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weak or scrupulous conscience. But if ever the Spirit of God visit their hearts as a spirit of conviction, and lead them to see sin in its own intrinsic odiousness, they will feel that it is only the fool who can mock at any sin, however little, and that deliverance from any act of that deceitful and ensnaring evil which seduces the transgressor from bad to worse, till he fall into ruin, is, indeed, the cause of thanksgiving to God, through whom we stand. St Augustine, whose youth was spent in ungodliness, but whose age was happily as signally eminent for Christian character, dwells with frequent and bitter expressions of penitential sorrow upon the very sin for his preservation from which this man gave God the praise. If the sin, as committed, sowed the seed of such grief and bitter regret, not less, surely, ought preservation from it, as remembered, to be made the cause of gratitude and praise.

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Another instance of the sins of his youth I may mention, for the sake of shewing how unhappy he was in❘ sinning. A companion of his being about to leave the parish on the Lord's day, he was prevailed on to accompany him into an inn by the way-side to take a parting glass. He had no sooner yielded to solicitation, however, than he was filled with remorse and shame. "I could not look the people in the face whom I met going to church, I was so ashamed," said he, and from that day to the last hour of his life, he steadily avoided all such profanation of the Lord's day. It is, alas! but too evident, that in our day such conduct is not so feared or shunned by multitudes of both sexes. The suburbs of our cities are thronged with young people, who spend great part of their Sabbaths in the taverns, and who meet the returning worshippers unabashed. Alas ! their | steps take hold on hell. They stand on the brink of a steep and dangerous descent, and are ready to fall into deepest ruin. O that they had more of that tender watchful conscience which would give them no rest until they were recovered out of the snare of the devil. O that they had more of that resolved purpose, which would embolden them to say to all who would seduce them to such profanation of the holy Sabbath,-" Depart from me, ye wicked men, for I will keep the commandments of God." While it appears from the incidents just mentioned, | that this man feared the Lord from his youth, I am disposed to think, that his years of trouble, the last four years of his earthly life, were the season of his most signal progress in the life of grace. During this time, he was relieved from labour-his sole occupation was reading the Scriptures, and storing his mind with their precious truths; and indeed I have seldom seen a man, who might with so much truth have adopted the words of the Psalmist, "O how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day." When he began to speak on this theme, it was as the letting out of water. An allusion to a Scripture text often gave occasion to the repetition of an entire chapter, with a propriety, and pathos, and unction which only a deep experimental sense of its meaning and preciousness could produce. And indeed, there was a consistency and a finish about his simple character, which shewed that the Gospel had come to him not in word only, but in power, and that his whole man was cast into and formed upon its pure and elevating truths.

