and the blessed lights of the gospel through this dark and desolate nook of benighted Africa? The issue of our enterprise is known only to Him who ordereth all things well. • Man proposes; but God disposes.' Although the result of our scheme is in the womb of futurity; and although it seems probable that greater perils and privations await us than we had once calculated upon; yet there appears no cause to repent of the course we have taken; or to augur unfavourably of the ultimate issue. Thus far God had been pleased to prosper and protect us. We left not our deeply and dearly-loved native land from wanton carelessness; or from the mere love of change, or without very sufficient and reasonable motives. Let us, therefore, go on calmly and courageously; duly invoking the blessing of God on all our proceedings; and thus, be the result what it may, we shall feel ourselves in the path of active duty.

WITH THESE and similar reflections we encouraged ourselves; and proceeded to the religious services of the day. Having selected one of the hymns of our National Church, all united in singing it to one of the old, pathetic, sacred melodies, with which it is usually conjoined in the Sunday worship of our natve land. The day was bright and still; and the voice of praise rose with a sweet and touching solemnity among those wild mountains, where the praise of the true God had never, in all human probability, been sung before. The words of the hymn, which were composed by Logan, were appropriate to our situation and our feelings; and they affected some of our congregation very sensibly. They are as follow:

"O, GOD of Bethel! by whose hand
Thy people still are fed;

Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led.

"Through each perplexing path of life,
Our wandering footsteps guide;
Give us each day our daily bread,
And raiment fit provide.

"O! spread thy covering wings around,
Till all our wanderings cease;

And at our Father's lov'd abode,
Our souls arrive in peace."

WE THEN read some of the most suitable portions of the English Liturgy; which we considered preferable to any EXTEMPORE service, that could have been substituted on this occasion; and we concluded with an excellent discourse from a volume of sermons, by a friend well known and much esteemed, the late Dr. Andrew Thompson, of Edinburgh. We had a similar -service in the afternoon; and we agreed to maintain in this manner the public worship of GOD, until it should please Him to favour us again with the regular dispensation of our religion. While we were singing out the last psalm in the afternoon, a roebuck antelope, which appeared to have wandered down the valley without previously observing us, stood for a little while on the opposite side of the stream, gazing at us in innocent amazement, as if yet unacquainted with man, the great destroyer. On this day it was, of course, permitted to depart unmolested.

ON THIS and on other occasions, the scenery and productions of the country reminded us, in the most forcible manner, of the striking imagery of the Hebrew Scriptures. There were the parched and thorny desert; the ragged and stony mountains; the dry beds and torrents; the green pastures by the quiet waters; the lions' dens; mountains of leopards; the roes and the young harts, or antelopes, that feed among the lilies; the cony of the rocks; the ostrich of the wilderness; the shadow of a great roek in a weary land. These, and a thousand other objects, with the strikingly-appropriate descriptions, which accompany them, reminded us continually with a sense of their beauty and aptitude, which we had never fully felt before.

Now, Matthew among the Hebrews, published a written gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the church at Rome. After their departure, Mark, himself the disciple and interpreter of Peter, also delivered to us in writing what had been preached by Peter; and Luke, the follower of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who had leant upon his breast, himse'f also residing at Ephesus, set forth a gospel.-St. Irenæus.

B

TRAITS OF THE MODERN EGYPTIANS.

THE following extracts from Mr. Bartlett's Nile Boat, or Glimpses of the Land of Egypt, will exhibit some sketches of the modern land of Egypt; and amuse our readers. The first is a smart little portrait of

A DONKEY-BOY OF CAIRO.

