The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-23 00:00:00

in possession of a treasure better than the phi-
losopher can reach with his dogmas or the
prince confer in his proudest day of power. The
:advantages that may be derived from the perusal
of poetry of the simplest kind does not extend to
those grandiloquent effusions of mysticism which
are so much the rage now. This work before us has,
happily, no such drawbacks ; it is straightforward
alma comprehensible, while the metre is graceful and
the style flowing. One of the best pieces is the
poem which is called " The Cloud," and in its fine
thoughts and elevated expression it is an illustra-
tion of the saying, " There is a silver lining to every
eloud." In the first part the mourner is bewailing
his fate in the terms of the bitterest anguish. The
second part contains the advice of a friend which
speaks to his tortured and distracted mind the
glorious words of hope, and bids him, as a sufferer,
to have patience, and, as a soldier of the cross, to
endure to the end, and to look for the coming of
that day when sorrow shAll flee away for ever, and
when the warriors of Heaven shall be rewarded by
their King :-
4, Oh that I were in days long past, in the bright and happy
days,
When the melody of life was one long gladsome song of
praise.
Oh that I were in days long past, those days of cloudless
light,
So swift Time's chariot-steeds swept by, I scarcely felt

their flight. ,
But now his lagging wheels revolve so heavily and slow,
The hours are days, the days are months, the seasons cease

to flow.
In vain I turn from side to side, and seek more sunny

skies,
Th' appalling Angel of Despair stands still before my
eyes.
Oh, how can I thus daily die, or live this living death?
I'll dare that leap into the dark, and facia what comes be-
neath.

Peace ! mourner, to thy troubled breast, and cease thee to
repine :
'Tis Mercy which decrees thee this; let Mercy's will be
thine !
Dost thou not call to mind God's word read in thy brighter
days,
That His thoughts are not as our thoughts, His ways net
as our ways ?
For, whether by the still small voice Christ seeks thy faith
to prove,
Or by the whirlwind's blasting blast, yet know that voice
is love.
Deem'st thou, indeed, the human love that wept o'er La-
zarus' grave,
Would smite thy body to the earth, except thy soul to
save ?
Though Sorrow be a stormy flood, upraised by many a
blast ;
Fear not, for round thy sinking form th' Eternal arms are
cast.

While Health, and Happines, and hope, crown'd high
Life's festive bowl,
How ill thy greater part then fared—thy great undying
soul I
As the heavy cloud of dark black mist that wings its up-
ward flight
Is changed by the sun's bright touch to wreaths of fairy
light,
So with the shade of chastening woe, that weighs the
spirit down,
Th' Almighty waves his wondrous wand—the cross be-
comes a crown.
Grasp, then, the telescope of Faith within thy feeble hand ;
Shut out Earth's scene, and gaze aloft, where Heaven's
high mountains stand.
For Faith makes bright the earth-dimm'd eye, enabling
thee to gain
A glimpse whose light shall give thee strength to face
Earth's bitterest pain."
Another piece that attracts attention is that en-
titled "The Deathbed," and, although the thoughts
are not new in themselves, still they are the reitera-
tion of the thousand-times repeated strain that
has swelled the song of praise and strung the harp
of triumph, since first the sons of men were taught
the glad tidings of resurrection ; that though their
beloved ones were gone from their finite existence
here, the mortal should yet put on immortality
and the corruptible incorruption. It will appear
to the reader that some solemn truths have been
impressively imparted, and some beautiful thoughts
becomingly expressed, in these verses. There is
affection that will not be buried in the dark night
of the grave, flourishing its perennial flowers by the
couch of death. The following verses are some of
the most striking :
" Oh, brothers, I am dying now, in youth's first early
bloom ;
As Ev'ning'slength'ning shade, my life steals onward into
gloom :
My bosom heaves so faint and slow, so wom and pale
am I,
Your eyes will scarcely note the change when ye behold
me die.
Oh, had it pleased the will of Heaven, perchance this lowly
name
in world-wide blasts had sounded from the bugle horn of
Fame;
But wheresoe'er that mighty will appoints ybur earthly
state,
Oh, strive first, brothers, to be good, and then, seek to be
great.
You'll hear soon faithful Gelert's voice pine in his speech-
less grief,
To him the hopes of other life cannot bestow relief ;
'Tis not the least of those sharp pangs that rend this dying
heart,
That from my loved and trusty friend I evermore must
part.
Oh, tend my favourite flower with care; but ere its blos •
soms bloom
The flower dilly young life will lie all wither'd in the
tomb :
Oh crescent Moon, that still beholds my weary lingering
stay,
Ero thou complete thy circling orb I shall have pass'd
away.
Oh, chaunt that strain you sang last eve, each night until
I die;
For Music's charm will welcome me more perfect in the
sky:
Then shall this tongue unwearied sing that new and nobler
song,
While seraph choirs, o'er distant space, swell the full tide
along.

