Imatges de pàgina
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decalogue is, to labour six days in the week? and an inspired apostle has commanded us to work, under the express penalty of not eating in default of it. "This we commanded you," says he, "that if any would not work, neither should he eat." "Train up a child," says king Solomon, "in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

4. But if you intend him for the gallows, train him up in the way he would go; and before he is old he will probably be hanged. In the age of vanity, restrain him not from the follies and allurements of it. In the age proper for learning and instruction, give him neither. As to catechising him, it is an old fashioned, puritanical, useless formality. Never heed it, lest his mind be unhappily biassed by the influence of a religious education.

5. Moses, indeed, after saying to the children of Israel "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might," thought proper to subjoin," and those words which I command thee this day, thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." we know that Moses did not intend those children to be trained up for the gallows. His advice therefore is not to the purpose.

But

6. Mine, which is immediately directed to the object in view, must consequently be very different. And, paramount to any other direction which I can possibly give, I would particularly advise, as an essential part of the course of this education, by which a child, when he arrives to manhood, is intended to make so exalted a figure, that his parents should suffer him every Sabbath day, during summer and autumn, to patrol about the neighbourhood, and to steal as much fruit as he can possibly carry off.

7. To encourage him more in this branch of his education, in case the poor scrupulous lad should show any compunctions of conscience about it, I would have his mother partake of the stolen fruit, and eat it with keener appetite than she does any of her own, or her husband's lawfully acquired earnings. For his further encouragement, both his parents should always take his part whenever the proprietor of the stolen fruit prefers to them his complaint against him; and by all means refuse to chastise him for his thievery,

8. They should say, "Where is the harm of taking a little fruit? The gentleman does not want it all for his own use. He doubtless raised a part of it for poor people." This will greatly smooth his way to more extensive and more profitable robberies.

9. He will soon persuade himself, that many rich men have more wealth than they really want; and as they owe part of their affluence to the poor, upon the principle of charity, why should not the poor take their share without the formality of asking consent? He will now become a thief in good earnest; and finding it easier, at least as he imagines, to support himself by theft than by honest industry, he will continue the practice until he is detected, apprehended, convicted, condemned and gibbeted.

10. Then he will have exactly accomplished the destined end of his education, and proved himself to have been an apt scholar. Under the gallows, and in his last dying speech, he will say, "Had my father whipped me for breaking the Sabbath h; and had not my mother encouraged me to rob orchards, and gardens, and hen-roosts, on that holy day, I should not have been brought to this ignominious punish

ment.

11. But they have been the cause, by encouraging me in my early youth in the ways of sin, of this my awful catastroplie, and probably of the eternal ruin of my immortal soul." Parents, believe and tremble! and resolve to educate your children in opposition to the gallows.

SKETCH OF JERUSALEM AND PALESTINE.

PALESTINE, or Holy Land, is a tract of country bordering on the east end of the Mediterranean sea, and is celebrated as the residence of the Hebrews, who, in an early period, were conducted thither from Egypt, where they had been slaves. To Moses, their leader, who is the oldest historian whose writings have been preserved, we are indebted not only for their early history, but for the history of the creation and first settlement of the world itself.

2. Previously to the invasion of the Hebrews, Palestine was inhabited by numerous independent tribes, many of whom were exterminated by the conquerors, but some of which kept up a constant warfare, and maintained their independence until they were all subjected to the Romans, who finally subjugated the civilized world.

3. The character of the Hebrews was peculiar; for their laws and institutions were calculated to keep them a distinct people, and they maintained the knowledge of the true God when all other nations were idolaters. Their territory was extremely limited, their situation almost entirely inland, the sea coast being inhabited by the Phenicians; and yet they often repulsed the most formidable invaders, vanquished the surrounding nations, and were seldom destitute of able kings and learned historians.

4. Several years before the death of Jesus Christ, they had become a province of the Roman empire, but their repeated attempts to throw off the yoke of bondage at last provoked the Roman Emperour to destroy the city and temple of Jerusalem, and to scatter their nation over the earth.

