called El Deir, or the Convent, an approach was cut through piles of rocks, exhibiting a wide and superb stair-case, which extended over a space of more than fifteen hundred feet. We shall first give Messrs Irby and Mangle's account of the impression which the distant view of this monument produced upon their minds.

"There is no part of the landscape which the eye wanders over with more curiosity and delight than the crags of Mount Hor itself, which stand up on every side in the most rugged and fantastic forms; sometimes strangely piled one on the other, and sometimes as strangely yawning in clefts of a frightful depth. In the midst of this chaos there rises into sight one finished work, distinguished by profuseness of ornament, and richness of detail. It is the same which has been described as visible from other elevated points, but which we were never able to arrive at; it bears north-east half north from this spot, but the number and intricacy of the vallies and ravines, which we supposed might have led us to it, baffled all our attempts. No guide was to be found. With the assistance of the glass we made out the façade to be larger to all appearance than that of the temple at the eastern approach, and nowise inferior to it in richness and beauty. It is hewn out of the rock, and seemed to be composed of two tiers of columns, of which the upper range is Ionic; the centre of the monument is crowned with a vase of a gigantic proportion: the whole appeared to be in a high state of preservation; it may perhaps be an ornament to the northern approach to the city, similarly situated to that on the eastern side from Mount Hor."-Irby and Mangles, pp. 438, 439.

Their successors, however, were more fortunate, in being able to explore this extraordinary specimen of human labour, which, ample though it be in its dimensions, seems to have been hollowed out from a single compact block of stone.

Burckhardt

"No traveller had yet approached this monument. appears to have known nothing of it. Mr Banks and his friends were unable to visit it, and were obliged to content themselves with having seen it at the distance of half a league through a telescope. We were, therefore, the first to explore this astonishing work of art.

"Sculptured in relief on the rock, it exhibits a compact mass, a monolithe monument, in fact, of enormous dimensions, by way of ornament in front of the mountain. Its preservation is perfect; it would be difficult to say as much for its style. The vastness of its dimensions, however, compensate in some degree for its defects; and even the fantastic character which it presents is curious with reference to the history of the arts, when compared with the different edifices which were constructed about the time of their revival. It forms a link between their decline in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and their restoration in the fifteenth. Upon examination, one would be inclined to conclude that the projectors of this work, inspired by a purer taste than belonged to their age, had recourse, not indeed to the fountain-head of the arts,

nor even to the beauties of some of the monuments which they might have found at home, and which might have served them as models, but only to that stage at which the architects went astray from the true and only path that conducted to perfection. Hence they made but a half step towards it, taking the scale of the art, not from its highest but its lowest degree; thus returning towards purity of style through the same gradations by which it had descended at the period of its decline.

"While I was copying this grand architectural production, M. Linant took its measurements; we then examined its environs. In front of it here is a lofty rock, to which an artificial ascent is formed; we found on the top, on a level platform, a line of columns, the bases of which are still in their places, and a subterraneous chamber, at the bottom of which there is a niche, sculptured with great care, though in an extremely defective style. From this platform we enjoyed a most extensive view; the eye commanding, on the one side, the monument of El Deir and the valley of Mousa, and on the other, the chaos of rocks which are piled at the foot of Mount Hor."-pp. 181-183.

The travellers having left no monument of any importance unexamined, and having attracted the notice of the Fellahs, who began to hover about their path, threatening them with the plague by which the tribe was at that period affected, took their departure from Petra, which they effected without any molesta

tion.

"The camels having been assembled around our funereal habitation, they were loaded; and the whole of this strange caravan of curious travellers, who had encamped for eight days in the mystic valley of tombs, departed furtively in the evening, apprehensive, as it were, of disturbing the silence which dwelt amongst them. The isolated column projected its shadow to a distance, and we had scarcely reached the top of the ravine when the sun was gilding, with its last rays, the higher rocks and their singular ornaments. By degrees the ruins were concealed in the increasing shade; then the more elevated mountains and their more prominent points, until the whole disappeared in the darkness of night, leaving behind them that painful impression of melancholy on our minds, which is always felt at the moment when a sublime spectacle vanishes from the view."-p. 190.

We have here, therefore, a clear fulfilment of the curse pronounced upon Idumea and its cities by the prophets. "A line shall be stretched out upon it to bring it to nothing." "The nobles," for whom, doubtless, the most costly of the tombs were executed, "shall not be there;" "all the princes thereof shall be nothing." They have even no memorial in history. Is not Petra, as it now stands, ample evidence of the fact that "Esau" has indeed been "laid bare?" that "his brethren and his neighbours and he," who, it is written, "shall not be," have absolutely disappeared from the face of the earth, without leaving behind them a single link to connect them with the living gene

rations of mankind? Had Petra, like Babylon, been built of materials artificially composed or shaped by human hands, the destruction of it in the lapse of ages would be in the ordinary course of things. But here was a city cut out of the living rockexecuted from mountains, in themselves imperishable with a copious stream of excellent water-a great desideratum in that part of Asia-running through it, and affording, at this moment, the same facilities for residence which induced the descendants of Esau originally to settle there; and yet we see that it has become "a desolation," "an everlasting waste." "O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, and endeavourest to lay hold on the height of the hill: but though thou shouldst make thy nest as high as an eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord. And Edom shall be desolate every one that shall pass by it shall be astonished."

Keith's remarks upon this interesting subject deserve the reader's attention.

