joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.

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Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for in the wilderness shall water break out, and streams in the desert.

:

"And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitations of dragons where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

"And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those : the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

"No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

Our Consul here, in whose house I live, has lost a great deal of his property during the war; he was obliged to flee, and was on board of an English manof-war for a considerable time.

I am thankful to say, that Mrs. Ewald and our two little ones and myself are well, and we are as comfortably lodged here as we can expect to be in a room in which there is nothing to be seen but the four walls; and, having no windows, when we wish to have light we are obliged to open the door, when, if we do this,

the rain comes in; nevertheless we praise and bless God daily and hourly that he has brought us safely to this place.

ARRIVAL OF THE PROTESTANT BISHOP IN PALESTINE, COMMUNICATED BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

Jan. 27.-The entry of the Bishop into the city of David was marked by as favourable circumstances as could possibly have been anticipated by the most sanguine friends of Protestant missions in the East.

On the morning of the 20th inst., our little community was much excited by the arrival of a messenger from Jaffa, with the intelligence that the British Consul-General and Bishop Alexander had arrived off that port in a steam-frigate, and might be expected in Jerusalem on the following day. Mr. Nicolayson, a highly-respectable and talented Holstein Danish gentleman, who is now a clergyman of the Church of England, and the head of the Mission for promoting Christianity amongst the Jews at Jerusalem, immediately started to meet them. The rencontre took place at Ramleh, where the Bishop, the Consul-General, and a numerous suite, halted to pass the night. The Bishop took up his quarters at the house of the American Consul, the wealthiest Christian in the place, and the Consul-General, with several officers of the Devastation steam-frigate, alighted at the Armenian

convent.

On the following day they made their entry into our ancient capital, in a procession which will be remembered by those who saw it to the latest day of their lives. When within five miles of the gates they were joined by the few British and American residents on horseback, headed by Mr. Proconsul Johns, who is architect of the intended church, as well as locum tenens of Mr. Young. On approaching the town the cavalcade, which already consisted of fifty or sixty persons, was swollen by the junction of the Bey,

second in command of the troops, who, accompanied by a guard of honour, and the Janissaries of the Pasha, had been sent to compliment Colonel Rose on his arrival, while all the loungers of Jerusalem turned out for the occasion. Not the least interesting object in the throng was Mrs. Alexander, the partner of the Right Rev. Prelate. It had been considered by the physician of the Mission unadvisable for her to attempt the journey on horseback. Accordingly a large taterwan, or Oriental litter, was constructed, which supported before and behind by stout mules, conveyed Mrs. Alexander and the younger portion of her family over the rocky and precipitous tracks which lead from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The procession consisted of more than 100 persons on horseback.

The throng passed on, and the scene which ensued at the Bethlehem-gate, by which it entered the town, baffles all description; on the one side were the gray massive battlements and picturesque towers of Jerusalem-no mean specimen of the solidity with which Sultan Suleyman fortified the conquests of his predecessor Selim; and on the other was the vale that leads to Bethlehem, now rugged and now undulated, with all its light and shade softened in the approaching twilight, while the dark and singularly even and unpeaked line of the mountains of Moab beyond the Dead Sea walled in the prospect. The wildly-accoutred and unearthly-looking Bedouin irregulars who had been playing the djereed, and gamboling round the procession at the full speed of their desert horses, contented themselves with firing off their muskets, being now hemmed in by the motley throng of citizens and Fellaheen,-Mussulmans in their furred pelisses and well-folded turbans, and Jews.

After acknowledging the presentation of arms at the Bethlehem-gate, the party moved on towards the house of Mr. Nicolayson, and just as the new comers turned their heads to admire the Titan-like masonry of the tower of Hippicus, which dates from the days

of Herod the Tetrarch, the guns thundered forth the salute for the eve of the Courban Bairam. Thus, by an odd chance, the Protestant Bishop made his public entry into one of the four holy cities of Islam (the others are Mecca, Medina, and Damascus) on the occasion of one of the greatest festivals of the Mahometan religion. Colonel Rose descended at the Spanish convent of Terra Santa. Dr. Alexander took up his quarters temporarily with Mr. Nicolayson, his own residence, which is upon the Pool of Hezekiah, being as yet unfurnished.

In the afternoon of the 22d, Colonel Rose presented Dr. Alexander to Tahir Pasha, who, as I have understood, received him with great politeness. Of course, it would be an illusion to suppose that this reception proceeded from any sympathy with the objects of the Mission on the part of the Turkish authorities.

On the 23d, the Bishop preached his introductory sermon, choosing for his text Isaiah lx. 15, "Whereas thou (alluding to Jerusalem and the Jews) hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations." The tendency of the Right Rev. Prelate's discourse was to show that, although Jerusalem had endured, and might still endure, much suffering in the fulfilment of inspired prophecy, nevertheless brighter days were at hand.

In conclusion, we sincerely and heartily wish the fullest success to attend the worthy individuals who compose this Mission. It cannot be disguised that these individuals have a severe ordeal of groundless calumny, intrigue, jealousy, and opposition, to go through. Even a few days before their arrival, the Greeks and Catholics had been circulating cock-andbull stories about the decline of English influence; they were, however, silenced on perceiving that, when Colonel Rose paid his state visit to the Pasha on the 26th, he was received with honours paid only to persons

of the highest rank, a guard of one hundred grenadiers having presented arms as he left the Palace.

The Mission is sure of the firm support of the British Government and the British Ambassador at the Porte. As regards Syria, the Consul-General has lent all the force of his official authority, personal influence, and popularity, to set the undertaking afloat, while the mild and benevolent character of the Bishop, and the sound practical sense and valuable local experience of his coadjutor, Mr. Nicolayson, are sure guarantees that caution, charity, and conciliation, will preside at all their efforts.

JOURNEY FROM JAFFA TO RAMLEH AND JERUSALEM.

Mrs. Ewald was so far recovered that she thought she might now venture to proceed towards the City of David; and, as the Bishop expressed a wish that I should join the Mission as soon as practicable, I determined to leave Jaffa, where I had spent an agreeable, and, I hope, not altogether useless fortnight, under the hospitable roof of Joosuf Matback.

The distance from Jaffa to Jerusalem is about thirty miles, yet the horses, mules, and camels go at so slow a pace, that it requires twelve hours to perform the journey. And, as this cannot be done in one day when there are ladies and children in the party, the best mode of proceeding, is, to start from this place at noon, to go as far as Ramleh, which may be reached after three hours' ride, and on the following day to set out for the Holy City.

Gentlemen who can mount a horse will find no difficulty in travelling in the Holy Land, even if they had never been before on horseback, the horses and mules of this country are so gentle and tame, that the only thing required is to let them go as they please, and they will not only take care of themselves, but also of the rider,