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comforts die I die; but the Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted." Speaking to me of his poverty, I said to him, You, John, know what this means; I know thy poverty, but thou art rich."-" Yes," said he, " and it is all through Him, who, though rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we, through His poverty, might be rich." Speaking of his prospects, he assumed the language of the apostle, "I know that when the earthly house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved, I have a building of God, eternal in the heavens;" and as if catching the spirit of triumph from the expression of his confidence, he proceeded to give utterance to it in these other words of Paul, “ O death, where is thy sting ! O grave, where is thy victory!" I asked him if he used this language to express his own experience, he said, he did."." Like Paul, then, you must be willing to depart?"—" Yes, Sir, to tell you my mind, I am at this moment more willing to depart and leave the world, than I was ever willing or anxious about any thing in the world; for, blessed be His name, He has reconciled himself to me as my Saviour and my friend, and why should I desire to linger here?" This blessed confidence was not the feeling of the moment, strong when death seemed distant, feeble when it drew near. It was the unshaken, and almost uninterrupted state of his mind. One morning when I asked him how he felt, he answered, "I am wading among thorns and briers; but there is light above, and soon shall I see face to face, and shall behold His glory." But though he had an hour of conflict, he had not one moment of distrust or terror. Even in the depth of his trouble, he held fast his confidence and hope. Another morning, he said to me, " I have had a sweet visit from my Lord." I asked him to explain it, but he said, "I cannot, it is not lawful for me to utter it." While he lay in this state of assured confidence and joyful hope, the gable of his house fell down, and threw the family into great consternation. Notwithstanding of his great nervous debility, he felt no disquiet or alarm. "We need na fear," said he to his wife, who was much flurried by the accident," we need na fear, we are under the shadow of the Almighty."- "Ye hae strong confidence, John," said she. Na," Mally, said he, I hae a stronger tower." It is not easy to find, as it appears to me, a more beautiful specimen of the self-renouncing spirit of the Christian than this language manifests. It is as if he had said, don't admire my fortitude; consider rather who sustains and protects us, and wonder rather it is not greater both in you and me. In this state of mind he continued to the end. ، How poor would I be to-day," said he, on one of the last days of his life, "without Christ. Blessed be He who has revealed his glorious Gospel to me." I shall not soon forget the last articulate words I heard him speak. On my asking him once again the ground of his hope for eternity, he summoned up his little remaining strength to a last effort, and his voice swelling into animation and pathos, which gave a character of sublime and most melting eloquence to his words, he replied, "Christ is my hope, I have no righteousness of my own; blessed be He, for the fountain opened in his blood. On Him I depend for my salvation. Through Him I look for justification at the Father's judgment-seat. From Him I trust to have a place among the spirits of the just in the New Jerusalem, where I shall sing for ever and for ever the new song,Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive honour and blessing, and glory and praise.'”

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During his last illness, he exhibited a fine instance of the triumph of faith over the severities of bodily pain, and the terrors of approaching death. Though he suffered much, there did not one word of complaining escape him. On one occasion, his wife said to him, "You seem to suffer greatly;" he replied, "But I suf- On the morning of this day, as his wife informed me, fer not from the hand of man; when I suffer much, he had asked the day of the week. On his being told much comfort comes on the back of it, for the hand of it was Friday, he said, " Then I hae now but two days my friend in heaven is laid upon me, and straikes (strokes) and little more to suffer, before I shall be at rest. It my wounds." In speaking to me of his losses and af- fell out according to his presentiment. On the evenflictions in his family, he at once appeared to lose sighting of the Sabbath, John entered into rest. "Mark the and feeling of them; and with tremulous, yet triumph- perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that ant accents, exclaimed, "Children die-friends die man is peace."

REMARKS ON ISAIAH, CHAPTER XVIII.

countries.

great work of the resettlement of the Jews in the Holy Land; a description of that people, by characters by arrives. Thirdly, the time for the completion of the which they will be evidently known, when the time prophecy was very remote, when it was delivered, and is yet future; being indeed the season of the Second Advent of our Lord."

phecy has no respect to Egypt, or any of the contiguous THE following exposition is taken from the elaborate scription of some people, or another, destined to be What has been applied to Egypt is a dedissertation of Bishop Horsley, the finest specimen per-principal instruments in the hand of Providence, in the haps extant, of profound and sagacious Scripture criticism. Instead of the Bishop's own translation of the chapter, excellent as it is, we prefer giving the authorized version, as it stands in our common Bibles, only arranging it in lines, according to the manner of Hebrew poetry. In the first verse, we change "Woe to" into " Ho!" a change justified in the notes. In the second verse, we omit the word "saying," which our translators have supplied, printing it as usual in italics, to shew that it is not in the original. In the same verse, as well as in the last verse, instead of “a nation meted out," we say, with Bishop Horsley, a nation expecting, expecting." And in the fourth verse, instead of "I will consider in my dwelling-place," we adopt, as more correct, the rendering suggested by our translators themselves in the margin, "I will regard my set dwelling-place," "I will keep my eye upon my prepared habitation."-Horsley. With these slight variations, we adhere to the text of the authorized version.