"The Caireen donkey-boy is quite a character, and mine în particular was a perfect original. He was small and spare of frame; his rich brown face relieved by the whitest of teeth and the most brilliant black eyes; and his face beamed with a merry yet roguish expression, like that of the Spanish or rather Moorish boy in Murillo's well-known masterpeice, with whom he was probably of cognate blood. Living in the streets from infancy, and familiar with all the chances of out-door life and with every description of character,-waiting at the door of a mosque or a café, or crouching in the corner of the bazaar, he had ac quired a thorough acquaintance with Caireen life; and his intellect, and I fear his vices, had become somewhat prematurely developed. But the finishing-touch to his education was undoubtedly given by the European travellers whom he had served; and of whom he had, with the imitativeness of his age, picked up a variety of little accomplishments, particularly the oaths of different languages. His audacity had thus become consummate; and I have heard him send his fellows to coolly and in as good English as any prototype of our own Metropolis. His Mussulman prejudices sat very loosely upon him, and in the midst of religious obvervances he grew up indifferent and prayerless. With this inevitable laxity of faith and morals contracted by his early vagabondage, he at least acquired an emancipation from prejudice, and displayed a craving after miscellaneous information, to which his European masters were often tasked to contribute. Thrown almost in childhood upon their own resources, the energy and perseverance of these boys are remarkable. My little lad had, for instance, been up the country with some English travellers, in whose service he had saved four or five hundred piastres, (£4 or £5,) with which he

bought the animal which I bestrode; on whose sprightliness and good qualities he was never tired of expatiating, and with the proceeds of whose labour he supported his mother and himself He had but one habitual subject of discontent-the heavy tax imposed upon his donkey by Mehemet Ali; upon whom he invoked the curse of God,—a curse, it is to be feared, uttered not loud, but deep, by all classes save the employés of Government. His wind and endurance were surprising: he would trot after his donkey by the hour together; urging and prodding it along with a pointed stick, as readily in the burning sandy environs, and under the noon-day sun, as in the cool and shady alleys of the crowded capital; running, dodging, striking, and shouting with all the strength of his lungs, though the midst of its labyrinthine obstructions."

The next shews that in all countries the national prejudices linger longest amongst the poor, and Egypt is not an exception to the rule. True Mahometanism, which is leaving most other classes, takes refuge with

THE BOATMEN OF THE NILE.

“Tracking is toilsome for the men, and small is the progress thus made against the current: a new source of delay also has arisen in the Ramadan, the month of fasting,' whose inauspicious moon succeeded this night. My servant is a rigid and pious Mussulman, and pilgrim to boot; several times a day he prostrates himself upon the deck. Happily, his zeal in my service seems to keep pace with his piety, and his fury against the worthless Reis more than equals the fervour of his prayers. I was condoling with him on the hardship of preparing so many good dishes, of which he could not partake on account of his religious principles; when he gravely smiled, and assured me that I was under a mistake, there being a special exemption in behalf of travellers, who, in consideration of their fatigues, were allowed to perform their month's fasting by future instalments, à discretion, in the same manner as Sancho liquidated his thousand lashes. I asked if this merciful provision also extended to the Reis and sailors: but this idea he indignantly repudiated;

as they were only labouring in their ordinary vocation, the exemption did not apply to them; and this curious distinction without a difference themselves admitted, all but the Reis himself-a man of no religion-a practical infidel a Kafir, as Saline indignantly told him, who, instead of religiously working and not eating, would d only eat and not work, sleeping like a dog during the greater part of the day. The rest, from the old steersman to the last of the crew, never, to my knowledge, infringed in the slightest instance the terrible rigour of this prohibition; the cravings of of hunger they indeed contrived in some measure to satisfy, by taking their meals shortly before sunrise; but, with their beloved Nile at hand, not a drop of water passed their lips during the burning summer's day; nor were they even free to amuse the vacuum of their stomachs by the fumes of the consoling pipe: listless and languid, they laboured at the toilsome tracking as usual, though with diminished energy, until the hour of sunset. Then the welcome pipe might safely be taken up; for I remarked they always began with it; and after their temperate meal they were full of merriment, singing oftem to a late hour in the night. I frequently endeavoured insidiously to underminer the faith of the poor old steersman

with a arguments of expediency drawn from his weakness and

the food

from the compassion of Allah, urging him to take th which his infirmities really required: but he remained impenetrable to all infidel solicitations and tempting offers."

21

It behoves us always to bear in mind, that while actions are always to be judged by the immutable standard of right and wrong, the judgments which we pass upon men must be qualified by the consideration of age, country, situation, and other accidental circumstances; and it will then be found that he who is most charitable in his judgment is generally the least unjust.— Southey