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Letters to a Mother, upon Education.

LETTER XXXVIII.

On the Order in which the different subjects of Study should be attended to.

Dear Madam,

It is an important rule in education, never to be pursuing too many objects at the same time, nor even the proper number of objects too sedulously. These rules are peculiarly important in the education of young children.

If you teach them too many things at a time, you will tire their faculties, and defeat your purpose. Dr. Johnson has justly said, "the speed of a horseman must be regulated by the speed of his horse;" and in the same manner, the degree of education you administer depends upon the capacity of your child for receiving it. All instruction ceases to be useful when the child ceases to comprehend. This he will do through mere fatigue after a certain time. Let a little knowledge at a time be communicated to his mind, and then the task be intermitted. It is doubtful whether the faculties even of an adult, which have been inured to action, are capable of clear perception, so as to acquire new ideas, during more than two hours together. I should expect that the faculties of a child are not capable of effectual attention even for so long a time. After you have exercised his attention for an hour, trip with him into the garden, and after a short walk return and resume his education; but divert his mind to a different subject: change of subject is almost as great a relief as total cessation. Never have more than two things in hand at one time. Let these be mutually connected, if possible. Let them be attended to so far that proficiency may be left to future practice, and then turn to something else. Thus, you will begin with reading and writing. Let him devote four hours a day to study, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, Let the first hour be given to reading and the second to writing in the morning: let the first hour be given to writing and the second to reading in the afternoon. Still reverse the order every alternate day: change even in this respect will alleviate labour; the human mind is fatigued by monotonous regularity. In six months, if you pay attention to nothing else as an object of study, he will read and write well enough to need no further formal attention to those subjects.

Then let him begin arithmetic. Let him read and write however during the other hour of the morning and afternoon. Let him read in that other hour to-day, for instance, and write in it to-morrow, and vice versa. Then let him begin geography and history.

You will never allow him to read the name of a place without looking for it on the map and globe. Have these constantly at hand let them be tolerably full, that is, have a considerable number of the names of places written down upon them; and when, for instance, he reads in the History of England that William the First landed at Hastings, tell him it is in Sussex, on the coast. Then let him look for it. When he reads that William proceeded to Pevensey, let him look for that neighbouring village, and thus trace the invader's progress up to the metropolis. You will never allow him to read the name of any place to you in the histo. ries of England, Rome, Greece, &c. without finding it out upon the map or globe, and marking its relation with respect to other countries. When you come to read the New Testament with him, you will especially show him ou the globe where Palestine is placed; and then having shown him a map of the land itself, and having made him understand that this map is a magnified view of the little spot he sees upon the globe, you

will always require him to point out the names of the places mentioned; and so with the Old Testa

ment.

As soon as your child has begun to read and write, let him begin music also; and if you teach him the piano yourself, devote an hour to the lesson in the evening. If a master comes to teach him any other instrument, let the same hour of the same part of the day be devoted to it. This mode of spending the evening will constitute a delightful relaxation to the studies of the day.

Should he have displayed an attachment to the art of drawing, in which you will remember it was recommended to indulge him from an early period, you may vary the evening's employment, by music and drawing alternately. Let your plans of exercise in the open air, the use of tools, gardening, and the other diversions given under the head of physical education, be sedulously continued.

Natural philosophy and natural history may each of them in their turn come into the hour of reading, both morning and afternoon; always, however, make him give you an account, as soon as the lesson is over, of what he had been reading.

If these subjects be thus pursued, steadily, you will find, that by the age of nine years, you will have sufficiently initiated him into the elements of knowledge, to allow of his being sent to school. What you have taught him he will know clearly and thoroughly. You will also have communicated habits of mind, to him, which will enable him to profit largely by the more extended instructions which he is afterwards to receive. You will also by that time have sufficiently established health and robustness of constitution, and habits of exercise... I suppose also all the moral habits previously enumerated and recommended to have been equally attended to..

I trust to offer you some further Letters upon the remaining branch of education, namely, the religious. I will now, however, pause for a moment, at the conclusion of my advice upon this third branch of educa tion.