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1. Ho! Land shadowing with wings, which art beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

2. That sendest ambassadors by the sea

Even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters!
Go, ye swift messengers,

To a nation scattered and peeled,

To a people terrible [or wonderful] from their begin-
ning hitherto,

A nation expecting, expecting, and trodden down,
Whose land rivers have spoiled.

3. All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the
earth,

See ye, when He lifteth up an ensign on the mountains,

And when He bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.

4. For thus the Lord [Jehovah] said unto me,

"I will take my rest (and yet I will regard my set dwelling-place)

Like a clear heat upon herbs, [or, just before lightning,]

Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." 5. For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,

He shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, And take away and cut down the [useless] branches. 6. They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains

And to the beasts of the earth;

And the fowls [birds of prey] shall summer upon
them, [it, i. e., God's dwelling-place, v. 4.]
And all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
7. In that time shall the present be brought
Unto the Lord [Jehovah] of Hosts;

[The present] of a people scattered and peeled,
Even of a people terrible from their beginning hitherto,
A nation expecting, expecting, and trodden under foot,
Whose land rivers have spoiled-[shall be brought]
To the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts,
Mount Zion.

"It has been assumed by most interpreters, 1st, that the principal matter of this prophecy is a woe, or judgment; 2dly, that the object of this woe is the land of Egypt itself, or some of the contiguous countries; 3dly, that the time of the execution of the judgment was at hand, when the prophecy was delivered.

"I set out with considering every one of these assumptions as doubtful; and the conclusion, to which my investigations bring me, is, that every one of them is false. First, the prophecy indeed predicts some woeful judgment. But the principal matter of the prophecy is not judgment, but mercy; a gracious promise of the final restoration of the Israelites. Secondly, the pro

Ver. 1. "Ho" land." Many interpreters render the exclamation by 'Wo to'-But the particle is not necessarily comminatory. Sometimes it is an exclamation of surprise; and very often it simply calls persons at a distance and so it is to be taken here."

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Shadowing with wings."-" The shadow of wings is a very usual image in the prophetic language, for protection afforded by the stronger to the weak. Gods' protection of his servants is described by their being safe under the shadow of his wings. And in this passage the broad shadowing wings may be intended to characterise some great people who should be famous for the protection they should give to those whom they received into their alliance."

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Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia."-" The land of Cush in holy writ (commonly rendered Ethiopia) is properly that district of Arabia where the sons of Cush first settled. But as this race multiplied exceedingly, and spread, not only into other parts of Arabia, but eastward, round the head of the Persian Gulf, to the confines of Susiana; and westward, across the Arabian Gulf, into the region since called Abyssinia; the land of Cush is often taken more largely. The rivers of Cush, in this place, may be either the Euphrates and the Tigris on the east, or the Nile, and its adjacent streams on the west. But which of these are meant, it must be left for time to shew."

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Ver. 2. "That sendest ambassadors by the sea."-Messengers in this place, in the English, might be better than ambassadors; for the original word may be taken for persons employed between nation and nation, for the purposes either of negotiation or commerce."

"In vessels of bulrushes.”—“ Navigable vessels are certainly meant; and if it could be proved, that Egypt is the country spoken to, these vessels of bulrushes might be understood literally of the light skiffs, made of that material, and used by the Egyptians upon the Nile. But if the country spoken to be distant from Egypt, vessels of bulrush are only used as an apt image, on account of their levity, for quick-sailing vessels of any material. The country, therefore, to which the prophet calls, is characterised as one, which in the days of the completion of this prophecy, should be a great maritime and commercial power, forming remote alliances, making distant voyages to all parts of the world with expedition and security, and in the habit of affording protection to their friends and allies. Where this country is to be found is not otherwise said, than that it will be remote from Judea, and with respect to that country, beyond the Cushean streams."

