(1 Pet. ii. 11.) "All that is in the 66 66 - unto all men."-(Phil. iv. 5.) "Lay man will come after me, let him The Weapons.-"The sword of Marching Orders.-" Turn not to 2- Bodily Training.-"I keep under - "Emmanuel, God with us."-(Matt. i. 26.) Banner. "Jehovah Nissi. The Lord is my banner." (Exodus xvii. 15.) Encouragements. "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength."(Isaiah xi. 29, 31.) "Fear not, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward." (Gen. xv. 1.) "Have I . not commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage: be not afraid, neither be dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."-(Josh. i. 9.) "Thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield."-(Psalm v. 12.) Final Victory.-"Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ."(1 Cor. xv. 59.) "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." (Rom. viii. 37.) "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in His throne."(Rev. iii. 21.) WELSH TRANSLATIONS. To the Editor of the "CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE.” SIR,-On reading the article "On the books of the Bible," in this month's Magazine, concerning the translation of our English Bible, it came into my mind that a short account of the translation of that most blessed Book into the Welsh language might be an appendix to the same, because the principality of Wales is a portion of Great Britain. I am not aware that an English short account thereof is to be had, except No. 43, under the word "Bible" in 2nd Edition of the late Rev. C. Buck's Theological Dictionary, which is very short, and rather incorrect; therefore I trust that you will let these lines appear in your valuable publication. It is supposed that the Pentateuch was translated into the Welsh language about the year 1520, but was not printed then, nor is it known who was the translator. In the year 1551, Mr. William Salisbury, of Caedu, Llansanan, Denbighshire, a gentleman of learning and piety above most of his contemporaries, printed those portions of Scripture which are read in the service of the Church of England; and, in 1567, the same gentleman, with few assistants, translated and printed the New Testament. In the year 1588, the Old Testament was published by the Rev. Dr. William Morgan, who was born at Ewybrnant, in the parish of Penmachno, Carnarvonshire, was vicar of Llanrhaiadrmochnant, Denbighshire, and successively afterwards Bishop of Llandaff and St. Asaph, where he died in the year 1604. He was assisted in the undertaking by the Rev. David Powel, vicar of Ruabon, who was eminent for his learning and his knowledge of the history of his country, and died in the year 1590. In 1620, it was printed, after being revised by the Rev. Dr. Edward Parry, a native of Ruthin, who was the ALONE. ALONE, alone!—is it to roam The wild flowers bloom and fade? Is it to climb the mountain steep, Where graves are newly made, Oh no! for when the world was young, On forest, field, and flood, Bright Nature's God look'd down and smiled, And said His works were good. When mid their wilds we wander free, His presence still we own, We meet Him in their solitudes,— And we are not alone. WE bathed in the Dead Sea. The water was as cool and refreshing as its clearness had looked inviting, and very pleasant it was to float upon the strangely buoyant water. The taste is quite indescribable; the first sensation is of the saltness of brine; very naturally, for whereas there is four per cent. of salt in the ocean, there is twenty-six per cent. in the water of the Dead Sea; the next is of a sickening, greasy bitter, which is most disgusting. The strangest part is the sensation on the skin afterwards. Without any touch of towel one was instantly dry all over-literally "dry as a bone" -drier than anything one could think of, and yet greasy withal-not exactly sticky, but oily-the most disagreeable feeling inside one's clothes and gloves. The salt dried on one's clothes and hair most visibly, just as it lies on all the drift wood on the shore, but a touch brushed it away. We picked up a small fish, quite dead. Chateaubriand relates that he heard a mur And when amid the slumbering dead J. A. BEVERIDGE. The Miscellany. THE DEAD SEA. mur in the water, which his guides told him arose from millions of little fish rushing into the lake-I conclude he means they were singing their little death songs, for certainly all the shells that we picked up contained only dead fish. We gathered great bunches of tiny pink flowerssomething like heath-very dry and very pretty; they made the shore quite gay, and we put bowers of them on our horses' heads in the hot ride of two hours more to the bank of the Jordan, where we were very glad to undress again under the shade of a friendly tree, and wash off the uncomfortable feeling of the "bad water." The Jordan did not look as inviting as the Dead Sea. It is muddy and of a dark leaden colour, and we found the water very cold, but it was refreshing and pleasant. THE RIVER JORDAN. Perhaps no person at home can enter into the feeling with which one bathes in the sacred Jordan. When one has 66 come up to Jeru salem," all through the Holy Land, following each hallowed footstep, and remembering each sacred story -noting sadly the ruin and desolation that has spread over each historic site-apt illustrations of how the light has shined, and yet the people still sit in darkness-and then one comes here where the river has been passing on with the same steady, ceaseless flow, ever renewing the same lovely thickets, since the day when the ark of God passed over, and since the Son of God fulfilled all righteousness-one can hardly help fancying oneself no longer only a silent spectator of the distant scene, as, plunging into the river, one seems to throw oneself into the past, and to unite oneself something more than spiritually to the sacred histories of the stream. With Miss Martineau we may ask"Among all the travellers who visit the Jordan, is there one, however far removed from superstition, who is willing to turn away without having bowed his head in these sacred waters?" The average breadth of the water is about 150 feet. The Jordan has one very remarkable characteristic in its being tortuous beyond all other rivers in the world; so that, in its 60 miles' course-as the crow flies-between the two lakes, it winds to the length of 200 miles; and still stranger that its fall is 660 feet, without a single descent of any very sudden depth, but all one continued downward slope. everywhere. We still looked back over the plain and the blue sea, until, reaching the brow of the mountain, we lost it on this side to find it again on the other to the south, beyond the ranges of the Judæan hills. Now came about twelve miles of undulating ground, like park-land at home; bright, grassy, flowery lawns, studded with oaks of various kinds, plane, terebinth, and caroub, with thick brushwood of lovely storax, and sometimes a wild-olive grove. Then, as we neared the south-eastern end of this long ridge, the plain of Esdraelon opened out before us, with Tabor, and Gilboa, and Little Hermon, and the Bashan mountains beyond Jordan, while, behind the hills to the north, beautiful Hermon appeared looking so close to Tabor as to realize one of the Psalmist's expressions, "Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name." About an hour and a half after passing through the Druze village of Esfiych, we reached the easternmost termination of the ridge, and seated ourselves under a spreading oak to enjoy the wide-spread view. Somewhat to our right, on a little grassy plateau, below our position, but high above the plain, we saw the traditionary site of the memorable sacrifice, which still bears the name of "el Mubrakak" (the sacrifice); it is wide enough to contain a large multitude of people, even if it was then, as now, half covered with trees and shrubsamongst which, concealed from us on the top, lies an ancient stonebuilt fountain, which probably supplied the twelve barrels of water which were poured over the altar and into the trench by Elijah's order. Meandering through the plain immediately below this was "that ancient river, the river of Kishon," true to its name, twisting or winding, beside whose waters Elijah slew the 450 priests of Baal. Then, returning probably to the same spot where he had built the altar unto the Lord, the prophet "cast himself down upon the earth," in the earnestness of his supplication for the blessing of rain; and up to this highest MOUNT CARMEL. For quiet tranquil beauty "the excellency of Carmel " is very charming, and among the many changes in the sacred sites, it is pleasant to find this mountain still worthy of its name-a full orchard, a fruitful field, is the meaning of the word. Having crossed the town, we were soon upon the mountain, winding up its steep sides, among thick, low woods of prickly oak, laurustinus, and other shrubs, with quantities of honeysuckle, and the ground variegated with all the hues of the rainbow from the innumerable varieties of wild flowers which grew |
