of lign-aloes,* which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters." Celsius wisely remarks, that any one diligently studyin gthe text must at once see, that the language here employed relates to a great and beautiful tree, because it is said to be planted by God, and is named in connection with the cedar. If the inference be well founded, the lign-aloe may differ from the Aloe above described. The Hebrew term is, however, the same for both. Like these trees of lign-aloes, diffusing a fragrant odor, is the prosperity of God's Holy Church on earth, and the blessed, saving power it exerts on all who commit themselves to its maternal care. The Lord hath planted it, let not man rise up against it, lest he die. The juice of Aloes was formerly used by the Egyptians and Jews in embalming the dead. Nicodemus brought "a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about one hundred pounds weight," to embalm the body of our Saviour,† John xix. 39. "Then they took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury," v. 40. The quantity employed was large, but it was the offering of a heart warmed by love, that desired thus to express its reverence for its Saviour. That act of Nicodemus has its eternal reward. In kindness to his crucified Lord, he is a model man to thousands, whose means and opportunities for doing good may be greater than his, and who can still bestow their gifts upon the Saviour, in the person of His needy and spiritually destitute followers. Let then true charity not stop to calculate coldly the greatness of its gift, but rush with eager haste to lay at His feet itself and its all, whether this be mites or millions.

Wo Liebe lebt und labt, ist lieb das Leben.||

*Some translators read Ohalim for Ahalim, and accordingly translate "tentoria," "tents," hütten, "Atque sic Lutherus, cum plerisque alüs."-Cels, Hierob

+Quum Evangelista junxerit oμvgvηv et alony, non de alia aloe videtur exponendum, quam de illa, quæ tribus aut quatuor locis biblicis juxta invenitur cum myrrha. Salmasius. Illud certum est, cum aloë inter aromata ponitur, intelligi lignum aloës, non herbam illam amarano, cujus in officinis usus est ad medicamenta. Rivetus in Cels.

It was customary in ancient times to use great quantities of aromatics in the embalming and burial of the distinguished dead. Josephus tells us, that five hundred domestics, bearing spices, attended the funeral of Herod, the King. || A. W. Schlegel.

OUR life is like unto the sailing of a ship; for as the mariners in the ship have before them a port or haven, towards which they direct their course, and where they shall be secure from all danger; even so, the promise of everlasting life is made unto us, that we in the same, as in a safe port or haven, should rest securely and calmly; but seeing this ship, wherein we are, is weak, and the wind and waves do beat into and upon us, as though they would overwhelm us, therefore we have truly need of an understanding and experienced pilot, who with his counsel and advice, might rule and govern the ship, that it run not on a rock suddenly, sink, and go down; such a pilot is our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ.

THE WANDERING JEW.

BY THE EDITOR.

The legend of the Wandering Jew seems to be an embodiment of the deep sense which lives in the bosom of mankind, that sin committed and unatoned, cleaves to the life of the guilty one for ever. Whithersoever he may wander he cannot escape from himself. The sense of his sin drives him to wander in hope of finding release, but his sin and misery follow him always and into all lands. Memory and conscience, as ghosts, drive him from place to place, but never allow him to find rest.

This legend of the Wandering Jew is known in all lands; and has often been made the ground work of poems, tragedies, and romances. It has also furnished material for many fireside stories. In all these forms it has been variously embellished.

This Jew, who, according to the legend, never dies, nor can die, but is doomed for ever to a kind of lonely wandering, ever since the crucifixion of Christ, is said to have been of the tribe of Naphtali, and was born seven or eight years before the birth of Christ. According to the earliest version of the legend, his name was Cartaphilus, but later he was called AhaAccording to some versions he was the son of a carpenter, whilst others make him the son of a shoemaker, which trade he is said himself to have followed.

suerus.

Even in early life he manifested a very lawless and disobedient spirit. He ran away as a boy from his father's house and control, to follow the three wise men who had come from the east to visit the infant Saviour, accompanying them as they returned to their own country. After a time he returned to Jerusalem, where he had many wonderful stories to tell of what he had seen and heard in the Orient. Among other things he expatiated in glowing terms, on the rich presents which the wise men had given to the Infant Saviour, and on the fact that they had proclaimed Him the King of the Jews. This information so aroused the fears of Herod, that it led to the tragic massacre of the innocents in and around

Bethlehem.

According to that form of the legend which makes him a carpenter, he helped to make the cross on which our Saviour died. On His way to Calrary, Jesus bearing the cross which Cartaphilus had made, had to pass the door of his carpenter shop. The soldiers who guarded Jesus, seeing that

this

or at least to sit down awhile at the door; but the Jew cruelly refused s request, and added positive insult to the Saviour to his want of mercy. Then Christ said to him: "Seeing thou wilt not suffer a weary traveller to rest at thy door, thou shalt not rest forever, but travel through the earth without ability ever to stop until my second coming."

From that time forth this Jew has wandered without ceasing, and though he has sought death in various ways, he has not been allowed to die, or to find any rest. The greatest conceivable calamities have at various times befallen him, yet he has never found the end of his life, nor the end of his weary wanderings.

Other versions substantially the same, yet still varying in some particulars, are given as follows:

"When Jesus was led to death, oppressed by the weight of the cross, He wished to rest Himself near the gate at the house of Ahasuerus. This man, however, sprang forth and thrust him away. Jesus turned toward him saying,

"I shall rest, but thou shalt move on till I return.'

"And from that time he has had no rest, and is obliged incessantly to wander about."

"Another version is that given by Mathias Parisienthis, a monk of the thirteenth century."

"When Jesus was led from the tribunal of Pilatius to death, the doorkeeper, named Cartaphilus, pushed Him from behind with his foot, saying,

666

"Walk on, Jesus, quickly; why dost thou tarry?'

