other implement of husbandry, he would say, in his plain way, "Well, gentlemen, do you ever think on?" "Think on what?" was the answer. "Why, on your never-dying souls," was the reply. "O, don't talk to us about such things." "Gentlemen, gentlemen," John would rejoin, "you must think on, or you will go to a wrong place." Sometimes he met with a sneer, or angry words; but whether the parties smiled at his simplicity, or were grieved, he enjoyed the tranquillity of a good conscience, and rejoiced in doing what he considered his duty in the cause of God.

One day, a Clergyman rode up to him, and inquired if he knew which way the hounds had gone. He replied, "No, Sir; neither will you find the kingdom of heaven in riding after them." Away went the reverend gentleman, not in the most amiable temper. He was a diligent and faithful servant, and brought up a large family with great credit; for John Milner knew how to rule his own house in the fear of the Lord.

Some years after, trying to do what good he could in private, he considered it his duty

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to attempt something more public; but not regarding himself equal to the duties of a regular Local Preacher, he became an Exhorter, and styled himself "The Lord's crier." He went into many neglected country villages, where the labouring classes were as ignorant and careless as he had been before conversion, and tried to do what good he could by persuading them to flee from the wrath to come. In these labours he passed through many strange scenes. His plans were not always the most judicious; and his appearance was anything but clerical. He certainly was a man of one book, and all the leisure time he could command was devoted to the reading of the Scriptures. He knew, therefore, how to quote apt and powerful passages from the inspired volume, and apply them to the consciences of sinners.

In his village excursions, his common practice was to address the congregation coming out of church, and, at the top of his voice, give the following notice: "I shall give advice for heaven at such a place," and then name the time. (To be continued.)

that they were placed in niches, with lamps burning before them. From the passages of Scripture in which they are mentioned, it would seem that they were not idols in the worst sense of the word, no primary worship being rendered to them. They were certainly used by persons who had professed the worship of the true God; but as they proved a snare to take away the heart from him, and to divide and supersede that exclusive confidence and trust which he required, we find them denounced by the Prophets; and they were doubtless included in the general interdiction of images by the law of Moses. No doubt they often became objects of positively idolatrous homage; but in their general use, before and after the promulgation of the law, they seem to have been popularly considered as not being incompatible with the allegiance due to Jehovah; and there are instances in which we find teraphim connected, in some way or other, with the family and the public worship rendered to Him. So far as the matter can be understood, it seems to us that these images were considered to fix a protecting and guiding presence to the places in which they were set; protecting, perhaps, as an oriental talisman is considered to protect; and guiding as an oracle, which in some way or other was considered to vindicate the course that ought to be pursued on occasions of doubt and difficulty. Thus the Danites desired the Levite, who had charge of Micah's teraphim, to ask counsel for them, and he gave them a response as from the Lord. (Judges xviii. 5, 6, et seq.) The Prophets also mention them as oracles. Ezekiel (chap. xxi. 21) describes the King of Babylon as using divination, consulting with teraphim; and Zechariah (chap. x. 2) tells the Jews that these teraphim "have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie." On every revival of the knowledge of the written revelation of God, the teraphim were swept away together with the worse forms of idolatry. (2 Kings xxiii. 24.) As, however, the worship of teraphim, like that of the Penates and Lares among the Romans,

was connected with nationality, it necessarily perished with the nationality itself. (Hosea iii. 4.) The teraphim were also consulted by persons upon whom true religion had no firm hold, in order to elicit some supernatural omina, similar to the auguria of the Romans. Various answers have been given to the question, "Why did Rachel steal her father's teraphim?" We give a few, without pretending to decide so doubtful a question. That the images were of precious metal, and Rachel stole them to compensate for the loss of dowry sustained through Laban's bargain with Jacob.-That she thought that, by taking the oracles, she should deprive Laban of the means of discovering the flight of her husband. That she expected by this act to bring prosperity from the household of her father to that of her husband. Some conclude that she hoped to cure her father of his idolatrous propensities, by depriving him of the instruments: while many, on the other hand, imagine that Rachel and her sister were infested by the same superstitions as their father, and wished to continue the practice of them in the land of Canaan. Dr. Adam Clarke says that, "The Persian translator of the Scriptures seems to have considered these teraphim as tables, or instruments, that served for the purposes of judicial astrology. As the astrolabe was an instrument with which they took the altitude of the polar star, the sun, &c., it might, in the notion of the Persian translator, imply tables, &c., by which the calculating of particular stars might be determined, and the whole serve for purposes of judicial astrology. Now as we know that many who have professed themselves to be conscientious believers in Christianity, have, nevertheless, addicted themselves to judicial astrology, we might suppose such a thing in this case, and still consider Laban as no idolater. If the Persian translator (observes Dr. Clarke) has not hit on the true meaning, he has, in my opinion, formed the most likely conjecture." Dr. A. Clarke in loco.

