mit, and a base distinctly marked. It is a whole cluster of mountains, many day's journey in circumference, with a broad ridge of summits, the highest in the Holy Land. According to the English engineers, they rise 9376 feet above the

sea.

These peaks are surrounded by extensive ranges of mountain ridges, in whose deep gloomy valleys the largest rivers of the land have their sources, and on whose slopes of incomparable loveliness once lay large cities, such as Baal-Gad, Baal-Hermon, Beth-Rehob, and others. Thus Hermon is not a mountain, but a mountain chain.

The blessing is compared to the "dew of Hermon," which descended upon the mountains of Sion. Sitting at the foot of Mount Hermon, I see how, from its woody crags and ravines, where the snow lay nearly the whole year round, the watery mists must ascend in much greater abundance than those from other mountains, whose bare tops do not rise to such a height. The waters, drawn up by the sun's warm rays, are reduced to vapour, which is diffused through the atmosphere, and descends at night in cool refreshing dews on the lower hills that branch out on every side around.

The

Psalmist compares the spiritual blessings to the most excellent dew, like that which falls in the regions around Hermon, and is to be found no where else in the country. You must see Hermon yourself to realize the figure.

"Some of its deep light-green valleys lie before me. Exactly opposite is the Wadi-Shebah, with the village Hebasiëh on yonder slope of the mountain, and several neighbouring valleys, all

covered with pines and shrub-oaks. Behind the first dark-green range are seen the peaks of higher mountains; and here the pine woods are sprinkled with silver by the snow, giving a wonderful contrast of light and shade. Behind these ridges, and high above them all, rises one broad summit, on which rest deep masses of all but eternal snow, transformed by the sunlight to a transparent pale gold tint, with intermingled gleams of pearly lustre, such as never yet have been expressed by painter's art. This magnificent snowy peak, towering up to Heaven's own blue, is the source from whence descends the dew of Hermon, so rich and fruitful. The Arabs call it the Chief of Mountains. A Chief, it is indeed; not "the man of ancient days," as some will have it, who see in its snowy ravines a likeness to the white beard of an old man, and nothing more: a royal prince art thou, an image of the Great King; and that book of majesty on which we never tire of gazing; that brow of gold, glittering in the dark blue sky; those dewy mists, softly falling on thy woods and level downs; those ravines of dark shade, and those tall cliffs, smiling in the sun's bright rays, never shall the remembrance of these beauties pass away!

HAGAR.

HER'S was a mother's heart,

That poor Egyptian's, when she drew apart,
Because she would not see

Her child beloved in its last agony.

When her sad load she laid,

In her despair, beneath the scanty shade
In the wild waste, and stept

Aside, and long and passionately wept.

Yet higher, more sublime,

How many a mother, since that ancient time, Has shown the mighty power

Of love divine, in such another hour!

Oh! higher love to wait

Fast by the sufferer in his worst estate,
Nor from the eyes to hide

One pang, but aye in courage to abide.

And though no Angel bring

In that dark hour unto a living spring
Of gladness, as was sent

Stilling her voice of turbulent lament,

Oh! higher faith to show,

Out of what depths of anguish and of woe
The heart is strong to raise

To an all-loving Father hymns of praise.

REV. R. C. TRENCH.

ISHMAEL.

From Hankinson's Seatonian Prize Poems, 1835.

AND Ishmael grew a stalwart man,
Chief of a vast and powerful clan ;
The home where he his boyhood past,
Was his first dwelling and his last;
Save that no spot of charmed ground
His wayward, wandering fancy bound:
The spirit took its taste and tone
From the stern things he gazed upon.

Fierce as the red siroc he traced

His path through Paran's,* boundless waste,
And better far for peaceful night
To find that whirlwind in its might,
Rearing the columned sand on high,
And battling with the noontide sky,
Than quail before the ruthless sword
Of Ishmael and his robber horde.

Many an age hath come and past
And many a shrine to earth been cast;
But still unchanged, by changing time,
The same in habits and in clime
Doth Ishmael's outcast race retain
The empire of their drear domain;
No hand the desert's son hath tamed
No art the desert's soil reclaimed,
But dimly, through the mist of years,
The dawn of glorious day appears,
Messiah opes His reign of bliss!
The kingdoms † of the world are his!

The solitary place awakes,‡

From dull and dread repose!
The desert into verdure breaks,
And blossoms as the rose!

Then Isaac's tribes shall cease to mourn,
And Ishmael's || outcast race return:
The rival brethren join to bring

Their homage to their heaven-sent king,
Shall bow before Messiah's throne,
Their common father's seed to own;
Both from united bondage free,§
In piety and peace agree;

And keep with all the blest above
The eternal Jubilee of love.

* Gen. xxi. 20, 21. † Rev. xi. 15.

Isaiah xxxv. 1.

|| Ps. lxxii. 10, 15. § Gal. iv. 24, 25.

Printed at the Operative Jewish Converts' Institution, Palestine Place,
Bethnal Green, London.