its banks, is Ed-Dukhleh, and this, or something like it, has always been its name. And this, undoubtedly, is the river that, rising beside the sources of the Euphrates, "goeth eastward to Assyria." (Gen. 2: 14, margin.) Neither do we have to look far for the Gihon. It is a natural name for a river in those regions, being derived from a root signifying to rush. It is the local name of the Oxus, but that rises a thousand miles away, flowing into the Sea of Aral. But the Araxas, or Aras, whose source is just between the two uppermost springs of the Euphrates, and flows thence by a rapid and rushing descent toward the Caspian Sea, is certainly known to have borne the name of Gihon. And though it does not flow near Ethiopia, it does" compass the land of the Cushites," (Gen. 2: 13, margin,) or Cossaei, near the Caspian. As for the Pison, you can take your choice among several streams that “ compass the land of Havilah, where there is gold." Havilah does not look, in English letters, much like Colchis; but to the eye of a philologist they are alike. The His a strong guttural, that might better be written Kh; thev is more like u; the final h is a weaker form of the Greek ch; the two a's are a subsequent addition of "the scribes ;" and the is of Colchis is an unessential termination. So that in Colchis we get as near to "Havilah, where there is gold," as Colch is near to Khuilch,-and that is near enough for all practical purposes. Now Colchis is that land about the southeastern corner of the Black Sea, that was noted in early legends as the very California of the primeval world,-the land to which Jason and the Argonauts sailed in search of the golden fleece. For the river of Havilah, the Pison, some like (for the sound of the name, doubtless) the Phasis; others, (because it is so great and beautiful,) the Halys ; and others the Cyrus, flowing into the Araxes. For my part looking on the map of the region, and having as good a right to my own choice as any of the rest. I pitch upon the Jorak, or Acampsis that rises in the same mountain with the Araxes and the Euphrates, and bounds Colchis on the west. And as I look on Colonel Chesney's beautiful map of the region, and see that the old region of Colchis is now the pashalik of Akhaltskhe, I cannot help wondering whether the old name, under a barbarous form, is not clinging to it still. Now take a look again at your warmap, and you will see that the springs of all these rivers are within a little space, the land of Eden, we may call it; in the eastern part of which lay the Paradise,-and that it is just in this eastern part of Eden that they are ravaging and fighting at this season. The heart of this region is the plain of Erzeroom, stretching forty miles by twenty along the head stream of the Euphrates, and elevated 6,100 feet above the level of the Black Sea. I My first entrance into the land of Eden was got in climbing up the steep passes of the Taurus from old Nineveh, towards the eastern springs of the Tigris, more than twenty-five years ago. mistrust my boyish impressions of the time, for two reasons: first, we had just escaped for our lives into the mountain, having been hunted by Bedawins across the torrid, treeless plain of Nineveh ; and secondly, the thought that we were just penetrating into the sequestered, mountain-girded plateau, that seemed to have been walled off by the Creator as the nursery of the human race, may have kindled my imagination. But certainly when, on mounting a hot and tiresome ridge of rocks, along the track of an ancient military road, we looked down into the narrow valley of Bitlis, it seemed both to my father and myself that we had never seen anything more paradisaic. Great fountains, yielding a little river at once, gushed from the hillsides and ran foaming down the valley to swell the branches of the Tigris. Thickets of delicious verdure along the water-courses, and trees for fruit and shade upon the slopes, gave harbor to birds of various song and feather. Outside the picturesque Oriental town, with its towering castle, its mosques, and its Armenian Churches and monasteries, were remains of baths, kiosques, and villas of strangely diversified, architecture, representing many a successive dynasty that has ruled this region from the days of the Byzantine Empire downwards. From Bitlis our course was still upwards. We waded our horses through the upper springs of "many an ancient river; and I well remember the impression made on me by a new form of natural beauty-the shining beds of many-colored pebbles, red, yellow, and black, beneath the swift and shallow streams. By and by we descended into the broad plain of Erzeroom, from which, not far from the town, are visible, due east, the twin snowy peaks of the traditional "Mount Ararat." Now if you look a little close into the text, you find that