DEATH OF KLEBER.

M. THIERS, the French statesman, in the "History of the Consulate and the Empire of France under Napoleon" which has lately been given to the world, thus describes the assassination of Kleber, Napoleon's Commander in the Egyptian campaign :

"It is always more or less dangerous to give a deep shock to the ruling principle of human nature. All Islamism had been moved by the presence of the French in Egypt. The children of Mahomet had felt somewhat of that enthusiasm which of old inflamed them against the Crusaders. Cries of a holy war were raised, as in the twelfth century; and there were fanatic Mussulmans who vowed to achieve the sacred fight, which consists in slaying an infidel. In Egypt, where the people saw the French closely, where they appreciated their humanity, where they could compare them with the soldiers of the Porte, es. pecially with the Mamelukes,--in Egypt, where they witnessed their respect for the Prophet, (a respect enjoined by General Bonaparte,) less aversion for them was entertained; and when they afterwards left the country, the fanaticism greatly abated. Indeed, during the late insurrection, there had even been perceived, in some places,

real signs of attachment to our soldiers, to such a degree that the English agents were surprised at it. But throughout the rest of the East, the attention of all was engrossed by one subject, and that was the invasion by infidels of an extensive Mussulman country. A young man, a native of Aleppo, named Suleiman, who was a prey to extravagant fanaticism, who had performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, who had studied at the mosque El Azher, the most celebrated and the wealthiest in Cairo, that where the Koran and the Turkish law are taught; who, finally, purposed to obtain admission into the body of the Doctors of the faith, chanced to be wandering in Palestine, when the wrecks of the Vizir's army passed through the country. He witnessed the sufferings, the despair of his co-religionists, which violently affected his morbid imagination. The Aga of the Janissaries, who chanced to see him, inflamed his fanaticism still more by his own suggestion. This young man offered to assassinate the Sultan of the French,' General Kleber. Furnished with a dromedary and a sum of money, he repaired to Gaza, crossed the Desert, proceeded to Cairo, and shut himself up for several weeks in the great mosque, into which students and poor travellers were admitted, at the cost of that pious foun

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dation. The rich mosques are in the East what convents formerly were in Europe: there are found prayer, religious instruction, and hospitality. The young fanatic intimated his design to the four principal Sheiks of the mosque, who were at the head of the department of instruction. They were alarmed at his resolution, and at the consequences to which it was likely to lead; they told him it would not succeed, and that it would bring great disasters upon Egypt; but still they refrained from apprizing the French authorities. When this wretched man was sufficiently confirmed in his resolution, he armed himself with a dagger, followed Kleber for several days, but finding no opportunity to approach him, he resolved to penetrate into the garden of the headquarters, and to hide himself there in an

abandoned cistern. On the 14th of June he appeared before Kleber, who was walking with Protain, the architect of the army, and showing him what repairs were required to be done in the house, to obliterate the traces of the bombs and balls. Suleiman ap. proached him, as if to beg alms, and while Kleber was preparing to listen to him, he rushed upon him, and plunged the dagger several times into his breast. Kleber fell under the violence of this attack. Protain, having a stick in his hand, fell upon the assassin, struck him violently on the head, but was thrown down in his turn by a stab with the dagger. At the cries of the two victims, the soldiers ran to the spot, raised their expiring General, sought and seized the murderer, whom they found skulking behind a heap of rubbish."

