rulers of old time, but what is said of them in the Bible, and, strange to say, what is carved and written about them on the old Egyptian temple of Karnak.

Yes! they are there, these men of "Onk" or Anak. They are supposed to have been the shepherdkings who once conquered Egypt; and in the reign of Rameses III., Egypt conquered them in their own land. She never records her own defeats; but she has described her conquests over the Rephaim as ranging through three centuries.

Another of the ancient cities, named on Karnak, is Hebron, or Arba, where Abraham lived, died, and was buried. This city "was built seven years before Zoan, in Egypt" (Num. xiii. 22).

The victories of Joshua comprise three distinct series of events. First, his campaign against the Amorite league, in which he swept round the mountain of Judah, returning by Hebron to Gilgal. Secondly, the campaign against the northern Canaanites,-"Joshua made war a long time with all those kings" (Josh. xi. 18). 18). Finally, the general statements of particular expeditions against those tall Anakim, till destroyed in their cities and forts,— "there were none of the Anakim left in all the land of the children of Israel," only the Philistines in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod; and then Joshua took the whole land, and gave it for an inheritance unto Israel by their tribes (Josh. xi. 22). Balaam the son of Beor had been slain in this war (Josh. xiii. 22). Yet these conquests after all were imperfect, very much land remained to be possessed, and seven of Israel's tribes had not yet received their inheritance, when, in the eighteenth chapter of Joshua, it is said :

"And the whole congregation of the children of Israel

assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there."

IT IS MOST IMPORTANT FULLY TO REALISE THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CENTRES OF SHECHEM AND SHILOH, FOR THE SPACE OF 400 YEARS TO ANCIENT ISRAEL.

We have seen that the capital of Ephraim and of the kingdom of Israel was Shechem; its great sanctuary was SHILOH.

Shechem is considered to be the portion given to Joseph by Jacob when near his end-"the portion above his brethren." This central tract and this "good land" were naturally allotted to the powerful house of Joseph in the first division of the country; and it is very true, as has been said, that "we are so familiar with the supremacy of the house of JUDAH, that we are apt to forget its recent date comparatively with that of EPHRAIM."

Alas! as the psalm of Asaph tells us (Ps. lxxviii. 9):

The children of Ephraim being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law. ... Then the Lord. . . . refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved."

The sites of heathen oracles have been always shrines for classic pilgrimages; but the site of SHILOH was completely forgotten from the time of Jerome until the year 1838. Yet here the tabernacle of the wilderness erected by Joshua abode 300 years (Josh. xviii. 1). The "tent" or "tabernacle," that last relic of the wandering life of the chosen people, is described in the Rabbinical traditions as a structure of low stone walls, with a tent drawn over the top, exactly answering to the Bedouin villages of the present day, where the stone enclosures often remain long after the tribes and tents have vanished. Had

it not been for the precision with which the site of Shiloh is described in the Book of Judges (xxi. 19), its situation could never have been identified with the present "Seilun :"

"Shiloh, which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah."

Shiloh is ten miles south of Shechem, and twentyfive north of Jerusalem.

But now there is another scene at Shechem. The stalwart Joshua, the Lord's captain, "goes the way of all the earth, and again he gathers all the tribes here, and the elders and the judges present themselves before God." After reciting the Lord's dealings with them he says:

Choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

"And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we serve, and His voice will we obey.

"So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem.

"And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord."

And it is really recorded, in the last chapter of this most interesting book, that

"Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord that He had done for Israel."

We have given you JERUSALEM as the frontispiece of this tract, because the name of "the Holy City," the only city of the past, the present, and the future, is linked for ever with the Holy Land as its metropolis; but at the same time it is with a special request that you will observe that Jerusalem did not

become the capital city of the Jews for 400 years after Joshua's period.

Jerusalem lay long unknown save as a heathen fortress in the midst of the Promised Land. "It is strange to think how often Joshua, Deborah, Samuel, Saul, and even David, must have passed and repassed those gray hills and spacious caverns in which David had hidden himself, when he fled to the mountains, unconscious of the fame reserved for Zion in every future age " (Ezek. v. 5).

"Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her."

Jerusalem is situated on the edge of one of the highest table lands of the country. From every other side than that of Hebron, the ascent to it is perpetual. The city is a mountain city, enthroned on a mountain fastness. Deep and precipitous ravines guard it on the west, south, and east. On the north this city is on a level with the mountain plains. A long and deep ravine divides it into two unequal portions, one lower than the other. That on the west is the Mount Zion, and was the early fortress of the Jebusites, and defied the attacks of Joshua.

The eastern hill is lower and smaller. Here was Mount Moriah, and on this brow at present stands the great mosque of Omar. The earliest notices of Jerusalem are in Joshua xii. 10 and xv. 8, when Joshua is said to smite its king. In Judges xix. 10, we hear of "Jebus, which is Jerusalem." It is mentioned also in Judges i. 7. But it is David who removes the seat of government from Hebron to Jerusalem, and who makes it the metropolis of the tribe of Judah 1047 B.C., or 396 years after Joshua's death. Solomon lays the foundation of the Temple, B.C. 1011, or 480 years after the coming out of Egypt.