of the heart. It supplies history of the remotest antiquity, and of universal interest, stamped with perfect veracity by the signet of inspiration. It opens sciences the most profound, the most glorious, the most useful;— the character of God, the nature of man, and the great mystery of salvation. As in the starry firmament there is but one blessed light that changes not its place, and varies not the mute direction it affords to the mariner in his perplexity; so, amid the countless lights of literature, there is but the solitary truth of God that gives sure guidance to the soul of man in the perilous voyage through time into eternity. Upon that polar star let us fix a steady eye; esteeming other luminaries the more highly, as they are the nearer to that heavenly Guide, or as they direct us to it the more accurately. Then, with the breezes from on high to fill our fluttering canvass, we may hope for a direct course, a prosperous passage, and a happy landing at last on the shores of life everlasting. F. W. G.

THE FAITHFUL PREACHER.

I IMAGINE myself in the pulpit, and in fancy I look around the congregation. It presents a varied appearance; human nature is exhibited under many forms. There are young and old, rich and poor, learned and illiterate. I am naturally led to inquire, What are these beings who are seated before me? For what purpose are they come? And what must I say to them? Every one of these has a mighty interest that requires his attention. If I cast a glance into futurity, I see, at the distance of a century, each of these creatures in a state of unspeakable happiness or misery. Long before that time has elapsed I myself shall be in another world, where, in all probability, I shall see some of the beings who are assembled to listen to the words which shall fall from my lips. Nay, more than this: those very words must have an influence upon their future destiny. I am placed here to distribute the elements of life. To some perhaps they will become the means of death; for I know that such fearful transmutations often take place. Since, then, I sustain so near a relationship to these spirits, does it not become an overwhelming inquiry with me, How shall I fulfil the responsibilities arising out of that relation? I stand in a most awful place, where the destinies of immortal souls seem to hang upon my conduct. I might have occupied one of those seats, and thus have been free from this burden. But since I have taken it upon me, should it not create a deep seriousness of spirit, a thrilling anxiety as to the result of my efforts, a yearning desire that they may have a happy issue, a desire that shall swallow up every other, and make me feel as if I had no interest, and even no existence, apart from that of these immortal spirits? I feel within me a tendency to treat the whole affair with indifference, and to pass it over as one among a series of acts which form the common routine of human existence. I am come here to preach a sermon; the people are come to hear one; and that is all. But instantly I check the indulgence of such reflections as these. A multitude of spirit-stirring inquiries instantly present themselves. Are eternity, and heaven, and hell, objects that should be viewed with indifference? Does not the fearful doom of perhaps a majority of those now before me at all interest me? Can I think of the miseries of a lost soul, (and, O terrible thought! there is reason to fear that some of those who hear me this night will be numbered among the lost,) and feel no emotions of pity? Do not the bowels even of common humanity yearn over the unconverted, who are now exposed to evils almost too appalling to contem

plate? My soul feels the awful justice of sentiments like these; they enter the spirit with all the majesty of truth; and I am convinced that to dismiss them would be a profanation of the place in which I stand, and a violation of the character which I sustain. But O what is the character of that preaching whose tone shall be in harmony with these sentiments! I endeavour to place myself out of myself, and to picture the man I should be this night. In imagination I leave the pulpit, and seat myself among the audience. I observe the preacher enter the sacred place, and watch every step and mark every movement of his countenance. He moves as if he were upon some great business. There is a seriousness about his demeanour which the spectators feel. His entrance produces a change in the emotions which pervade the assembly. If emotions and ideas could take a visible form, those of a worldly character would be seen to vanish, and thoughts and feelings of deep solemnity to take their place. I see him seated in the pulpit. He does not look like an ordinary man. There is a solemn, an unearthly anxiety in his look. All the powers of his mind appear concentrated upon one object, far different from the whole range of sublunary cares. He has been in a higher state of existence. He has come from a moral elevation which humanity seldom reaches. His spirit reflects the light of heaven. He glances at the assembly; but, although that glance is momentary, yet it speaks volumes, which those who mark it can easily understand. His hearers feel that their best interests are dear to him. They sympathize with the travail of his soul. He opens the sacred volume, and all listen as if God Himself were speaking. He announces the subject of discourse. It is an important one; a practical one, in which all must feel interested. In commencing he is deeply serious, although far from being loud and boisterous. The thoughts and feelings which have been confined in his breast, at first escape in gentle accents. He addresses the understanding of his audience, knowing that they require to be informed before they can be excited,-that the way to the heart is through the understanding. His descriptions are clear. His pictures are vivid. His aim is direct. His hearers cannot mistake him. They feel the tendency of his thoughts, and they eagerly anticipate the object at which he is aiming. There is no dry detail; no eccentric starting from the line which his peculiar and solemn circumstances have marked out for him. As he proceeds along, he seems to gather a mysterious energy, arising not from wire-drawn theory, or splendid creation of fancy, but from the clear, plain statements of simple truth. The light which he at first scattered now begins to diffuse heat. He soon becomes an altered man. The powers of the world to come are seen to take possession of his spirit. He draws the curtain which conceals the invisible. Earth and all its busy scenes vanish. Heaven and hell are revealed. Every countenance reflects the light of the one, or the gloom of the other. There is not a careless or inattentive spirit in the place; all are compelled to look in the direction in which he points. He now feels that he has got access to the immortal souls with whom he is surrounded, and he does not fail to improve the precious moment. He urges with divine energy the things which belong to their eternal peace. He presses with resistless eagerness the inquiry, "What must I do to be saved?" He appeals to conscience in a tone which it dares not refuse to The affections and passions are raised at his command. Love, and fear, and hope, start from their slumbers, and the whole moral being becomes intensely awake.-Such is the man that I ought to be. "Who is sufficient for these things?"-Rev. John Hessel. Memoirs, by Rev. J. Priestley.

