternal. And to prove that it was not the natural kindness, or pity, or generosity of his disposition, we may |