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THE

YOUTHS' MAGAZINE;

OR,

EVANGELICAL MISCELLANY.

MARCH, 1848.

THE RIVER JORDAN,

OUR engraving represents the cave of Panias, the stream issuing from which has been usually regarded as the source of the Jordan; but its claim to that distinction may well be disputed, for although very copious, it is by no means the most distant of the springs which feed that river.. As long ago as the time of Josephus, indeed, it appears to have been questioned whether the stream which came from this cave originated there, or was carried thither in some unknown manner from the lake of Phiala, which is said by the Jewish historian to have been situate about fifteen miles from Cæsarea Philippi. A connection, it was reported, had been traced many centuries since between the waters of the lake and those of the cave, by means of some chaff which had been thrown into the former and had floated out of the cave's mouth, but this proof has been subsequently ridiculed; and some reasons adduced for an opposite supposition.

The cave is situate on the north east of the village of Panias. The spacious vault under which the river issues is shewn in our engraving. Over the source is a perpen

F

dicular rock, in which several niches have been cut, to receive statues. The largest of these is about six feet broad, and as much in depth, with a smaller niche at the bottom of it. There are several others, in one of which are the remains of a statue, and below all of them are traces of inscriptions which cannot be satisfactorily made out.-Kitto.

THE LIVING RILL.

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"WHO hath divided a water-course for the overflowing of waters," said the Omnipotent to the patriarch Job, or a way for the lightning of thunder; to cause it to rain on the earth where no man is; on the wilderness wherein there is no man; to satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth."(Job xxxviii. 25-27.)

Thrice blessed are those who are enabled in answer to this enquiry, to say that it is the Lord, the God of Israel alone, who has opened rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of vallies-who has made many a wilderness a pool, many a dry and barren land a spring of water. But although the general progress of the mighty flood which flowed from the Fountain opened in Zion, in ages past, may be traced by an enlightened. mind along the stream of time to the present day, yet how seldom does it happen that we are permitted to pursue any one of the small and often secret channels of grace which the Lord the Spirit has caused to flow in any particular direction, as we are desiring to do this one source up through several generations, from whence it seemed to open under no other ministry but that of the Word of God. How seldom are the facilities for so doing afforded to any one; and yet how sweet is the pursuit, and how is the seeker delighted when it is crowned by success, and one more testimony is thus added to the faithfulness of Him who said of his vineyard, "I will water it every moment, lest any should hurt it." (Isaiah xxvii. 3.)

It was at the Rock cottage that we last saw Horace Langford. After he had first left his nurse, being then six years old, he had been placed with a tutor far away, his uncle not thinking the

Court a suitable place for a boy. At fourteen he had fallen into bad health from too rapid growth, and his uncle had yielded to his entreaties to come home, and be nursed by Mabel South; and thus we found him at the Rock cottage again, in our last number. Thus did a kind Providence ordain that this pious woman should have constant opportunities of reminding him of those many sweet lessons of piety which she had labored to give him in infancy, of which he had enjoyed nothing to recal the memory whilst with his tutor.

In the present number of our history, we find him a year older (for it was summer again), and placed as a parlour boarder at a public school about a day's journey from London, according to the mode in which persons travelled in those days. Here he was not only a parlour boarder, and had a small closet to himself, but was permitted also to keep a pony, that he might have the full benefit of air and exercise; and all these indulgencies were allowed because he had been ill, and was the last of the line descended from that Caradoc, or Caractacus, whom the squire had talked of, till he had made himself believe that he was his great great grandfather, or something of the sort. The school was then kept by a certain Dr. Spilman, accounted to be a very learned man; and if he kept an old school, he was himself of the old school also—a mighty man for the rod and the ferule; and one who stood out as firmly for the old system of fagging, as Roger Ascham or Dr. Busby would have done in their hard times.

This system was, that every boy in the lower classes was the fag of some elder or more learned boy, and every boy supposed to be of the learned number had his own particular fag—it being a settled thing that no one was to meddle with his companion's fag. As the doctor never professed to be actuated by any religious motives in controlling the hot spirits of his young gentlemen, it cannot be expected that the poor fags should be greatly benefited by their master's views of christian charity.