there is no mention of "Mount Ararat" in the Bible, any more than there is of " Mount Calvary." The story speaks of "the mountains of Armenia," and it is natural enough that the people hereabouts should pitch upon the highest peak in their neighborhood as the proper place for so great an event, and point that out as the place where the ark rested. But it is not very likely that Noah and his ship's company and cargo should have been debarked on the summit of an inaccessible and icy cliff, and left there to scramble down as best they might. It is more rational to suppose that to some point in this great plateau of Eden, or the highlands of Armenia," which was the scene of the first experiment of human history, the relics of mankind were brought back to recommence their career. This great plain of Erzeroom is one of the natural battle-fields of the world. Associated with it are some of the great names that figure in Roman history, Lucullus and Mark Antony, Mithridates, and Tigranes; and in later days the terrible name of Tamerlane, or Timar the Tartar. In the Russo-Turkish war of forty years ago, the "sweet fields of Eden" were desolated in turn by Cossack and by Tartar, and bear the marks of their ravages to this day. tumbling in of the masses of superincumbent earth. If a Yankee may be allowed to guess, I guess that the famous "hanging gardens" of Babylon were built on the roofs of the houses. The expedient which has been retained by the peasants of Ararat as a security against the cold was practiced at the other end of the Euphrates as a protection against the awful heat. There is higher yet to climb before we reach the sea. On the high ridges that wall in the "inhospitable "Euxine, the snow lies wasting all through the summer. We rode through it about the first of July. Clouds hang long about these heights, covering in the traveler for days together with impenetrable fog. In such fogs, I suspect, the ten thousand Greeks, whose line of retreat we had been following all the way from Mosul, were wrapped, and so lost several days' journeys which commentators find it difficult to account for. We made shorter work of it. In one day we reached Baiboort, with its maguificent Genoese castle, monument of the days when the trade of the Indies came to Europe by this road; and on the evening of the second day, clambering up the richly wooded height to the north of it, we saw the same fair vision that made glad the eyes of Xenophon's ten thousand Greeks, -the town of Trebizond beneath our feet, and stretching northward beyond the far horizon, the vast expause of the Black Sea.-S. S. Times. A Letter From Daniel Webster, MARSHFIELD, June 15, 1852. Prof. Pease: DEAR SIR: I have received your very The war correspondents have not able and interesting annual report of failed to remark on the peculiarities of the condition of the New York Sabbath village architecture which strike every School Association, and read it with traveler in Armenia. The houses are great pleasure and instruction. It is grathalf dug in a hill-side, and the roofs ifying, very gratifying, to learn that in heavily banked over with earth and " a city where vice and immorality run sods, so that the horseman rides over riot with impunity," a few humble them, and sometimes comes down into Christians have devoted their time and them, at unawares. But I am not energies to the cause of religion, and I that any one has suggested the fervently pray aware that labors your may likeness of this mode of building to that crowned with success. of the Ninevites, whose ruined palaces have been preserved to this day by the be The Sabbath-school is one of the great institutions of the day. It leads our youth in the path of truth and morality and makes them good men and useful citizens. As a school of religious instruction it is of inestimable value; as a civil institution it is priceless, and has done more to preserve our liberties than grave statesmen and armed soldiers. Let it then be fostered and preserved until the end of time! 66 (he did not use our more correct term, Sabbath) presented the only legitimate means, under the Constitution, of avoiding the rock on which the French republic was wrecked. "Burke," said he, never uttered a more important truth, than when he exclaimed that a religious education was the defence of nations.'" Raikes," said Mr. JeffI once defended a man charged with erson, "has done more for our country the awful crime of murder. At the than the present generation will acconclusion of the trial I asked him what knowledge; perhaps, when I am cold, could induce him to stain his hands with he will obtain his reward; I hope so, the blood of a fellow-being. Turning earnestly hope so; I am considered by his blood-shot eyes full upon me, he many. Mr. Webster, to have little relireplied, in a voice of despair: "Mr.gion, but now is not the time to correct Webster, in my youth I spent the holy Sabbath in evil amusements, instead of frequenting the house of prayer and praise." Could we go back to the early years of all hardened criminals, I believe, yes, firmly believe, that their first departure from the path of morality was when they abandoned the Sabbathschool, and their subsequent crimes might thus be traced back to the neglect of youthful religious instruction. Many years ago I spent a Sabbath with Thomas Jefferson, at his residence in Virginia. It was in the month of June, and the weather was delightful. While engaged in discussing the beauties of the Bible, the sound of a bell broke upon our ears, when, on turning to the Sage of Monticello, I remarked, "How sweetly, how very sweetly sounds that Sabbath bell!" The distinguished statesman, for a moment seemed lost in thought, and then replied: "Yes, my dear Webster, yes, it melts the heart, it calms our passions, and makes us boys again." Here I observed that man was truly an animal formed for religious worship, and that notwithstanding all the sophistry of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Voltaire, the Scriptures stood upon a rock as firm, as unmovable as truth itself; that man in his purer, loftier breathings, turned the mental eyes toward immortality, and that the poet only echoed the general sentiment of our nature in saying, that "the soul, secure in her existence, smiles at the drawn dagger, and defies its point." errors of this sort. I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers and better husbands. Of the distinguished Raikes, he was 'clarum et venerabile nomen.'" I took the liberty of saying that I found more pleasure in Hebrew poetry than in the best productions of Greece and Rome; that the "harp upon the willows by Babylon" had charms for me beyond anything in the numbers of the blind man of Smyrna. I then turned to Jeremiah, (there was a fine folio of the Scriptures before me of 1458), and read aloud some of those sublime passages that used to delight me on my father's knee. But I fear, my dear friend, I shall tire you with my prolix account of what was a pleasant Sabbath, spent in the company of one who has filled a very large space in our political and literary annals. Thanking you for your report, ard heartily concurring with you in the truth of your quotation, that "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people," I remain, with a high regard, your friend, D. WEBSTER. Education by Parental Affection. Now, you know that in savage nations the training of the child is left all to the mother. She carries it in journeying on her back. The Indian walks Mr. Jefferson fully concurred in this straightly by the side of the mother opinion, and observed that the tendency with her little child upon her back, and of the American mind was in a differ-will not so much as lend a helping band. ent direction; and that Sunday-schools She must care for it altogether. And if ror. Said one of the ship officers: "Two years you might be on the ocean before such a voyage could again be you go through the nations least Chris- But homeward bound, with equinocIn her tial head winds, a wild rolling sea, and seven successive days rain and fog, came "the rub." Liverpool to Queenstown did well enough. Thence to Philadelphia, ten days, seemed ages. Ten days passed mid endearments of family, genial associations of friends, and communion of saints in the Lord's house, are moments passing unnoticed; but when every fibre of the inner man is strained to its utmost tension, and all in a tremor of upheaving nausea, ten days seem great geologic periods. Imagine sick headache manifold intensified, all abov e the diaphragm "sending upward;" you try to rest on a lateral bed; the ship rocks, up goes your head and down go your feet, then up go your feet and down goes your head. A mighty wave raises the ship, suddenly you are elevated ten feet; the billow breaks, and as suddenly you come down. Thus up and down, and to and fro, all the while entertained by the unearthly bellowing of the fog whistle, the briny deep seethingly lashing the ship, and the harmonious dissonance of some half dozen or more gracefully bending over, some on high keys, some on low, some on the quick and gushing, some on the long drawn, all performing to the tune of "York." Now, wherever this is the case; where there is a parental affection, and that parental affection is displayed, not in fondling merely, not in kind words merely, but in doing for the child all that can be done by employing all the means for the elevation of the child, training, educating not laying up means to make it a show, but to make it the greater and grander and stronger and bolder; and where the child loves the parent, and will do any thing to please the parent, there the children grow up to love and to bless God.