The result, then, of the whole election, will be nearly as follows. The new House will consist of, about

Sudbury is disfranchised, and there are two or three returns not yet received. There are also two "double returns."

But this view is more unfavourable than the fact. For we have placed in the column of "Liberal Conservatives" all of Sir R. Peel's followers who voted for Maynooth. But many of these,as, for instance, Lord A. Hervey at Brighton, Mr. Adderley in North Staffordshire, and Mr. Goulburn, at Cambridge, have been called to so severe an account for these votes, that they have

pledged themselves in the strongest manner, never to take another step in the same direction.

But further,--almost all those termed Radicals, many of whom have been returned by Dissenters, have engaged in the most distinct manner to vote against all further endowments, to Romanists and to all others. And lastly, even of those in the "Ministerial" column, many voted against the Maynooth grant in 1845, and would certainly vote against any farther step of the same description.

We apprehend, therefore, that even were Sir Robert Peel and his supporters to join with Lord John Russell, the majority of the House would very decidedly reject any proposition for the endowment of the Romish priests, if brought forward at present. What may be the feeling of the members, four or five years hence, it would certainly be hazardous to attempt to predict.

Nor is it more likely that any step prejudicial to the Church will be immediately taken. Not only is the disposition of the leading members of the Government,-Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, and others,-favourable to the Church; but in addition to the 320 Conservatives, there would be found at least 100 of the Whig members averse to any hostile attempts of this nature.

We cannot look, then, for any violent measures, at present, either against the Church, or in favour of Popery. But there will be several insidious propositions. The motion to admit Jews to seats in Parliament, will be the first:-an attempt to grant aid to Romish schools will be the next :--and some scheme for entering into diplomatic relations with the Pope, will probably be the third. All these measures will be likely to receive Sir R. Peel's support; and opposition to them will be characterized as "illiberal" and bigotted."

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Oh that it would please God to raise up,-not one or two merely, but a company of faithful witnesses for his truth, in Parliament; who might place such questions on their proper basis; and argue them with reference to the first principle:-Is England, or is it not, to maintain the character of A CHRISTIAN NATION?

DR. JOHN WILSON'S "LANDS OF THE BIBLE."

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THE LANDS OF THE BIBLE VISITED AND DESCRIBED. By JOHN WILSON, D.D. F.R.S. &c. In two vols. 8vo. with Maps and Illustrations. Edinburgh: Whyte. 1847.

ANOTHER large work on the geography of Palestine ;—the tenth or twelfth, we believe, within the last five years! It is certainly a gratifying circumstance, that the land of Israel, formerly rarely noticed, seems now the principal object of attraction;—that it is visited by numbers, and described by many successive travellers. Chiefly, these travellers consist of men who can feel rightly:-" Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and pity the dust thereof." But there is an obvious danger, that the subject may be too much handled, and that the best feelings may be dulled by too frequent iteration.

The present publication is quite the most costly and elaborate that we have had, upon the subject. Dr. Wilson seems to have arrived in England with his materials in the autumn of 1843, and to have spent three years and a half in the preparation of his book. It is almost a matter of wonder, in these stirring times, that the very lands he was describing, had not been turned "upside down" before his description was finished. As it is, however, we have here the result of costly preparation. Four large and valuable maps; two steel engravings; nine lithographs; and fifty wood-engravings, shew the zeal and assiduity with which the author has prosecuted his work. In fact, it is scarcely possible to turn over the pages of the book, without fancying, as you go, the author to have resolved, " Mine shall be the Book :-I will eclipse all pourtrayers of the land of Israel that have preceded me, and none that come after me shall find even a gleaning to pick up."

Dr. Wilson's journey began in the most blameless manner. He was not one of our European journalists who visit Palestine only by way of change, after having paid their first attentions to Italy, Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Greece. He was a missionary of the Free Church, who had laboured in India for fourteen years, and who was ordered by the physicians to revisit his native land, if he wished to preserve his life and prolong his labours. He thus took Egypt and Palestine in his homeward way. On the 2nd of January, 1843, he embarked at Bombay for Aden, where he landed on the 10th. Suez he reached on the 28th, and on the 6th of February he left Cairo for the Red Sea. Here his chief work of observation begins, and certainly a more pains-taking traveller it is scarcely possible to conceive. A large volume is nearly filled,

before he reaches Jerusalem. Our chief difficulty, in giving an extract, must be, the well-trodden nature of the road. Here is his approach to Horeb.

"Wádí Sheikh considerably expanded as we advanced, and a few minutes after we had rested at breakfast, we began to strike nearly due east over a sandy undulating plain, broken here and there by low hills. The eastern Sinaitic range was rising before us, running nearly parallel to our course at the right hand, but highest to the south-east of us. About two hours from our entering on this plain, we crossed the Wádí Abu Táleb running to the south; and two hours later, exactly at noon, we found ourselves in the Wádí Soláf, running here to the north-east, along the base of the bold and dark Jebel Hawá, a long buttress of rock enclosing the higher sacred mountains, which were overtopping it, as the towers of a citadel its walls. We were here at the foot of the celebrated Nakb el-Hawá, or Pass of the Wind,' called by Burckhardt Nakb el-Rahah,' from the valley to which it leads; and by which the traveller from Wádí Feirán, unless he take a more circuitous route by Wádí Sheikh, ascends to Mount Sinai. The ascent is rugged and tortuous. Sometimes we had to push our way through among large granite boulders and detached rocks, of an enormous size, threatening to roll upon us, and crush us to annihilation. At other times we had to creep warily along narrow terraces without any shelving in front, afraid that we might take a leap downwards to the depths of destruction. We did not, however, find the ascent so difficult as some of the descriptions of it which we had read gave us reason to expect. Among the precipitous defiles in the western Ghats of India, we had frequently had greater exertion to make, and caution to observe, both in riding and walking. We noticed the inscriptions in the Wádí Mukatteb and Greek characters observed by Niebuhr, Burckhardt and others. They occur at three or four places, and some of them are now well nigh obliterated. We got to the summit in less than two hours, climbing up almost the whole of the way on foot. We had still a narrower defile before us for a quarter of an hour, after we got to the highest point; but it began to expand as we advanced. A few palm-trees and green bushes were tokens of the possibility of life, amidst the awful desolation which the heights on all sides presented to our view. The first snow which I had seen for fifteen years, covered the peaks and filled the crevices of Jebel Salsal-Zeit in our front.