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"Go, ye swift messengers."—" The word 'saying' has been inserted in our public translation, and many others of a late date, upon a supposition that the words which follow, Go, ye swift messengers,' &c. are a command given by the people, called to in the first verse, to messengers sent by them. But it should rather seem, that the command to the swift messengers is the prophet's command, that is God's command by the prophet; and that the swift messengers to whom the command is given, are the very people called upon in the first verse; who by their skill in navigation, and their perpetual voy, ages to distant parts were qualified to be swift carriers of the message. First, the prophet calls upon this peo

ple; he summons them to attend to him; then he declares for what immediate purpose they are summoned, viz. to be the carriers of a message."

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"To a nation scattered and peeled."-" The first participle, scattered,' or 'dragged away,' may be applied to a people forcibly torn from their country, and carried into captivity. And the second, peeled,' or 'pluckt,' may be applied to a people plundered of their wealth, and stripped of their power. Or, as the word is sometimes used for the plucking of the hair of the beard in contumely, it may be applied figuratively to a depressed people, treated every where with insult and indignity. Thus both these participles may be more naturally applied to the Jews in their present condition, than to any other nation of any other time."

standard of the cross of Christ; the trumpet of the Gospel. The resort to the standard, the effect of the summons, in the end will be universal. A pruning of the vine shall take place after a long suspension of visible interpositions of Providence, just before the season of the gathering of the fruits. Fowls of prey and wild beasts shall take possession of Jehovah's dwelling-place. But at that very season, when the affairs of the church seem ruined and desperate, a sudden reverse shall take place. The people to whom the message is sent, shall be conducted in pomp, as a present to Jehovah, to the place of his name, to Mount Zion."

Ver. 3." See ye-hear ye," or, "shall see shall hear."-" The prophecy announces a display of God's power and providence which should be notorious to the whole world, and particularly, I think, alludes to a renewed preaching of the Gospel with great power and effect in the latter ages."

Ver. 4. "For thus the Lord," &c.-"This verse seems to describe a long suspension of the visible interpositions of God in the affairs of this world and in favour of his

"To a people terrible from their beginning hitherto."— "To a people terrible,' &c. to wit, the Jews,' says the annotator in the English Geneva Bible, who, because of God's plagues, made all other nations afraid of the like; as God threatened.' The word, if I mistake not, is applicable to whatever excites admiration or awe. And the people of the Jews have been from their very people; during which, however, his providence is not beginning, are at this day, and will be to the end of asleep; he is all the while regarding his set dwellingtime, a people venerable in a religious sense, awfully re-place-i. e., Zion, directing every thing to the ultimate markable, on account of the special providence visibly prosperity of his people, and to the universal establishment of true religion." attending them."

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"A nation meted out and trodden down,' or literally rendered, according to the ancient translations, A nation expecting, expecting, and trodden down.' Now, are not the Jews, I would ask, in their present state, a nation expecting, expecting, and trampled under foot?' still without end expecting their Messiah, who came so many ages since, and everywhere trampled under foot, held in subjection, and generally treated with contempt? And is not this likely to be their character and condition till their conversion shall take place ?"

"Whose land the rivers have spoiled."—"Rivers,' i. e. the armies of conquerors, which long since have spoiled the land of the Jews. The inundation of rivers is a frequent image in the prophetic style for the ravages of armies of foreign invaders. (Isaiah, viii. 7, 8.)

"Thus it appears that the description of the people to whom the swift messengers are sent, agrees most accurately in every particular with the character and condition of the dispersed Jews, a nation dragged away from its proper seat, and plucked of its wealth and power; a people wonderful, from the beginning to this very time, for the special providence which ever has attended them, and directed their fortunes; a nation still lingering in expectation of the Messiah, who so long since came, and was rejected by them, and now is coming again in glory; a nation universally trampled under foot; whose land, rivers,' armies of foreign invaders, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Syromacedonians, Romans, Saracens, and Turks, have overrun and depopulated.