As a parlour boarder Horace was neither liable to be faggee or fagger; nor was he required to mingle with the boys, excepting when at his classes. Of course the elder boys disliked him: he was a privileged person, who, e leadias thng boy, Buller, used to say of him, "ought to have been a young lady, and learned stitch

ing, for he much doubted whether he could deal a blow which

could kill a fly."

Horace, as might be expected, when he first arrived at school, tried the hall and the play-ground, but after a little while he never went into the first, and not often into the second. There were more reasons than he himself quite understood perhaps, which induced him to keep to himself; not to speak of a languor of constitution which deprived him of much of the animal excitement belonging to youth. But one of the most powerful reasons arose from the state of his mind about that time. The conversations he had held with his faithful nurse were not only vividly remembered but powerfully felt. The Bible which she had found so precious to her own soul, now began to be perused by Horace. His isolated position afforded him much time for reading and reflection; and the Holy Spirit was evidently enlightening his understanding in divine things. He had also possessed himself, by some means or other, of a few of the old books from the square closet at Craddock Court, which, as I afterwards found, contained the sound and choice divinity of the age in which they had been there deposited-the thoughts and experiences, and counsels, and sententious aphorisms of men who spake what they knew, and testified what they had seen, felt, tasted, and handled, of the Word of God.

Horace had not been long at the school, when one morning after school hours, being in his closet which opened on the principal staircase, he heard a sudden and most lamentable cry near his door, followed by a rude shout or call from below. Then a young complaining voice exclaimed, "I can't find it; indeed I can't find it ;" and this was answered from below by cruel and vulgar threatenings, if the articles in question were not found. The harsh voice was then heard no more, but the wailing one still continued to wail, and murmur "I can't find it, indeed I can't."

Horace opened his door, and stepping out, saw one of the least boys in the school arrayed in a full stiff suit of fustian, crying and sobbing in the most undignified manner possible, and making streaks with his tears and inky fingers all down his cheeks.

One of these poor ill-used fags, no doubt! thought Horace,

drawing the little fellow into his closet, and for want of some other douceur, putting a shilling into his hand, and then saying "Go and buy some gingerbread, and forget it, my boy."

"But I can't, sir," answered the little fellow, looking up, "he will hurt me so," and he repeated some of the threatenings Horace had heard.

"Tush! tush!" returned Horace, "he dare not."

"But he'll beat me; he will send me to wait in the churchyard at night for the pie man; he will let me out by the window, he will;" sobbed the child.

Whilst the boy was speaking, Horace was looking very attentively upon him He thought that he was near upon eight years of age by his size, though he seemed from his expression of countenance to be younger. Though the child was far from ill-looking, his appearance was unsatisfactory, as if something essential to it were wanting.

"You are a fag, my boy?" asked Horace.

"Yes, sir," replied the child, "Master Buller's, and he sent me for his slate, to his room; he meant to quarrel with me; he knew it was not there."

"Poor child!" said Horace," and what do they call you, myboy?" "They call me many things, sir,” he replied.

"Well, let us hear some of them?" returned Horace.

"Joss, sir, and fool Joss," replied the boy."

"Fool Joss!" repeated Horace, a painful idea striking his mind, connected with the deficiency he had observed in the boy's face-" Fool, did you say?"

"Yes, sir," returned the boy; they say I am a fool my sister says I am a fool, and so does papa; and they know it here. I am Jocelyn, from Barwell Court, and papa sent me here because of my being a fool.”

"Shame! shame! to give you such a name," cried Horace indignantly, though under the assurance that the poor child was but too worthy of it, and shocked also inexpressibly at the idea of such a helpless one being exposed to the tyranny of a boy like Buller; yet whilst doubting what it was best to do, he heard the call to the boy's dinner, and dismissing the child, he said, "Well, Joscelyn, when you want any thing I can do, come to me;" and tapping him on the back, he sent him off.

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