much mechanical disadvantage to so weighty a quadruped upon land. In all these characters of a gigantic, herbivorous, aquatic quadruped, we recognize adaptations to the supposed condition of the earth, during that portion of its history to which the existence of these strange animals appears to have been limited.

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S IMAGE.

"Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was three-score cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon."-Dan. iii. 1.

THIS was probably an image of Bel, the chief deity of Babylon; some suppose it to have been hollow, like the Colossus of Rhodes, whose height was seventy cubits (122 feet). Houbigant imagines it was a column or pyramid, somewhat of the human form. Ancient idolaters appear to have had a predilection for huge images. Diodorus says, that Xerxes found in the temple of Belus, which he demolished, a gold image forty feet high. The image of Jupiter, at Tarentum, was forty cubits (seventy feet). The plain of Dura, supposed to have been near the Tigris, was doubtless selected for the convenience of the immense multitude assembled.-Pocket Commentary.

FIERY FURNACE.

"And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace."-Dan. iii. 11.

To burn supposed or real criminals in pits of fire was common in several eastern countries. See Jer. xxix. 22, where this punishment is called "roasting in the fire.—Ibid.

NUPTIAL CROWNS.

"Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart."-Sol. Song. iii. 11.

In

Nuptial crowns were common among ancient nations. Those used by the Hebrews were often of the richest materials. Greece the bride was crowned by her mother.

GATE.

"He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction."—Prov. xvii. 19.

Those exposed to the inroads of the Arabs, who rarely ever dismount, have their doors about three feet high, which admit not a horse. To have higher doors would be to court destruction.

LAND MARK.

"Remove not the ancient land-mark which thy fathers have set."-Prov. xxii. 23.

To an Israelite the land-mark was peculiarly sacred, as the gift of God. Dr. Clarke remarks, that it was so sacred among the heathen, that it was worshipped as a god, for whom there was an annual festival. IGDALIA.

MAXIM.

CHARACTER.

If you wish to know a man's character, wait till some disgrace or misfortune happens to him, and you will soon see either all his greatness or all his weakness.

TYNDRUM.

TYNDRUM is situated in the district of Bredalbane, in Perthshire. The name signifies the house of the height, being the most elevated place of North Britain. Bredalbane, also signifies the loftiest tract of Albin or Scotland. These hills are a part of that lofty range commencing at Loch Lomond, traversing the country to the frith of Dornoch, and called by some writers Drum-Albin.

It is not easy for those who live in the gentler regions of South Britain, to form an adequate idea of these wild mountain haunts, and of the "shepherds' sheilings grey and bare," which harmonize so well with the savage scenery around, as almost to appear as if they had grown out of the rocks about them. But from such humble dwellings some of our greatest geniuses have emanated; and it has indeed been contended that there is something like a connexion between the sublime character of these fastnesses and the tone of mind evinced by those whose lot is cast among them, as if they had "felt their faith" in these majestic evidences of Omnipotence.

"In my passage in 1769," says Pennant, from the King's-house to this place, I rode near the mountains of Bendoran. One of them is celebrated for the hollow sound it sends forth about twentyfour hours before very heavy rain.

"The spirit of the mountain shrieks,”—Ossian.

-warns the peasants to shelter their flocks, and utters the same awful prognostics that Virgil attributes to those of Italy."

INTELLIGENCE.

LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF CALCUTTA TO THE REV. A. BRANDRAM, ONE OF THE SECRETARIES OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Bishop's Palace, Calcutta.
June 4, 1835.

1. I have delayed, from time to time, writing to you on the general aspect of the great Cause in this country, because I was anxious to make myself somewhat master of my subject, before I attempted to enter upon it. I should, however, assuredly have written last summer, after the occurrence of our Calcutta Anniversary: but the zeal and piety of our Secretary, the Rev. T. Dealtry, had poured out all our wants and entreaties before you, the instant the emergency occurred, previously to that period; so that I yielded to that sense of overburdened demands upon me from all quarters, which I could not, and cannot now, answer, and postponed the fulfilment of my general purpose of writing till another year.

2. I, however, seized the moment of stating, last evening, at our Anniversary, that I would write to the Society, without fail, upon a particular matter which arose and I am now fulfilling my promise— that is, the very next evening after I pledged myself, I am redeeming the engagement.

3. If the British and Foreign Bible Society had been instituted for the good of India alone, I am convinced it would have achieved a service unparalleled in the history of the Christian Church. India, with ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR MILLIONS of Hindoos and Mussulmans, under British law, or British influence, waits for your labours. Her population reads and writes. Unlike the Western Nations, she has been, for probably 3000 years, at a point of civilization, low indeed, but still far more elevated than the mass of the European communities only seven or eight centuries back. Every village has its school: every child learns its letters, and acquires the faculty of reading and writing in its earliest years. Curiosity, patience of investigation, love of narrative, precocious development of all the powers mental and bodily, dispose them to read with avidity.