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"We have now heard messengers summoned; we have heard a command given to them to go swiftly with the message; we have heard the people described to whom the message was to be carried. It might be expected we should next hear the message given to the messengers in precise terms. But in prophecy, the curtain (if the expression may be allowed) is often suddenly dropped upon the action that is going on before it is finished, and the subject is continued in a shifted scene, as it were, of vision. In the present instance, the scene of messengers sent upon a message is suddenly closed with this second verse, before the messengers set out, before even the message is given to them. But the new objects which are immediately brought in view evidently | represent under the usual emblems of sacred prophecy, other parts of the same entire action, and declare with the greatest perspicuity the purport, the season, and the effect of the message. An ensign or standard is lifted up on the mountains; a trumpet is blown on the hills: the

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"The Lord takes his rest, like a clear heat upon herbs," or "a parching heat just before lightning.”— "The stillness of that awful pause is described under the image of that torpid state of the atmosphere in hot weather which precedes a thunder-storm, when not a gleam of sunshine breaks for a moment through the sullen gloom; not a breath stirs; not a leaf wags; not a blade of grass is shaken; no rippling wave curls upon the sleeping surface of the waters; the black ponderous cloud covering the whole sky seems to hang fixed and motionless as an arch of stone, Nature seems benumbed in all her operations. The vigilance nevertheless of God's silent providence is represented under the image of his keeping his eye, while he thus sits still, upon his prepared habitation. The sudden eruption of judgment threatened in the next verse, after this total cessation, just before the final call to Jew and Gentile, answers to the storms of thunder and lightning which, in the suffocating heats of the latter end of summer, succeed that perfect stillness and stagnation of the atmosphere. And as the natural thunder at such seasons is the welcome harbinger of refreshing and copious showers, so it appears the thunder of God's judgments will usher in the long desired season of the consummation of mercy. So accurate is the allusion in all its parts."

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Ver. 5." He shall cut off the sprigs, and take away the branches."- "These words express not simply sprigs and branches, but useless shoots,' luxuriant branches," which bear no fruit, and weaken the plant; and properly such shoots and branches of a vine. A vine, in the prophetic language, is an image of the church of God; the branches of the vine are the members of the church; and the useless shoots and unfruitful luxuriant branches are the insincere nominal members of the church; and the pruning of such shoots and branches of the vine is the excision of such false hypocritical professors, at least the separation of them from the church by God's judgments. This verse therefore, and the following, clearly predict a judgment to fall upon the church for its purification, and the utter destruction of hypocritical professors of the truth.

"The time is fixed in the beginning of this verse, For afore the harvest,' &c. This pruning will immediately precede the harvest and the ingathering. The season of the harvest and of the gathering of the fruit is the prophetic image of that period, when our Lord will send forth his angels to gather his elect from the four winds of heaven; of that period, when a renewed preaching of the Gospel shall take place in all parts of the

world, of which the conversion of the Jews will perhaps be the first effect.

Ver. 6. "They shall be left together," &c.-" That is, the shoots and branches cut off as unfruitful and useless shall be left."

"Summer upon them winter upon them."-" The pronoun of the third person in the original is singular, it. The true antecedent of this singular pronoun in the original is the word, 'my dwelling-place,' in verse 4; which dwelling-place may be understood literally of Mount Zion. It was a prevailing opinion in the primitive ages that Antichrist's last exploit would be, to fix his seat of empire on that holy spot, where he would ultimately perish."

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Ver. 7." In that time shall the present be brought," &c_"In that time.'-Immediately after this purgation of the church, at the very time when the bird of prey, with all the beasts of the earth, Antichrist with his rebel rout, shall have fixed his seat between the seas, in the holy mountain, a present shall be brought,' &c. the nation, described in verse 2, as those to whom the swift messengers are sent, after their long infidelity, shall be brought as a present unto Jehovah. (Compare chap. Irvi. 20.) They shall be converted to the acknowledgment of the truth, and they shall be brought to the place of the name of Jehovah, to Mount Zion; they shall be settled in peace and prosperity in the land of their original inheritance.

