first-born and beloved of Jehovah, scattered to the four winds of heaven, like the sands of the wilderness, pursued as by an incessant hurricane, their existence become one dreary exile, -a living death through eighteen hundred years? Here are ruins to mourn over, but not the ruins of a city-not the mouldering columns of a fallen shrine; they are the living ruins of a shattered nation, wandering without a country and without a head; and they are ruins that feel their decay— that are not insensible to the hand of the spoiler, nor forgetful of the houour with which they once were crowned. Here is desolation to excite our awe-not the desolation of a kingdom inherited by silence, but the desolation of a people abandoned by their God; given up as a prey to every devourer, bleeding beneath the scourge of every oppressor, swept over and stripped by every storm of rapine; desolation by fire and by sword, by force and by fraud, by edict and penalty, by scorn and reproach and hideous calumny, by sudden tumult, and by slow torturing inquisition; the desolation of heart and hope, of mental energy, of social enjoyment, of soothing comfort; and what is worst, a desolation where truth has veiled her light, where prayer has become a hollow and empty sound, where no voice from heaven is heard to guide, no arm is seen for succour and save! Truly, "her breach is great like the sea who can heal it?" Can we contemplate such a spectacle as this without sorrow, or without solemnity? If ever our tears were given to the woes of others, the woes of Israel may claim them. They are not the woes of a single age or country, but of every country and every age. Even now their groans are wafted to us from Poland, and their wail has reached us from Damascus. They are woes that may affect the hardest bosom-so varied, piercing, and protracted are they, appealing to our tenderest sympathies and our dearest hopes. For these the tears of prophets have flowed; they have drawn from the harp of inspiration its saddest tones; for these, the Glorious Being, who took on Him the form a servant, poured forth the tide of grief from His inmost soul. But let it be remembered, the heaviest of these woes lie far deeper than what meets the eye or the ear. To cling to rites that have outlived their meaning and purpose, grasping the shadow for the substance, the earthly symbol for the heavenly reality; and to forsake the word of God for the word of man, the living spring for the stagnant and turbid pool-these are calamities of the heaviest kind; but there is one still more fatal. The greatest sorrow the heart can feel is the sickness of hope deferreddeferred and often disappointed; and the higher the hope, the

loftier its reach, and the more needful its fulfilment, the more poignant must be the sorrow. What, then, must be the state of that mind in which a hope of the greatest glory and grandeur has planted its roots, and sprung up with aspiring vigour to lay hold on things eternal and divine, yet always baffled in gaining possession-ever blossoming, but bearing no fruit, save that of shame and confusion? Such has been the state of the Jewish mind for ages. The hope of Messiah yet to come, has been to them a delusion and a torment. Instead of relieving, it has aggravated their sufferings. It has been the bitterest ingredient in their cup of sorrow. What has thrown in their path its deepest gloom, and laid on their hearts the heaviest burden, but the thought of a deliverer expected from year to year, and ever expected in vain? How often must the heart-breaking cry burst from their bosoms: "How long, O Lord? how long? Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?" Their condition in this respect has no parrallel. It is one which to them is entangled in inextricable perplexities. Their religion is of divine origin, their history divinely recorded; yet the one seems without meaning, the other devoid of explanation. An obscurity envelopes them, which they cannot penetrate; a riddle is ever before them which they cannot solve. Their hope is founded on the promises and predictions of God; yet the fulfilment appears to recede ever farther from their view. Can we wonder that sometimes they are reduced to despair? that some take refuge in the denial that their religion has any doctrines at all; and others simply in the rejection of the hope of the Messiah? Ah! this fatal error, is Israel's heaviest woe-the root of all their sorrows! This claims our saddest tears, and our most earnest sympathy.

But now, my dear hearers, in conclusion, permit me to make a personal application of the subject to yourselves. That my address hitherto should have been so little of a personal nature, and almost an historical disquisition, is cause of regret to me, but it was not in my power to avoid it. A certain task was assigned me which I was bound to perform. But its performance would be meagre and worthless, indeed, were I to close here, and allow you to depart to your homes without urging one appeal or suggesting one remonstrance; as if we had only been viewing an historical picture, or as if the guilt of the Jews were a guilt we could not share, and their punishment a calamity we need not dread. Why has the finger of God traced in history such tears and groans, such blood and sorrows? Why has he stamped on the very surface of the earth,