I will imagine myself to have completed my task, and that you are in possession of the Letters yet to be sent. I will imagine the advice to be contained in the whole to have been incorporated into your system of education; and all this, for the delight of fancying your child as having been well trained, both in body and in mind, during that time at which the habits become fixed. The period of his life chosen by my imagination for its reverie, shall be that at which he is about to leave your own habitation, and to be consigned to the care of the schoolmaster. I delight to contemplate him, healthy, robust, agile, and well developed in body, possessing habits of correct reasoning, clear perceptions, and an ardent love of truth in mind; as having been imbued with moral habits of universal benevolence, justice, honesty, and rational self-love; and as being acquainted with the genuine doctrines of revelation, and actuated by them, so as to produce habitual cheerfulness and devotion. Such will, I hope, be, the happy result and high reward of your care and exertion. Should this be the case at the period referred to, I can confidently remind you, for your encouragement, of the Divine axiom in education, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

1 am, dear Madam, yours, &c.
CLERICUS.

All earthly comforts are like a fair picture that drawn upon ice.— Brooke.

GOLDEN SENTENCES,

FROM

SERMONS PREACHED BY THE REV. W. MARSH, A.M. Minister of St. Thomas' Church, Birmingham.

1. BELIEVERS are called heirs of promise. They lost their inheritance in Adam, and it is restored to them in Christ; and it is the assurance of having regained this Paradise they are constantly seeking to obtain. This assurance is the flower of faith; and, though not necessary to the life of the plant, it is to its maturity.

2. All Christians should recollect that they are epistles from God, to be seen and read of all men: that example is so very influential, that the apostle places it among the means of grace; saying, that "if any obey not the word, they may even without the word be won by a good conversation." The way thus to adorn the doctrine of your Saviour is, to be much and fervent in prayer to God, for the guidance and influence of his Holy Spirit.

3. By nature we are opaque bodies, we can shine only by reflection; and ere we can shine in the celestial kingdom above, we must walk while below in the light of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness.

4. Faith in Christian truths will produce joy, and faith in Christian precepts will produce obedience; and according to the strength of our faith will be the fervour of our love.

5. Christ is that full-orbed sun, in which all the rays of the Divine attributes and perfections centre, and where they are reduced to such mildness, that the sinner may look and live; and by looking be enlightened, comforted, and saved.

6. It is in the school of affliction, that men learn to know themselves. While all is prosperous and shining around them, they resemble the unruffled rivulet; but when the pebble of adversity is thrown in, the mire, till then unseen, appears.

7. The Christian should not content himself with merely differing from the world; if the world possess singular privileges, he must be willing to be singular : he should take his station at the foot of the cross, and there he shall find rich blessings clustering from it, descending constantly upon him.

8. Christ is the rock on which you must build, if you would build for eternity: all other foundations are as sand, and sink with time.

9. True religion is doctrinal, experimental, and practical: if we possessed only doctrinal religion, it would lead to antinomianism; if only experimental, to enthusiasm ; if only practical to pharisaism: therefore, if we would be partakers of the religion of Jesus, all three must be united, we must not attempt to separate them.

10. Jesus is the Prince of Peace: by his birth he proclaims it, by his life he purchased it, by taking our nature and dying he made it, at his death he bequeathed it, by his Spirit he imparts it, and at his second coming it shall be fully and eternally enjoyed.

11. It should be the aim of all men to act that part in time, which God will approve in eternity.

12. Take Christ for your hope, his character for your model, his love for your motive, his Spirit for your strength, and his promises for your encouragement.

13. The value of every thing must be estimated by the evil from which it delivers us, and the good to which it introduces us. How invaluable then is true religion, which delivers us from an eternity of misery, and introduces us to an eternity of joy unutterable.

14. On the divinity of Christ hang all the glories and perfections of the gospel. Rob the Bible of this foundation-stone, and the whole structure instantly crumbles into dust.

15. Let no day pass without inwardly digesting some portion of Scripture; and when you are not obliged to have your thoughts engaged on other subjects, then meditate on this portion; it will prove a guardian angel to you, and be the means of chasing away many an evil spirit from you.

