the Arabs were seized with a panic, and very expeditiously took to their heels, without even waiting to carry with them the plunder they had collected in their excursion. Re-invigorated by a draught of water from the well, and after having done full justice to the half-finished repast which the Arabs had provided, they proceeded on their journey.

Four days more brought them to the tents of Ammanes, the delinquent Sheikh. By him they were hospitably and politely entertained, and he received very graciously the propitiatory presents they had brought with them. For some time the enquiries Nilus made were without success, but at length he heard that his son was alive, and living at Elusa, to which place we have already traced him.

Thither Nilus hastened, and having on his road heard tidings of the safety of his son, on his arrival at the town he proceeded, before seeking him out, to the church, where the good man giving vent to a copious flood of tears, returned sincere and heartfelt thanks to Him who had protected him through so many perils, and had brought his journey to an issue so happy, and almost unhoped for.

Nilus was recognized by the crowd as the father of the youth who had recently come among them, and in whose adventures their sympathies had been enlisted. They strove with one another who should be the first to convey to the son the joyful news of the arrival of his father.

And now he saw his son advancing to meet him; but so altered was Nilus by grief and hardship, that Theodulus could barely recognize him again. Haggard and wan in face-his hair disordered and unshorn-his step more tottering than was wont-his tattered vestments bearing marks of long and toilsome travel-he hardly seemed the same. Falling on his son's neck the good old man swooned away with the violence of his emotion, and lay awhile as dead. Recovered at length by the care and assiduity of his son, he was conveyed to the bishop's dwelling, and then followed of course the narrations of their mutual sufferings since the separation. After having recruited his exhausted strength, Nilus was persuaded by the bishop to receive ordination at his hands. No entreaties sufficing to detain him, he set out, accompanied by Theodulus and fully

provided by the kind bishop with all necessaries for the journey to Mount Sinai.

Here ends the narrative which Nilus left behind him, but we learn from other sources that he died many years after in peace, and in a ripe old age. We will tack no moral to this instructive history, for a twofold reason: first, because if we did, it would probably be skipped by the impatient reader; and secondly, because it would be needless, as the story bears it on its face. S. X.

DAILY BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS.

FEW of our biblical critics and commentators are better, or more favorably, known than Dr. Kitto. With ourselves he has always been in high estimation. His views appear to be sound, honest, and sensible. Aware of the worthiness of his theme, he never attempts injudicious apologies, and experienced as he is in Eastern usages and idioms, he brings valuable light to bear upon the critical or popular sense of the original tongues of Scripture. We have beautiful proof of this in a recent volume with which he has favored the public, entitled, "Daily Bible Illustrations" *—a copy of which has been obligingly forwarded to us for notice. This work is on the plan of the late Dr. Duncan's "Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons," and like it will be comprised in four volumes small 8vo.-the first of which only is as yet issued.

"The Antediluvians and Patriarchs" of Scripture form the ground-work of this first volume, but this general title conveys a very inadequate idea of the scope or treatment of the multiform subjects it embraces. The Creation; the Fall; the Deluge; the Dispersion; the Call of Abraham; the Cities of the Plain; the Egyptian Bondage; and all the curious customs and instructive passages connected with that event, are discussed with much ingenious and apposite research and significant illustration, assisted occasionally by pictorial embellishment.

As illustrative of the judicious manner in which such subjects

Daily Bible Illustrations, being Original Readings for a Year, on subjects from Sacred History, Biography, Geography, Antiquities, and Theology, especially designed for the family circle, by John Kitto, D. D., F. S. A., &c. London, Hamilton, Adams, & Co.

are handled by Dr. Kitto, we would particularly refer the reader to the papers comprised in the "first week," which relate exclusively to the Mosaic Creation--a theme on which so much irrelevant to the purpose, and dangerous from its subserviency to old prejudices, has from time to time been written. Our author is careful to take the original words of Scripture at their exact value, instead of compelling us, as many do, to pin our faith devoutly not only to our own English translation, but to all the traditionary glosses put upon it by the ignorance of bypast generations. In order to give our readers a clear idea of our meaning, we give in extenso, the doctor's commentary on the creation of fishes and birds in Genesis i. 20.

"The earth has now become a delightful abode, but it is entirely without inhabitants. Two days more shall people it with animals, and the water itself, which has hitherto been the obstacle of production, shall be first of all rendered productive, God said, 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' And the effect of this creative word is recorded with some variations, which it may be well to note. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind.'

