At length they reached the Dead Sea, and here their most arduous toils commenced. Their difficulties were much increased by the intense saltness of the water. After immersion in it for some time, all the skin peels off-and if the hands or other part of the body get wetted with it, it causes a disagreeable prickly sensation. Its buoyancy is so great that a person can float in it with ease, and, our travellers say, might even "pick a chicken, or read a newspaper." Another effect of its density was, that its waves struck the bows of the boats with immense force, almost like that of molten metal.

One of the most singular discoveries they made, remains yet to be detailed. As they were rowing on the lake, they saw "a lofty round pillar standing apparently detached, at the head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt chasm." They pulled ashore to examine this singular appearance. "The beach was a soft slimy mud encrusted with salt, and a short distance from the water covered with saline fragments and flakes of bitumen." They found "the pillar to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front, and pyramidal behind. The upper or rounded part was about forty feet high," slightly decreasing in size towards the top. It is a very singular and interesting circumstance that such a pillar should exist in the immediate neighbourhood of the place, where God erected a similar monument of his displeasure, by the destruction of Lot's wife, as recorded in Genesis xix. 26.

The Dead Sea according to this survey, is about forty miles in length, and about nine in breadth. The soundings obtained strikingly confirm the Scripture narrative; indeed, it is impossible to read the record, without a belief that the destruction was such an one as is recorded by Moses. One gentleman of infidel principles who accompanied the expedition, returned with a full belief in the Mosaic narration. The bottom of the sea consists of two plains, one averaging thirteen, the other as many hundred feet below the surface. Thus it appears that the plain, where the catastrophe was enacted, must have sunk at once— entire and unbroken-to the depth of thirteen hundred feet; even the old channel through which the Jordan rolled before the submersion of the plain, was distinctly traceable by the soundings.

The scenery around is of the most impressive character. Inaccessible crags—and limestone ridges-broken by immense and impassable chasms or ravines, down which, in the winter, brawling torrents rush headlong into the lake—gird it on all sides, especially towards the west, while more near to the shore are silty marshes, intensely salt, and which emit an offensive and noxious odour, giving rise to the low fevers to which so many of the visitors to the sea have fallen victims. Large masses of asphaltum, a kind of bitumen-more resembling pitch than any other substance-of a blackish color, and very inflammable, float about upon the lake, and during certain winds are heaped up upon its shores: this substance, which gives one of its names to this, the Asphaltic Lake, is supposed to rise from its bottom-the brimstone, doubtless, which was rained down from above. The Jordan has no doubt at some period, emptied itself into the Red Sea, as its dry channel may yet be distinctly traced to the eastern arm of that sea. There is no difficulty in accounting for the disposal of the waters poured into the Dead Sea by the Jordan, as owing to the intense heat, often 120 degrees in the shade, the evaporation is very great.

We regard with a kind of awe, as well as interest, any attempt to explore this sea-this monument which has so long remained—and shall through all time remain, a record of the displeasure of the Almighty against an offending land.

I. T.

DUTY BEFORE LIFE.

WHEN Pompey was embarking on an expedition at sea, involving great discomfort and imminent danger, his friends eagerly endeavored to dissuade him from encountering such a storm; but he firmly replied, “It is necessary for me to sail, but not necessary for me to live.”—Sinclair.

NINE-TENTHS AND ALL.

THE Chinese have a favorite proverb, very applicable to the increasing trials and difficulties of a Christian course— -"When you have ten steps to take, the ninth brings you half way.'— Sinclair.

OF COURSE.

"OF course," the stars shine ever softly through the filmy veil of midnight, and earth has not missed for ages the beacon of their polar fires: of course, they weep night-long their dews upon the bosom of the sleeping flowers, which the sun rises and kisses softly, waking up earth's life to beauty, joy, and love. Of course, the seasons weave their constant circles, and day and night intertwine their gleams and glooms. Of course, God's hand of power supports us calmly amidst whirling motions; and forces, strong enough to rend the universe asunder, hold us in their balanced arms, softly as a mother holds her sleeping child. Of course, the air, in the mazy channels of the lungs, sweeps the strong chords of life, and the beating pulses thereby make healthful music, in tune with that murmuring hum of life which is nature's noonday hymn. It is all, of course. To the current science of to-day, it is all a vast machine, which fulfils its evolutions as regularly and easily as the steam turns our spindles, and the post bears our news.

