THE HOLY LAND.

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

1.-ENTRANCE. 1

It was on Sunday, March 28th, that we were to enter the Holy Land. I had been too much engrossed by the objects which interested us at every step in Egypt and Arabia to think much of this beforehand; but when I came forth from our tent in the dawn of that morning, there was enough of novelty in the scene around me to make me feel that we were about to enter upon a new country, and a new set of interests; and I became eager to know at what hour we were to pass the boundary which separated the desert from the Holy Landthe home of the old Faith from that of the new. We had followed the track of Moses from the spot where his mother placed his bulrush cradle to that on which he died; for to the east we should this morning see the mountains overhanging the Dead Sea; and among them the summit of Nebo, whence he looked abroad over the Land of Promise; and now we were to enter upon the country of Jesus-certain to walk in his very footsteps, and see what he saw-perhaps this very day. I never remember feeling such an interest in every wildflower, in the outlines of all the hills, and the track of all the water courses.

We had left the stony desert behind us, and were encamped in a nook of the hills where the ground was green, and weeds grew thick. There was grass under my bed in the tent; and when I came out this morning, the dew was heavy on the daisies and buttercups and flowering mallows which grew abundantly on the turf. After breakfast, while the camels were loading, I walked in the early sunshine on a strip of sand overlooking the valley, impressing on my memory every feature of the landscape, and impatient of the rising ground to the north, which prevented my seeing where we were going. It was about ten o'clock when we passed the boundary. It was impossible to tell the exact moment; but within a mile or two we felt that we were indeed in the native land of Christ, and probably on his very track. He might have been here. His relations lived at Hebron; and during the first thirty years of his life he had probably visited them, after meeting them at the feasts at Jerusalem. He might have walked over the hills which swelled higher and higher as we advanced, and rested beside some of the wells which yawned beside our track. At any rate, the trees and flowers which we saw must have been familiar to his eyes; the thorny acacia which began here to rise and spread from the stunted shrub of the desert to the dimensions of a tree; the scarlet anemone-with us a precious garden flower

-which here strewed the ground for acres round; the cyclamen, which pushed forth its tufts of white and lilac blossoms from under many a stone and bush; and the poppy, mallow, hemlock, and wild oats, which grew as thickly as in any English hedge. I did not know before that these weeds were as common here as with us; and never before did the sight of them give me so much pleasure. It would have been pleasant anywhere to meet these familiar weeds so far from home; but the delight to-day was to think that He and his disciples were as much accustomed to them as ourselves, and that a walk in the early spring was, in the pure country, much the same thing to them as to us.

But we soon came upon traces which showed that the expanse of pure country here was small in those days, compared with what it is now. The towns must have been more thickly set here than in any country I ever was in. Patches and masses of ruins showed themselves on every hand, so near each other as to indicate that the land must have been peopled to a degree now nowhere known. The first ploughing we had seen for many weeks was a striking sight to us; a mere scratching of the soil at the foot of the hills: but close by lay a heap of building stones, the remains of a town or village. Presently we saw a rude plough, with a single camel at work; and at hand was a long foundation wall, laid in a far distant century. On a height further on, were the remains of a large ancient building, with two broken pillars standing, marking the site of the Aroer of scripture. Then, though there were water-courses about every hill, wells began to abound; substantial, deep wells, built with a rim with holes in it, to receive the covering stone; such wells as tell of a settlement beside them. We stopped early this day-partly because it was Sunday, and partly because our Arab guards, who know nothing of our Sunday, found a convenient place among the hills, somewhat sheltered from the cold wind; and here, a very few miles from the boundary, the gentlemen of the party discovered that we had sat down in the midst of what was once a large town, though the place appeared a mere stony tract, like many that we had passed. In the morning early, I went out to see for myself, and was astonished at the extent of the ruins which I should not have observed while merely riding by. I could trace the lines of foundation walls for half a mile; and building stones, overgrown with grass, lay_in hillocks for a considerable distance round. The many caverns in the limestone rocks, now used as beds for the goats, were found to be the vaults of large buildings now gone to ruin. In a few minutes, we traced three temples, or other such buildings, by their overthrown pillars. Our eyes

VOL. IV.

B

being now opened, we this day saw more and more remains, till we were convinced that all the way from the boundary to Hebron, the land was thickset with towns, and swarming with inhabitants in the days of its glory-the days when the Teacher went up and down in it,: meditating the changes which must make it what I have seen it now. Its hills and streams, its skies and flowers, are to-day what they were before his eyes: but where he saw towns on every height, and villages in every nook, there is now hardly left one stone upon another. A group of black Bedouin tents on a hillside, a camel or two browsing here, and a flock of goats there, are all that relieve the utter solitude where there was then an innumerable throng of men.

As we advanced, on the Monday, the soil became richer, and field was joined to field, so that we began to look for the landmarks which are here used, instead of fences, to bound field property. We entered upon thickets and shrubberies, where white roses, the cyclamen, convolvulus, and fragrant herbs abounded. Soon after noon a new scene opened upon us. On our left hand lay a wide, deep basin among the hills, full of vineyards and olive-grounds, where the stones from the soil were built up into fences, and in almost every plot rose a garden-house. This was a sure sign that we were near a town; and as we rounded the hill on our right, we came in sight of the two eminences on which Hebron is built. There stood the town where John the Baptist was born; and here were the scenes which he must many a time have talked of with his cousin, in their boyish meetings at Jerusalem for the feasts. Hebron, too, is only twenty miles from Bethlehem; only twentysix from Jerusalem; and in those days, when a large amount of yearly travelling was a solemn religious duty incumbent upon every family, it is scarcely possible but that relatives must have often visited each other, and that Jesus and his parents must have come to Hebron.

