veiled, the stars are hid; all becomes as dark as the waters of Kedron and the valley of Jehoshaphat. The tower of David merges into obscurity; no longer glitter the minarets of the mosque of Omar; Bethesda's angelic waters, the gate of Stephen, the street of Sacred Sorrow, the hill of Salem, and the heights of Scopas, can no longer be discerned. Alone in the increasing darkness, while the very line of the walls gradually eludes the eye, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a beacon light.

And why is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a beacon light? Why, when it is already passed the noon of darkness, when every soul slumbers in Jerusalem, and not a sound disturbs the deep repose except the howl of the wild dog crying to the wilder wind-why is the cupola of the sanctuary illumined, though the hour has long since been numbered, when pilgrims there kneel and monks pray?

An armed Turkish guard are bivouacked in the court of the church; within the church itself, two brethren of the convent of Terra Santa keep holy watch and ward while, at the tomb beneath, there kneels a solitary youth, who prostrated himself at sunset, and who will there pass unmoved the whole of the sacred night. Yet the pilgrim is not in communion with the Latin Church; neither is he of the Church Armenian, or the Church Greek; Maronite, Coptic, or Abyssinian-these also are Christian Churches which cannot call him child. He comes from a distant and a northern isle to bow before the tomb of a descendant of the kings of Israel, because he, in common with all the people from that isle, recognizes in that sublime Hebrew incarnation the presence of a Divine Redeemer. Then why does he come alone? It is not that he has availed himself of the inventions of modern science, to repair first to a spot which all his countrymen may equally desire to visit, and thus anticipate their hurrying arrival. Before the inventions of modern science, all his countrymen used to flock hither. Then why do they not now? Is the Holy Land no longer hallowed? Is it not the land of sacred and mysterious truths? The land of heavenly messages and earthly miracles? The land of prophets

and apostles? Is it not the land upon whose mountains the Creator of the Universe parleyed with man and the flesh of whose anointed race He mystically assumed, when He struck the last blow at the powers of evil? Is it to be believed that there are no peculiar and eternal qualities in a land thus visited, which distinguish it from all others that Palestine is like Normandy or Yorkshire, or even Africa or Rome?

There may be some who maintain this; there have been some, and those too, among the wisest and the wittiest of the northern and western races, who, touched by a presumptuous jealousy of the long predominance of that oriental intellect to which they owed their civilization, would have persuaded themselves and the world that the traditions of Sinai and Calvary were fables. Half a century ago, Europe made a violent and apparently successful effort to disembarrass itself of its Asian faith. The most powerful and the most civilized of its kingdoms, about to conquer the rest, shut up its churches, desecrated its altars, massacred and persecuted their sacred servants, and announced that the Hebrew creeds which Simon Peter brought from Palestine, and which his successors revealed to Clovis, were a mockery and a fiction. What has been the result? In every city, town, village, and hamlet of that great kingdom, the divine image of the most illustrious of Hebrews has been again raised amid the homage of kneeling millions; while, in the heart of its bright and witty capital, the nation has erected the most gorgeous of modern temples, and consecrated its marble and golden walls to the name, and memory, and celestial efficacy of a Hebrew woman.

The country of which the solitary pilgrim, kneeling at this moment at the Holy Sepulchre, was a native, had not actively shared in that insurrection against the first and second Testament which distinguished the end of the eighteenth century. But more than six hundred years before, it had sent its king, and the flower of its peers and people, to rescue Jerusalem from those whom they considered infidels! and now, instead of the third crusade, they extend their superfluous energies in the construction of railroads.

