out life exemplarily prudent, and altogether unimpeachable. He was eminently a man of prayer, and the high estimation in which he was held by his pupils, was greatly enhanced by the warmth and fulness of his devotional addresses at their class meetings. Indeed, religion was his vocation. Its personal exercises or public offices were his business and his pleasure. In short, he was a Master in Israel;' and when he died, it might be said, in no mean sense, that a Prince and a great man among the children of his people' had fallen.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE.

INTRODUCTION.

THE physical and moral circumstances of the East, in what light soever we view them, have powerful claims on the attention of every liberal and inquisitive mind. Placed under the vertical rays of the sun-illumined and influenced by other constellations than those which adorn our skies-inhabited by races of men, whose external appearance and modes of thinking almost tempt us to consider them as belonging to a different creation,―the oriental regions exhibit a scene equally new and interesting. The great variety of vegetable and animal forms which they present to our notice, so different from those which enrich our fields and tenant our deserts, awaken curiosity and stimulate research. Even the distance to which they are removed from us on the surface of the globe, throws over them a sort of awful obscurity, which deepens the interest we naturally feel in contemplating the works of almighty power, and the productions of human skill and industry.

But those parts of the world are, besides, connected with events of the most extraordinary character, and the most comprehensive influence. The spirit of inspiration directs us to seek within their limits, the native country of the first pair, and the chosen abode

of innocence and peace. In those fertile regions, the grand adversary of the human race accomplished their ruin by the introduction of sin, and endeavoured to countervail the loss of heaven, by establishing his throne of darkness below. It was there Divine Justice commenced the work of judgment on earth, by condemning the serpent to go upon his belly, and feed on dust,—and man, who had weakly suffered himself to be seduced from his duty, to return, after a few years of painful exertion, to the dust from whence he came ; while it was there also that Divine Mercy began to unfold the scheme of redemption, which infinite Wisdom had contrived in the counsels of peace before the foundation of the world.

Moreover the East was the cradle of human improvement, the quarter whence knowledge was diffused over the rest of the world, and where the first great efforts of mankind were displayed. The Orientals first displayed the powerful and various energies of the human mind; first cultivated the social affections, and formed themselves into civil communities for their mutual benefit; or listened to the solicitations of the turbulent passions, and engaged in the work of mutual destruction. Placed in the most favourable circumstances for scientific observations, they led the way in the acquisition of knowledge, which at once enlightened and corrupted the mind; and by a diligent and persevering application to the mechanical and liberal arts, ameliorated the condition of the human family, by their numerous and invaluable productions. Almost every district exhibits the memorial of some great exploit ; almost every town and village recals the remembrance of some important or singular occurrence. These are

circumstances that can scarcely fail to direct the eye of the man of letters, the student of human nature, and the Christian philanthropist, to the East, with an intensity of interest which no other quarter of the globe can excite.

But another consideration may be mentioned, which, in point of weight and attraction, is not, perhaps, inferior to any of these. In those distant countries, inspired prophets committed to writing the revelations of Heaven, for the instruction and reformation of the human kind. Although supernaturally directed by the Spirit of God, they followed in some degree the bent of their own genius, and the influence of their own taste. They not only wrote in the vernacular language of the country where they lived; but also made use of the terms and modes of speech that were familiar among the people, and suited to persons of every station and capacity, and employed those tropes and figures, which the glowing imagination of an oriental furnishes in the richest abundance and variety. But they borrowed their figures from scenery of a peculiar kind; they alluded to phenomena in the heavens and on the earth, of which we can form almost no conception from the state of nature around us; to a variety of birds of singular appearance and habits, that never visit our sky; and to many terrestrial animals, which neither occupy our fields nor haunt our rivers. Besides, they connect the events which they record, and the predictions which they utter, with places whose history, and social as well as domestic manners, are unknown to the rest of the world. This, it must be admitted, throws a shade of obscurity over the pages of inspiration, which it is the duty, as it is the interest, of the biblical student to remove. understand the meaning of many passages in the sacred records; to discern the force and beauty of the language in which they are clothed, and the admirable propriety and significance of their allusions; in one word, to derive all the advantage from the sacred volume which it is calculated and intended to bestow, —we must render ourselves familiar with the physical and moral condition of the countries where it was written; we must examine the Geographical situation

To