to visit the temple of Karnac the next morning. Mr. R. was to accompany us, and asses were to be ready at an early hour to convey us. I availed myself of their not arriving at the break of day, to walk forward alone, directing the servant to saddle one and send it after me. "With a quick-beating heart, and steps rapid as my thoughts, I strode away, took the path to the village of Karnac, skirted it, and passing over loose sand, and, among a few scattered date-trees, I found myself in the grand alley of the sphinxes, and directly opposite that noble gateway, which has been called triumphal; certainly triumph never passed under one more lofty, or, to my eye, of a more imposing magnificence. On the bold curve of its beautifully projecting cornice, a globe, coloured as of fire, stretches forth long overshadowing wings of the very brightest azure. "This wondrous and giant portal stands well; alone, detached a little way from the mass of the great ruins, with no columns, walls, or propylæa immediately near. I walked slowly up to it, through the long lines of sphinxes which lay couchant on either side of a broad road, (once paved,) as they were marshalled by him who planned these princely structures, we know not when. They are of a stone less durable than granite: their general forms are fully preserved, but the detail of execution is, in most of them, worn away. "In those forms, in that couched posture, in the decaying, shapeless heads, the huge worn paws, the little image between them, and the sacred tau grasped in its crossed hands, there is something which disturbs you with a sense of awe. In the locality you cannot err; you are on a highway to a heathen temple. One that the Roman came, as you come, to visit and admire; and the Greek before him. And you know that priest and king, lord and slave, the festival throng and the solitary worshipper, trod for centuries where you do; and you know that there has been the crowding flight of the vanquished towards their sanctuary and last hold, and the quick trampling of armed pursuers, and the neighing of the war-horse, and the voice of the trumpet, and the shout, as of a king among them, all on this silent spot. And you see before you, and on all sides, ruins:—the stones, which formed walls and square temple-towers, thrown down in vast heaps; or still in large masses, erect as the builder placed them; and where their material has been fine, their surfaces and corners smooth, sharp, and uninjured by time: They are neither grey nor blackened; like the bones of man, they seem to whiten under the sun of the desert. Here is no lichen, no moss, no rank grass or mantling ivy, no wallflower or wild fig-tree to robe them, and to conceal their deformities, and bloom above them. No;-all is the nakedness of desolation -the colossal skeleton of a giant fabric standing in the unwatered sand, in solitude and silence; a silence broken only by the approach of the stranger, for then the wild and houseless dogs, which own no master, pick their scanty food in nightly prowlings round the village, and bask in the sand-heaps near throughout the day, start up, and howl at him as he passes, and with yell, and bark, and grin, pursue his path, and mock his meditations. Old men and boys come out of the village, to chase and still them, and supply their place; bringing with them little relics and ornaments for sale, and they talk and trouble you. I soon got rid of them, attaching to myself one silent old Arab, who followed me throughout that day, and also when I visited the temple again; carrying a cruise of water, and a few dried dates. I was fortunate in him. He had learned the ways of the traveller, understood your frown, your glance, your beckon, and that motion of the hand, by which you shew your wish that he should leave you to gaze alone and unobserved. "There are no ruins like these ruins: in the first court you pass into, you find one large, lofty, solitary column, erect among heaped and scattered fragments, which had formed a colonnade of oneand-twenty like it. You pause awhile, and then move slowly on. You enter a wide portal, and find yourself surrounded by one hundred and fifty columns,* on which I defy any man, sage or savage, to look unmoved. Their vast proportions the better taste of after days rejected and disused; but the still astonishment, the serious gaze, the thickening breath of the awed traveller, are tributes of an admiration, not to be checked or frozen by the chilling rules of taste. The" des masses informes" of Voltaire would have been exchanged, I think, for a very different expression, if he had ever wandered to the site of ancient Thebes. "As I passed out of the ruin, I saw my companions at a * The central row have the enormous diameter of eleven French feet, the others, that of eight. distance, and joined them. Monsieur R. had conducted them to his favourite spot for catching a first and general view of the ruins; a lofty heap of sand and rubbish, lying between the eastern and northern gates: certainly from hence you command the ruins well. A forest of columns, massive propylæa, lofty gates, tall obelisks, a noble assemblage of objects. Yet was I glad that I had first approached by the avenue of the sphinxes. "We passed the entire day in these ruins, wandering about alone, as inclination led us. Detailed descriptions I cannot give : I have neither the skill nor the patience to count and to measure. I ascended a wing of the great propylon on the west, and sat there long; I crept round the colossal statues; I seated myself on a fallen obelisk, and gazed up at the three yet standing erect amid huge fragments of fallen granite. I