hills, with a constant succession of steep ascents and steeper descents. But still, along this road, if road it may be called, Saul must have travelled, and for the period of four thousand years this rough path has been the great thoroughfare between the capital of Judæa and its principal harbour. We read that there were chariots in those days, but no man can devise how they were dragged along such a tract; certainly, the wood for the Temple must have been conveyed on the backs of camels. The road continues to twine up among the hills, which seem to be regularly shelved, like the seats in an amphitheatre, till it descends by a very steep path, where there is a fine spring of water, down to and over the brook where David, a few miles from the spot, gathered his five smooth stones in his contest with Goliath. The road then crosses a stony level flat, on the top of another ridge. When the traveller has attained the brow of this long, sloping tract of country, his eye catches a range of blue mountains mingling with the sky in the far distance. These are the hills of Ammon and of Moab, by the Dead Sea, and beyond Jericho and Jordan. In two minutes more there starts into view, within two miles down the slope, and on a plain rising to the north and west, and surrounded everywhere else with deep ravines, a tame, solitary town of no great size, but with a mass of flatroofed houses, and surrounded with high walls, having battlements with loopholes along their tops, for arrows, slings, and javelins of old, and musketry in more modern times, and being planted at regular distances with square towers. This is Jerusalem; and in all human probability this was the first sight of the Holy City which the young Saul obtained. And oh, had the dark veil which covers the future from his view been lifted up, what an interesting prospect it must have disclosed, and how many strange and contradictory events must have been revealed! To the left, and then without the walls, there stood a bluff ridge of rock, and, alas, how terrific a tragedy was to be acted

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on this spot! Then these rocks were to be rent, the veil of that Temple below was to be torn asunder, all these mountains around Jerusalem, and that city compactly built together, were to be rocked with an earthquake. That sun, shining now so bright and burning above Saul's head, was to be darkened over the whole land for the space of three hours; and these very graves, now so still and peaceful, were to give up their dead, and many of the bodies of saints that slept were to arise and come out of the tombs, and go into the Holy City, and appear unto many. And most inconceivable of all, the meek and lowly Jesus was to be denied and betrayed, reviled and scourged, and spit upon and mocked, then led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he would not open his mouth; and on the cross at Calvary he would be tormented by the Jews, tortured by the devil, and forsaken by his God; and there he would be stricken, and smitten of God, and afflicted, wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace would be upon him, and by his stripes we would be healed; he would be taken from prison, and from judgment; he would be cut off out of the land of the living; he would make his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, because he had done no violence, neither was there any deceit in his mouth. Yet it would please the Lord to bruise him, and to put him to grief, and to make his soul an offering for sin, that he should see his seed, and prolong his days, and that the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hands. Again, on the morning of the third day, on the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, toward the first day of the week, behold there would be a great earthquake, and the angel of the Lord would descend from heaven, and come and roll back the stone from the door of the sepulchre where Jesus was buried. His countenance would be like lightning, and his raiment would be as snow, and for fear of him the

keepers would shake, and become as dead men. And this angel would say to the women, "Fear not ye; I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified: he is not here, he is risen, as he said: come, see the place where the Lord lay." Again, on the summit of that pleasing range of lofty hills, rising in steep profile, immediately beyond the city, the Messiah would lift up his hands and bless his disciples, and while he blessed them he would be parted from them, and carried up to heaven.

But what would appear unaccountable to the young and generous mind of Saul, the future would disclose him. in after days in the character of a murderer, consenting to the death of Stephen, a man of wisdom and of spirit, whose face was as it had been the face of an angel, against whom the people, and the elders, and the scribes were stirred up, and men were suborned and set up as false witnesses, so that he was brought to the council, and falsely accused, and condemned. "And they gnashed on him with their teeth; but he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him, with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him." What would Saul have thought, on entering Jerusalem, if he had seen the witnesses laying down their clothes at the young man's feet whose name was Saul-if he had seen them stoning Stephen—and if he had heard him calling upon God and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" and kneeling down, and crying with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," and if he had seen him, when he had said this, fall asleep?

And again, what would Saul have thought of himself, if he had now been revealed as breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord; as going to the high-priest, and desiring of him letters to Damascus to the synagogue, that if he found any of this way,

whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem? Nay, had their own son been disclosed at this critical moment to the parents, as a consenter to murder, what would they have thought of him under so awful an aspect? Would they have been glad or sorrowful—proud, or humbled in the dust? Would they have led him into the Holy City, and forward to his fate; or would they have retired and returned to Tarsus, to try to keep him in obscurity and innocence? Let pious readers answer these questions for themselves, and remember that much would depend on the stamp of the parents' character and natural dispositions, and more upon their bigotry and blind zeal, or the want of it, and most of all on the workings of the Holy Spirit within them at the time; for it is not in man that walks to direct his steps, and God turns the hearts even of kings like rivers of water. Truly a man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.

And again, had Saul seen the per contra of all this,his crying out to the same Messiah, "Lord Jesus, what wilt thou have me to do?"-Jesus standing by him in that Temple, now glittering with gold, and saying, "Get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me," and he said, "Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.' Had he seen all this, and moreover what a life was before him,—that in labours he would be more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft; that of the Jews five times would he receive forty stripes save one, thrice would he be beaten with rods, once would he be stoned, thrice suffer shipwreck, a night and a day in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and

thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness; besides those things that would be without, that which would come upon him daily, the care of all the churches-with all these staring him in front, we think that still with boldness he would have set his face towards Jerusalem. But if his father, more timid, had hesitated to advance, and if his mother and little sister, in the agony of their fear, might have besought him not to go up to Jerusalem, Saul would have answered, through the influence of the grace of God strengthening him, even now, what he was thus enabled to say afterwards, "What, mean ye to weep and break mine heart? I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."

No Gentile even can enter the gates of the Holy City, without feeling something at his heart unusually heavy and humbling, without bursting into tears, and then giving utterance to prayer. A feeling of fear creeps over the frame, more intense than anything of the sort in the dreary desert or on the raging ocean. The expression of Jacob, when he awoke from his dream at Bethel, best describes what occurred to ourselves. "And Jacob was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place!" "Pray," said we, "for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces." We thought of the time when the glory of the Lord dwelt in the Temple of Zion, when Solomon reigned. Then had the city risen to extraordinary preeminence; the fame of its riches, the magnificence of its Temple, and the splendour of the king's house, had reached into distant lands. Then was Jerusalem strong and mighty, the number of chariots and horsemen far surpassing those in the time of David. Then was the land filled with forts and fenced cities, and the kingdom was established in Judah; yea, silver and gold became as stones in Jerusalem, and cedars as the sycamore-trees in the vale for abundance. If such were our feelings on passing the