16. How many are so entombed by the riches, the honours, the pleasures, and the sins of the world, as only to be taken out of them to be buried in the earth. 17. Whatever our professions may be, if our spirit be of the world, that decides the character in the sight of God.

18. The mind may be illumined without the heart being changed; but that light is only like the light of the moon, though sometimes beautifully clear, it is always without warmth; but the light of salvation resembles the light of the sun, it warms and influences the heart, and causes it to bring forth fruit; its beneficial influences are seen and felt in the walk and conversation of all those who are thus savingly enlightened by the Holy Spirit. W. E. H.

Death-Bed Testimonies.

COLLECTED BY THE LATE REV. WILLIAM BUTTON.

No. VIII.

REV. WILLIAM ARNOLD,

Pastor of the Baptist Church, Unicorn Yard, Southwark.
Died May 17th, 1734, in the 43d year of his age.
On the Monday before he died, he asked his physicians,
with his usual cheerfulness, what they thought of him?

when they told him there was danger in his case. They were no sooner withdrawn, but he said to his friends, with his hands lifted up towards heaven, and with an air of pleasure and satisfaction in his countenance, "Now I am going, I am going home, I am going to glory." Upon this, he sent for his children, took a solemn and affectionate leave of them, and with the authority of a minister, and the affection of a parent, recommended to them their duty to God, to one another, and how they ought to walk in the world.

Tuesday being appointed by the church as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, on his account, he sent them the following message, which he spoke with the utmost zeal and most melting affection, though he was so weak as to be supported by two persons while he delivered it. "I desire," said he to an officer of the church, then present, you will be a mouth for me this day to the church. Give my love to them as a fellow-member, as a minister of Christ, and as their pastor. Tell them that I am now going to my God and their God, to my Father and their Father. I desire them all to join in praises to God for the exceeding abundant riches of his grace and mercy to me. These words, Thy sins which are many are forgiven,' have been set home upon my soul with such power and joy, as almost to overset the tabernacle: they were once words to me as life from death, and now they are life in death. I am concerned for that little hill in Mount Zion. Some of them, I believe, are seals to my ministry, and will be my joy and crown of rejoicing in the day of Christ. They have been a creditable and reputable church; they are now so; and it is my desire they may continue in credit and reputation after my decease. I now take my farewell of them, and commit them to the care of the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. Let them wait on God, that he may give them a pastor after his own heart, to feed them with knowledge and understanding. I desire them to show their love and

value for me, by uniting in love and affection to one another, and by filling up their places in the church. They gave themselves not up to a minister, but to the Lord and one another. I desire them to walk closely together in holy communion and fellowship with God and one another, and then they may expect to meet death with joy and comfort, as I do now. And so I take my leave of them, expecting to see them in a little time, and that we shall be companions together, and be for ever with the Lord."

He very frequently expressed a great concern for the Deists, who deny a divine revelation, because they must be wholly destitute of any degree of that sweet comfort which he had received from the promises contained in the word of God: particularly he mentioned these words, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," as the great support of his dying hours.

After this, when he had in a very solemn manner bid his last adieu to many of his friends, and several of his brethren in the ministry, he said in the close of the day, "Now my work is done."

Wednesday, he was in the same frame of spirit, rejoicing in the Lord, and longing for his dissolution. Thursday evening, being asked whether his comfort continued? he answered, with his hands lifted up, "Yes, without the least cloud; Satan has not been suffered to interrupt it."

Friday morning, the morning in which he entered into glory, about an hour before he died, he said to some friends, "You will be asked by the world how I went off. You are my witnesses, that I declare with my dying breath, that my firm faith and dependence is on the blood, righteousness, and satisfaction of the Lord Jesus Christ, for my acceptance in the sight of God.” After this, thanking them all for their kindness, he wished, in the most affectionate manner, that his God might be their God, and that they might be eternal companions with him in glory. One of them perceiving the near approach of death, said, Sir, you seem to be very low." He answered with a kind of rapture, 'Low! No, I am mounting up as fast as I can." Upon her saying, "Sir, do you feel any pain?" he answered, "No, I bless the Lord, I feel no pain; he has made my passage easy." Some of his last words were, "I am an instance of sovereign and distinguishing grace, a brand plucked out of the burning.' A few minutes

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after this, he fell sweetly asleep in Jesus. His funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Samuel Wilson, from Luke vii, 47, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven."

