From Tait's Magazine. "BEG FROM A BEGGAR-DEARK D'ON DEARKA."-IRISH PROVERB. BY R. M. MILNES, M. P. THERE is a thought so purely blest, It were not for the Rich to blame, To give the stranger's children bread, What record of chivalrous deed, Deep in the deepest life of Man. Therefore lament not, honest soul! Manhood is nobler, as thou art; And should some chance thy coffers fill, Wealth, like all other power, is blind, It is the battle, not the prize, That fills the hero's breast with joy; From Blackwood's Magazine. JERUSALEM. and the new life infused into the stagnant governments of Asia, even by their being flung into the whirl of European interests, look not unlike signs of the times. It may be no dream, to imagine in these phenomena the proofs of some memorable VAST as is the period, and singular as are the change in the interior of things-some preparatives changes of European history since the Christian for that great providential restoration, of which Jeruera, Judea still continues to be the most interesting salem will yet be the scene, if not the centre; and portion of the world. Among other purposes, the Israelite himself the especial agent of those high it may be for the purpose of fixing the general eye transactions, which shall make Christianity the reliupon this extraordinary land, that it has been pe-gion of all lands, restore the dismantled beauty of the riodically visited by a more striking succession of earth, and make man, what he was created to begreat public calamities than perhaps any other region. only "a little lower than the angels." With less to attract an invader than any other con- The statistics of the Jewish population are among spicuous land of the East, it has been constantly ex- the most siugular circumstances of this most singular posed to invasion. Its ruin by the Romans in the of all people. Under all their calamities and disperfirst century did not prevent its being assailed by al- sions, they seem to have remained at nearly the same most every barbarian, who, in turn, assumed the pre-amount as in the days of David and Solomon, never carious sovereignty of the neighbouring Asia. After much more in prosperity, never much less after ages ages of obscure misery, a new terror came in the of suffering. Nothing like this has occurred in the Saracen invasion, which, under Amrou, on the con- history of any other race; Europe in general having quest of Damascus, rolled on Palestine. A siege doubled its population within the last hundred years, of four months, which we may well conceive to have and England nearly tripled hers within the last half abounded in horrors, gave Jerusalem into the hands century; the proportion of America being still more of the Kaliph Omar. On the death of Omar, who rapid, and the world crowding in a constantly indied by the usual fate of Eastern princes-the dag- creasing ratio. Yet the Jews seem to stand still in ger-the country was left to the still heavier mis- this vast and general movement. The population of government of the Moslem viceroys-a race of men Judea, in its most palmy days, probably did not exessentially barbarian, and commuting their crimes ceed, if it reached, four millions. The numbers who for their zeal in proselytism. The people, of course, entered Palestine from the wilderness were evidently were doubly tormented. not much more than three; and their census, accord In Europe, 1,916,000, of which about 658,000 are In Africa, 504,000, of which 300,000 are in Morocco. In America, North and South, 57000. A new scourge fell upon them in the invasion of ing to the German statists, who are generally consithe Crusaders, at the beginning of the 12th century, dered to be exact, is now nearly the same as that of followed by a long succession of bitter hostilities and the people under Moses-about three millions. They public weakness. After almost a century of this are thus distributed :wretchedness, another invasion from the Desert put Jerusalem into the hands of its old oppressor, the Saracen; and in 1187, the famous Saladin, expelling the last of the Christian sovereigns, took possession of Palestine. After another century of tumult and severe suffering, occasioned by the disputes of the Saracen princes, it was visited by a still more formidable evil in the shape of the Turks, then wholly If we add to these about 15,000 Samaritans, the uncivilized-a nationjin all the rudeness and violence calculation in round numbers will be about 3,180,000. of mountaineer life, and spreading blood and fire This was the report in 1825-the numbers probathrough Western Asia. From this date (1317) it re-bly remain the same. This extraordinary fixedness mained under the dominion of the Ottoman, until its in the midst of almost universal increase, is doubtless conquest, a few years ago, by that most extraordina-not without a reason-if we are even to look for it ry of Mussulmans, the Pacha of Egypt, a dreary among the mysterious operations which have preperiod of 500 years, under