DEATH OF THE RIGHT REV. M. S. ALEXANDER, D.D., BISHOP OF JERUSALEM. To this mournful event we alluded in the foregoing page-an event full of mystery and awful solemnity, confounding our reasonings and overwhelming so many with grief. We now give all the information which we possess, in the simple and affecting language of his excellent chaplain, the Rev. W. D. Veitch, who was with the good Bishop on his journey to Cairo. His letter is dated from that place, and was written on the 26th of November, 1845. Mr. Veitch says:

"I have a very melancholy and painful duty now before me. I write in Mrs. Alexander's name, and my sad information is that the Bishop is no more. It pleased God to remove him from us by one of those extraordinary dispensations which so painfully prove how frail is the tenure by which we hold what is valuable or dear; and I feel that silent submission is the proper position for us. know who has acted, but not yet why he has acted thus; doubtless, ere long, the vision will speak; at present all seems dark and mysterious.

We

"I can afford time but for a brief account of this sad event. We (the Bishop, Mrs. Alexander, Miss Alexander, and myself) were on the way to Egypt,-crossing the Desert. We had got as far as a place called AbonSuwyreh, on Friday, the 21st. Here, for the first time, we had a severe fall of rain during the night; and the next morning the Bishop complained of indisposition very similar to that

from which he suffered at the conclusion of his journey from Damascus to Beyrout last spring. During the day he gave up his horse and went in the litter on a camel in which Mrs. Alexander travelled, and on our arrival on Saturday night at a place on the eastern branch of the Nile, just opposite the town of Ras Ovaddi, where we encamped for the night, he seemed very much better-was very cheerful at dinner in my tent-so much so that we all remarked it, and fondly hoped that the next day's rest, to which we all looked forward with great pleasure, would enable him to make out the remainder of the journey in comfort; but it was otherwise ordered; he had rest, indeed, but not on earth. As soon as dinner was over he retired, and very soon went to bed. Some time after I had retired, I was roused by some exclamations from Mrs. Alexander; and I ran instantly into his tent and saw at once that all was over. We tried all we could think of, applied hot water to the feet, chafed the body, and I even ventured to bind up the arm and got a lancet ready, but it was impossible to make the vein rise so as to see where it was; I also put a cordial between the lips, but it produced no movement of the throat. Death had taken place in a moment; and we have since ascertained, by a post mortem examination, the cause to have been a rupture of the descending aorta close to the heart.

"The account Mrs. Alexander gives is this:-About an hour or more after she had retired to rest, she was aroused from a sound sleep, by a noise like a stifled groan; she im

mediately got a light, and saw that the Bishop was lying quite insensible. The rest you

know from what I have said above. It was truly a heart-rending scene. In a tent, in the wild sandy desert, no medical help at hand, to see the widowed wife and fatherless daughter bending over the lowly pallet on which were stretched the lifeless remains. Never shall I forget that harrowing scene, or the fortitude with which so awful a bereavement was endured. I persuaded Mrs. and Miss Alexander to retire, and after waiting an hour, I returned again to the scene of death, and with the assistance of my servant, disposed the body as decently as I could in the bed on which it was lying and about eight o'clock on Sunday morning, the 23d (the death occurred at two), we commenced our sad journey to Cairo, which we reached about one o'clock, a.m., on Monday.

"P.S.-Since writing the above I have seen Mrs. Alexander, who acts with the advice and hearty concurrence of her friends here in not returning to Jerusalem. I propose, therefore, to convey the remains to Jerusalem, and send the family from thence to join Mrs. Alexander in Cairo, from whence she will proceed at once to England. Deeply do I sympathize with all the excellent Bishop's friends in England. May He who has done this, show us soon, the good He meditates; for good it must be, though we in our ignorance see it not yet."

Some of our young friends remember the good Bishop, full of gentleness and kindness towards all, and many who did not know him

will have read the simple narrative of one of his dear children. Both are removed from sorrow and pain and sin; both say to us, "Be ye ready also, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh."

The lamented Prelate was the first of God's ancient people who had exercised the office of a bishop in the City of Jerusalem for many centuries. He had many trials as well as encouragements in that peculiar scene of labour; but from both he has been taken; from the Jerusalem which now is-the earthly, to await in peace the coming down of the heavenly Jerusalem, the habitation of the Redeemed-the mother of us all.

"O happy harbour of God's saints,
O sweet and pleasant soil;
In thee no sorrows can be found,
No grief, no care, no toil.

"No dimly cloud o'ershadows thee,
No gloom nor darksome night;
But every soul shines as the sun,
For God himself gives light.

"Oh mother dear, Jerusalem!

When shall I come to thee ?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
Thy joys, when shall I see ?"

FOURTH ANNUAL LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF JERUSALEM.

Few letters have been read under more deeplyafflicting and interesting circumstances than that will be, the greater part of which we now present to our readers. During his residence in the Holy

City, the late Bishop addressed four "Annual Letters" to the friends of Israel in England. Three of these have been published in the "Jewish Intelligence," and the fourth now comes to us, as it were, from the unseen world, as the words of him who was a living man amongst ourselves; but who has been called away, and long ere his Address reached us, proved the reality of those precious promises which, through Divine grace, he had laid hold of, and the blessedness of that hope of everlasting life, which has been given us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In a letter accompanying the Address, the deceased Bishop said: "I intend, God willing, to start in a few days for Cairo, by the Desert, through Gaza; as, at this season, the uncertainty of embarking at Jaffa" (the ancient Joppa) "is great, and, by the Desert, we shall avoid quarantine. We may thus be in England by the end of the year. But, in the uncertainty of every thing, especially in this country, and, as I may still be unable to go, I have thought it best to send you enclosed my fourth Annual Letter."

Michael Solomon, by Divine Permission, Bishop of the United Church of England and Ireland, to all the Faithful in Christ Jesus, and especially to all to whom the Lord has given an heart to feel for the Desolation of Zion and her dispersed Children, Grace, Mercy, and Peace be multiplied. Amen!

THE period having again arrived at which I have on three former occasions addressed you, I feel constrained to do so again, humbly desiring to keep up within your hearts an earnest and prayerful interest in behalf of Zion, the city of the Great King, and of the branch of his tr and apostolic Church, which in these latter c