Kedron. The stones in the Jewish cemetery look like a heap of rubbish at the foot of the Mount of Offence, below the Arab village of Siloane, the paltry houses of which are scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding sepulchres.

A SUNDAY AT LYONS.

EVERY writer who is able to place a name renowned in history at the head of a communication to a distant friend, especially if he knows that that friend has never travelled a hundred miles beyond his native village, feels a sort of selfimportance and superiority in the idea of his own consequence, and of the wonderful things which he has seen, and which he shall be enabled to relate at his return, not considering that the greater portion of his acquaintance will have less interest in his accounts of distant lands and distant people, than they would have in the description of a tea drinking at their next door neighbour's. I fear that this remark, though somewhat harsh, extends to a large portion of my country people, but I cannot suppose that it will touch any of the persons for whom this is intended-for I will not believe that any one who seeks instruction in the Youths' Magazine, can be uninterested in a communication from a city so celebrated in ancient story as Lyons-which was the seat of some of the earliest Christians and most eminent of saints-for who has not heard of Pothinus, and Blandina, and the holy Ireneus, and others of the martyrs of Lyons who suffered unto death in the early ages of Christianity. The learned are not agreed respecting the origin of this city, but it is supposed that it was built forty years before the Christian era, by Lucius Munatius Plancus-it is placed at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone, and these two magnificent rivers run through the town in its whole extent, the present city being built on their banks, whereas the ancient Lyons, or Lugdunum, stood. on the mountain of Fourvieres, or Forum Vetus, which hangs over the modern Lyons.

The city is one of the most magnificent and busy in all France, a place of manufactory of rich silks and velvets,

whose merchants were once among the great men of the earth, although their strong holds and treasure houses are now tottering to their foundations under the frequent attacks of democratic and revolutionary fury, of which the apt and appropriate type in the figurative language of Scripture, is, tremblings of the earth. In the time of the Romans, and when the Roman towers stood proudly on the mountain Fourvieres, the Lyonnois were pagans, and probably in no part of the earth did pagans ever exercise a more cruel tyranny over the inoffensive and unprotected followers of our blessed Lord. From heathenism they passed to arianism under the savage princes who had been the means of destroying the Roman empire, and from arianism they proceeded to popery, passing from one form of false worship to another, till now in the present day, infidelity is succeeding superstition, and whilst the churches are abandoned to many ignorant priests and a few old women, the generality of the population of the city are not ashamed to acknowledge their doubts of the very being of a God. Such is the simple outline of the history of Lyons, which, in 532, became a part of the kingdom of France, to which it now appertains, being a rebellious child of a weak and corrupt father. But the sin recorded in the blackest characters against this city, is, that it has from age to age rejected the light of the truth, and persecuted even unto death all such of its children as are children of light-carrying on this system even in the present day as far as the times will permit for whilst I was at Geneva, the Protestant congregation at Lyons ejected their minister, because he spoke the truth, and set another in his place, who pleased them better, by healing their wounds slightly, and preaching the flattering doctrine that man has power of himself to perform works acceptable and pleasing in the sight of God-and is not such as he is described by the express declaration of him who hath said, "every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually."

Such was the city in which we found ourselves on the first Sunday after we had left Geneva. We had taken a lodging in the fauxbourg Brotteaux, on the left bank of the Rhonea situation which reminded us of some of the villages in the

skirts of London, where country houses are scattered in gardens, and where there is a sort of street formed of little shops and houses of public entertainment for the lower sortbut we thought that the air of this place was superior to that of the city itself-which, by the by, is anything but agreeable; and we were tempted by apartments, the windows of which, at the back of the house, opened upon a garden laid out with much attention to ornament, I do not say to good tastenevertheless a garden filled with trees and flowering shrubs must always have its charms, although the trees may be disposed in straight lines, and the shrubs tortured into any form but that which is natural; we had, indeed, found these lodgings unfurnished, for furnished apartments may not be had in a private house at Lyons; but we soon obviated this difficulty by means of a broker, and found ourselves duly established in our places late on the Saturday evening, with the prospect of spending a month in the enjoyment of quiet before we proceeded any farther on our travels.