But weep not comfortless, nor with despairing sorrow
mourn ;
The northern breeze is temper'd to the lamb that's newly
shorn.
Oh, weep not, then, my brothers dear—upraise the stream-
ing eye ;
God's word declares that we shall meet in realms beyond
the sky.

There comes a fearful sinking now, as if life's sands were
run ;
Though heart and strength may fail me, yet I've One to
lean upon :
His circling arm shall bear me up, through Jordan's chilly

wave ;
His radiant love shall light with peace the valley of the
grave.
Death comes not now a Terror King to scare the weary
soul ;
An Angel snaps the silver cord, and breaks the golden
bowl ;
Thou Glorious seraph bear me up upon thy heavenward
wing;
0 Grave, where is thy victory ? 0 Death, where is thy
sting ?' "
- - - - -

This little volume has surely fulfilled its object of
affording gratification to its readers, and of setting
forward high and lofty truths for the contempla-
tion, clothed in words that delight the fancy, and
please the taste. This is the second edition of this
book, which it is most interesting to observe is
dedicated to the memory of the late Lord Macaulay.
In the dedicatiox the author gracefully and grate-
fully affirms that it is indebted for its publication
+.o his kind patronage. Few more glorious reeol-
rctions live in one's memory of the departed great
than a tribute like the foregoing.
" The sweet remembrance of the just,
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust."
And the hand that has written for itself a passport
to the temple of fame being stretched out to serve
and save others on the same rugged road, up the
same steep ascent, is a bright and blessed result, a
high and happy privilege, for friends to number in
the catalogue of the great man's actions. We com-
mend this little work to the notice of the reading
community; certain that its pages present much
that is worthy of welcome.

THE lIIAILS.

DAMASCUS.