as existed among the ancient Egyptians, and which we still find in Syria. Besides what has been already stated as to the practice of the Egyptians, an interesting illustration may be derived from the Mosaic pavement at Præneste, where we see a trellissed vinebower, under whose pleasant shade several persons sit on benches, drinking wine and solacing themselves with music. At a village (Beitdjin) near Cæsarea, Shulze and his party took supper under a large vine, the stem of which was nearly a foot and a half in diameter, the height about thirty feet, and covered with its branches and shoots (for the shoots must be supported) a hut of more than fifty feet long and broad. The bunches of the grapes were so large as to weigh ten or twelve pounds, and might be compared to our plums. Such a bunch is cut off and laid on the board, and each helps himself to as many as he pleases. Dr. Russell acquaints us that "the large grapes produced in the houses, upon the vines that cover the stairs and arbours, are of beautiful appearance, but have little flavour."

In Psalm lxxx. we find the same favourite figure as that employed by Isaiah; and in its amplification some beautiful descriptions, with a little further information, occur:

"A vine thou didst bring out of Egypt; Thou castedst out the nations and planted it.

Thou preparedst the ground for it;
It spread its roots and filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shade,
And with its tendrils the lofty cedars;
Its boughs it extended to the sea,
And its branches to the great river.
Why hast thou broken down its fences
So that every passenger croppeth it?
The boar from the forest wasteth it,
And the wild beasts of the field devour it."

As the allusions here are to modes of culture which have already been noticed, no further elucidation is required. The use of fences is implied in the evils attending their destruction; for as the destruction of the embankments of the terraced hills involved the destruction of the vineyard by the action of the elements, so the ruin of the fences exposes the vine to be spoiled by man and beasts. Both these consequences are exhibited in connexion in the passage previously adduced from Isaiah.

The fences appear to have been, as they are now, of thorns and of stones.

Among the depredators on vines, mention is made of "the foxes, the little foxes," which spoiled the vines when they had tender

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grapes, and which the vine-dressers were anxious to catch. (Sol. Song, ii. 15.)

It seems that the system under which the vineyards were once cultivated, was in ancient times much the same as that which now prevails in the same country; that is to say, when a man cultivated his own vineyard, he hired day-labourers, (at the times when extra labour was required,) whose wages, in the time of Christ, was sevenpence half-penny by the day; (Matt. xx. 2;) but extensive proprietors generally let out their vineyards, when a certain proportion of the produce was given to the owner, and another to the cultivator of the soil. (Matt. xxi. 34.) The general principles under which this system at present works has frequently been exhibited respecting the culture of silk. But the conditions somewhat vary as applied to other products. The proprietor is supposed to have the ground in perfect working condition when the bargain is made. Then, in the first instance, he advances a sum of money for whatever outlay may be necessary as to implements, animals, &c. From the product he first deducts ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent., according as (after ancient regulations) the ground is more or less taxed. The remainder is divided into two equal parts, one of which the proprietor takes, and the other is for the cultivators; the value of which moiety is, however, reduced by the obligation to repay the money advanced to them at the outset. Seed when required by the cultivator, is always supplied by the proprietor. But some inconvenience in thus dividing the produce of the vine, appears to have suggested, as sometimes the better course, that the husbandman should keep all, and pay to the proprietor either a fixed rent or the value of his share in money. In Isaiah vii. 23, the rent for a thousand vines is said to have been "a thousand silverlings," or shekels, about half a crown each. From this, as compared with Solomon's Song, viii. 11, 12, we may collect that a shekel the vine was an ordinary rent, and also that vines were rented by the thousand, and sometimes perhaps to different tenants, in the same vineyard or estate, when it contained several thousand vines. would also appear that the cultivator received at the rate of twenty per cent.; which is certainly less than the present proportion, in about the same degree as the difference in the day's wages of the ancient and modern husbandman, and, doubtless, from the same cause, a redundant population in former times, and a great want of inhabitants now.

POPISII SUPERSTITION AND PRIESTLY CUPIDITY IN ROME. AMONG the innumerable churches, there is

It

one I must select for separate mention. It is the church of the Ara Coli, supposed to be built on the site of the old temple of