4. The Bible is made for man, as much as the external world of nature; it suits his moral condition; it awakens and gratifies his attention; it comes down to his feelings and wants. The light of the sun is not more adapted to the eye of man, than the Scriptures are adapted to his inward conscience and heart. The manner, also, in which the truth is conveyed in the Inspired Volume is universally suited for man

-for childhood, for youth, for manhood, for age. The matter and manner equally speak a Divine original. But India is more especially at home in the Bible. It is an oriental volume: its allusions; its images, its habits, its historical vestiges, its national customs, are in a large degree Asiatic; and can be most easily understood in the countries nearest to those where it was first written.

5. But this is general. It is delightful to add, that the disposition of the people to receive copies of the translated Scriptures increases, just at the moment when the machinery of the Bible Society is in full play. Years were required to set such an engine up, to overcome friction in its working, to let the different wheels sweep easily along, and contribute to the grand result. Whilst this was doing, the minds of the inhabitants of Hindoostan-and the same is true of other parts of Eastern Asia-were preparing for welcoming the produce. It is something like the invention of the art of printing being contemporary with the reformation of Religion, in the sixteenth century: the two played into each other.

6. Accounts are now coming in from all quarters of a readiness to receive the Sacred Volume; which crowds together masses of inquirers and of supplicants at all the principal festivals and annual celebrations, and scarcely allows the Missionary to depart without allaying their eagerness.

7. All this coincides with the decayed power of the Hindoo and Mohammedan religions upon the minds of men. But I retract the word 'religions: the impostures palmed, under that sacred name, upon a fallen world, deserve not the elevation they thus assume. Neither Hindooismn or Mahometanism merits the name of "religion." The sort of metaphysical compact between atheism and the grossest and most polluting mythology, of the first; and the fierce corruption of the Jewish and Christian Revelations, which are the pretended foundation of the second; these are not religions. The one is the faint vestige of original Revelation, wandering about for light, without a single holy principle to direct it; and the other the mere plunder of Christianity, poured at the feet of a false prophet and adventurer. 8. Both are manifestly on the wane. The hush of universal peace during the last seven years - the progress of the arts-the beneficent sway of British jurisprudence-the noble and honest efforts of the Hon. the East-India Company to raise and bless the countries submitted to her sway-the result of eighty years of improving administration of the laws-all have been at work, and are at work, silently and slowly, but surely and effectually. The least measure of knowledge is enough to dig up the foundation of systems, which are as grossly mistaken in

matters of geography, history, political economy, international commerce, medicine, agriculture, and the arts of life, as in those of morals and religion.

9. The pious and tranquil efforts of the British and Foreign Bible Society are especially adapted to the state of things in India. Each Bible is a silent Missionary. Each translated copy even of any considerable part of that Sacred Book tends, not only to sanctify and bless the soul, but to raise the tone of feeling, kindle the torch of literature and general truth, open all the subordinate tracks of benevolent effort, and civilize, whilst it illuminates and saves.

10. Never does the purity of the Bible stand out in such contrast as with the filthiness of the Hindoo legends. Never do its important contents appear so commanding, as in contrast with the trifles of the Shasters or the Koran; never do the sublimity and majesty of Redemption so excite our admiration, as when opposed to the laborious and childish ceremonies of these false creeds. Nor does the code of Christian morals ever shine so resplendent, as in the midst of the wretched polygamy, which more degrades the nation of Asia, perhaps, than all her other false rules of conduct together.

11. When I lately visited the Eastern portion of this Diocese, your Society met me, as the Angel of peace. I saw with my own eyes the China-man at work, with your money, upon the Bible. Throughout the beautiful Island of Ceylon, the scene was varied, but not changed :— you had been before me :-the Cingalese Versions were spread on the Committee table; and I have brought with me to Calcutta a copy of the Scriptures in that language as well as in the mysterious Chinese. I had the pleasure of attending a Meeting of the Colombo Bible Institution. At Madras, I witnessed the largest Committee Meeting I ever remember to have seen, out of London. Between twenty and thirty Members, including the Venerable Archdeacon Robinson (diligently engaged in prosecuting his Persian Version), and most of the resident Clergy, were present. Farther south, I found, at Cuddalore, Myaveram, Tanjore, and Trinchinopoly, the Tamil New Testament eagerly read. Eleven thousand copies had been distributed in the year 1834; and, what is most interesting, the Madras Society had, in the same year, circulated about 700 English Bibles.

12. And this leads me to the Calcutta Auxiliary, which I attended last evening. Your most welcome present of 2500 English Bibles and Testaments had been announced, and the grant also of 5001. The tidings were received with the warmest gratitude. An admirable report was read by the Rev. T. Dealtry; and such was the demand reported for the Holy Scriptures, that a separate subscription was urgently