" This then is the sum of this prophecy, and the substance of the message sent to the people dragged about and pluckt. That in the latter ages, after a long suspension of the visible interpositions of Providence, God, who all the while regards that dwelling-place, which he never will abandon, and is at all times directing the events of the world to the accomplishment of his own purposes of wisdom and mercy, immediately before the final gathering of his elect from the four winds of heaven, will purify his church by such signal judgments as shall rouse the attention of the whole world, and in the end strike all nations with religious awe. At this pe

riod the apostate faction will occupy the Holy Land. This faction will certainly be an instrument of those judgments by which the church will be purified. That purification therefore is not at all inconsistent with the seeming prosperity of the affairs of the atheistical confederacy; but after such duration as God shall see fit to allow to the plenitude of its power, the Jews converted to the faith of Christ will be unexpectedly restored to their ancient possessions.

"The swift messengers will certainly have a considerable share as instruments in the hand of God in the restoration of the chosen people. Otherwise, to what purpose are they called upon (verse 1) to receive their commission from the prophet? It will perhaps be some part of their business to afford the Jews the assistance and protection of their fleets. This seems to be insinuated in the imagery of the 1st verse. But the principal part they will have to act will be that of the carriers of God's message to his people. This character seems to describe some Christian country, where the prophecies relating to the latter ages will meet with particular attention; where the literal sense of those which promise the restoration of the Jewish people will be strenuously upheld; and where these will be so successfully expounded as to be the principal means, by God's blessing, of removing the veil from the hearts of the Israelites.

"Those who shall thus be the instruments of this blessed work, may well be described in the figured language of prophecy as the carriers of God's message to his people. The situation of the country destined to so high an office is not otherwise described in the prophecy than by this circumstance, that it is ، beyond the rivers of Cush:'—that is, far to the west of Judea, if these rivers of Cush are to be understood, as they have been generally understood, of the Nile and other Ethiopian

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rivers; far to the east, if of the Tigris and Euphrates. The one or the other they must denote, but which, is uncertain. It will be natural to ask, of what importance is this circumstance in the character of the country, which, if it be any thing, is a geographical character, and yet leaves the particular situation so much undetermined, that we know not in what quarter of the world to look for the country intended, whether in the East Indies, or in the western parts of Africa or Europe, or in America? I answer, that the full importance of this circumstance will not appear till the completion of the prophecy shall discover it. But it had, as I conceive, a temporary importance at the time of the delivery of the prophecy, namely, that it excluded Egypt. "The Jews of Isaiah's time, by a perverse policy, were upon all occasions courting the alliance of the Egyptians, in opposition to God's express injunctions by his prophets to the contrary. Isaiah therefore, as if he would discourage the hope of aid from Egypt at any time, tells them that the foreign alliance which God prepares for them in the latter times, is not that of Egypt, which he teaches them at all times to renounce and to despise, but that of a country far remote; as every country must be that lies either west of the Nile or east of the Tigris."

DOGS IN EASTERN CITIES.
BY THE REV. ROBERT JAMIESON,
Minister of Westruther.