"On a sudden, when we had deflected a little to the left hand, a broad quadrangular plain, but of much greater length than breadth, lay before us. It is bounded at its farthest extremity by a mountain of surpassing height, grandeur, and terror: and this was the very 'mount of God,' where he stood when he descended in fire, and where rested the cloud of his glory, from which he spoke all the words of the law.' The plain itself was the Wádí-erRáhah, the Valley of Rest,' where stood the whole congregation of the sons and daughters of Israel when gathered together before the Lord. As of old, the everlasting mountains, by which it was bounded on every side, were the walls, and the expanse of heaven itself the canopy, of this great temple. Entered within its court, so sacred in its associations, we felt for a time the curiosity of the traveller lost in the reverence and awe of the worshipper. Never before, perhaps, were we so strangely affected as in this wondrous locality. Our emotions were then incapable of analysis, as they are now of description. I trust they were more than excited by the contemplation of past realities and enduring solemnities-that they were directed Godward by the great Spirit of truth himself.

"We walked through the valley of Ráhah, occasionally stopping to survey the interesting scene around us, but without interrupting the progress of the camels. About the middle of the Wádí there is a small water-shed, at the head of which, on the south-western side, there are several large detached rocks. On one of these we rested for a few minutes, viewing, with indescribable interest,

the mountain, which, on our first entrance into this valley, had proved the spell of our enchantment. It is of deep red granite. It rises from the plain almost perpendicularly, about 1500 feet. From the monks it receives the name of Jebel Horeb. Jebel Músá, or the mount of Moses, both of the monks and Arabs, was not visible. It is not, however, it is to be observed, a distinct mountain, but only the highest peak of this one, at the part most remote from the valley. As we approached Horeb, we saw Jebel Kátherín, (Catherine,) its twin sister, outpeering it, to the right, but owing to its position, which is somewhat aside from the valley, by no means so commanding or imposing. Rounding the eastern corner of Horeb, at the commencement of Wadi Sheikh, we had a narrow defile called Sh'ueib, or the Valley of Jethro,' straight before us to the S. E., in which, at the distance of about three quarters of a mile, we saw the convent, or fortlet-for such in reality it is-in which we were to seek for shelter during our sojourn in these parts, with its beautiful gardens adorning it on the side nearest to us. Jebel Monájah was full in our view behind the convent. Jebel ed-Deir reared itself aloft on our left, as Sinai on our right. We passed quickly over the sheets of rock and the rude pavement, by which the asperities of the way are scarcely mitigated; and, in a few minutes, we completed this stage of our journey, so early as four in the afternoon. The monks readily responded to our call from below; and after blaming our sheikh for not bringing our letter of introduction from the branch convent at Cairo, they threw us up a rope with a loop at its extre mity, by which, turning a windlass, and assisted by one of their own Arab serfs, they hoisted us in succession to the projecting window from which they had espied us from above. We did not much dangle in the air as we went aloft, for some thirty feet; and a helping hand caught us as a bale of goods, and safely landed us in the company of our new friends. Though they opened not their gate to us, which, from the dread of the intrusion of the Saracens, has been built up for upwards of a century, except when they have been visited by their titular archbishop from Constantinople, they opened their hearts, bade us a hearty welcome, and gave us a cordial embrace. Mr. Petros, a noviciate companion, told us, in the languages both of eastern and western Europe, that he had been waiting all the day long to leap into the arms of our affection. They conducted us through porches, and piazzas, and courts, to an humble staircase which led to the strangers apartments; and here they gave us the best rooms which were at their disposal. These looked into the principal quadrangle of the convent, where we could watch the motions of its inmates; and though not large, they were clean and comfortable, covered with pieces of mat and carpet, and having diwáns around them, on which we could sit by day, and recline by night. A piece of table, and a few antique chairs, were given to us to increase our luxuries. The former was speedily covered, and a comfortable dinner was set before us. For the timeous preparation of this repast, we were indebted for a premonitory note in ancient Greek, which, at the request of my companions, I had scribbled at the Wádí Feirán, and which they had jocularly forwarded by an extraordinary courier, to have, I suppose, its intelligibility tested by the critical hermits to whom it was addressed. Petros invited us in the evening to accompany him to the garden, which we entered by a long, dark, and low passage, secured by strong gates at both its extremities, by which it communicates with the convent. The garden is beautiful, and the sight of culture in the Region of Desolation itself is quite refreshing. The soil, which must have been accumulated with prodigious labour, is exceedingly rich, being formed of the waste of the primitive rocks, intermixed with manure. Considerable crops of vegetables are raised upon it; and it supports a large number of trees and bushes. Among these we noticed many of those which are most familiar to us in sacred history and sacred song. The fig-tree was there, ready to put forth her green figs in due season. The pomegranate had budded; and the vine was about to flourish. The tall gopher, or cypress, stood upright in its dark perennial green. The

Mr.