But that man may not abuse its patience, this animal is provided with a retentive memory, and armed with a temper that impels it to revenge itself on oppressors. 'Revengeful as a camel" is said to be a proverbial sentence in Persia. Travellers frequently mention this quality, and the epithet "ill-remembering" is common with the Greeks. Thus Gregory of Nazianzum writes:

Τι δ ̓ ἂν κάμηλος φυσικῆς ἐξ ὕβρεως

Βροντῶσα λαιμῷ κ' αυχέν ̓ ἐκτείνουσά σοι;

"What if the she-camel, with her natural hate, thunders from her throat, and, stretching out her neck, runs on thee?" The length of neck, too, answering to the length of leg, by a proportion common to most quadrupeds, not only serves to assist the camel in rearing its head, that it may catch the scent of distant water or vegetation, and may look over its own load and the loads of its companions, but actually serves, with the instinctively-ready flexure of the knee, to help its master. Kneeling down to receive the load, -which it would be difficult for a man to lift on to its back, if it were standing,-the obedient animal places its neck under a sort of yoke, contrived for the purpose, and slips packages, which the drivers afterwards adjust, upon its own back. When it feels that the load is as great as it can conveniently carry, it rises, if not kept down to the ground by cords bound round its legs. The strong, elastic ligament (ligamentum nucha) which strengthens the neck of all quadrupeds, when in a horizontal or prone position, to carry the weight of the head, is in the camel peculiarly powerful, and enables it also to render man that service.

A smaller and lighter kind of camel, not equal to the carriage of heavy loads, serves travellers and couriers to cross the deserts, at the rate of thirty-five or forty leagues in one long day's journey; and thus it will continue to travel for eight or ten days in succession.

The flesh and milk of young camels are food for the Arabs; the hair is woven into clothing; merchandise is conveyed by this most useful animal, where carriages could not be drawn, and where horses or mules could not make their way. The

wealth of the Eastern Chief or Patriarch is estimated, like that of Job, who had six thousand of them, by the number of camels he possesses. Still do companies of Ishmaelites carry spicery, and balm, and myrrh. This reminds us of the imagery of Isaiah, where he describes the flowing of wealth and honour as tribute to the Saviour of mankind, as if it were by an assemblage of eastern caravans, meeting each other from all parts of the continent, to be unloaded in one emporium. "The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and Kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance" (wealth) " of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces" (armies) "of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord." (Isai. lx. 3—6.)

When the day's march is ended at the caravansary, while the lightened camels rest upon the ground, slowly ruminating their evening meal, and the shades of approaching night steal upon the plain, the Mussulman turns towards Mecca, makes his prostration, and offers up his prayer. The prayer most esteemed, and always recited at their morning and evening ceremony, is this:-"Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures; the most merciful, the King of the day of judgment. Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom Thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray." It sounds as if it were composed for pilgrims; but the Persian or the Moor cannot understand it, and is content to recite it, rapidly, in ancient Arabic, just as the Papist says his Latin prayer, the Abyssinian his Ethiopic, the Malay his Syriac, the Russian his Greek, the Jew his Hebrew. And the Mussulman is wont to add other prayers or exclamations, equally foreign to his understanding, and, we fear, also unfelt

in his heart. He, too, uses beads to help him to count the number of times that he is muttering Ya Allah, as at Rome they mutter by tale Pater nosters and Ave Marias. He turns towards Mecca, his Kebla, as Daniel prayed towards Jerusalem, which was his. One would gladly forget the vain and heathenish repetitions, and the dead language, and the deadened affections, and suppose that the outward prostration of the devotee may indicate humiliation of heart; but the hope of charity does not find confirmation in the judgment of truth. The truth is, that the world has but one Kebla, the mercy-seat of the Lord Jesus Christ. No man cometh unto the Father but by Him. But we believe that "all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him." (Psal. xxii. 27.) May it please Him to speed the day!

THE CAMEL AND THE NEEDLE'S EYE,

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."-Matt. xix. 24

If you will take these words literally, it is impossible. If you will understand them freely, it is difficult and rare. Or, as our Lord explains himself to mean, it is a thing impossible to men, but possible with God.