the most desolating gov-served Israel a separate race through eighteen hunernment of the world. It is equally impossible to dred years. May we not naturally conceive, that a read the Scriptural references to the future condition people thus preserved without advance or retrocesof Palestine, without discovering a crowd of the sion; dispersed, yet combined; broken, yet firm; plainest and most powerful indication, that it shall without a country, yet dwellers in all; every where yet exhibit a totally different aspect from that of its insulted, yet every where influential; without a present state. Enthusiasm, or even the natural in-nation, yet united as no nation ever was before or terest which we feel in this memorable nation, may since-has not been appointed to offer this extraordicolour the future to us too brightly; but unless lan-nary contradiction to the common laws of society, guage of the most solemn kind, uttered on the most and even the common progress of nature, without a solemn occasions, and by men divinely commissioned cause, and that cause one of filial benevolence, unifor its utterance, is wholly unmeaning, we must yet versal good, and divine grandeur ? look to some powerful, unquestionable, and splendid display of Providence in favour of the poeple of Israel. The remarkable determination of European politics towards Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, within these few years; the not less unexpected change of manners and customs, which seemed to defy all change; "Twas eve on Jerusalem! On the vine-cover'd plain, On the mount's marble brow, On the Temple's broad grandeur, Like a golden-domed isle In an ocean of light; From the vale deep and dim, What form stands on Zion ?— The heart's-blood runs chill Where, like one from the tomb, JERUSALEM. But the lions are coming! They roar from their sand; 'Tis Amrou and his Saracens Curse of the land! "Like the swamp-gender'd hornets, O'er Moriah's loved hill, And the corpse-cover'd valleys By Kedron's red rill. "Where, where sleeps the thunderbolt? Heaven! hear the cries Of the Ishmaelite slave To his Prophet of lies. "It has come! and the throne I see the proud chiefs Of the West in their mail; And my soul loves the standard They spread to the gale. "Stay, vision of splendour! On Jordan's rich marge They rush to the battle, Earth shakes with their charge. Like lightning the blaze From their panoply springs: I see the gold helms And crown'd banners of kings. "Yet evil still smites thee, Thou daughter of tears! No trophy is thine In the strife of the spears. The stately Crusader And Saracen lord, But give thee the choice Of the chain or the sword. "Again all is silence! The long grass has grown Where the crossbearer sleeps In his rich-sculptured stone; And the land trod by prophet And chanted by bard, Is left to the foot Of the wolf and the pard. "But who ride the whirlwind? The final predictions of this Prophet are well known for their powerful and lofty threatenings of national ruin. Yet the condition of his country at the moment, was unquestionably the last which could have justified any human conjecture of its dissolution by Divine vengeance. The people had but lately rebuilt their Temple, had conformed to the renewed law of their fathers, had received the recovered Scriptures, and had commenced a new and purified polity. That there were remnants of the habits and corruptions of Babylonish life among them, is obvious from his rebukes, and those of Zechariah and Ezra. those were slight stains, and the error which was predicted as the final source of their ruin-a ruin, too, at the distance of four hundred years-was of a wholly opposite character,-the national disdain of But contact with the Gentile world, the national pride in the exclusiveness of their religion, and the national vindictiveness against that Mightiest of all Teachers, and Supreme of all Sovereigns, who came to announce the admission of mankind into the privileges of Israel. Independently of our direct knowledge of the universal inspiration of Scripture, this utter dissimilarity to human conclusions must make us feel that this awful denouncement of the matured vices of a land, then in their first period of regeneration, was the work of a knowledge above man. Malachi is said to have died young, after assisting the members of the Great Synagogue in the reestablishment of the law of the nation. "The day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble. "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise. "And ye shall tread down (the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet, in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts. * "Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." MALACHI, ch. iv. A sound on the rampart, I hear the roused lioness On Zion's proud tower; Shall cover thy name; By mortal, shall burn; Thou to dust shalt return. 'Tis the darkness of darkness, The midnight of soul ! No moon on the depths Of that midnight shall roll. |