of the atmosphere will be. In reference to this it has been wittily said, "We have no climate, only weather." But in Palestine there is a glorious certainty in this respect, and for some for some six months running no rain falls and it is cloudlessly fine all day long. About the first of May all rain ceases until about the close of the following October. The realisation of this long dry season every year, so utterly foreign to our experience, is most important in understanding countless allusions in Scripture. Thus, we can understand the intense alarm and distress of Israel when Samuel called down rain in "wheat harvest." This would be nothing extraordinary with us, but with the dwellers in Palestine heavy soaking showers in "harvest" would be little short of a miracle.

1

Even more wonderful was Samuel's calling down "thunderings" at this season. Our thunderstorms come always in summer: theirs always in winter.

Again, whilst speaking of "wheat harvest," it must be remembered that this comes with us after summer, in the early autumn, but in Bible lands it occurs before summer, in the late spring, towards the end of April on the hot plains, and during May on the mountains.

11 Sam. xii. 17, 18.

Observe, in connection with this, the minute. accuracy of Jeremiah's bitter cry, when he thinks, in orderly succession, of their lost seasons of grace :

"The harvest is past, the summer is ended;

And we are not saved!" 1

In the Holy Land "the harvest" comes before “the summer," whilst with us it comes after it.

Observe, too, the force thus given to Solomon's picture of the thrift, foresight, and industry of the ant, which

Though entomologists have doubted it, I have shown, in Palestine Explored, from my own observations, that the ant in Palestine does what it does not do in England, namely, store grain in its nest in very large quantities, which can only be for the purposes of food. “Harvest” (Hebrew, katzeer), "the time of cutting or reaping," that is, the cutting of the main crop, the winter crop of corn, coming as it does in April and May, always precedes the summer (Hebrew, kayitz), "the time of summer fruits," which in Palestine is from the middle of June to the middle of August. In this couplet the thought, as is so frequently the case in a Hebrew verse of two synonymous lines, gathers intensity in the last. We might well expect that these insect models of industry and foresight would "prepare their food in the summer”

and autumn against the coming "winter," the Bible season of hhoareph, or "bareness," beginning in November, when the last of the produce of the earth has been gathered in and all the land lies bare. But that they should "gather their food in the harvest,' in the very first hours of settled fine weather, when a bountiful supply, to continue for some six months, might well tempt them to idle and careless indulgence, forms a never-to-be-forgotten example of moderation, prudence, industry, and forethought, truly germs of a character "exceedingly wise." When I witnessed ants storing barley in the Jordan Valley, it was actually in the spring time, about the season of "harvest." 2

1

In a word, a whole volume might be written in merely enumerating these countless contrasts, and many volumes in showing how they remove the difficulties, confirm the minute accuracy, and elucidate the meaning of Holy Scripture.

1 Prov. xxx. 24.

Palestine Explored, 4th edit., pp. 75, 76.

MANGAL, OR COPPER BRAZIER, WITH CHAFING DISH, FOR CHARCOAL FIRE

CHAPTER III.

MISCELLANEOUS PICTURES.

IN Palestine, and throughout Bible lands, one who is accounted a "holy man" or an eminent religious teacher, when desirous to show his great love for his disciples, and his longing to impart a blessing to them, amongst other highly demonstrative signs, breathes upon their persons. Men in these regions all carry strings of large beads, made generally of vegetable products, and all dyed to one shade of colour, which are evidently the origin of the rosaries of the Church of Rome. By Easterns, however, they are carried only by the men, and by many are simply used to work off their spare nervous energies, for in every idle moment

they may be seen moving the beads aimlessly along the string with their restless fingers. But amongst the Mohammedans such strings of beads consist of either ninety-nine or thirty-three, and are used to reckon, and aid in the repetition of, the ninety-nine attributes of God. Sadly they gabble these really Scriptural and beautiful titles, passing a bead through their fingers as each is said: "God, the Creator; God, the Preserver; God, the most Bountiful; God, the Ever-present; God, the All-seeing; God, the most Merciful; God, the All-powerful; God, the King of kings;" and so on throughout the whole list. They have a superstitious belief that one of these Divine attributes especially belongs to and influences the life of every good man. Which attribute this is they ascertain by reckoning the date of his birth in conjunction with his name. These rosaries they will eagerly hold up for the great teacher to breathe upon; and he will also breathe on their hands and on their faces. The idea of this highly symbolic action seems to be that he would willingly impart to his disciples the spirit and life. that animates himself; and such an idea is the more significant and forcible since in Arabic, as in Hebrew, the words "spirit" and "breath" are the same.

This appears to me to throw a new and very vivid light upon that remarkable action of our Blessed. Lord recorded by the Evangelist John. When Jesus first appeared on the day of His resurrection to His gathered disciples, immediately after He had saluted

H