answer.

THE SAMARITANS OF NABLOOS.

In the Rev. F. C. Ewald's journal of a tour recently made in the north of Palestine, we find the following account of his visit to Nabloos, where the descendants of the ancient Samaritans are still found to entertain the very same prejudices that are recorded as peculiar to their forefathers in holy writ:

:

This being the last day of the Jewish and the Samaritan Easter, we went this morning first into the Samaritan synagogue. I was obliged to take off my boots, but they allowed Mrs. Ewald to enter with her shoes on. Here a novel scene presented itself. The synagogue is built in the form of a cross: in the left wing, towards Mount Gerizim, was the shrine, in which the renowned rolls of the Samaritan five books of Moses are kept. Before the shrine stood Soliman and his son Amram, dressed in white: they are the Samaritan Priests. The people stood in four rows, about sixty in number, with their faces towards the shrine, whilst the Priests turned their faces towards the people. Every Samaritan had a white dress over his other garments, and each had a prayer-book in his hand they were praying, or rather screaming, as loud as they possibly could. There are no seats in the synagogue; but each had his staff in his hand, upon which he was leaning. The Priest Soliman opened the shrine, and took out the ancient manuscript which is usually shown to all travellers, and which, they say, was written by Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the Priest. They allowed us to look at it, and even to touch it; after which, they continued their prayers for awhile. Then the shrine was opened, at the sight of which all prostrated themselves to the ground, and remained in that position for a time. Then the Priest Amram took the old manuscript out of the shrine, lifted it up as high as he could, when again the people prostrated themselves before it; after which every one approached it in profound reverence, and kissed it. Then Amram prostrated himself with the roll, took off the dress which was upon the roll, lifted it up, opened it, turned towards the four quarters of the globe, shut it again, opened it, lifted it up, and so on for more than an hour. In fact, this manuscript is the idol of the Samaritans. When we left the synagogue, Mrs. Ewald was invited to go into a room to see the women, which I was not privileged to do.

In the afternoon I went again to the Samaritans. I found the Priest Soliman seated in the court-yard: he invited me to sit down at his side, which I did. I asked him whether they believed in a Messiah: he replied in the affirmative. I asked him to point out to me the passages in the Pentateuch from which they proved that God had promised a Messiah: he said that there was a verse in the law, immediately following the Ten Commandments, (but not found in the Jewish Pentateuch,) in which God promised a Messiah, and which corresponds with that passage in Deut. xviii. 15-18: "The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; according to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the LORD said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth;" &c., &c. The

Priest Soliman continued, "Our copy of the Law is the correct Law: we have it as God gave it to Moses; but the Jews have it no more so. Ezra the Scribe, he has corrupted it; there are one hundred and seventy-two passages in our copy which read differently from that of the Jews." I begged him to copy them out for me in Arabic; for in the Samaritan language, I knew, he would at once refuse: because they consider it the holy language, which none but a Samaritan is allowed to read. He promised to do so, but never did. I quoted Genesis xlix. 10, but he read differently from the Hebrew: instead of "from between his feet," he read "from his standard." The passage, according to the Samaritan, would run thus: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a Lawgiver from his standard, till Shiloh come," &c.

He said," When Messiah comes, he will appear on Mount Gerizim, build the temple, institute sacrifices, and will bring all men to accept the true law of Moses, as we, the Samaritans, have preserved it." When I asked him why the Messiah had been promised by God, he replied, “To help us to deliver us from the hands of our enemies-and to build our temple upon Mount Gerizim." I replied, "Then you believe none but the Samaritans need the Messiah?" Upon which he said, "Of course. Do the Mahometans need a Messiah?-they are many and powerful. Do the Christians need a Messiah?—they are many, they are rich, they are powerful. So, likewise, are the Jews. But we poor Samaritans, we are the nation, or a remnant of a nation, the most reduced upon the surface of the earth we need the assistance of the Messiah." I told him that all men need a Messiah.