The saying, however, sounds very strangely to the western ear; and in their desire to explain it literally, and anxiety to produce a verbal comment, many have so written as rather to produce an impression of absurdity than to convey information to an inquirer. They have hunted for various readings; but the utmost help of that kind to be found is the substitution of xáμidos, “ a thick rope,” for xáμnλos, “a camel,” by a few copyists as much in the dark as themselves, and who sacrilegiously presumed to tamper with the sacred text when they could not understand it. But this cold, minute, syllabastic way of nibbling about what the critic is not able to grasp, miserably hinders people from apprehending the scope and beauty of God's holy word. Our blessed Saviour did not pronounce a rigidly logical proposition, of which we

are to weigh the words, one by one, but taught His disciples by an oriental metaphor familiar to them all. Here are a few examples.

"Art thou of Pombedutha," says a writer in the Talmud,* "where they make an elephant walk through the eye of a needle?"—where they can work wonders. The question is ironical. And again, in the tract Berachoth: "They do not show a man a golden palm-tree, nor an elephant walking through a needle's eye." Buxtorft quotes a beautiful proverb containing the same figure: "The eye of a needle is not over narrow for two friends, and the world is not wide enough for two enemies." There is an Indian proverb to express the notion of impracticability resembling that of our text: "As if an elephant should try to pass through a wicket."‡ Even the Greeks did not shrink from the use of a similar hyperbole. Lucian, § for example, exclaims, "Thou couldest more easily hide five elephants under thy arm-pit." And, speaking to the Arabs, Mohammed almost repeats the saying of our Lord: "Verily, they who shall charge our signs with falsehood, the gates of heaven shall not be opened unto them, neither shall they enter into Paradise, until a camel passes through the eye of a needle." ||

With such illustrations of the sentence that perplexes those who labour to expound it, we may be satisfied; and for the meaning of the sentence-the lesson which our Lord designed to enforce-we may thankfully accept his own explanation to the wondering disciples. "Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!" (Mark x. 24.)

THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

A WORD in conclusion, and our evening's duty is over. We have often heard of the fabulous Gorgons: it may not be quite so familiar to reflect that there is a real Gorgon,-one, whose malign glance makes her admirers "as hard as a

* On Baba Metziah

+ Lex. Talm. et Rab., s. V., Michaelis, Introd. to New Test. By Marsh. Vol. i., p. 403. § Ad Indoctum, 23, Koran, chap. viii.

נקב

piece of the nether millstone." This is infidelity. In our favoured land the evil has not been dominant. Our sceptics, from Lord Herbert to Paine, have been met on the field of argument: but, more than this, THE PEOPLE HAVE READ THE BIBLE. Multitudes here have tasted honey; and no infidel chemistry can beguile them to deny its sweetness. They are offering that cup of unearthly consolation to the world. Time was when Chrysostom finished a climax on the spread of the truth from the Egean to the German Sea, by saying, "Britain possesses the word of life!" Little, ah! little, did that erudite Father imagine that, after the lapse of fourteen hundred years, Britain would be found giving that word, in languages of which he never heard, to the remotest nations of the globe. Yet this is history, even now. Great is the glory, great are the obligations, of our country. Her facilities for spreading Christianity are unequalled. Her commerce opens a thousand doors, her science explores every land, and her skill is abrogating distance itself. Her white sails are swelling on every sea. Her conquests, in extent, if not in swiftness, have surpassed the flight of the Roman eagle, and the terrors of the Arabian scimitar. Who can tell how much of light or of shadow the YOUNG MEN here present may shed on her future story?

YOUNG MEN! your maternal country invokes you; and, more than this, your Redeemer speaks to your hearts. "Search the Scriptures." "Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." Abjure for ever the dreamy speculations which would bring anything into rivalry with inspired Scripture. Other pages may shine with borrowed and planetary radiance ; but the sunlight is here. Let these matchless beams guide you to "Him of whom Moses in the law, and the Prophets, did write." Behold, in JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED, "the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." And, relying on His grace, resolve that the world shall be the better that you were born.-Rev. W. L. Thornton to the " Young Men's Christian Association.”