and, as each layer was completed, twelve Priests recited prayers. The spongy shell was then covered with an incrustation of marble, and the seams between the pieces filled up with gold. Even the massive piles of masonry that supported the arches on which the cupola rested were covered with gold; and a proportionate prodigality spent itself even on the less sacred parts of the building. The pavement was of precious marbles, magnificent beyond example. The altar was of solid silver. The gates around it of silver, gilt. So were chairs for seven Priests, and a throne for the Archbishop. The "holy of holies" and adjacent parts of the interior were almost incredibly rich. The holy table was whimsically precious; for it consisted of gold, silver, pearls, all kinds of precious stones, amber, glass, tin, iron, and other metals, all beaten fine, mixed together and smelted into one mass, which betrayed its heterogeneous ingredients by an unheard-of diversity of colour. This most costly Corinthian metal won the admiration of every beholder. And all round the sacred places jewels were inlaid with a profusion that could only be explained by the fact that an empire had been swept by the rude hand of power to bring them all into one place.

Justinian would then have paved over the pavement with solid gold; but "he was restrained by certain mathematicians," who said that the time would come when some of his successors would be poor, and if he made his temple altogether golden, they would pull it down to satisfy their necessities. He had gates of amber, gates of ivory, and gates made strong by the insertion of timbers from Noah's ark!

The work is not finished. They bring the stone that covered the well of Samaria; the four brazen trumpets at whose blast fell the walls of Jericho; a venerable crucifix, the figure being precisely of the same size as the Saviour Himself, as measured by wise and faithful men," a crucifix that heals diseases, and casts out devils; holy relics inlaid in all the pillars!

The profusion and variety of ecclesiastical vessels and furniture corresponded to the pomp of ceremonies to be

performed, and an endowment of three hundred and sixtyfive estates in the eastern and western parts of the empire, in Egypt, India, and all the East, was intended-supposing the rents to be forthcoming-to keep up the ministration of the place by large companies of Priests. But there was only a sorry provision of a dozen Gospels, instead of Bibles enough to enlighten the host of Clergy and provide for lessons in hearing of the congregations.

But we refrain from further details. On the 22d day of November the Emperor drove into the court of his temple in a splendid chariot, caused 1,000 oxen, 6,000 sheep, 600 deer, 1,000 swine, 10,000 fowls, and 10,000 chickens to be killed, and given to the people for a banquet. On the same day, during three hours, 30,000 measures of wheat were distributed to the poor. Then Justinian, carrying a cross, attended only by the Patriarch Eutychius, entered the temple, and, bidding the Patriarch stand at a distance, he alone ascended the pulpit, spread his hands towards heaven, and said aloud: "Glory to thee, O God, who hast deigned to give me so great honour that I should finish this work. I HAVE CONQUERED THEE, O SOLOMON!" Issuing from the temple, he commanded large sums of money to be scattered among the multitude; and the next day, after sacrificing at least as many holocausts (ὁλοκαυτώματα θύσας) as on the first, he permitted the temple to be opened, and the people to go in. Then he feasted the people and gave thanks to God for fifteen days. Thus he conquered Solomon! Thus the great desire of his heart was accomplished.

But the work was not perfect. About seventeen years afterward, that very consecrated dome, made holy with relics and made sure with prayers, fell in an instant. The silver altar, the wondrous pavement, the pillars and gates glittering with jewels of every name, were dashed to atoms. And

But this was not to be compared with King Solomon's bounty at the dedication of the temple at Jerusalem. That good King, without a word of boasting, but with expressions of profound humiliation before God, gave in sacrifice, and to be eaten as well as killed sacrificially, 22,000 oxen, and 120,000 sheep, besides a great national feast for fourteen days, "from the entering in of Hamath, unto the river of Egypt." (1 Kings viii.)

when the terror had subsided, the nephew of Justinian, Justin II., and his Clergy, drew near to survey the ruin, they picked up Rhodian bricks, and read on each the boastful mockery, picked out so daringly from the sacred volume. We have read it above. The very words as taken from their Septuagint were these : Ὁ Θεὸς ἐθεμελίωσεν αυτὴν, καὶ οὐ σαλευθήσεται, βοηθήσει αὐτῇ ὁ Θεὸς τὸ πρὸς πρωί πρωί.

What this out-doing of Solomon and forgetfulness of Him that is greater than Solomon came to, we shall tell next month, when we describe the Mosque of St Sophia.

TWO DEPARTED WITNESSES.