REV. MATTHEW HENRY.

Died at Nantwich, in Cheshire, June 22, 1714, in the 53d year of his age.

On the 21st of June, 1714, he left his friends at Chester (whither he had been on a visit), and set forward for his people and family at Hackney. He thought he had found very sensible relief from his journey to Knutsford and Lancashire, which encouraged him to make an appointment to preach at Nantwich that day, on his way to London. He was observed by all his friends to be very heavy and sleepy; but being asked how he did? he always replied, "Well." Mr. Sudlow, an apothecary, and very good friend of his, said, before he left Chester, they should never see him again. As he went by Dudden, he drank a glass of the mineral waters there. Before he came to Torperly, his horse stumbled in a dirty hole, and threw him. He was a little wet, but said he was not hurt, nor did he feel any inconvenience from his fall. Those who were with him, pressed him to alight at Torperly, but he would go on to Nantwich,

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and there he preached: but the want of his usual liveliness was taken notice of by all. His text was Jer. xxxi, 18, I have surely heard Ephruim bemoaning himself thus, Thou hast chastised me," &c. After sermon, he dined, and was advised to lose a little blood, for fear of any inconvenience from the fall, though he made no complaints. When he had been bled he fell asleep; and his friends fearing he slept too long awoke him, at which he was not pleased. His old intimate friend, Mr. Illidge, was with him, and had been desired by the Hon. Sir Thomas Delves and his lady to invite him to Doddington, and he fully intended to have waited on them; their steward was there with Mr. Illidge, to conduct him to that house, which has been famed for impartial and disinterested religion, but he was not able to proceed any further. He went to bed at Mr. Mottershed's house, and said to his friends, "Pray for me, for now I cannot pray for myself." When they were putting him to bed, he spoke of the excellency of spiritual comforts in the time of need, and blessed God that he had those comforts. He said to Mr. Illidge, "You have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men: this is mine, That a life spent in the service of God, and communion with him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that any one can live in this world." He had but a restless night. About five o'clock in the morning, he was seized with what the doctors agreed to be an apoplectic fit: he lay speechless, with his eyes fixed; and about eight o'clock, on Tuesday morning, June 22, he gently expired.

His funeral sermon at Nantwich was preached by the Rev. John Reynolds, from Matt. xxv, 21, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

That at Hackney was preached by the Rev. W. Tong, from John xiii, 36, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me hereafter."

ILLUSTRATIONS OF I COR. XIII, 8— 12.

"Never

I Cor. xiii, 8, " Charity never faileth," &c. faileth, or infTe, literally, never falls off. The Christian, during his stay on earth, has to bear different kinds of fruit, all of which may be said to derive their existence and maturity from love; but all these kinds, with the exception of love, and those which love absorbs, may be dispensed with; when having "fought the good fight," and "finished" his " course," he takes his triumphant flight to the "palace of angels and God," to "lay hold on eternal life," and wear a crown of unfading glory. What need, for instance, of meekness, where there is nothing to ruffle us? What need of patience, where there is nothing to try us? "But love never faileth"-it is the cement of the heavenly society, and is there carried to the highest state of perfection. "But whether there be prophecies they shall fail. As though the apostle had said, The age of prophecy will soon be over; and indeed, all the predictions which are yet unfulfilled, together with those which may hereafter be made, shall very soon "fail" in their accomplishment. Again, "whether there be prophecies"-edifying instructions -“they shall fail," for they shall be unnecessary when the top-stone of the spiritual building has been brought on, with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it: "whether there be tongues they shall cease," both as it respects their miraculous endowment or their wonderful variety. Those who shall at last sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, shall certainly come from the east and west and north and south-but their various tongues" or languages "shall cease" — shall be lost in the universal dialect of heaven: "whether there be