The failure of the European kingdom of Jerusalem on which such vast treasures, such prodigies of valor, and such ardent belief had been wasted, has been one of those circumstances which have tended to disturb the faith of Europe, although it should have carried convictions of a very different character. The Crusaders looked upon the Saracens as infidels, whereas the children of the Desert bore a much nearer affinity to the sacred corpse that had, for a brief space, consecrated the Holy Sepulchre, than any of the invading host of Europe. The same blood flowed in their veins, and they recognized the divine missions both of Moses and of his greater successor. In an age so deficient in physiological learning as the twelfth century the mysteries of race were unknown. Jerusalem, it cannot be doubted, will ever remain the appanage either of Israel or of Ishmael; and if, in the course of those great vicissitudes which are no doubt impending for the East, there be any attempt to place upon the throne of David a prince of the House of Coburg or Deuxponts, the same fate will doubtless await him, as, with all their brilliant qualities and all the sympathy of Europe was the final doom of the Godfreys, the Baldwins, and the Lusignans. -Tancred.

MR. PHOEBUS'S VIEWS OF ART AND EDUCATION. Mr. Phoebus was the most successful, not to say the most eminent, painter of the age. He was the descendant of a noble family of Gascony that had emigrated to England from France in the reign of Louis XIV. Unquestionably they had mixed their blood frequently during the interval and the vicissitudes of their various life; but in Gaston Phoebus, Nature, as is sometimes her wont, had chosen to reproduce exactly the original type. He was the Gascon noble of the sixteenth century, with all his brilliancy, bravery, and boastfulness, equally vain, arrogant, and eccentric, accomplished in all the daring or the graceful pursuits of man, yet nursed in the philosophy of our times.

"It is presumption in my talking about such things," said Lothair; "but might I venture to ask what you may consider the true principles of art?"

"Aryan principles," said Mr. Phoebus; "not merely the study of Nature, but of beautiful Nature; the art of design in a country inhabited by a first-rate race, and where the laws, the manners, the customs are calculated to maintain the health and beauty of a first-rate race. In a greater or less degree these conditions obtained from the age of Pericles to the age of Hadrian in pure Aryan communities; but Semitism began then to prevail, and ultimately triumphed. Semitism has destroyed Art; it taught man to despise his own body, and the essence of art is to honor the human frame."

"I am afraid I ought not to talk about such things," said Lothair, " but, if by Semitism you mean religion, surely the Italian painters, inspired by Semitism, did something."

"Great things," said Mr. Phoebus-" some of the greatest. Semitism gave them subjects, but the Renaissance gave them Aryan art, and it gave that art to a purely Aryan race. But Semitism rallied in the shape of the Reformation, and swept all away. When Leo the Tenth was Pope, popery was pagan; popery is now Christian and Art is extinct."

"I cannot enter into such controversies," said Lothair. "Every day I feel more and more I am extremely ignorant."

"Do not regret it," said Mr. Phoebus. "What you call ignorance is your strength. By ignorance you mean a want of knowledge of books. Books are fatal; they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of

existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing. Printing has destroyed education. Art is a great thing, and Science is a great thing; but all that Art and Science can reveal can be taught by man and by his attributes -his voice, his hand, his eye. The essence of education is the education of the body. Beauty and health are the chief sources of happiness. Men should live in the air; their exercises should be regular, varied, scientific. To render his body strong and supple is the first duty of man. He should develop and completely master the whole muscular system. What I admire in the order to which

you belong is that they do live in the air; that they excel in athletic sports; that they can only speak one language; and that they never read. This is not a complete education, but it is the highest education since the Greek."

"What you say I feel encouraging," said Lothair, repressing a smile, "for I myself live very much in the air, and am fond of all sports; but I confess I am often ashamed of being so poor a linguist, and was seriously thinking that I ought to read."

"No doubt every man should combine an intellectual with a physical training," replied Mr. Phoebus; "but the popular conception of the means is radically wrong. Youth should attend lectures on art and science by the most illustrious professors, and should converse together afterward on what they have heard. They should learn to talk, it is a rare accomplishment and extremely healthy. They should have music always at their meals. The theatre, entirely remodelled and reformed, and under a minister of state, should be an im portant element of education. I should not object to the recitation of lyric poetry. That is enough. I would not have a book in the house, or even see a newspaper."

"These are Aryan principles?" said Lothair.

"They are," said Mr. Phoebus; "and of such principles I believe a great revival is at hand. We shall both live to see another Renaissance."-Lothair.