In that cloud of witnesses who have gone up within the year, who can overlook Dr. Newton? As if his conversion had taken place on Advent-eve and on the hills of Bethlehem, through all the fifty-five years of his wondrous ministry, his preaching was to the tune of that anthem, "Glory to God in the highest: on earth peace, goodwill towards men ;" and "shining as it had been the face of an angel," his countenance seemed to have caught and to have retained thenceforward the benignant expression of that heavenly host. Said the Saviour, "He that believeth on Me, out of his bosom shall flow rivers of living water;" and preaching twelve times a week for half a century, and travelling 6,000 miles a year, it would be hard to calculate to how many, in its pleasant flow, the stream of his holy eloquence proved strong consolation; but with good reason might he with his dying breath declare, "The preaching that flows from the heart does good every day;" he whose heart had overflowed for half a century, and whose converts were counted in every shire of England. Never were our principles better exemplified; and never was an epistle of love written in larger letters; and never in our time was there better seen the power of heaven-kindled and heavenpointing charity. Not that mere affection could have produced such results, had not that affection been enthroned on a superior understanding, and supported by the renown of no common goodness. But still, when that full sunshine

beamed over some vast assembly, it was a joy to see the might of a Divine philanthropy; how sinners were made to sob in sorrow for themselves; and how, looking to the Pierced One, they burst out in redoubled bitterness, till melted down beneath the great message of God's love, to many the Vale of Weeping became the Valley of Decision. And it was a fine sight too, a lesson and a joy, when his own soul, in full sympathy with the Saviour, the contagion spread, from row to row, of the great Missionary meeting, and without sordid appeals or sanctimonious stratagem, but by truth's own talisman,-by bringing a thousand spirits under the same induction with which his own soul was charged, they were electrified into a generous offering, and ever after felt that, at that auspicious moment, they had received far more than they had given. O, fathers and brethren, these are the men we worst can spare; the men full of faith and of the Holy Ghost; the men who, by believing God's truth, have been filled with God's lovingness! So full of light, so full of love, it feels autumnal after they are gone; the days are not so bright, and it is colder weather.

In the same favourite Yorkshire, and on the same last of April Sabbath, flew, (we might almost say,) "hand in hand to heaven," the beloved disciple of Methodism and the Christian Psalmist of England. Belonging to that happy Moravian community which is tenant of all lands, and burgess of every Zion, the charming hymns of JAMES MONTGOMERY were neither Church nor anti-Church, but Christian; and in virtue of past services, as well as in right of compositions more expressly for its use, he might be deemed the laureate of our Alliance. And in the illustrious record of our earlier members, it will ever be a touching satisfaction to recall the bard of "Greenland" and the "West Indies," the bard who sang "The Wanderers of Switzerland" and "The World before the Flood," that sweet singer whose harp was ever sacred to freedom, devotion, and Christian charity.-Dr. Hamilton.

THE JEWISH SABBATH.

Ir is common to say that our Lord relaxed the severity of the Jewish Sabbath. This is very true, but it is not all the truth. Our Divine Master did much more than emancipate His people from the bondage of the Mosaic law, and the much heavier bondage of the synagogue. He guided them into the truth. The Jewish, as distinguished from the original Sabbath, which began in Eden, was known and honoured through patriarchal ages, revived in the pilgrimage of Israel through the desert, and again exalted by the incarnate "Lord of the Sabbath." This Jewish substitution was not only burdensome, but superstitious, trifling, and childish. It bears the deepest impression of mental deterioration, and of that casuistry which, using traditions of men as instruments, made void the commandments of God, and stupefied and depraved the conscience of its subjects. Few persons have any distinct apprehension of what this Jewish Sabbath was; and therefore we present our readers with a brief account of it. The author of the book Cozri, writing in the seventh century of the Christian era, repeats the tradition which came down to him that "the beginning of the Sabbath is no where else to be sought but from Sinai, and from Alush, (Num. xxxiii. 13, 14,) where the manna first descended,"* and that it begins in the world when the sun sets behind that mountain; thus tending to represent the law of the Sabbath as many of our adversaries choose to do, as a Mosaic precept, and investing the institution with a merely legal character.

Some even say that Abraham did not observe the Sabbath; and from the fact that their fathers in the wilderness did not at first observe it, they argue that the Gentiles are not bound to keep it; in manifest opposition to the teaching of the Old Testament,-to say nothing of the New,-and in exact agreement with the doctrine of our adversaries, who call it Jewish and Puritanical.

Liber Cozri, fol. 88.