I had an Arabic Bible with me, and read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. He said, he did not believe the Prophets, nor did he understand what the Prophet here said. I endeavoured to show him that all men are sinful, and therefore need a Deliverer-a Redeemer. "O no," replied the old man; "you Protestants are good people-you do not commit sin, you do not steal, you leave every one his own, you are kind to every one; you are no sinners;"-and it was of no use to speak to him on that point: he could not believe that men were so bad as I would make them. It was quite enough for them to have the holy Mount Gerizim to sacrifice every Easter seven lambs upon it; to go four times a year to the top of it, and worship there,-namely, the first day and last day of Easter, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Gerizim is all they need, and they place everything there. Isaac was taken by his father Abraham to Gerizim. Bethel, where Jacob saw the vision of angels descending and ascending to heaven, was on Mount Gerizim; the true temple was on Gerizim. Jerusalem is nothing, the Jews are nothing, their Torah corrupt. I acknowledged to the Priest, that the present Hebrew characters are not the same as they were in the time of Moses; but urged that the language is the same; and that there are Jewish coins with the ancient Jewish character; that I had myself at Jerusalem two of them, a shekel, and a half-shekel. He asked what was written on them. I replied, "On the one side, 'Shekel Israel;' and, on the other, Jerusalem the holy."" "A false coin-a false coin!" exclaimed the Priest. "Jerusalem is not holy, and never was holy the holiest place in the world is Mount Gerizim, and there is no other holy place." Is it not most remarkable that there should still exist such an enmity between the handful of Samaritans and the Jews, the same that existed when the one and the other were powerful nations?

The Priest told me that this year they had not gone up to Mount Gerizim to sacrifice; they had sacrificed in their houses, as they were afraid to go up on account of the disturbed state of the country. He then rose up, and took me to the place where they had sacrificed this year their seven lambs. It was behind their synagogue, in an open court-yard, where they dug a circular hole, some feet deep, which they lined inside with stones, opening a small canal at one end of it, to allow the blood to flow off. Next to it was another circular place, walled up with stones, in which they had burned what remained of the seven paschal lambs.

We had intended spending the Lord's day quietly at the ancient Shechem; but as soon as we had finished our morning devotions, the Samaritan Priest Amram, son of the Priest Soliman, called on us. We soon came to the subject of the origin of their sect, as it is related in the Bible, which the Priest would not acknowledge. According to him, the Samaritans are of the tribe of Ephraim; their Priests, sons of Aaron; and their law, the only true law of God existing in the world. The Messiah will come, and will declare before all the world that the true law is with them; for when He appears, He will say to the Jews and Christians,-" If I show you a true copy of the law of Moses, which was preserved by Joshua, the son of Nun, will you accept it?" They will naturally reply, "Yes." Then shall He go with them upon Mount Gerizim, where there are the twelve stones upon which Joshua wrote the books of Moses, and compare it with our law, and it will be found to correspond with our law; and then all will accept it. When I asked him how he could prove that God would send a Messiah, he quoted Deut. xviii. 18, and laid great stress upon the word "like unto thee." The Messiah is to be in every respect like unto Moses: He is to build, not a temple, but a tabernacle; to restore every thing as it was in the days of Moses: the fire will come down from heaven to consume the acceptable sacrifices-the glory of the Lord will appear upon the tabernacle, and the whole world shall then know the true way to heaven. I asked him whether they believed in the resurrection of the body he replied in the affirmative; and the passages upon which the Samaritans build this doctrine are, as quoted by the Priest Amram, the following:

Gen. ix. 5-which he thus translated: "And certainly, if you kill yourselves, I will require your blood; at the hand of every one that is alive I will require it." He explained,—“If a man kills his neighbour, the civil authorities are obliged to put the murderer to death; but if any one commit suicide, God will punish that man when he is alive again, and that can only be on the day of resurrection."

Again, Numbers xiv. 35, which he thus translated,-" In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there (on the day of resurrection) they shall die eternally."

And, again, Deut. xxxii. 34, 35: "Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures, for the day of vengeance and recompense?"

Early the following morning, the Priest Amram called again. I asked him for the passages he had promised, but he brought only one, written in Arabic; namely, Deut. xxvii., from the commencement to the tenth verse, -in which, instead of Mount Ebal, they read Gerizim. We had now a long discussion, in which our landlord, who is extremely well versed in Scripture, was of great use to me. As the Samaritans do not believe in any of the canonical books, except those of Moses, I was restricted to those