Jesus looked at him gravely, and said,

"""I walk on, but thou shalt tarry till I come.'

"And this man, still alive, wanders from place to place, in constant dread of the wrath to come."

"Still a third legend adds that this wandering Jew falls sick every hundred years, but recovers and renews his strength; hence it is, even after so many centuries he does not look much older than a septuagenarian.'

No ancient authors mention this legend. The first account of it has been found in the chronicles of Matthew Paris, in the thirteenth century, where the Wandering Jew is said to have been a servant of Pontius Pilate. On account of the terribly tragic and romantic, which characterizes the story, some adventurers, fond of notoriety, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, claimed to be the Wandering Jew.

There are many poor wrecks of humanity, floating about in the world, who, from what we may suppose might be the appearance which this Jew would present after his eighteen centuries of ceaseless travelling, could plausibly claim to be the veritable original. But it is a mercy to them that they are not truly entitled to that distinction. Though in tragic interest like his, their lives of misery are mercifully shortened to a mere fragment of his everlasting, determinate, and hopeless wandering.

By way of moral, we can only yet hope, that all insulters of the holy majesty of Christ, may have wisdom to understand the faithful warning, which lies in the substance of this strange legend of the Wandering Jew.

The Bible is my mirror, in which I see what I was in Adam, before the fall-what I became by the fall-what I am, and should be in Christ now, and what I shall be through eternity.

UNCLOTHED AND CLOTHED UPON.

On the Death of Frances Reichard, of Ringgold's Manor, Md.

BY C. H. BALSBAUGH.

Another jewel of the King of kings,

A sapphire burnished by the Holy Ghost,
Has been transported from the mine of earth,
And set into the diadem that glows
In peerless lustre on Immanuel's brow.
Another star which cast a radiant beam
Of holy light while in this nether sphere,
Has passed beyond the half-transparent vail,
That hides from mortal sight the galaxy
Of heaven, and moves in cloudless majesty
Round the effulgent Son of Righteousness.
A golden sheaf, reaped from the Gospel field,
For the immortal harvest fully ripe,
Into the Heavenly Garner has been stored,
Awaiting there the world's great Harvest Home.
A Saint-a lowly Pilgrim of the Cross,
Has gained a calm release from earthly toils,
And soared in triumph to the realms of light.

She whom the Angels gathered home was one
Whom God through much affliction purified.
Her cup of life had many bitter dregs,

Which often caused her soul to loathe the draught;
And yet the balm of Gilead mixed therewith,
Would turn the bitter into sweet, and till

Her heart with "the superlatives of bliss."

Her choicest flowers and sweetest fruit were plucked
From thorns that sprung along her rugged path.
The "burning fiery furnace" but consumed
The dross, and left the gold more pure and bright.
Ofttimes the Star of Hope had nearly set
Behind the mist of doubt which Satan raised
To hide the Truth; ofttimes the gloomy pall
Of unbelief would o'er the eye of faith
Be hung, and veil the glory of the Cross.
Yet no sombre cloud of threat'ning aspect,
Ever cast its shadow o'er her trembling heart,
But had its edge with heavenly splendor lined,
Her sadness tinged with a mellow light,
And painting in her soul in fairer lines
The lovely image of her Saviour-God.
In all her trials and vicissitudes,
Her aim was still to glorify her Lord,

And strive to be an ornament of home,
A "Living stone" in Zion's Sacred Walls,
A self-denying follower of the Lamb,

A living mirror of that holiness

Without which none can see the Lord and live.
Her praise is in the Church, and in the hearts

Of loving friends her memory still lives.
Her record is on high, where now she dwells,
In ever-deepening rapture, with her God.

'Twas when the flowers their fragrant wreaths around The smiling brow of lovely May entwined,

That Christ our sister hence removed, and placed
Upon her head the Coronet of Life.

When Nature decks herself in Easter Robes,
Inwrought with emerald, purple, blue and gold,
Our sainted sister cast aside the garb

By mortals worn, and, in an atmosphere
Which from Empyreal Fields came softly down,
Spread forth the unseen pinions of her soul,
And in the "fiery chariot" of faith
Ascended to the Beautiful and Good.

Her aged mother weeping stood beside

The loved one's dying couch, and saw fell death
Her virgin daughter's quivering heart-strings rend.
Her friends in tearful silence crowded near,
To gaze once more into those love-lit eyes
In which life's flickering taper feebly burned.
And viewless Angels hovered o'er the scene,
To catch the last low note that softly breathed
Along the trembling chords of life's hushed harp,
And bear their charge in triumph to its rest.
When near the portals of the Great Unseen,
She felt the tides of bliss her spirit lave,
Of her Celestial Bridegroom caught a glimpse,
And heard the voice of Him whom her soul loved,
She gazed into the bright beyond, and then,

In Angel-tones, soft as the zephyr's sigh,
Breathed from the lily's lip, she faintly said,
"O COME, LORD JESUS, QUICKLY COME," and wept
My waiting soul into Thy blest embrace.

One lingering look-one last, low lengthened gasp
Stirred her cold marble bosom--she was dead.
The radiant, pearl-wrought Eden-gate

Now turned upon its hinge of harmony,

To let the ransomed, blood-bought spirit through.

Are your hearts sad, and do your bosoms heave?
Does grief with scalding tears your eyes bedim?
Your harp upon the weeping willows hang?
List to the cheering song of hope that comes
In soothing cadence from the sacred page:

THE GRAVE SHALL YIELD ITS SPOIL,-THE DEAD SHALL LIVE.
While ye sit beneath the moaning cypress,

May odors sweet your inner sense regale,
Fresh from the alabaster-box of Heaven.

We're hastening onward to the better land,

And soon shall dawn the welcome, glorious hour,

That opes the gate of Heaven, and floods the soul