"In connection with the remark previously offered as to the use of the word made, as distinguished from that of the word created, the reader will not fail to observe, that now again, when the statement has reference to a direct calling into existence of that which did not previously in any form exist, the latter word is again employed.

"Milton scarcely any where, in so narrow a compass, indicates his profound knowledge of biblical lore, as in the version he has given of the first clause of the Divine mandate uttered on the fifth day of creation:

'Let the waters generate Reptile with spawn abundant.'

He knew that the word translated 'moving creature,' was not 'moving,' or 'creeping' (as elsewhere rendered), but rapidly multiplying or 'swarming creatures,'--in short, to all kinds of

living creatures, inhabiting the waters, which are oviparous, and remarkable for fecundity, as we know is eminently the case with the finny tribes. In other passages of Scripture it is applied even to the smaller land animals and reptiles noted for their swarming abundance. The word translated 'moving creatures,' is in fact the noun of the very verb which, in the same verse, is rendered to bring forth abundantly.' Thus we see, that the immense numbers of these creatures, the astonishing fecundity with which they were endowed, is the prevalent idea of this description. Indeed, there is no phrase in human language in which, both by noun and verb, this idea could be more forcibly expressed, than in the Hebrew original. And yet all language fails to convey an idea of the amazing extent of that 'abundance' in bringing forth, with which these creatures were endowed on the day of their creation. This is, of course, more remarkable in some species than in others-and is most obvious to our notice in the immense shoals of herrings, pilchards, and mackerel upon our own shores. Many other species are probably equally prolific; but not being of gregarious habits, are not seen together in such vast numbers, and are in consequence less easily taken. But any one who attempts to estimate the number of eggs in the roes of various kinds of fish, may form some faint conception of the degree in which the sea generates 'reptiles with spawn abundant.' The old microscopist Leuwenhoek gave estimates which the mind could scarcely grasp. The greater accuracy of modern research has somewhat moderated his statements; but enough remains to fill the mind with astonishment. Thus the roe of a cod fish has been found to contain nine millions of eggs; of a flonnder, nearly a million and half; of a mackerel, half a million; of tenches, three hundred and fifty thousand; of the carp, from one to six hundred thousand; of the roach and sole, a hundred thousand; of herrings, perches, and smelts, twenty and thirty thousand; lobsters, from seven to twenty thousand; shrimps and prawns above three thousand. In fact, scarcely a month passes in which the reader may not gather, from the commonest sources, some facts showing the enormous productiveness of fish. At one time we are told that a hundred thousand mackerel are, in the season, brought weekly to the London fish market; another

time we hear that herrings or pilchards have been caught so abundantly, as to have no market-value except as manure-for which purpose they are carted away, in tens and hundreds of thousands, by the farmers near the coast. Look, then, at the sprats, the white bait, the shrimps, and consider what hecatombs of these minute existences are sacrificed to help the dinner of a Dives, or to form the supper of a Lazarus.

"Nor, if we look at the text, does this function of bringing forth abundantly, apply only to the inmates of the waters, but is extended to the inhabitants of the air. And how truly! Look at the countless number-millions on millions of the eggs of one species of bird only, that are consumed in the London markets, and consider that nearly all these might, in the course of nature, become birds, did not man interfere; and hence form some idea of the marvellous productiveness of the feathered tribes. Still more, the vast shoals of fish have a most exact parallel in the immense flocks of some kinds of birds. The Passenger Pigeon of North America has been seen in flocks a mile broad, that took four hours in passing, at the rate of a mile a minute; and which have been reckoned, on these data, to contain about two thousand and a quarter millions of birds. So Captain Flinders, in that remarkable voyage, one of the bird-facts in which a poet of our own day has immortalised,* saw a flock of petrels, three hundred yards or more broad, and fifty to eighty yards deep, flying as compactly as their wings could move, and that took an hour and a-half in passing, at the rate of thirty miles an hour. This immense body was reckoned to comprise a hundred and fifty millions of birds. So, in the Antarctic regions, the ground is sometimes covered to the extent of two or three miles, with millions of that strange bird, the penguin; and when the purple gracule of America assembles for migration, a congregated multitude of many hundreds of thousands is at once present to the view.

"A valuable writer, in a work which embodies a vast body of curious, but not well digested, nor always accurate facts, well remarks on this subject +-'The quantity of individuals of the various bird genera which are at any one time, and at all times,

* James Montgomery, in his Pelican Island.

+ Sharon Turner, in his Sacred Histary of the World.