5. These events, which had been predicted by the Messiah, whom the Jews had crucified several years before, were attended with circumstances the most dreadful which history records. Whilst the whole nation were assembled at Jerusalem, as was their custom, to celebrate the feast of the Passover, the Roman Emperour surrounded the city with his legions, determined at one blow to crush the rebellion.

6. The bravery and obstinacy of the besieged was only equalled by that of the besiegers. The sallies were frequent and the slaughter dreadful, while the dissensions of the Jews increased the horrour of their situation. At last, famine, more dreadful than the enemy, carried off thousands of the wretched inhabitants.

7. Josephus, a Jewish historian, in relating the sufferings of his nation by this famine, mentions the case of a woman who was reduced to the dreadful necessity of killing and eating her own child; the rapacity of the starving soldiers, however, even envied her this dreadful supply.

8. The city being finally taken, a soldier set fire to the temple, and the conflagration of so vast an edifice led those who beheld it at a distance to suppose the whole city was

on fire. The number of those who perished in this siege were about eleven hundred thousand; the remnant were carried away captive, and have ever since been scattered over the world.

9. Notwithstanding the dispersion of the Jews amongst other nations, and the persecutions which have every where followed them, they have, to a remarkable degree, preserved their national character and religion, and, to the number of many millions, are still looking for another deliverer who shall restore them to their country; thus fulfilling the prediction of the very Messiah whom they have obstinately rejected.

10. After the destruction of the temple, a considerable number of the Christians were suffered to remain in the Holy City; and at the end of the third century, the Emperour Constantine, who had embraced the Christian faith, ordered the rubbish which had been thrown upon those places where our Saviour had suffered, to be removed, and a magnificent church erected over the spot.

11. Not long afterwards, the Emperour Julian, assisted by the Jews, determined to rebuild their temple, which prophecy had declared should be destroyed, without one stone's being left upon another. But he never completed the work, in consequence of earthquakes, fiery eruptions, and other extraordinary events, which destroyed their materials, and killed many of their workmen.

12. Upon the decline of the Roman empire, the Saracens made continual inroads upon the Asiatick provinces, and finally obtained possession of Jerusalem; and the attempts to rescue the Holy City from the hands of infidels, gave rise to what are commonly called the crusades. At the supposed call of religion, millions of fanaticks assembled from every part of Christendom, and embarked for Palestine.

13. Their efforts were not entirely unsuccessful, for they finally expelled the Saracens, and retained possession about a century. But of all those who engaged in these expeditions, a very small number ever returned home; the greater part dying with fatigue and disease, or falling in the bloody battles which were fought with the infidels.

14. Judea is still a fertile country, and Jerusalem has the appearance of a splendid city, although it has so often changed masters and suffered so many sieges. "We were not prepared," says a late celebrated traveller, "for the grandeur of the spectacle which the city alone exhibited.

15. Instead of a wretched and ruined town, by some described as the desolated remnant of Jerusalem, we beheld as it were a flourishing and stately metropolis, presenting a magnificent assemblage of domes, towers, palaces, churches and monasteries. As we drew nearer, our whole attention was engrossed by its noble and interesting appear

ance.

16. There is much, he continues, to be seen at Jerusalem, independently of its monks and monasteries, much to repay pilgrims of a very different description from those who usually resort thither, for all the fatigue and danger they must

encounter.

17. At the same time, to men interested in tracing the antiquities referred to by the documents of sacred history, no spectacle can be more mortifying than the city in its present state; for the mistaken picty of the early Christians, in attempting to preserve, either confused or annihilated the memorials it endeavoured to perpetuate.

18. Viewing the city from the Mount of Olives, the most conspicuous object is the mosque, erected upon the site and foundations of Solomon's Temple. The sight was so grand, that we did not hesitate in pronouncing it the most magnificent piece of architecture in the Turkish empire."

19. The buildings erected by the superstition or veneration of the different sects of Christians, are fast decaying ;and the donations of the few pilgrims who resort thither,are hardly sufficient to maintain the few priests who have the care of the sacred edifices, and are oppressed by the Turks, to whom they are obliged to pay an enormous tribute for even the little freedom which they are permitted to enjoy.

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