BIBLE WORK IN PARIS.

Ir has delighted us to receive (since her return to her long chosen sphere) tidings of a fresh "Bible-woman" from our well-known friend, Miss Blundell, and, under her wise guidance, we hope we shall at last get a real Bible-woman in the heart of Paris. We had had the privilege of fully explaining to her what is our aim in selling the Bible by instalments, and why we give this aim a PRIMARY importance in the Mission; it is, of course, to be followed up by simple earnest Bible teaching from the Superintending Lady.

This dear friend had brightened a rainy day for our workers shut up in the conservatory of our kind friends Mr. and Mrs. Ford-Barclay; and though despoiled of their usual and annual pleasures in the grounds by the incessant rain, the time was beguiled by many a joyous hymn, and by details of Christian work among the rag-pickers of Paris; also particulars of its fearful recent siege. The extra efforts of our kind entertainers in making us free of their beautiful house, as we could not enjoy ourselves as usual under the open sky, left an extra feeling of gratitude on the part of the entertained; and the marks of those many fect were doubtless sweet to the eye of Him who seeth not as man seeth, and who loves that the rich should share their blessings, for His sake, with their poor friends.

Miss Blundell thus writes since her return :

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

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"I returned home refreshed every way, and with many wonderfully sweet pictures in my mind, among which one of the last is radiant, that of Woodford and the Bible-women on the 1st of July, happy notwithstanding the rain; I fell immediately to work-not hurried work, but work such as God gives day by day. The McAll Meeting, which I have twice a week, is part of that work. About 100 genuine working men (ouvriers I mean), women, and children, all Romanists by education, come on Sunday evenings, and the most earnest ones on Wednesdays also. On Sundays I give a familiar address, and on Wednesdays a Bible-class. Last night there were about fifty reading verse by verse and intensely attentive. Subject: The calling of the

Disciples by the Sea of Galilee after the interviews at Bethabara. The Wednesday before we had searched out texts about darkness and light, for we have got to the end of Matt. iv., and I took the texts of Mrs. Brightwen's little book which you gave me.

"In the midst sat a pleasant-looking woman of about forty, in her nice white cap and simple clean every-day dress, surrounded by two or three persons she had brought with her. She has been a Christian from her youth, and has a Christian husband and father (her mother is in heaven); she learnt to read after her childhood was past, reads well, and studies her Bible. She gives her spare moments to reading it with neighbours, and sometimes has three or four down before her door in the large courtyard for a 'petite lecture.' She supports her

self—or, rather, helps her husband to do so-by sewing for the shops. Now this very nice woman I have asked to be Biblewoman, and to visit three days in the week besides her usual little visiting, counting on your offer to support the work to the extent of 121. a year: a sovereign a month. She does not like to receive anything, and at first refused; but afterwards, feeling that she would be much more free thereby, accepts.

"She lives five minutes from the Meeting. She purposes first visiting all who come there, ascertaining whether they possess a Bible, and how far they read it, to read with them, show them how to find out the texts, and get them to buy by instalments if they have none. Will you like to consider her as a Biblewoman? I will give you details of her work periodically.

"The other day I had occasion to mention the Flower Mission to one of the earnest Christian hospital visitors, and she wrote: 'This Mission does not exist in Paris. I simply take a little bouquet occasionally, and several times it has opened to me the heart of the sick. A flower touches them sometimes more than all else I could bring. I did not know that in London was the realization of what I had so often desired in Paris.' I sent her a sample of text-card and ornamental paper, such as I saw at your house and at Mildmay, and told her the sweet work it would be for invalid ladies to prepare the bouquets, &c. I hope that idea will spread.

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Personally, I find the Bible sweeter and more opened to me by the Lord since my return. I have much to thank God for in profitable conversations with many a Christian friend. I have lent the Nurses for the Needy' to a nice Biblewoman at Batignolles.

"With very much Christian love, I am yours,

"S. D. B."

EXCAVATIONS ON MOUNT ZION.

BY HENRY MAUDSLAY.

"Thou shalt arise, and have mercy on Zion : for the time to favour her, even the set time, is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof."-Ps. cii. 13, 14.

"There is, therefore," writes a friend, "a time to favour Zion, marked in God's counsel, in His own chronology, which hinges only on His own will. There is a time which God has 'set,' and among the present signs which confirm the word of prophecy that we are hastening to the close of this dispensation this sign is not lacking, that many are now taking interest in the stones of Zion in a matter-of-fact and practical way."