desolations and catastrophes like these? Tell me, my hearers, as we look back over the track of ages, what means that destroying host, with thundering engines, battering the walls of Zion?-what means that blazing temple and its crashing fall, whose echo reverberates to latest time ?—what means the roll of history, ever unfolding new horrors, "written within and without, with mourning, and lamentation, and woe?" Is not this the lesson that is spoken to us in piercing tones, never to be forgotten?-That our God is a consuming firethat the Lord is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, until the third and fourth generation of them who hate Him-true to his threatenings as to his promises, and though long delaying, yet surely executing vengeance on those who abuse his mercy. That which roused his vengeance against the Jews was their formality and selfrighteousness, which led them to reject the righteousness of God, and to crucify the Messiah he sent to save them. And what is this but the crime of many professing Christians? whose hearts are in the world, whose religion is in name and show, whose dependence on the Redeemer neither crucifies the flesh, nor renews the mind, nor purifies the life, nor prepares them for heaven. And while such is the Christianity generally presented to the Jews, how can we look for their conversion? If we make them proselytes only in name, and baptism, and creed, what have we gained, and what are they profited? To turn them from formal Jews into formal Christians, like most of ourselves, what a mockery, and a misery were this! Oh, let us beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, decent formality, for it is a leaven congenial to the mass of which we are kneaded. Let us seek to have our minds and consciences enlightened by the Spirit of Truth, that we may faithfully examine ourselves whether we be in the faith, and not rest satisfied till we know that Jesus Christ is in us, filling our minds with his glory, our hearts with his love, our lives with his righteousness. Doubtless, amongst your number, there are those to whose hearts he has as yet gained no admission. Surely you cannot have heard this story of God's vengeance, without some forebodings on your own account. If you are not living by faith in the Son of God, the crime of the Jews is yours. "And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them that do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God!" Assuredly you will not-you cannot. If God spared not his own chosen people, he will not spare you. How should this thought flash upon you, as often as a Jew passes by, and you

see on him the brand of God's indignation! Will you then again turn away from him who speaketh to you from heaven? Will you slight his tears shed over Jerusalem-his suffering on Calvary-his intercession at the throne? Are you resolved to meet him when he comes to judgment, laden with the guilt of wasted Sabbaths-of a gospel refused-of promises, invitations, and threatenings despised? In that day, believe me, my impenitent countrymen, it shall be more tolerable for the Jews of any age-for those even who perished with Jerusalem, than for you. Let not their fate, the consequence of unbelief, be set before you in vain. "To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Yield yourselves with deep coutrition and lively faith to him who bore our sins, in his own body on the tree. Then shall you be numbered with the Israel of God, and the woes of Israel after the flesh, will not have been told in vain: and may these woes soon disappear and be forgotten, through like precious faith being granted to them. Then "shall the ransomed of the Lord return and come to Zion with songs; and everlasting joy on their heads they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." May the God of Jacob hasten it in his time. Amen!-From a Lecture on the Woes of Israel, by the Rev. Alex. Thomson.

THE REV. DR. HENDERSON, TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER'S MAGAZINE.

IN consequence of a paragraph which we hope was incautiously admitted into the Sunday School Teacher's Magazine, the following letter was addressed to the editor of that journal by the Rev. Dr. Henderson :

Mr. Editor,-On perusing the short notice headed "THE JEWS," in your number for November (page 600) I was involuntarily led to the conclusion," an enemy hath done this." The picture there exhibited, from Carne's travels in the East, is sufficiently gloomy, and evinces that that gentleman was not actuated by any friendly spirit towards the object. He even goes so far as to represent the conversion of the Jews to be an impossibility. He hesitates not to assert, that in every instance, the fallen Hebrew, whatever profession he may make, “stops short sternly and decidedly at the threshold of conversion." Now, however it may have been in the experience of Mr. Carne during his travels in the East upwards of twenty years ago, I am happy in being able to state, that as far back as that period, I have known men of the stock of Israel who have furnished as satisfactory proof of true conversion to God as any gentile Christian with whom I have had intercourse. Some of these continue to this day-persevering consistently in their adherence to the confession of Emanuel who redeemed them with his most precious blood.

The friends of Israel, who feel it to be their duty to employ every Scriptural means for effecting the conversion of that people, are painfully sensible of the difficulties which lie in the way of their success, and of none more than the pertinacious obstinacy of the Jewish heart of unbelief; but the great number of well authenticated instances of true conversion in which their labours in the present day have resulted, are such as to satisfy them that nothing is too hard for the Lord, to encourage them truthfully to persevere in their labours, and confidently to appeal to Christian brethren for that pecuniary aid which is required to enable them to carry on the work; while no bribe is held out to lure the few to assume the Christian name; and the funds obtained are faithfully applied in support of means, which, by the Divine blessing, are likely to ensure success. It is sincerely hoped that such appeal will not be made in vain. I am, dear Sir, your obedient servant, E. HENDERSON, D.D.

Intelligence.

BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL AMONG THE JEWS.

OUR last Number contained, under the head of intelligence, only that which reached us through the medium of kindred institutions. We fear, that even with our present enlargement, we must confine ourselves, for this month, almost to the operations of our own society, and of these chiefly to those of the foreign missions. We are quite aware of the importance of the domestic mission, and we are very anxious that our journal should ever be, not the "Herald" of one society's operations, but as it professes to be, a "Record of Christian effort for the spiritual good of God's ancient people." We esteem it our privilege to be in friendly correspondence with the sister institutions, and to sympathise in their joys and sorrows. In the cause of Israel we are one-we bid them all "God speed in the name of the Lord." We love to reciprocate their prayers and praises, and gladly anticipate the day, when, having outlived the distinctions and the divisions of earth, the sower and the reaper shall rejoice together in the presence of the Lord, and without a discordant note attune "the song of Moses and the Lamb" with the one ransomed Church. In presenting our several details, from whatever quarter, our aim is to adhere strictly to truth; to avoid offending our elder brethren the Jews, and to excite the prayers and efforts of our fellow Christians.

PALESTINE.-Mr. Manning, on his return from Der al Kamar to Beyrout, writes that he has found great difficulty in