HUMBLE CONFIDENCE.

Hy 361 Rev: J.WESLEYS Collection.

Composed by CHARLES WESLEY Esq. 1822.

My God, I humbly call thee mine. And

will not quit my claim, Till all I have is

lost in thine, And quite re-newd I am.

傅

-ly by faith I stand, And all thy goodness

Spirit of health, and life, and powr, And perfect

li-ber-ty!

SYM

DE

63 4342

Peck Engraver Lombard Street London.

View of the Passage of the River Jordan, with the Camels descending from the Hills of Bashan to drink.

ACCOUNT OF THE RIVER JORDAN. (From "BUCKINGHAM's Travels in Palestine through the Countries of Gilead and Bashan," lately published.)

"WE now crossed over the plain towards the river, changing our course from north to nearly due east, and at the moment of our making this sharp angle, estimating ourselves to be little more than six miles to the northward of Rippah. We found the plain VOL. VI.

U

here to be generally unfertile, the soil being in many places encrusted with salt, and having small heaps of a white powder, like sulphur, scattered at short intervals over its surface.

"In about an hour after our turning to the eastward, we came to a ravine, apparently the bed of a torrent discharging itself from the north-west into the Jordan. We descended into this, which was now perfectly dry, and it led us, after a course of a few hundred yards, into the valley of Jordan itself. The whole of the plain, from the mountains of Judea on the west, to those of Arabia on the east, may be called the vale of Jordan, in a general way; but in the centre of the plain, which is at least ten miles broad, the Jordan runs in another still lower valley, perhaps a mile broad in some of the widest parts, and a furlong in the narrowest.

"Into this we descended, and we thought the hills of white clayey soil on each side to be about two hundred feet in height; the second, or lower plain, being about a mile broad, generally barren, and the Jordan flowing through the middle of it, between banks which were now fourteen or fifteen feet high, while the river was at its lowest ebb. There were close thickets all along the edge of the stream, as well as upon this lower plain, which would afford ample shelter for wild beasts: and as the Jordan might overflow its banks, when swollen by rains, sufficiently to inundate this lower plain, though it could never reach the upper one, it was, most probably, from these that the lions were driven out by the inundations which gave rise to the Prophet's simile, "Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan, against the habitation of the

HISTORY OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH.

219

strong." The overflowing is said to have been in the first month, which corresponds to our March, as, in the enumeration of the armies that came to DAVID at Hebron, those are spoken of who went over Jordan in the first month, when he had overflowed all his banks. In the description of the passage of the priests with the ark, while the waters were divided and stood on a heap, as in the passage of the Red Sea, it is said, too, that Jordan overfloweth all his banks at the time of harvest, which would be both in the autumn and in the spring, as there are two harvests here, one succeeding the early, and the other the latter rains.”

HISTORY OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. (Continued from page 188.)

THAT GOD regards his servants in affliction, is often specially displayed in the peculiar means employed for their deliverance. While drawing the resources of his Providence from the most distant and unlookedfor quarters, he impresses on their spirits the conviction, that such succour could only have proceeded from himself.

The Prophet JEREMIAH, left by his countrymen to perish in a loathsome dungeon, was extricated by a stranger from the consequences of their cruelty. An Ethiopian, an attendant in the palace of the King of Judah, had witnessed the barbarity with which he had been treated, and touched with pity for an innocent and holy sufferer, resolved, if possible, to save him from impending death. Hastening to ZEDEKIAH, he informed him of the dangerous and afflictive cir

* Jer. xlix. 19, and 1. 44. † Joshua iii. 15.