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knowledge it shall vanish away :”—not that heaven is to be a place of ignorance any more than of hatredthere both love and knowledge will exist in perfection; but that all earthly knowledge, now so much esteemed and celebrated by men, "shall," owing to its comparative 'foolishness, “vanish” in the eternal world. Part of the happiness of heaven will consist in an increase of knowledge, but we may rest assured, so boundless are the treasures of heavenly knowledge, that, although our intellectual capacity shall be enlarged, our advance in knowledge exceedingly rapid, and there is an eternity before us, never shall the gigantic mind of even a Newton be able to comprehend the whole.

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Ver. 9, “For we know in part, and prophesy in part.” We only can know those things which are revealed. Those who are favoured with the Spirit of prophecy can only penetrate into futurity, and foretel coming events so far as they are inspired by the Holy Ghost. Ver. 10, "But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away," as is the early dawn by meridian splendour. Now, as though he had said, for something like an illustration (ver. 11), When I was a child, I spoke as a child"-very simply and very ignorantly-"I understood as a child"-scarcely any thing that I heard—“ I thought as a child”—had just the simple views of children:“but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Just so may it be said that we are now in the childhood of existence; but when we shall have reached the manhood of the future state, shall we put away, as unworthy of us, that kind of thinking and speaking, which was only suited to the infancy of time.

Ver. 12, "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." Now we see & σтpu by alviyμati, by a mirror into an enigma: so far from having any adequate conceptions of a future state, at present it appears from these words, that we are not favoured with a direct, but only a second-hand view of its representation-(mark particularly) --what we see is actually a reflection from this mirror; and that which is reflected, is only an imperfect similitude (an enigma) of the original. Thus, for the present, we are left with the assistance only of a few inexplicables to guess about the nature and glories of the heavenly world: "Now, spiritual things are only represented to us by natural-the things which are not seen by those which are;-but "then," when, at death, we have "given up" the enigma-" then," when in heaven it is completely unravelled-"then," when the "day of eternity" has burst upon our regenerate souls, shall we fully know those things, of which here we only had a very partial conception.

Much obscurity has been the result of the rendering the words TCs, "through a glass;" when I suppose that glass was not invented, and especially lookingglasses, till a period much later than the time when the Apostle wrote the first Epistle to the Corinthians. But if you will refer to the eighth verse of the thirtyeighth chapter of the book of Exodus, you will at once perceive a glaring impropriety in the use of the word by our translators, where it is stated that the "brazen laver" and the brazen foot were made of the "lookingGLASSES "" of the women assembling," &c. The use of the word mirror (of any kind of polished metal), removes the inconsistency of the passages. Manchester.

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W. P.

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REFLECTIONS ON THE LATE CALAMITOUS SHIPWRECKS.

"THEY that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of JEHOVAH, and his wonders in the deep." Psal. evii, 23, 24. Such were the inspired reflections of the devout Psalmist, who probably had no idea of the extent to which commerce by sea has been carried in our times. Friday, August 30, 1833, will long be remembered by thousands, on account of dreadful storms, which overwhelmed many in the depths of the ocean.

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Early in the afternoon of that day, between two and three o'clock, the Amphitrite, Hunter, commander, bound for Botany Bay, with one hundred and twentyfive female convicts on board, and several children, grounded about half a mile to the right of Boulogne, and within a short distance of the shore. Assistance was promptly tendered, but was refused by the captain in the most positive manner. His obstinacy is supposed to have proceeded from the hope that the ship would be got off on the return of the tide; and he is represented to have been further stimulated by the surgeon, who insisted, that as the custody of the women had been coufided to him by the Government, it was his duty to take care that no communication should take place between them and the shore. When the tide returned the danger was irremediable: the violence of the storm continued unabated; and as the ship did not float, the perilous condition of the crew could no longer be concealed. The women, who had been shut up under the hatches, are said to have forcibly burst from the place of their confinement, the majority of them congregating in the cabin. A little before ten o'clock, the waves broke through the poop, and swept away in an instant every soul in the cabin. The work of destruction was soon completed'; in a few moments the ship went to pieces, and out of one hundred and fifty-four persons on board, only three escaped to land, and one of these died a few hours afterwards! The captain is stated to have got on the same raft which bore to the shore one of the survivors, but a wave carried him off, and though he swam for some time, he ultimately perished. The surgeon and his wife also met a watery grave ! "