Damascus might well be the first of the four ter-
restrial paradises of Mahomet. Not a few Er glish
travellers have seen it from the Salahieh by even-
ing light; and- they are probably all agreed that
nowhere on earth have they beheld a scene so
lovely. The dense but varied verdure which lies
in the midst of the desert, an oasis of 30 miles round ;
the creamy city peeping out of it—sending up its
40 minarets among the slim poplars, and disclosing
little bridges where the rivers of Damascus, Phar-
par, and Abana, wind among the thickets of fruit
trees and flowering shrubs ; the villages standing in
and out of the verge of the towering forest; the
yellow plain stretching around, with its shifting
shadows and islands of mist, and the red and pur-
ple hills which frame the whole ;—this picture may
well be beloved by the Mussulman as the Prophet's
favourite, and the sultana of cities. But, once
within the gates, all is changed. The.gaiety which
is the great external feature, the harmony and
brightness ;which exhilarate more than they melt
the heart, have vanished. Like Syria generally,
Damascus is full of ruins which tell of religious
strife. Here we pass a mosque now roofless, where
the carved stonework lies hidden in the long grass,
and the water runs to waste from the broken tank;
and there we may see, by a little climbing, the shat-
tered portico of the once grand Christian cathedral,
round whose broken columns the Arabs have built
their mud hovels. The Jews have their Holy
Places where Elisha, anointed the King of Syria,
and where the law was preserved when Jerusalem
fell. The old heathen faiths of Syria are also repre-
sented there. All have ruins to show; and all cherish
deep resentments, imputing the ruin to one another.
This wrath enters into the whole life of Damascus,
for the new-comers are compelled to take it into
account in all their concerns. The doom of blood-
feud hangs over every relation and every transac-
tion of life there ; and every class of believers
calumniates every other. All Christians regard all
Mahommedans as impatiently waiting for the final
opportunity of exterminating the whole race of
" infidels the Madommedans point with disgust
to the idOls of the Greek Church, and the stupid
legends of the Latin monks. These last tell tra-
vellers every Holy week that the Jews in the next
street crucified a child the week before. The Jews
shrug their shoulders at Christianity being called
by the missionaries a religion of peace, while the
Maronites, who are in communion with Rome,
cherish the institution of the avenger of blood as
the dearest part of their religion. While their
women acid peasants are at work in the fields
and groves, their monks are poring over Thomas
Aquinas in the convents, and kindling up the
scorn of their dependents against the Druses, who
keep up heathen mysteries, and make a Messiah,
and even a god, of their Hakim,i whom Jews and
Christians abhor. Amidst this stormy chaos of
religious passions, life is neither tranquil nor gay
in the first of earthly paradises. Sometimes the
Jews are tortured to death ; sometimes the Chris-
tians are shut up in their dwellings ; sometimes a
Mussulman is left dead in the street, and very often.
there are skirmishes on the mountain roads when
Druses and Maronites enccunter. In going along
the streets men glance before and behind; every
group in the environs is watched ; every stranger
who crosses a bridge is inspected ; every evening
party is conducted with caution and tact to obviate
offence, and broken up at the first ruffle.
This is an epitome of life everywhere in the Holy
Lands of the earth, where the great faiths of man-
kind have for the most part originated, and where
they are now collected as if on purpose to
jar. It is believed in Syria that there are moun-
tain recesses where Baal and Ashtaroth are still
worshipped. The reflection of the fire-worship is
still seen, we are told, in certain gorges of the
Lebanon ; and Jezebel herself and the priests at
Baalbec were not more devoted sun worshippers
than some who are now watching the slaughter in
Ccelo Syria from their perches on either hand.
Much more is notorious even to us at home. We
know how Christians are received at Nablous ;
and how the Turkish Governor at Jerusalem has for
years been called upon to keep the peace between
the Greek and Latin Christians in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, even removing the altar-cloth
himself, because the rival sects flew at each other's
throats in the struggle to do it. We know holy'
the Jews in Jerusalem sit in the dust in their
Place of Wailing, actually wailing over their oc-
clusion from the site of their Temple, embracing
the stones of the wall which Solomon deposited
there, and muttering to the proud Mussulman on
the other side that cruel fence, " Happy shall he
be who shall take thy little ones, and shall dash
them against the stones." We have known through-
out that missionaries go to Syria and Palestine
with their lives in their hands, as they go to Mada-
gascar or Cochin China.
Moreover, we have for some time been aware
that a new virulence has been excited in zealots of
