paper without a moral. I will just intimate to my fair readers, that Mr. Pope, from the mild serene appearance of the Moon, contrasted with the bright and dazzling lustre of the Sun, exhibits a beautiful comparison, and a portrait not less beautiful of an estimable woman. This,

am persuaded, will inculcate a lesson, which, if properly attended to by the fair, cannot fail to heighten and Derpetuate every charm:

Ah! friend, to dazzle let the vain design;

To raise the thought, and touch the heart be thine;
That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the ring,
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing;
So when the sun's broad beam has tried the sight,
All mild ascends the moon's more sober light;
Serene in virgin modesty she shines,
And unobserved the glaring orb declines.
Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow pleasant as to-day:
She, who can love a sister's charms, or bear
Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear;
She, who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or if she rules him, never shows she rules;
Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,
Yet has her humor most, when she obeys;
Let fops of fortune fly which way they will,
Disdain all loss of tickets or codille.

ELEGANT EXTRACT.

THE fresh greenness of spring has long since passed away; the ardent heat of summer has abated; and sober autumn now makes its solemn entree into the kingdom of nature. The frost is in the air, and the sear is on the leaf. Every thing around us discourses of decay. The mutations in the microcosm of man, although slower and more gradual than among the green herbage and the lofty forest, are no less certain. Let us be wise enough to profit by the lessons which Providence has multiplied about us, and prepare ourselves for the fleeting hours which lie between us and the grave, that when we are required to go into fellowship with the worm, and mingle with the clods of the valley, we may feel within us a hope, which will sustain us above the reach of fear, and with its glorious beam gild the dark edges of the clouds of futurity."

Nazareth, the modern Naszera or Nassera, seems, says one writer as if fifteen mountains met to form an enclosure for this delightful spot; they rise round it like the edge of a shell to guard it from intrusion. It is a rich and beautiful field in the midst of barren hills. The church stands in a cave supposed to be the place where the Blessed Virgin received the joyful message of the angel, recorded in the first chapter of St. Luke's Gospel. It resembles the figure of a cross. That part of it which stands for the tree of the cross is fourteen paces long and six broad, and runs directly into the grot, having no other arch over it at top but that of the natural rock. The transverse part is nine paces in ength and four in width, and is built athwart the mouth of the cave. Just at the section of these divisions are erected two granite pillars, two feet in diameter, and about three feet distant from each other. They are supposed by the faithful to stand on the very places where the angel and the Blessed Virgin respectively stood at the time of the Annunciation.

When Dr. Clarke visited this sanctuary, the friars pointed out the kitchen and the fire place of the Virgin Mary; and as all consecrated places in the Holy Land contain some supposed miracle for exhibition, the

Nazareth.

monks, he informs us, have taken care not to be altogether deficient in supernatural rarities. Accordingly, the first things they show to strangers who descend into the cave are two stone pillars in the front of it; one of which, separated from its base, is said to sustain its capital and a part of its shaft miraculously in the air. The fact is, that the capital and a piece of the shaft of a pillar of gray granite have been fastened to the roof of the grotto; and "so clumsily is the rest of the hocus pocus contrived, that what is shown for the lower fragment of the same pillar resting upon the earth is not of the same substance, but of Cipolino marbie."*

A variety of stories are circulated about the fracture of this miraculous pillar. The more ancient travellers were told that it was broken by a pasha in search of hidden treasure, who was struck with blindness for his impiety; at present it is said that it separated into two parts, in the manner in which it still appears, when the angel announced to Mary the glad tidings with which he was commissioned. Maundrell was not less observant than the author just quoted, although he does not so openly expose the deception. "It touches the roof above, and is probably hanged upon that; unless you had rather take the friars' account of it, namely that it is supported by a miracle."

Pococke has proved that the tradition concerning the dwelling-place of the parents of Jesus Christ existed at a very early period; because the church built over it is mentioned by writers of the seventh century. Nor is there in the circumstance that their abode was fixed in a grotto or natural cave, any thing repugnant to the notions usually entertained either of the ancient customs of the country or of the class of society to which Joseph and his espoused wife belonged. But when we are called upon to surrender our belief to the legends invented by men whose ignorance is the best apology we can urge for their superstition, a certain degree of disgust and indignation is perfectly justifiable.

In such a case we are disposed to question the good effects ascribed by some authors to the pious zeal of the Empress Helena, who, although she did not in fact erect

* Clarke, voi. iv. p. 170

one-half of the buildings ascribed to her munificence, most undoubtedly labored, by her architectural designs, to obliterate every trace of those simple scenes which might have been regarded with reasonable veneration in all ages of the church.

Of the original edifice, said to have been erected by the mother of Constantine, some remains may still be observed in the form of subverted columns, which, with the fragments of their capitals and bases, lie near the modern building. The present church and convent are of a comparitively recent date, at least so far as the outward structure and internal decorations are concerned ; the former being filled with pictures suppiied by the modern school, all of which are said to be below mediocrity.

Besides the antiquities already mentioned having a reference to the early history of our Lord, the traveller is conducted to the "workshop of Joseph," which is near the convent, and was formerly included within its walls. It is now a small chapel, perfectly modern, and whitewashed like a Turkish sepulchre. After this is shown the synagogue where the Redeemer is said to have read the Scriptures to the Jews; and also the precipice from which the monks aver he leaped down to escape the rage of his townsmen, who were offended at his application of the sacred text. "And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way."*

The Mount of Precipitation, as it is now called, is, according to Mr. Buckingham, about two miles distant from Nazereth; is almost inaccessible from the steep and rocky nature of the road; and is decidedly not upon the hill where the town could ever have been built. Dr. Clarke, on the other hand, maintains that the words of the evangelist are most explicit, and prove the situation of the ancient city to have been precisely that which is now occupied by the modern town. In a recess there

Luke iv. 28, 29, 30.

is an altar hewn out of the rock, said to be the very spot where Christ dined with his disciples. Close by are two large cisterns for preserving rain-water, and seve ral portions of buildings, all described as the remains of a religious establishment founded by the pious and indefatigable Helena. Immediately over this scene, and on the edge of a precipice about thirty feet in height, are two flat stones set up on their edges. In the centre, and scattered over different parts of one of them, are several round marks like the deep imprint of fingers on wax; and it is insisted that these are the impression of our Saviour's hand when he clung to the stone, and thereby escaped being thrown headlong down.*

In a valley near the town is a fountain which bears the name of the Virgin, and where the women are seen passing to and fro with pitchers on their heads, as in the days of old. It is justly remarked, that, if there be a spot throughout the Holy Land which was more particularly honored by the presence of Mary, we may consider this to be the place; because the situation of a copious spring is not liable to change, and because the custom of repairing thither to draw water has been continued among the female inhabitants of Nazareth from the earliest period of its history.

"two

As another memorial of primitive times, we may mention that it is still common in Nazareth to see women grinding at the mill;" illustrating the remarkable saying of our Lord in reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. The two females, seated on the ground opposite to each other, hold between them two round flat stones, such as are seen in Lapland, and which in Scotland are usually called querns. In the centre of the upper stone is a cavity for pouring in the corn; and by the side of this an upright wooden handle for moving it. To begin the operation, one of the women with her right hand pushes this handle to her companion, who in her turn sends it back to the first, thus communicating a rotary and very rapid motion to the upper stone; their left hands being all the while employed in supplying fresh corn, as fast as the bran and flour escape from the sides of the machine.

Travels in Palestine, vol n. p. 315.