Once, men felt that a living power was at work in all this— that God was near; and we must return to this earlier feeling, or the secret of Nature will continue to be hidden from us, and we, as well as life, shall become machines. Man has no conception of the forces which are silently at work in the creation. Professor Faraday makes an astounding estimate of the electric force necessary to decompose a tear drop--a power equal to that of a flash of lightning. We know familiarly that water expands in freezing. A few years ago, in Canada, a bomb-shell of cast iron, thirteen inches in diameter, and two inches thick, was filled with water, and firmly plugged with iron bolts, and when exposed to the cold of winter was split asunder by the force of the expansion.* How eloquently do such facts speak of an unseen Divine presence within us and around us; and bid us not take sense to guide us, in gauging the spiritual force which dwells so silently, but so mightily, in the moral atmosphere which enswathes the soul. Speaking with strict scientific accuracy, the deepest truth in science is, "the Lord is near." Oxygen and Hydrogen are the component elements of water.

See our vol. for 1846, p. 413.

Yes, most true. But there is another element, which science, hitherto, has taken little note of the force which holds these two in combination, which force is the power in Nature of Nature's Lord. By God's power, speaking scientifically, every drop of water consists. The scientific truth of the law of gravitation is, that God in such a way, by such a method, binds the spheres together, holding them in balance, and ruling their motions by His force. These are truths written in the book of nature, which he who studies it must read. It is not the office of the preacher to import these truths into the regions of science-they are there already; science must read them for herself. Imported truth is seldom of much avail. We deal too much with atoms and elements in nature, too little with God. Mechanical science has exhausted her resources; her sages are crying out for life. The mystery of nature has receded, as men have pushed their investigation; the sphynx defies all human incantations-her riddle will be resolved only by the name of God. All students of nature are rising up, by patient investigation, to the truth which the Bible announced plainly from the first, "the Lord is near." The Lord is coming to claim through science the recognition of his dominion over nature; to make it plain that she is His organ, an instrument giving voice only to his breath and touch. Men of zeal for God's supremacy look on analytic science with unfriendly eye. They are indignant of this banishment of God from his creation by man's godless understanding, which treats, as an aggregation of atoms, this body which is quick with the life of God. They cry that science is beyond the reach of redemption, that it is the devil's handicraft-man's weapon against his Lord. Science answers, that she begins already to see that nature is a temple, the redemption of science will be the discovery of its God.— Brown's Studies of First Principles.'

THE LORD IS NEAR.

"THE Lord is near." He has been near you ever since you had a being; not by chance has your wonderful nature been unfolded. It was not by chance that a warm and genial home received you to its bosom, when you emerged into being from the realms of nothingness and night. It was not by chance

that playmates of your childhood-brothers, sisters-carly wakened the echoes of their merry voices in your heart. It was not by chance that schoolmates played over with you in sport the game of life, and prepared you for the battle, to which you were sent forth at last, full-armed by God. You have had a hard battle; it is not by chance that you are living now. Stronger through the struggle, fresher through the cold-bath of calamity, more independent and manly through privation, suffering, and loss, the Lord has kept you floating upon the current. Many times the waters have closed above your head, but a strong arm bore you up, while a voice bade you struggle on-that arm, that voice, were the Lord's. Your life is full of witness that the Lord is near, if you would honestly and earnestly consult its pages. God has written a Bible in every human heart. Would you read its word, and see the secret of the Lord? Enter into your closet and shut the door, call up your life before you, and look it honestly in the face-what it

has not been, as well as what it has been; its aspiration, promises, prophecies, as well as its performances, in word and work; its visions of God and of angels: its loathings of sin; its longings to be at rest and at home with God; its yearnings for a higher than mortal communion, for a knowledge of the being of its Lord. Call it up from the silent deeps of memory, and the shadow of God's presence shall fall on you, and the heart shall say "Lo, God is here! and I knew it not; how glorious is the place!" There the silence of the midnight sanctuary shall be broken by the beating of the wings of angels, and white-robed visions of celestial brightness shall descend by no dream-wrought ladder upon the soul. Thus cometh the Lord to hearts that greet him. The age receives him with triumphant honors; the heart in pure simplicity attends. Behold he cometh! Age, behold thy King and Captain! Heart of man, behold thy Lord!

Henceforth let life be consecrated by his presence. For its littleness, its greatness, its trivial work, its infinite capacity, its heavenly spirit, its earthly clay, it is full of Divine meaning, if "the Lord be near." Merchant, understand henceforth that the Lord is near thee; that it is His work thou art doing, in multiplying resources, ministering to needs by commerce, and culti