little as our Friend sympathized with such institutions, apart from the broad principles of love and good-will to man-shared his attention and acknowledged his ameliorating hand. “When the eye saw him then it blessed him." Peace and love followed in his wake, and he "stood before kings" not only unabashed, but accepted and beloved.

The emperor on his return received his visitors without ceremony.

In

"The conduct of the emperor, on his return to the capital, was in perfect harmony with his professions when in England. He received his visitors without ceremony; conversed with them in the openness of friendship; asked for notes of all they had seen; knelt down and united with them in prayer; and at parting kissed their hands in token of affectionate esteem. the course of conversation, he told them, 'how early he had been favored with touches of Divine love in his mind,' though 'he did not know from whence they came,' and was at the time 'surrounded by persons entirely ignorant of these things;' how 'he and his brother Constantine, with whom he slept, used to pray extempore, and had comfort in it;' how 'these impressions were dissipated;' how 'he had imbibed French principles;' and how, in 1812, 'he had, for the first time, read the Bible,' recognised 'the witness it bore to the operations of the Holy Spirit in his soul,' and 'found peace' in believing. Prince Galitzin, with equal frankness, described his own religious course; how he was brought to see the emptiness of mere forms, and the inestimable value of true Christianity. He said the emperor and himself had been brought up as playfellows together, and were exposed to the same disadvantages, in being surrounded by irreligious persons. He told them that the emperor took his Bible with him in the campaign of 1812, and read in it every day."

Would that every Royal Court was at the same time a church and family like this! The earnest determination of Mr. Allen was successful in procuring for this vast empire a translation of extracts from the Scriptures, towards which the emperor immediately gave the munificent sum of £1,400.-thus proving the sincerity of those professions which adorned his high calling as a temporal prince.

During another tour he was introduced to the King and Queen of Wurtemburg, by both of whom he was cordially welcomed. In 1832, the "Crown Prince of Prussia, the King of Bavaria, the Grand Duke and Duchess of Weimar, Prince Esterhazy, even the King and Queen of Spain, received him with cordiality, and expressed their willingness to forward his views. Every where he urged the rights of conscience, and pressed the importance of encouraging the formation of committees of pious and benevolent persons, to keep up a constant system of visiting the prisons, and reading the Holy Scriptures; laying it down as a great general principle, that measures for reclaiming could never be carried into full effect, but by persons who are themselves under the influence of Christian principle. Everywhere he sought to impress the advantages likely to result from the union of individuals in works of benevolence."

Notwithstanding the multiform and unceasing character of his labors, Mr. Allen filled the measure of "three-score years and ten." But oh! how many centuries of common life were concentrated in this period. If "time used" only, be life, thousands who have existed much longer, have died prematurely when compared with him. His hoary head was indeed a crown of glory; and like a rich sunset in autumn, he diffused around him a tranquil beauty that cheered and sanctified all within its influence. "His declining strength compelled him to resign many of the public engagements in which he had so long delighted. But he could not be idle; and he wished to avoid the peevishness and querulousness too often incident to the latter years even of Christian people. He bethought himself, therefore, of the very best method for making old age lovely. He determined to cultivate the acquaintance of all the young persons within his reach, and had fixed evenings for their amusement and instruction. He notices with much satisfaction the success of this pleasant device for securing sunshine in all weathers.

"A year more rolls on, and the death of his beloved niece, Eliza Bradshaw, who resided with him, again brings eternity very near. 'I am now,' he says, 'much oftener than the returning day, looking towards the end of all things here, and fervent prayers arise for an increase of faith and love. O Lord,

make me and keep me thine, in time and in eternity. Strong cries ascend by night and day to our Advocate with the Father, through whose atoning sacrifice alone pardon and reconciliation can be experienced.'

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Though not now often heard in public ministry, there were still times when he was thus engaged; and 'more than a few,' say his biographers, who were present at his last vocal prayer, at Stoke Newington Meeting, will long remember the solemnity with which it was accompanied.'