Such is an abridged account of only one of those dreadful wrecks, which occurred on that fatal night: but what an affecting scene, independently of the sad catastrophe! One hundred and twenty-five of our countrywomen, unworthy to remain in their native land! How truly shocking! Banished from society on account of their crimes! Had any of them been brought to seek salvation by Jesus Christ? Doubtless they had been supplied with the Holy Scriptures; and surely we may indulge the hope, that Sovereign Mercy had granted some of them repentance and the knowledge of

the truth.

Sailors, also; how peculiar their condition! how appalling their dangers! and how desirable to supply them with the Word of God, and other religious tracts and books! Surely the recent calamitous shipwrecks will serve as the occasion for more zealous and extensive operations of the new BRITISH AND FOREIGN SAILORS' SOCIETY.

Death of Mrs. Hannah More. AFTER a long life spent in promoting the cause of religion and virtue, this celebrated lady rested from her labours on Saturday last, September 7, at Clifton, near Bath, in the 88th year of her age.

London: Printed and Published by C. WOOD AND SON, Poppin's Court, Fleet Street; to whom all Communications for the Editor (post paid) should be addressed; and sold by all Booksellers and Newsmen in the United Kingdom.

PENNY MAGAZINE.

N: 68.

SEPTEMBER 21, 183.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY.

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY C. WOOD AND SON, POPPIN'S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON.

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THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

THE Mount of Olives, or Mount Olivet, is one of the most celebrated places in the Holy Land. It is situated on the eastern side of Jerusalem, distant only a "Sabbath day's journey," less than a mile, and separated from the city only by the brook Kidron, and the valley of Jehoshaphat, which extends from north to south.

This mountain derived its name from the abundance of olive trees which grew upon it: but its chief celebrity arises from the life and ministry of Christ. The Mount of Olives has three principal summits, giving names to several districts: first, GETHSEMANE, the place of oil-presses; second, BETHANY, the house of dates; third, BETHPHAGE, the house of green figs. The recollection of this will remove a difficulty, which has appeared in the statement of Luke, relating to the place of our Lord's ascension. See Luke xxiv, 50; Acts i, 12: and, further to illustrate the geographical situation of these places, Luke xix, 29-38; John xi, 18.

Mount Olivet, then, was the scene of some of the Redeemer's most glorious works, illustrative of his character and claims as the predicted Messiah. It was in this consecrated district that he raised Lazarus from VOL. II.

the dead-wept over Jerusalem, foretelling its ruin by the Roman legions, and the awful doom of its infidel, guilty inhabitants-and endured his inconceivable agonies in the garden of Gethsemane. It was from this mountain that he rode into Jerusalem as the King of Zion, sitting upon the foal of an ass, while the inspired multitude proclaimed his Messiahship, singing, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" On this mountain he gave his apostles their high and universal commission to evangelize all nations; and from its middle summit the Redeemer ascended up to his celestial glory.

Mount Olives was once infamous through the criminal folly of King Solomon: for it was here that he built temples to Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom, the false and abominable divinities of the Ammonites and Moabites (1 Kings xi, 7, 33), out of complaisance to his wives of those nations. Hence it is, that this place was called "The Mountain of Corruption," by succeeding ages (2 Kings xxiii, 13).

Dr. Clark's graphic description cannot fail to be peculiarly interesting to all our readers. He says, "If Mount Calvary has sunk beneath the overwhelming influence of superstition, studiously endeavouring to modify and disfigure it, through so many ages; if the situation of Mount Sion yet remains to be ascertained; the Mount of Olives, undisguised by fanatical labours,

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