all creeds in the East by some fresh exasperation of
Mussulman passion. For four years past we ought
to have been aware whatmust happen in Syria, and
Arabia, and Palestine, if the most vigorous check
was not interposed in time. It was not done ,• andnor
the male children of whole tribes in the Lebanon
lie in heaps, torn limb from limb ; all the men of
whole districts are slaughtered ; and the wives and
daughters of Christian settlers and converts are
carried off to the harems of the Mussulman mur-
derers. It is now known that the Maronites pro'
yoked the present quarrel ; and when it is consi'
dered that the Maronites are from 115,000 to
140,000 in number, while the Druses are not
above 30,000, we cannot wonder at the outcry on the
spot against the Christians ; and we must admit the
necessity of warning European society against sycr
pathising with the Christians as if they were die'
ciples of a religion of peace and goodwill. But, of the
500 Christians slain at Damascus, and the Christian
residents at Beyrout, Aleppo, Jerusalem, and other
places now in peril, there must be many who'll
we may heartily sympathise with, and feel eager
to acknowledge as brethren in the faith. The
practical questions then are—first, how they can be
most quickly rescued from peril ; and next, what
must be done about these Holy Lands which ore
for ever steeped in blood in the name of religion.
It is so entirely agreed upon that the Sovereign
of those countries must be compelled by his allies
and supporters to keep his subjects in order, at
any necessary cost of his dignity and independence,
that there need be no time lost in disputing that
point. If the Sultan cannot keep the peace in 0'
case where so many interests are involved, hie
supporters must do it and settle the matter with
him afterwards. Every day costs many lives,
and the slaughter must be stopped, in the
first place, by any power which can do
any faith and any nationality. Any demon'
stration that the Mussulman is not to extirpate the
Christians just at present will break the force of
the immediate superstition, will cow the Druseso
and check the treachery of the Turks.
But it is another thing for a single European
Power to say that, without asking whether the
Sultan is able to fulfil his promise to restore order
and do justice in the Lebanon, it will send its own
troops into Turkish territories. We are not to h!
blinded by the allegation of a self-assumed " raissio'
of humanity" to the dangers of precipitate inter'
meddling. It was not very humane of the Czar to
_
bring on the Crimean war, and yet his intervention
had deliverance from oppression as its avowen.
object. The Christian nations of Europe
cannot remain indifferent to the massacres
are hound so to act as not to bring on the cataelyo
lately perpetrated in the East, but thei
all wise states
;
which
m e n o
ofhere has been to
Eb eveen n
itn h e E
nsgtulitdnyd b
t
t avert.it h a s
little looking to consequences in the public discussions which have taken place, but the French 0
vernment, which announces an intention to inter.
Irene in Syria, irrespective of the action of the other
course which naturally excite?
owers, pursues a_
suspicion. The declaration that the Emperor lg
resolved on sending an armed expedition to SYrio
is not recommended by being connected with alaror
ins• ports from the French consuls in that cone'
le for
consular a
t for the agents of France have a
3
ears been inflaming the Christian population, all
prearing them for the advent of a French arnii;
The policy now proclaimed will impose duties
on us, for Syria can never be entrusted to an'
power which has agitated its population.
whatever machinery those lands may be hencefor.„
ruled, it must be ordained for the welfare of the 1"'
habitants and not for the furtherance of any En
Pean ambition. Meantime it would be well, for V 1,.,
sake of future peace, if the cost of restoring theee:o
tlements, and repairing the ravages in the Leball:o,
were charged upon the parties, Mussulman, Chr,9
tian, Jew, or heathen, who either provoked I,.Pe,
war, or failed in the engagement to keep the pee:l3o
A fine a three millions of pounds sterling, in _.11.0
form of compensation to sufferers, might scem,so,
future tranquillity when no religious or moral c.u..115
siderations can be he ought to bear. Where relig%,
persecution is regarded as a duty, and felt as a
nd
sure, the only way is to make it expensive;
the cost.is in this case only a small part of a re'*
natural retribution.—Daily News.

AN AMBASSADOR FORGETTING HIS SPEEC`":IIO
Otto Von Konigsmarck (uncle of the lionigsmarck s'aor
shot Tom Thynne, of Longleat) appeared as Arabasslisb.
at the court of Louis XIV., and had to make a Svrinig,
speech at his reception before the Most Christian '4.'lelo
Otto was a famous dandy and warrior, but he forgo' ing
speech, and what do you think he did Far from 10t,i.001
disconcerted, he recited a portion of the Swedish Catee73 of
to his Most Christian Majesty aad his court, not onoo
whom understood his lingo with the exception of 111.5uv0
suite, who had to keep their gravity as best they nza
Theckeray's .Four Georges