The cave of Machpelah is there; and the burialplace of Abraham and his family was a sacred locality, and an object of pilgrimage to Jews of all ages.

As we inquired for it, and walked round the inclosure, which the Mohammedans now permit no Christian to enter, I could not but think who might have been before us in the same quest.

Our Library.

THE IRISH PRIEST; OR, WHAT FOR IRELAND?* ̧

Amid the jealousies and conflicts of parties in Ireland, that seemed of late only to grow more fierce as the occasion for a general union of all earnest lovers of their country grew more indispensable -but are now, we trust, about to be allayed by a general friendly confederation-it is pleasant to hear one gentle and thoughtful voice uplifted from the green isle, seeking, on the one hand, to allay instead of to exasperate; and on the other, to promote substantial and efficient social reforms, rather than to continue the temporising political policy which has rendered Ireland's noblest efforts so comparatively unproductive.

Would, for instance, that every landlordwhether he delight to call himself an Orangeman or a Repealer, Protestant or Catholic-would set up to himself some such ideal of what all landlords

* Longman and Co.

should be as is contained in the following quotation! Ireland would then speedily become the glory, instead of the shame, of British civilisation.

A TRUE LANDLORD.

"There shall be no such estate in Ireland," said he, "as mine. Never a child, however humble, but shall receive the most careful fostering. There shall be schools with every desirable accessory-food for both body and mind; for it were brutal to expect starving infants to learn. Clothing, also, to those in need of it, enforcing cleanliness and self-respect by every available means.

"Religious education, so termed, I would leave to the clergy: as to secular culture, it were essential that each child should be intimately acquainted with its mother-tongue; with natural science in all its branches-from the plant in the field to the pebble on the shore-astronomy,, botany, mineralogy, natural history, natural philosophy, and designing; also with insight into the structure of language, and into the constitution of the human mind. The art of learning languages, desirable in itself, helps to dissipate the magic prestige connected with the cabalistic forms in which the human intellect has loved to shroud itself; disperses prejudice, and lays open those so wonderful vehicles of thought and feeling betwixt man and man.

The meanest, poorest, most abortive essay should be care fully encouraged. Consider, it is the groundwork, the glorious first fruits, however imperfect, of an immortal soul. The utmost kindness and firmness should be used, associating toil with pleasure, till these children had been snatched from the bondage of apathy, ignorance, and want of thought, for ever.

"Competent, well-salaried teachers, male and female, should be appointed from the first, and, as soon as possible, assistants of both sexes, from the more deserving of the pupils.

"Each child should be impressed with the sacred claims of labour, and the incumbency under which he is born to be serviceable to his kind. Half his time, therefore, would be fitly devoted to study, half to industrial occupation. Exclusive of workshops, there should be attached to every school a farm and gardens effectually tilled; for manual dexterity opens fresh resources and constitutes an important branch of mental deveshould have a little feast, the preparation of which, along with that lopment. Occasionally, the young people, the teachers presiding, of ordinary meals, would initiate the girls into the culinary art : winding up the whole with the graceful and humanising dance.

"Select vocal music should be sedulously cultivated, while business should open and close with hymns of praise and thankfulness to the ever compasssionate God. The children should learn the compositions of the great masters-those so precious transcripts of the music of nature-God's music, that infinite solace and forecast of heaven. Loving sentiments, garbed in gracious melodies, are calculated to reform the world. Whom would they not benefit; for who is wholly free from the plaguespots of error and sin? It would recall the lullabies of infancy the low sweet voices on a mother's knee. The haven of rest and of a blessed eternity, albeit dim and distant, would open again; while, swelling, sweetly swelling, on the elemental air, floods of glorious harmony would waft the regenerate soul to heaven once more!

"But should we neglect the parent while we fostered the child? That were not well. For every peasant I would construct, and maintain in substantial repair, a well-built cottage. There should be poultry, a cow, and the peasant's wealth, a swine, with large enclosed garden, the whole at an acreable rental. I would supply each family with seeds, plants, cuttings, free of cost; and, further, allow one day in the week, without deduction of wages, for the culture of the little spot. I should, moreover, maintain a model farm and garden accessible to all; and in case of sickness or accident, send some one to look after the poor man's affairs.

"The estate should be drained and trenched at my own expense: while I advised the general adoption of spade labour, with house-fed cattle, my draught oxen should be at the service of the tenants in all agricultural straits. I would follow the best system of alternate husbandry, and, both by precept and example, do what I could to extend all the advantages I enneatest houses and most comfortably attired families, as well as joyed. Encouragement should be given to those who kept the prizes for superior stock and crop. And every month my butcher should slaughter, by the humane and almost painless method of pithing, abundant sheep, swine, oxen, on which occasions well-cured joints and fresh meats should find their way to every householder.

"I would maintain decked vessels for the deep-sea fishery, and nets for drawing along the shore. My people would catch leave a handsome surplus for gratuitous distribution. Turf, enough for sale at nominal prices to cover expenses, as well as

well compressed and dried, should be everywhere available at cost price. A skilful physician, with competent assistants, should attend the poor; and disease would no longer ensue from destitution and neglect.

"In other respects," said Cornelius, "I should arrange that my labourers, either in addition to, or in lieu of wages, should have a proportion, say a tenth, of the aggregate produce of the soil. Having a direct interest in the fruits of their toil, they would redouble exertion, and realise an increase beyond anything that mere driving could insure."