THE NEW ENGLAND PILGRIM'S FUNERAL,

BY JOHN H. BRYANT.

It was a wintry scene,

The hills were whitened o'er,

And the chill north winds were blowing keen

Along the rocky shore.

Gone was the wood-bird's lay,

That the summer forest fills;

And the voice of the stream had passed away
From its path among the hills.

And the low sun coldly smiled

Through the boughs of the ancient wood, Where a hundred souls, sire, wife, and child, Around a coffin stood.

They raised it gently up,

And through the untrodden snow They bore it away, with a solemn step, To a woody vale below.

And grief was in each eye,

As they moved towards the spot;
And brief low speech, and tear and sigh,
Told that a friend was not.

When they laid his cold corpse low

In its dark and narrow cell, Heavy the mingled earth and snow

Upon his coffin fell.

Weeping, they passed away,

And left him there alone,

With no mark to tell where their dead friend lay,

But the mossy forest stone.

When the winter storms were gone,
And the strange birds sung around,
Green grass and violets sprung upon
That spot of holy ground.

And o'er him giant trees

Their proud arms tossed on high, And rustled music in the breeze,

That wandered through the sky.

When these were overspread

With the hues that Autumn gave,
They bowed them in the wind and shed

Their leaves upon his grave.

These woods are perished now

And that humble grave forgot;

And the yeoman sings as he drives his plough
O'er that once sacred spot.

Two centuries are flown

Since they laid his cold corpse low,

And his bones are mouldered to dust and strewn

To the breezes long ago.

And they who laid him there

That sad and suffering train,

Now sleep in dust,-to tell us where

No lettered stones remain.

Their memory remains,

And ever shall remain,

More lasting than the aged fanes
Of Egypt's storied plain.

Such a scene as is here described is never likely to be witnessed under the sunny skies of Australia; its climate resembles that of the Holy Land, but according to modern travellers, that once favoured spot does not appear now so suitable a place of refuge for the Lord's people, as a country that has never been visited by the plague, nor suffered from Turkish tyranny.-Alphonse de Lamartine in his "Recollections of a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land," thus describes Old Jerusalem :

"We climbed a second mountain, higher than the first; and in the distant horizon we perceived the sun shining upon a square tower, and other buildings. This was Jerusalem. We had thought ourselves much farther from it; and we stopped our horses, to contemplate, for the first time, the holy city. The Mount of Olives

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behind the city bounded our horizon. There were the olive-trees themselves, the witnesses of those tears shed by the Redeemer, and of so many tears shed since by his followers. We resumed our route, which now lay through the desert of stones, which forms the avenue of this City of Stones. All around there are nothing but bare rocks to be seen, without the slightest particle of vegetation; and for a quarter of an hour, this lugubrious avenue has become hideous, being sunk in the rocks to the depth of from twenty to thirty feet, so that the view of the traveller is limited to the sky over his head. Suddenly we emerged from this death-like road in front of the walls of Jerusalem, which we knew not we were so near to. An area, barren and desolate, of some hundred yards, intervened between us and the gate of Bethlehem, which stood open. We would fain have entered, but dared not, as the plague was at its height in the city, and we had promised to abstain. We made the circuit of the greater part, however, of the walls, visiting on our way Cedron, the gate of Damascus, the valley of Gethsemane, and the gate of St. Stephen. The space outside the walls is almost wholly occupied with cemeteries, whitened with monuments, surmounted by the Turkish turban. In these solitudes were groups of women lamenting the deaths of husbands or fathers, and singing funeral prayers over the graves of victims of the plague. These groups were the only signs of life which we met with during our journey round the walls, and their lamentations the only sound that we heard in this vacant solitude. We crossed a bridge over the Cedron, leading to Gethsemane and the Garden of Olives; and alighted from our horses at the supposed tomb of the Virgin Mary. It belongs to the Armenians, whose con

vents were the chief seats of the plague. On this account did not enter it."*

An English clergyman, who recently travelled through Palestine, in speaking of the fulfilment of the judgments predicted by the prophets, as now manifest in the miseries of this people, relates the following facts, which he says he had from undoubted authority. "The houses of Jerusalem belong to Turks. If a Jew wants a habitation, he must therefore have a hatred for his landlord. The landlord has a right to demand a year's rent, to be paid on taking possession; but yet he may eject the tenant at a short notice. The Mahomedan law sanctions the claim of an ejected tenant for the repayment of an adequate portion of the rent; but he must prove his case before the Cadi. A Jew's testimony is not admissible. A Christian's is refused. No Turk will bear witness on behalf of a Jew. So, then, at any moment a Jew may be turned into the street; and, in addition to this calamity, must lose all the year's rent which he paid in advance. Moreover, if a Jew engage in any little trade, he hardly earns enough to sustain life. If he possess any thing beyond this, he is an object towards which, rapacity glances its greedy and cruel eye. The poor Jews throughout Palestine derive nearly all their sustenance from contributions made by the richer Jews in various parts of Europe."+

When the inhabitants of the world after the flood, attempted to build a tower, whose top was to reach unto heaven they were punished for their presumption, by being obliged to disperse themselves over the world.

Were the inhabitants of New Jerusalem to attempt to surround the square of country which is described in

* See Abridged Edition, page 28, Griffin and Co., Glasgow. + See "The Christian Witness" for Feb., 1850.

the 17th verse with a wall as high in proportion as its length and breadth, they would be imitating the builders of the tower of Babel. But by a reference to the Prophet Isaiah we may understand more clearly, the kind of defence which is intended to surround the holy city. We find it thus written: " Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.* The foundations of the wall of the city St. John describes are to be "garnished with all manner of precious stones," and the Evangelist enumerates twelve of what we call precious stones, or jewels. A reference to the prophet Malachi explains this apparently difficult portion of the prophecy. After he has described the individuals who are to be punished when the Saviour appears again on earth, he thus comforts the Lord's people. Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another; and the LORD hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts in that day when I make up my jewels; and I shall spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.† We may learn from this prophecy, that as the Spiritual Temple is to be composed of "living stones," the brightest ornaments of it are to be "precious stones, or jewels," or trees of righteousness," which figures of speech all express the idea of superior men, richly endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit; and we learn also that one way in which they may be known from the rest of the less precious stones, which are also to perform their part in the erection of the Spiritual Temple, is, that they com

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