Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United TO THE CONGREGATION OF CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. MY DEAR PARISHIONERS : AFTER a long, but unavoidable delay, I present you with these Notes of Travel, in compliance with a wish which some of you have expressed, that I would make known the result of my observations in foreign lands. By your unexpected kindness, conveyed through your vestry, leave of absence from the cares of my parish was proffered to me for a year. Your liberality provided for me a substitute, continued my salary to my family, and furnished me, to a considerable extent, with the means of travelling. You have a right, therefore, which I take pleasure in acknowledging, to know how my time was spent, during our long separation. I have selected such parts of my tour, as most interested me, and which I thought would probably prove most interesting and instructive to you. The work lays no claim as a literary production. It is, what it professes to be, mere Notes of Travel; a simple diary of occurrences and observations, during my journey in the East, and usually written up as each day closed. The notes were oftentimes so hastily made, that considerable time, which I could not well command, was necessary to arrange them for the press. for withholding them so long. And this is my apology You, who know what my VVULESULA "ION OF CHRIST CHURCH. suus go, will deem the apology suffi by Grace how perfect is this attempt to de44 kuns of the Bible, or to convey my own imThe Ying them. No words of mine can exPreg de happiness which I felt, and still feel, in gex witch have made the sacred volume a new *v* P *e Ny giving a reality to its records, and illumiwoning te every Page Bgypt and Palestine, the land of Deuvage and tie and of promise, are now no longer, as rder odce gemed to me, distant and unapproachable lands, meedaslowed with mystery; but they are familiar as my Phe towns and villages, the fields and roudong the hills and dreams of Syria,-Bethlehem, Mylap and Varech, Samaria, Sychar, and Galilee,— Mode new, Wopal, and Oliver---Tabor, and Hermon, pid Carmel, Pyro and Sidou, are as distinctly before Hy mund's eye, while I write, as the well remembered setor of my childhood; and touch a more responsive mond shan they Would that I had the power of communicating these weemed to your minds, as vividly as they are impressed upou own should then have a better offering to mike, gud quo the more worthy of your acceptance. But I have dona what I could; and I know that the indulgroup which, for uluotoon years, you have extended to me, will go ba withhold now. You will accopt this work, with all its imperfections, as qu kumble testimony of gratitude and affection, from |