IT is scarcely possible for an European to form an idea
of the intolerable nuisance occasioned in the villages
and cities of the East, by the multitude of dogs that
infest the streets. The natives, accustomed from their
earliest years to the annoyance, come to be regardless
of it; but to a stranger these creatures are the greatest
plague to which he is subjected; for, as they are never
allowed to enter a house, and do not constitute the
property of any particular owner, they display none of
those habits of which the domesticated species among
us are found susceptible, and are destitute of all those
social qualities which often render the dog the trusty
and attached friend of man,-the lively companion,
the faithful guardian, and the favorite on every hearth.
Instead of the gentle, attractive, and almost rational
creature he appears to be among us, the race seems
wholly to degenerate in the warm regions of the East,
and to approximate to the character of beasts of prey,
as in disposition they are ferocious, cunning, blood-
thirsty, and possessed of the most insatiable voracity:
and even in their very form, there is something repul-
sive; their sharp and savage features; their wolf-like
eyes; their long hanging ears; their straight and point-
ed tails; their lank and emaciated forms, almost en-
tirely without a belly, give them an appearance of
wretchedness and degradation, that stands in sad con-
trast with the general condition and qualities of the
breed in Europe. They are almost wholly outcasts
from human habitations; and, consequently, in Asiatic
countries, the beautiful traits of canine fidelity and
attachment are altogether unknown. There the hand
of man is seldom extended to offer the stroke or the
morsel of kindness; and the creature that receives or
snatches it from the unwilling hand, would, in a few
hours after, if an opportunity offered, mangle and de-
vour the corpse of his benefactor without the smallest
repugnance. These hideous creatures, dreaded by the
people for their ferocity, or avoided by them as useless
and unclean, are obliged to prowl about everywhere
in search of a precarious subsistence; and, as they have
never been subjected to any discipline, and run general-
ly in bands, their natural ferocity, inflamed by hunger,
and the consciousness of strength, makes them the most
troublesome and dangerous visitors to the stranger
who unexpectedly finds himself in their neighbour-

hood, as they will not scruple to seize whatever he | figurative language the prophet described the indo. may have about him, and even in the event of his fall-lence, unfitness, and rapacity of the prophets and ing, and being otherwise defenceless, to attack and teachers of his corrupt age; the application of his bold devour him. It is chiefly, however, at night, that metaphors may easily be made by help of the statements these prowlers are the most formidable; for even those already given, of the disposition and habits of the dog which lie during the heat of the day, lazy, inactive, in Eastern countries; but he has included one additional and scarcely raising their head to growl at the passenger circumstance that remains to be noticed to complete the who may have chanced to trample on them, run about, description of the Oriental breed. He calls them "dumb whenever the shades begin to fall, and the inhabitants dogs; they cannot bark ;" and this, too, is in exact acto disappear from the streets, and are so intolerable by cordance with what is found to be the case still; for their perpetual din, and their sudden and furious attacks, travellers, who have attended to this point, inform us, that it is an attempt never made without the greatest that the canine species degenerate so much in hot risk, to walk abroad at night, and without sufficient countries, that in a short time they lose their voice protection. This circumstance, which is frequently and cannot bark, so that they either make a hideous noticed by travellers in the East, may be illustrated by melancholy howl, or, as in some places, become alan incident described in a very lively manner by the together dumb. These animals, driven by hunger, French traveller Denon. It occurred on the day of greedily devour every thing that comes in their way; his entry into Alexandria, when that city was stormed they glut themselves with the most putrid and loathby the French in the late war, and having omitted to some substances that are thrown about the cities, and take with him some necessary articles of clothing, he of nothing are they so fond as of human flesh; a repast, had gone for that purpose to his ships, and was return- with which the barbarity of the despotic countries of ing considerably later than he had anticipated to the Asia too frequently supplies them, as the bodies of city, which he found totally deserted; the stillness of criminals slain there for murder, treason, or violence, midnight prevailing, and not a glimmer of light, but are seldom buried, and lie exposed till the mangled what was afforded by the stars and clear atmosphere of fragments are carried off by the dogs. Many travellers the climate. He had not proceeded far, when he was in the East mention their having met with such dismet by a troop of furious dogs, who attacked him from gusting spectacles, and Bruce, in particular, describes the streets, the doors and the low roofs of the houses, the streets of Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, as with so much ferocity, as almost to deprive him of the strewed with pieces of carcases, and that he was renpower of self-defence. No sooner had he passed the dered miserable at seeing his own hungry dogs, twice territory of these, than he was received by a fresh band let loose through the carelessness of his servants, and of assailants, till at length, molested and wearied almost bringing off the heads and arms of slaughtered men into to death, he thought of taking a circuitous route along the court-yard to eat them at leisure. With these cirthe suburbs of the city, by which, after climbing over cumstances in our knowledge, we cannot be surprised walls, and wading a considerable depth into the river, at those parts of the Sacred History which describe the he came, after the greatest fatigue, about midnight to readiness of the dogs to lick up the blood of the much one of the French sentinels, convinced that dogs are injured Naboth; or at the wretched fate of the royal one of the greatest pests of an Oriental city. Cha- accomplices in this murder; with one of whom, the teaubriand, speaking of Galata, near Constantinople, atrocious Jezebel, the dogs had been so busy, that when says, that "the almost total want of women, the want the messenger came to bury her corpse, they found of wheel-carriages, and the multitude of dogs without no more of her than the skull and the feet, and the masters, were the three distinguishing features of the palms of her hands." And we are enabled to judge also city;" and Le Bruyn, describing another Eastern city, of the severity of the divine judgment upon the guilty says, great numbers of dogs crowd the streets; they and impenitent nations of old, when the Almighty do not belong to any one, but either get their food as threatened to visit them, among other terrible scourges, they can, or are supported by the charitable, who give with multitudes of furious and ravenous dogs:“ İ money to bakers and butchers to feed them, and even will appoint over them four kinds, saith the Lord; the leave legacies for that purpose." In ancient times, sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of they seem to have been no less a nuisance than they heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and deare to the modern cities of the East; for we find the stroy." (Jer. xv. 3.)* sacred writers making several allusions to the particulars now mentioned regarding the character and condition of dogs in terms so graphic, and so like what an observer of the present day might use, as to convey the impression, that the ancient inhabitants of Palestine witnessed the same spectacles, and were subjected to the same molestations, as are found still to exist in all the towns and villages throughout the East. Thus, the Psalmist, (Psalm lix. 14, 15,) "at evening they return, and make a noise like a dog, and go round about the city; they wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied." In the 22d psalm, in which he gives a prophetical description of the sufferings of Messiah, he uses these expressions: "dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me;" aptly representing, under the image of a band of ferocious dogs attacking a defenceless passenger, the proceedings of the insolent and infuriated multitude, who insisted for the crucifixion of Jesus. To the same features in the character of Eastern dogs, allusion is made in the following passage from Isaiah :"The watchmen of Israel are blind; they are ignorant; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber: yea, they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough," Under this