"The 15th October, 1843, was the last time he attended meeting. In returning home he visited an invalid, with whom he conversed cheerfully; and the day being very fine, he walked into his garden and field. He observed to his niece, Lucy Bradshaw, how particularly comfortable he felt, adding, ‘I am afraid, my dear, we are almost too happy.' He spent much of the evening in reading, but the next day became very seriously indisposed, and from his sudden prostration of strength, little hopes were entertained of his recovery. During his illness, affectionate consideration for those around him strikingly marked his character; and though extreme weakness, at times, clouded his mental perceptions, humility and love were uniformly the clothing of his spirit. He enjoyed having the Scriptures read to him, and also the accounts of those who have fought the good fight; and in speaking of early friends, he said, that he felt comforted in the hope of being one day united to all those worthies for ever. He afterwards added, with tears, 'Oh! how often I think of those gracious words of the Saviour, "That they may be with me, where I am!"'

"On the 30th of December, 1843, he fell asleep. As the moment of dissolution approached, a heavenly serenity settled on his countenance; and his hands, which had been raised in the attitude of prayer, gradually sank upon his bosom, as the redeemed spirit gently passed away."

UNTEMPERED MORTAR.

Ezek. xiii. 10, 11.

IN the thirteenth chapter of his prophecies, Ezekiel employs an image derived from the work of builders. "One built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar. Say

unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it."

These words have to us no very distinct meaning. We cannot pretend to have understood them ourselves, until a day's detention to rest our beasts in a Median village gave us leisure and opportunity to watch, for the first time, the process of building a new house or cottage. The men were building it with "cob-walls;" so called in Devonshire and Cornwall, where the same process is followed, and where we had often observed it without being struck with its suitability for the elucidation of this text, until we saw the same thing in the East. So it is often that the thing itself suffices not, unless we have also the place of the thing, to afford the clue to the kind of information it is capable of affording. That place is not always Palestine itself; even many scriptural customs having, as we have often alleged, ceased in that country under the many changes to which it has been subjected, which have been preserved in other countries east and west. This illustration, for instance, may now be sought in vain in that country, where the people no longer build with cob-walls, as it appears from the present, and other texts, that they formerly did. The text cannot be explained but by reference to this mode of building. Seeing that the prophet was in the country of the Euphrates, it might be doubtful whether he might not rather here refer to the mode of building in the place of his sojourn, than to that of the country from which he came. It was probably to both; but if to one only, undoubtedly to Palestine. This very remarkable and distinctive mode of building being found in Cornwall and Devon, and also in the East, must be referred to the Phoenicians, who had colonies in those parts of the island; and the colonists would naturally build their houses in the way to which they had been accustomed at home. It seems a long from Phoenicia to Cornwall,—and yet the distance is not so great as to our own colonies, to which we have conveyed the modes of living and building of our own country. This would be a sufficient explanation; but the intervening distance is diminished by the fact, that this mode of building is found intermediately in Barbary and Morocco, where the Phoenicians

way

had also colonies, so that we can actually trace these cobwalls from Canaan to Cornwall by the line of the colonies of Tyre and Sidon.

But what is a cob-wall? It is a wall made of beaten earth rammed into moulds or boxes, to give the parts the requisite shape and consistence, and so deposited, by the withdrawal of the mould, layer by layer upon the wall, each layer drying in its place as the work proceeds. The blocks are usually of considerable size, and are of various quality and strength, as well as of cost, according to the materials employed, and the time expended upon them. The simplest are merely of earth, or of earth compacted with straw. This is the kind the prophet had in view, and that used in Devon and in Morocco, as well as in the East. It cannot stand against heavy rains; and, therefore, unless the climate be very dry, requires to be faced or coated with a tempered mortar of lime or sand, as a fence against the weather. Without this, the body of the wall is liable to the contingencies described by the prophet.

A superior kind of cob is made of these latter ingredients in combination; and if well and perseveringly beaten up together, forms the material for a wall of the most solid character, impervious to the influence of the weather, and almost of time.— Kitto.

EXPLANATION OF AMOS III. 12.

SOME explanation is needed of the passage in which a shepherd, who has had a sheep taken from his flock by a lion, and does not hope to rescue it alive, or even the carcass entire, is represented as still anxious, even at the risk of his life, to obtain some fragment—even if it be but the feet, or a piece of the ear-from the ravenous beast. The reason for this may be found by comparing Genesis xxxi. 39, with Exodus xxii. 13, by which it appears, that when a flock was entrusted to the care of a shepherd, or other person, he was expected to make good to the owner the loss of any sheep or goat "torn of beasts," unless he could produce the carcass, or some portion of it, in evidence of the fact, and to assure the master that his servant had not improperly disposed of it for his own benefit.