sauntered slowly round every part, examining the paintings and hieroglyphics, and listening now and then, not without a smile, at our polite little cicerone, as, with the air of a condescending savant, he pointed to many of the symbols, saying, "this means water," and "that means land," "this stability,' ,"" that life," and "here is the name of Berenice." In reply to a quiet question, I did get the modest admission of the "on dit." "We met together in the evening of this day on a mound of rubbish, to the south-west of the ruins; saw them gilded by the rich set of sun; then mounted our asses and ambled home. Passing in our path spots where the ox, and the cow, and the ram pastured, no longer venerated; and casting a stone in anger at the barking dog, unchecked by any fear of offending Anubis, or the demoniac Nephthé." (To be concluded in our next.) THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. THE philosopher Thales, having been asked whether the actions of men were unknown to God, replied, "Not even their thoughts." The sentiment of the apostle Paul concerning the divine knowledge, is expressive and striking: “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Adopting a figure taken from the dissection of a body, the internal parts of which are, by this means, disclosed to the sight, he represents all the heart, its thoughts, its conceptions, its desires, as laid open to the view of God; "For," as an excellent author observes, “God cannot but be conscious of every motion that arises in the whole material world, which He thus essentially pervades, and of every thought that is stirring in the intellectual world, to every part of which He is thus intimately united. The knowledge and observation of men turn within a very narrow circle; but God can perceive all nature, and every thing that will exist, and every thought that will come into the mind of all His creatures to eternity!" Dr. Watts has a similar sentiment, "My thoughts, before they are my own, Are, to my God, distinctly known; Ere from my opening lips they break." The knowledge of God is unlimited. Nothing is hid from His immense survey. The heavens above, the depth beneath, the planetary system, the whole universe of being, are all exposed to His boundless view, from the brightest spirit before His throne, to the glow-worm that glimmers by the way-side. And yet, although it is so vast and infinite, it is at the same time so minute, that the very hairs of our head are all numbered; and He who listens to an angel's song responds to the young raven's cry. The knowledge of God is eternal! From everlasting to everlasting He is God, and His knowledge perfect and complete. From everlasting He knew the innumerable events of the universe, the designs of all His intelligent creatures, the rise and fall of empires, the changes and variations of time. No additions are ever made to His knowledge; He knows nothing at any time that He did not know from eternity. 66 Eternity, with all its years, Stand present to Thy view; To Thee there's nothing old appears; The events that occur in a family, in a single day, if noted down, would astonish and surprise us, especially if we inserted the secret thoughts, desires, and intentions of every individual. If we add to this the events of a town, and all the actions and thoughts of its inhabitants; if we proceed to the kingdoms and states of Europe, and then to the other quarters of the globe, and finally to the numerous worlds in the immensity of space to us altogether unknown, Oh! what an abyss of wonders! "God takes notice" says Mason, "of every individual as if there were but that one, and yet takes notice of all as if there was but one. The ancient hieroglyphic for God was the figure of an eye upon a sceptre, to denote that He sees and rules all things." These sentiments are clearly illustrated in the sacred word of truth: Nimrod, Pharoah, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Cyrus, Alexander the Great, are seen by Him in all their ambitious schemes and multiplied arrangements. He removeth kings and setteth up kings; "He raiseth the poor from the dust, and lifteth the beggar from the dung-hill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory," (1 Samuel ii. 8.) The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the earth, beholding the evil and the good. up He observes all the variety of human character. The sincere christian in his secret approaches to the throne of grace; his repentance for sin; his love for Christ; his interest in the progress of religion; his occasional doubts and fears; his holy resolutions; his ardent desires; his trials and afflictions; his happiness and joy. He marks the hypocrite in all his windings and dissimulations, pursues the backslider in all his wanderings, the sabbath-breaker in all his sinful career, the tale-bearer in all his injurious communications, the proud in all his haughty bearing, the malevolent in all his evil designs-"The Lord is a God of knowledge!" He beheld Joseph in the pit, Jeremiah in the dungeon, Daniel in the lions' den, the three children in the burning fiery furnace, the oppression of Israel in Egypt, the distress of Hezekiah when he received the letter from Rabshakeh; the trials, the griefs, and the misery of his children; the obstinacy, sinfulness, rebellion of the ungodly, are all before Him. Is there a desire in the heart after God! He knows that desire and approves it. He knows when sickness is in the family, when want prevails, when difficulties perplex. Oh! if the christian were more frequently to reflect upon the interest that God, his heavenly Father, takes in his affairs, |