-Bishop Simpson. Seasickness of a Dyspeptic. Outward bound, he voyaged finely, for calm was the sea as a splendid mir At intervals the patient could eat, but not a bit would stay eaten. As to drink, he has ordinarily much fondne-s for tea and milk; but here his soul revolted at he sight, so that all the stomach region was in a flutter of agitation upward, with horror quaking enen to the chattering of the teeth. On terra firma, he could drink castor oil and smack his lips with a relish, comparel to what te here felt in these delectables. The intestines lay dormant, peristaltic motion having utterly ceased. This is peculiar. Only one in very many, on land or sea, feels it. Hunger seemed to be painfully gnawing the vitals, the famishing parts consuming themselves, yet no power to receive nourishment. Every fish appeared worse than scorpion. Then could he feel for those who remembered; "The melons, leeks, onions, and garlic !" In the semi-delirious, famished condition, their imagination, with disheartening vividness, painted the things "which we freely did eat at home." But" as once they fled the lips of Tantalus," so here. Moments of troubled sleep would still come, until the sepulchral horror of the harsh, thunder-grating, gong-like roar of the fog-whistle would startle into consciousness. In these intervals all kinds of indescribables would tantalize. "Some grinned horrible a ghastly smile." What pictures of "Paradise Lost!" Having read the same with the deepest interest in youth, memory now recalled many a thing apropos, such as: "Nature breeds. Turkish Women's Apparel. "The An English exchange says: outbreak of the war with Russia has not prevented the Turkish authorities at Constantinople from issuing an edict with reference to women's apparel. The head of the police at Constantinople sees with regret that certain Turkish women, unmindful of their dignity, walk about the streets and bazaars attired in a manner not at all in keeping with the established usages and regulations. The feredjes, instead of being of a sombre and uniform tint, are died with the most varied and fantastic colors. Their yashmaks, instead of forming a veil of thick material, are made of light gauze. Their feet, instead of being shod in the ancient and simple yellow slipper, are confined Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, pon Or that sea-breast Leviathan." There sat On either side a formidable shape; of Frankish origin. All this must at once disappear. In consequence, the Minister of Police announces that he The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair; has the Sultan's orders to put an end to But ended foul in many a scaly fold, Voluminous and vast. The other shape If shape it might Be called-that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint or limb; a spectacle which is described as being offensive in the eyes of respectable people; and he has appointed a number of muffetiehs, or secret police, to keep watch in the streets and bazaars. Any Turk Or substance might be called what shadows ish lady found wearing either of the ar seemed; For each seemed either. “Thick swarming now With complicated monsters, head and tail, Scorpion, and asp, and amphisbæna dire, Cerestes horned, hydras, and elops drear, And dipsas." As the poor body was weak, famished, hungry, excruciatingly racked; and memory and imagination wondrously quicken these; and such, in troubled sleep, 'mid horrid surroundings, would seem to grin at, and tantalize; and things apparently forgotten were readily recall ed. Even poor Eneas, with his tot volvere," or mullem......jactatus in alto," came in for a share. But it was a valuable remedy. Who would like to use it? The poor dyspeptic is better ever since.-Lutheran and Missionary. ticles of attire prohibited, will be followed by one of the agents, whose duty it will be to obtain her name and address, whereupon the Minister of Police will notify her family that she is not to be allowed to go out in future unless she is properly dressed. In the event of her transgressing a second time, she will be Simultanecondemned to pay a fine. ously with this ordinance there appeared another, in which the Minister of Police complains that the orders of the Prophet, enjoining the faithful to say their prayers five times a day are habitually neglected." When the muezzins call the true believers to prayer, many, of them remain in the courtyard of the mosque, playing at backgammon, cards, etc. It is necessary that such a scandal injurious to the interests of true religion should cease, and we therefore call upon all true believers to enter the mosques when they hear the notes of the muezzin A loose, careless life puts many terrible and not to remain playing outside durstings into death. ing the hour of prayer.' |