I have more than once observed how we had been affected by the sound of the bells in Roman Catholic city on the morning of the Lord's day, but by this time we were accustomed to the feeling that we had no part in these familiar sounds-we therefore heeded them no farther than to observe that their effect was musical as they passed to us over the water, and prepared ourselves after breakfast to attend the Protestant chapel, which was at a considerable distance from our lodgings. By this time we had in some degree lost that keen sense of wonder at the strange gay figures which fill every street of a town on the continent on the Lord's daywhere the people belonging to every house seem to have no other thought but to escape from home as soon as possible, and to exhibit as much finery as their circumstances will permit. The day was bright, but it had rained in the night, hence, when we reached the narrower streets, we were obliged to pick our way with care, and with the more difficulty, inasmuch as we were elbowed and pushed on all sides by groups of persons hastening to and from the masses to the houses of the restaurateurs, the latter of which were already crowded. At length, however, we reached the Protestant

chapel-it seemed to be a part of some public building, and was a sufficiently handsome room, but dark and comfortless. The congregation consisted of inferior persons, but all this was of little import had light shone from the pulpit—from whence, however, we heard nothing but vehement declamation, and long and sounding words, by which the preacher was endeavoring to enforce the old covenant under penalty of death and eternal condemnation. The place was hot, and the exertions used by the orator were inconceivably great. In England we have no idea of the excessive vehemence of a French preacher, nor of the violence of his action, and the multitude of words with which he envelopes even the most ordinary idea. But I have remarked even in our own country, that those preachers who do not understand the system of salvation as revealed in Scripture, are apt sometimes to fall into this vehemence and heat of manner, becoming more and more hot and disturbed in measure as they contemplate the alarming state of their people under the only covenant which they comprehend. I know of nothing more uncomfortable than sitting to hear false doctrine vehemently recommended from a place where one might naturally hope for better things-we were all, therefore, glad when the sermon was concluded, and we were set at liberty to breathe the open air. The chapel we found was near the cathedral and the foot of the mountain Fourvieres. Let us ascend this hill, we said, and breathe the mountain air-if man will not instruct us in the truth, the works of the Creator will speak a better language-for the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament telleth his handy works. So with this view we threaded several steep narrow streets, and having mounted some hundreds of deep rugged steps between the sordid dwellings of manufacturers, we found ourselves on a terrace, where the whole city of Lyons with its double rivers lay at our feet. On our left were the ruins of the Forum vetus, and and on our right the fauxbourg, and church of St. Irenéehere was matter for observation and consideration for many hours-and finding a huge stone, the remnant perhaps of some ancient Roman building, half embedded in the earth and covered with lichen, we sate down, and having recourse to

our directory, we found the following passage-" In the subterraneous chapel under the church of St. Irenée, they shew a well where they pretend were gathered the greater part of the bones of the martyrs of Lyons."

"We will go no farther, my children," I said, "at this time, but quietly contemplate the scene at our feet, leaving the other memorials of antiquity with which this mountain abounds for the examination of a future day. It is one of the privileges and chief delights of the intelligent traveller to recur to facts which he may have studied in his own private chamber at home, in the very scenes and places where those events have taken place. You have all read of the martyrs of Lyons, and you now behold those ensanguined fields in which these horrible scenes took place, and when you contemplate the chapel built on the spot, and dedicated to St. Ireneus, and consider the character of that antichristian church which has raised those trophies, and set up these martyrs and confessors as objects of worship, it is impossible not to be reminded of one or two passages of Holy Scripture which apply directly to transactions of this kind. The first of these is in Ezekiel xvi. 17, Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them;' and again, Matthew xxiii. 27, 28, 29, 30, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' I then informed my children that the persecution in which these martyrs suffered, raged in the seventeenth year of Marcus Aurelius-and that the account of these terrible scenes has been accurately preserved, as written by the suffering churches themselves—for this persecution extended to the neighbouring city of Vienne-and I then compared the sufferings of the