This thought could not but commend itself to us on being presented with a box of the literal "dust of Zion," containing also many pieces of rough mosaic from the floors of its probably Roman age—a sawn portion of its grey old olive trees and their dried foliage, and a camel's tooth also found in the debris—the debris of the city that has been built on seven cities before it, the cities that have endured twenty-seven sieges. Jerusalem "builded always on her own heap." There was a city there before the time of David. The second city was that of Solomon, and endured from 1000 years B.c. to 588 B.c., or 400 years. Then Nehemiah's city, which lasted 300 years, and once more gave place to the Greek city that grew up in the stormy time of Herod, and was destroyed by Titus A.D. 70, again followed by a Roman city, which lasted till the Mohammedan times, and still again succeeded by the city of Godfrey after the Crusades, a seventh city; and last the eighth or modern city, the result of 600 years of Moslem rule.*

*See "Our Work in Palestine."

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Rubbish and debris may well cover every foot of its ground, save where the rock crops up at intervals; they are the wrecks of city piled on city. When the works of Hadrian, Constantine, Omar, Godfrey, and Saladin have succeeded one another, what wonder if so little has been found to illustrate the times of Herod, Nehemiah, or Solomon? It is a marvel that any such remains should be obtained under present rule.

Although the peculiarities of site in the Jerusalem area are very remarkable, there is, strange to say, hardly a single point in its topography on which one can speak with certainty. We know it is a mountain city, that it is built on the ridge or backbone of Palestine, which runs through the country from north to south, that from the Mediterranean on the one hand and the Dead Sea and valley of the Jordan on the other, there is a steady ascent to its plateau of 2,500 feet from the Mediterranean and 3,700 feet from the Dead Sea. It is also clear that the city itself is built on two hills, one of which, Zion, is considerably higher than the other, Moriah. They are separated by the Tyropean valley, also now nearly filled up by the rubbish of so many sieges. The first impression of the traveller is often that of disappointment at the tameness of the surrounding landscape, when he had expected "mountains round about Jerusalem," and possibly the ancient aspect of Jerusalem was far more picturesque than at present, when it lacks the original depth of its now choked ravines.

The rival theories concerning the sites of the sacred places in Jerusalem are so conflicting, that after reading for six months everything that could be obtained on the subject, we recently heard it said by an actual excavator that he had felt he knew less about it than when he began his study; the only thing that could be declared with any approach to certainty, being the area and site of the Temple.

Speaking generally with reference to the site of Zion, the maps in our Bible place it in the south-west corner of the plateau. Here tradition has located it. Mr. Fergusson, a great archæological authority, considers Zion as identical with Moriah. But some diggings carried on under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund seem to have placed Zion to the

north-east of Moriah, so that it has been located in three places. One of our own countrymen, however, with time and resources at command, Mr. Henry Maudslay (Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers), has just been excavating for nine months in Jerusalem, and has brought actual facts to light which, after all, must test divergent theories; and it is a cause of thankfulness to God that England has ever been foremost and most practical in her interest in the Land of Promise. At this moment English officers, as we know, are labouring to complete an Ordnance survey of the whole land, and the countless incidents that come under their observation attest the truth of the Bible in its myriad geographical accuracies (which would be so improbable if it were a forgery), while the discovery of the site of the Levitical city of Gezer (Josh. xxi., 21) and of Ed, the altar of witness (mentioned Josh. xxii.), increase our longings for future results.

In Lieutenant Claude Conder's report of the Survey of Palestine, dated October, 1874, he remarked "That no work has been undertaken at Jerusalem equal in interest and importance to that which was then being carried out by Mr. Henry Maudslay, who had arrived in Jerusalem last winter with the intention of executing some work, which should be at once a benefit to the town and a labour of archæological value. The jealousy of the Turkish Government prevented his carrying out his original intention of clearing the Birket Israil (or Pool of Bethesda), making it fit to hold water, and at the same time carrying out an exploration of the highest interest, as the communication of this Pool by hidden aqueducts with the Harem area had been particularly noted by Captain Warren and others.

Mr. Maudslay's attention was then diverted to the precincts of the Bishop's School on Zion, where there was room for much improvement in the comfort of the children and in the sanitary arrangements. He very ably contrived to extend his researches for stones and building materials in such a direction as would insure valuable archæological results, and enable him to procure the ancient masonry ready cut for use.

The Bishop's school grounds stand partly on rock, partly on