fore then. Lie still, Charley, and I will tell you when we approach the holy city.'

'I would rather talk, papa. Is this Mount Lebanon, or is it the Mount of Olives, or Mount Zion, or what is it?'

Lebanon,' answered Da Costa, 'is at some distance from this place; the Mount of Olives is over against Jerusalem; and on Mount Zion the city itself was built.'

Ah, I forget, but my head is very foolish, somehow. What mountain is it, Mr. Dockster? Is there any thing about it in the Bible?'

'I do not remember that there is; but we shall soon see a place about which you have surely heard much the plain where young David fought Goliath, and destroyed him. The armies, you know, were drawn up opposite to each other, Saul and the Israel on one side, on the other the Philistines, and Goliath came down into the plain every day to threaten and to taunt them.'

'And David chose some pebbles out of the brook,' said Charles, and he put them in his shepherd's sling, and slung them, and hit the giant in the forehead, and killed him, and took his own sword, and cut off his head with it.'

Exactly so; presently I will shew you the brook where David got the pebbles, and the place where the giant fell.'

'The Philistines were bad people,' observed Charles: they were always persecuting the Jews.'

Only when they sinned; when they repented the Lord always raised up some deliverer whom they followed, and under whose command they put all their enemies to the rout-as they shall do again.'

'Yes;' answered Charley, with great energy, 'when they repent again, and when they follow Jesus Christ, so they shall.'

To this, of course, no reply was given; and after a moment's pause, Charley raised his head higher, and asked in a shrill tone, 'Why don't you believe, why won't you believe in Jesus Christ?'

Da Costa was still silent; but Charley became more urgent: Mr. Dockster, I say, why won't you believe?'

Suppose,' said the Jew, 'I was to ask you why do you believe? but hush, dear babe,' he added, seeing him about to reply, 'you will exhaust all your little strength, at this rate.'

'It doesn't tire me at all, at all,' said Charley, 'it does me good; and I'll tell you why I believe-because I know he loves me.'

You mean that he loves you because you believe,' said Alick.

'No I don't. He loved me before I believed, and because he loved me, he made me believe; and because he loves me he will take me to heaven, now, very soon.'

'You will be more likely to live if you think less of dying, my dear boy,' said Da Costa; 'see,' he added, as a lovely animal, bounding along the mountain-side, paused, and peered down upon them, quite in Charley's view, 'see that merry little creature. I hope you will be like it again, ere long.' 'What a pretty goat!' said the boy.

It is not a goat, but a Gazelle, or Antelope, a far more elegant creature.' Charley's countenance suddenly lighted up; he exclaimed, 'The wild Gazelle ! Papa, the wild Gazelle! Oh, say it for

me!' His father complied, and recited the lines with such feeling that Alick, who from anxiety and internal conflict was become doubly sensitive, could scarcely master his emotion. They were now on the point of emerging from that close, narrow defile; a lovely vale lay before them, while the mountains, forming a vast amphitheatre, swept round and rose in beautiful undulations, height above height, the stern rough stone, in abrupt ridges, marking the natural terraces that formed the ascent, of which it was the protecting wall. Trees of stately growth, shrubs of delicious fragrance, and the richest profusion of wild-flowers, adorned this landscape, and still the frolicsome Gazelle would leap from one ledge to another, while the flock of mountain goats more quietly browsed on the pastures of the valley below.

Ay,' said Da Costa, sighing as he surveyed the magnificent prospect, those lines, coming as they did too from the head of a man who had no heart, express what volumes would fail in conveying :—

'More blest each pine that shades these plains

Than Israel's scattered race;

For, taking root, it here remains

In solitary grace.

It will not leave its place of birth,
It cannot live in other earth,

But we must wander witheringly.'

That is the very word-witheringly; the same in substance, in form, in name, in nature unchanged, but all freshness and beauty dried up, bearing no fruit, incapable of farther growth, and subsisting as a monument of what we were, ere rudely plucked up from our own rich soil, to become the scorn of

inferior plants, yet waving gay and green because they were never expatriated.'

Charley, meanwhile, was murmuring to himself the closing lines,

Our Temple hath not left a stone,

And mockery sits on Salem's throne.

"Well, I shall see where Solomon's temple stood, and the other temple that Nehemiah made and I shall see the Mount of Olives where the Lord Jesus stood when he wept over Jerusalem; and he stood there when he was just going up into heaven; and he will stand there when he comes again to split the mountain in two: I know that.'

'What does he mean?' whispered Da Costa, who had caught the last words, and Alick, who seemed restlessly anxious to hear Charley talk, repeated to him the question.

6

'I mean,' replied the child, when the Lord comes to reign, his feet shall stand on the mount of Olives. The Bible says so.'

'How wonderfully conversant he is in our scriptures!' remarked Da Costa.

'Yes,' said Mrs. Ryan, he knows them surprisingly for a child of his age: but you see all his knowledge resolves itself into one thing-love for the Saviour.'

Again the mountains enclosed them so straitly that they were obliged to proceed in single file, and each was left to his own meditations. Alick's were inexpressibly painful; he felt altogether alone in the world, anticipating the speedy dissolution of his little companion. He seemed to occupy a position debarring him from fellowship with any class of persons. More than ever a Jew, he had received so

much of Christian doctrine as made it a matter of serious distress to witness, or rather to know the settled abhorrence of his Hebrew companion, and of all his race, against Him of whom he was almost convinced that Moses in the law, and the prophets did write; yet the influence of Da Costa over his feelings was considerable, and it operated in rendering him ill at ease when listening to Captain Ryan. He felt that he was watched, and almost suspected; and while his naturally open and fearless character rendered it most painful to be supposed capable of concealing his real sentiments, he felt that, so far as he had gone in admitting disputed points, he could not sustain an argument in their defence, and would not wrong the truth by sanctioning an enemy's supposition that it was indefensible by sound argument. He wished himself in Charley's situation, if the same faith and hope were given to sustain him in it: but without these death was a subject from which he shrank affrighted. His favourite project of studying the Bible with Da Costa had not yet been carried into effect; and among man there seemed no sympathy for him. But, when he turned his eye upon the hills that rose around him, there was indeed a fellowship unspeakable in that strange, solemn, solitary landscape, beautiful in its desolate grandeur, and oh, how rich in its sacred associations! 'Here,' thought he, my fathers dwelt beneath the immediate guardianship of the Mighty One: they were not left to grope among conflicting opinions, all pressed on them with the confidence that belongs to truth alone; but they were taught and led by men whose sacred commission was sealed and ratified by daily signs from heaven. Then, all these rocky terraces