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The unsocial and disgusting propensities which the dog exhibits, together with the general state in which he lives as a wandering outcast, have made him be regarded, in all ages, by the people of the East, with the greatest aversion and contempt; and hence, one of the strongest terms which they can ever employ towards one whom they hold in little or no estimation, is, to call him a dog. Various examples of this occur in the course of the Sacred History. "Am I a dog," said the Philistine champion to David, “Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves?" alluding to the defences with which people are obliged to furnish themselves against the attacks of these furious animals. whom," said David, wishing to express his own insig

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In a more settled and advanced state of Eastern society, more attention is paid to the domestication of the dog, and the owners shew him acts of kindness. Thus, in the Gospel history, we read of the dogs being fed with the crumbs that fell from their master's table; a circumstance, which, while it indicates a higher status as occupied by the dog at that period, is probably to be accounted for by the custom of the ancients not using a linen cover for their tables; but merely rubbing them with a wet sponge, and after eating, cleansing their hands with the soft parts of the bread, instead of a towel. So that the crumbs used for this purpose, or dropped by the guests on the table, were reserved as the portion of the dogs. Perhaps, too, the graphic circumstance introduced into the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, of the dogs licking the sores of the beggar, is to be interpreted rather of the private and well-fed pack and diseased inendicant would have been ill able to keep at bay. of Dives, than of a ravenous band, whom the feeble arm of the aged

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