ke The Most with the fe SCRIPTURE GEOGRAPET. asion, of five barley-loves and two smul that they have to est one po they depend o change for the wor Now, how wes & as, as need scarcely be added, quite de his we have not spoken of those greater Gad Where wa He was forty days in the wilderness. Where do you think He slept then? in caves of the rock. And who were His companions then? Worse companions even than those He was born among. He was born in a cave; He passed forty nights in a cave; but on His birth, at least they were tame beasts whom He was among, the ox and the ass; but during His forty days' temptation, He was with the wild beasts. Those caverns in the wilderness are filled with fierce and poisonous creatures. There Christ slept; and doubtless, but for His Father's unseen arm, and His own sanctity, they would have fallen upon Him. Again, cold is another hardship which sensibly afflicts us. This, too, Christ endured. He remained whole nights in prayer upon the mountains. He rose before day, and went into solitary places to pray. He was on the sea at night. Heat is a suffering which does not afflict us much in our country, but is much feared in the eastern part of the world, where our Saviour lived; men keep at home when the sun is high, lest it should harm them; yet we read of His sitting down on Jacob's well at midday, being wearied with His journey. Observe this also; He was constantly journeying during His ministry, and journeying on foot. Once He rode into Jerusalem, to fulfil a prophecy. Again, He endured hunger and thirst. He was athirst at the well, and asked the Samaritan woman to give Him water to drink. He was hungry in the wilderness, when He fasted forty days. At another time, when employed in works of mercy, He and His disciples had no time to eat bread. (Mark vi. 31.) And, indeed, wandering about as He did, He seldom could have been certain of a meal. And what was the kind of food He lived on? He was much in the neighbourhood of an inland sea, or lake, called the sea of Gennesareth or Tiberias; and He and His apos+les lived on bread and fish, as spare a diet as poor en have now, or sparer. We hear, on one well known occasion, of five barley-loaves and two small fishes. After His resurrection, He provided for His apostles a fire, and fish laid thereon, and bread, as it would seem, their usual fare. (John xxi. 9.) Yet it deserves notice, that, in spite of this penury, He and His were in the custom of giving something to the poor. They did not allow themselves to make the most of the little they had. When the traitor Judas rose up and went out to betray Him, and Jesus spoke to him, some of the apostles thought that He was giving directions about alms to the poor. This shews their practice. And He was, as need scarcely be added, quite dependent on others. Sometimes pious persons ministered to Him of their substance. (St. Luke viii. 3.) He lived, in His own blessed words, like the ravens, whom God feeds, or like the grass of the field, which God clothes. And in all this we have not spoken of those greater sufferings during His life, which He took on Himself when He became poor, nor of the sufferings of His death, to which these were but as the beginning: to see our Lord in the fulness of His sorrows, we must look on to His passion. SCRIPTURE GEOGRAPHY. [Continued from p. 19.] HAVING gone three days in the wilderness and found no water, the children of Israel came at length to a place where there was water, but it was so bitter that they could not at first drink of it; whence the place was called Marah, which means in the Hebrew 'bitter.' The traveller whom I have already quoted says, "We reached the bitter well of Hovara, and watered the camels there. The Arabs never drink of it themselves; I tasted, and at first thought the water insipid rather than bitter; but held in the mouth a few seconds it became excessively nauseous. It rises within an elevated mound, surrounded by sand-hills, and two small date-trees grew near it. The sky was shining with great heat as we approached, and a pale hue spread itself over the landscape, like the eclipse one might fancy overshadowed it when the Israelites murmured against the Almighty; for there can be no doubt, I think, of this well being the Marah of Scripture sweetened by Moses. The name Marah implying bitter, seems to be preserved in that of the Bitter Valley, which we crossed shortly before we reached it. There is no other well, our guide tells us, on the whole coast absolutely undrinkable." 66 From Marah the Israelites came to Elim, where were Itwelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm-trees: and they encamped there by the waters." Thence they 66 came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai." It was in this wilderness that God first sent them manna, which His Providence caused to fall miraculously for their use for forty years, till they came to the borders of the land of Canaan. From the wilderness of Sin they presently came to Rephidim, where many remarkable things occurred. On finding no water there, according to their usual way, they murmured against Moses, who, applying himself to God in prayer, was ordered to take in his hand the rod with which he was wont to work miracles, and go and smite the rock Horeb, close at hand, upon which water should come out of the rock for the peoplet o drink. "And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah" (that is, "temptation,') "and Meribah" (that is, chiding,' or 'strife.' Ex. xvii. 1-7.) Another remarkable occurrence which fell out at Rephidim was, that the Amalekites came here to fight with Israel. The rock smitten by Moses is expressly said to be in Horeb; and we are thus brought to the thought of this most sacred spot of the desert. It is evident, from several places in Scripture, that Mount Horeb is either an adjoining mountain to Mount Sinai, or that they are only two different heads or risings of the same mountain; for what in one passage of Scripture is related as done in Horeb, is in another passage related as done at Mount Sinai, or at least in the wilderness of Sinai. The covenant which God made with the Israelites, at Mount Sinai is also said to be made with them in Horeb, and accordingly the Ten Commandments, which are said, in the twentieth of Exodus, to have been delivered from Mount Sinai, are repeated in the fifth of Deuteronomy as delivered from Mount Horeb. From this it is clear that the difference between the two mounts can be only what has been mentioned; and it follows also, that by the Israelites removing their camp from Rephidim into the wilderness of Sinai, can be understood no more than their removing from one end or side to another of the same mountain; or, at most, from one mountain to another adjoining. Our traveller thus describes the approach to Mount Sinai: "This route, through one of the wildest defiles I ever saw, leads in a direct line to Mount Sinai. The path, rudely paved in the steepest parts, winds among the fallen rocks, many of them of enormous size. All the fallen rocks in these valleys, eaten into by the winds and torrents, have a ghastly look. We reached the summit about two. The Mount Sinai, its northern projection rather, stood nobly out as we descended the broad plain that slopes to its foot, the scene of the encampment of the Israelites. Soon afterwards we passed a stone on which, according to the monks, Moses broke the tables of the law, on coming down from the mount, and seeing the worship of the golden calf. Our Arab guide called it the stone of Moses.' At the foot of the mount now stands the convent of St. Catherine, founded by the Emperor Justinian, and a beautiful church, still perfect, also built by him. The monks belong to |