"When, in the streets of Jerusalem, the people shouted hosannahs to the Son of David, and while some of the Pharisees among the people said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples,' he answered and said unto them, "I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.' And in an infidel age, while many modern cities and nations disowned the authority of the God of Israel, and disbelieved his word, those of ancient times stood forth anew before the world, like witnesses arisen from the dead, to shew the authority, the power, and the truth of his word over them, and to raise a warning and instructive voice to the cities of the nations, lest they too should become the monuments of the wrath which they have defied. And when men would not hear of hosannahs to the Son of David, or of divine honours to the name of Christ, deserts immediately spake and rocks cried out, and, responding to the voice of the prophets, testified of them who testified of Jesus. The capital of Edom, as well as those of other ancient kingdoms, was heard of again; and its rocks now send forth a voice that may well reach unto the ends of the earth."-Keith's Evidence of Prophecy, pp. 210, 211.

"The aliens of Judah ever look with wistful eyes to the land of their fathers; but no Edomite is now to be found to dispute the right of any animal to the possession of it, or to banish the owl from the temples and palaces of Edom. But the House of Esau did remain, and existed in great power, till after the commencement of the Christian era, a period far too remote from the date of the prediction for their subsequent history to have been foreseen by man. The Idumeans were soon after mingled with the Nabatheans. And in the third century their language was disused, and their very name, as designating any people, had utterly perished; and their country itself having become an outcast

Origen, lib. iii. in Job.

from Syria, among whose kingdoms it had long been numbered, was united to Arabia Petræa. Though the descendants of the twin-born Esau and Jacob have met a diametrically opposite fate, the fact is no less marvellous and undisputed, than the prediction in each case is alike obvious and true. While the posterity of Jacob have been "dispersed in every country under heaven," and are "scattered among all nations," and have ever remained distinct from them all, and while it is also declared that "a full end will never be made of them;" the Edomites, though they existed as a nation for more than seventeen hundred years, have, as a period of nearly equal duration has proved, been cut off for ever; and while Jews are in every land, there is not any remaining, on any spot of earth, of the house of Esau.

"Idumea, in aid of a neighbouring state, did send forth, on a sudden, an army of twenty thousand armed men,-it contained at least eighteen towns for centuries after the Christian era-successive kings and princes reigned in Petra,- and magnificent palaces and temples, whose empty chambers and naked walls of wonderful architecture still strike the traveller with amazement, were constructed there, at a period unquestionably far remote from the time when it was given to the prophets of Israel to tell, that the house of Esau was to be cut off for ever, that there would be no kingdom there, and that wild animals would possess Edom for a heritage. And so despised is Edom, and the memory of its greatness lost, that there is no record of antiquity that can so clearly show us what once it was, in the days of its power, as we can now read, in the page of prophecy, its existing desolation. But in that place where kings kept their court, and where nobles assembled, where manifest proofs of ancient opulence are concentrated, where princely habitations, retaining their external grandeur, but bereft of all their splendour, still look as if "fresh from the chisel,”—even there no man dwells; it is given by lot to birds, and beasts, and reptiles; it is a "court for owls," and scarcely are they ever frayed from their "lonely habitation" by the tread of a solitary traveller from a far distant land, among deserted dwellings and desolated ruins.

"Hidden as the history and state of Edom has been for ages, every recent disclosure, being an echo of the prophecies, amply corroborates the truth, that the word of the Lord does not return unto him void, but ever fulfils the purpose for which he hath sent it. But the whole of its work is not yet wrought in Edom, which has farther testimony in store; and while the evidence is not yet complete, so neither is the time of the final judgments on the land yet fully come. Judea, Ammon, and Moab, according to the word of prophecy, shall revive from their desolation, and the wild animals who have conjoined their depredations with those of barbarous men, in perpetuating the desolation of these countries, shall find a refuge and undisturbed possession in Edom; when, the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion being past, it shall be divided unto them by line, when they shall possess it for ever, and from generation to generation shall dwell therein.”—Keith, pp. 230, 233.

M. de Laborde, soon after quitting Petra, was separated from

his friend, M. Linant, who was obliged to proceed to Cairo. The former returned to Akaba, whence he proceeded to explore different parts of the peninsula and mountains of Sinai, his account of which is replete with interest for every reader who wishes to become acquainted with the topography of Scripture.

ART. IX.-Considérations sur le Dogme générateur de la Piété Catholique. Par l' Abbé Ph. Gerbet. 8vo. Paris, 1829.

THE

HE author of the present work, the Abbé Gerbet, is one of the most distinguished members of the young clergy of France. On completing his studies, in 1820, his engaging manners, ardent piety, and superior talents, attracted the attention of the Abbé de la Mennais, and a warm friendship afterwards subsisted between them, till unfortunate events rendered it necessary that that friendship should be discontinued. The Abbé Gerbet was a zealous defender of the metaphysical doctrines of his friend; and, in the year 1824, undertook the editorship of a monthly periodical, entitled Le Mémorial Catholique, a journal distinguished not less for its literary talents than for its excellent principles, and which received contributions at different times from the pens of some of the most eminent writers in France. The articles of the Abbé Gerbet are distinguished for an elegant perspicuity of style, and an uncommon vigour of ratiocination. In 1829, he published the volume whose title is given above, a work that displays a fervency of piety, brilliancy of fancy, consecutiveness of reasoning, and depth of reflection, which immediately ranked the author among the first defenders of religion. Translated shortly after its appearance into the German language, this production was highly appreciated in Germany, where one of its most zealous philosophers, Francis Baader, pronounced it to be "a work full of genius." And in our own country it has recently received a high commendation from the pen of an eminent scholar and divine.*

During the unfortunate course which his former master has lately run, although his feelings have been so severely tried, the Abbé Gerbet has rigidly adhered to that line of conduct which duty prescribed. He has not forgotten the adage, “ Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas;" and on this unhappy occasion his conduct has been publicly commended by the excellent Pontiff

• See Dr. Wiseman's able and interesting Reply to Mr. Poynder, on his work intitled "Alliance between Popery and Heathenism," p. 14. Booker, London, 1836.