The following couplet of Doddridge has been greatly weakened

He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine.

The idea is that of being drawn as by an irresistible impulse, and the reference is to the Scripture, "they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely." Why, then, should it be amended to read "Glad to confess the voice divine?"

A most wretched transformation has been effected in the last stanza of the Moravian hymn-"Give to the winds thy fears."

In a Book of Psalms and Hymns that lies before us, we read,

It was written,

Thou comprehend'st him not,

Yet earth and heaven tell,
God sits as Sovereign on the throne,
He ruleth all things well.

What though thou rulest not,

Yet heaven and earth and hell
Proclaim God sitteth on the throne,
And orders all things well.

In another hymn, the line,

For thee, not without hope, I mourn,

has been changed to,

To him, with penitence, I mourn.

What means mourning to Christ? It certainly is not English. In the same hymn, by the same compiler, we read—

Oh! freely my backslidings heal,
And love the dying sinner still,

instead of

And freely my backslidings heal,

And love the faithless sinner still.

A most appropriate epithet, peculiarly applicable to the sin of backsliding-faithless-changed for a general, and in this connection, an unmeaning one, "dying"-rather is he a returning and hoping, than a dying sinner; but most of all he is a faithless sinner, having backslidden from his God..

We content ourselves with recording these few of the almost numberless examples of literary unfaithfulness that are before us. We feel sure that our readers will thank us for drawing attention to the subject of this Article, at a time when additions are to be made to our Presbyterian Psalmody. Glad shall we be, and more than repaid for our research, if these strictures tend to check the hand of some ruthless compiler, who might be tempted to follow the example of his predecessors, many of whom seem to have imagined no hymn, or scarcely any, worthy of a place in our books, without submitting it to greater or less "emendation." Our Christian lyrical authors might well exclaim, "Save us from our friends!" Dr. Johnson's attack on the sacred poetry of Watts has not been, by any means, so injurious to his character as a lyrist as have been those cuttings and clippings and changes and caricatures which have been inflicted by the Hymn-mender upon the writings of the Hymn-maker.

ARTICLE V.

The City of the Great King; or, Jerusalem, As it Was, As it Is, and As it is To Be. By J. T. BARCLAY, M.D., Missionary to Jerusalem. Philadelphia. James Challen & Sons, and J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1858. pp. 627.

No higher evidence can be given of the intrinsic interest of this subject than the extraordinary success of the work before us, a volume of more than six hundred pages, on the topography of Jerusalem. It is emphatically the work of the season. With the exception of the Explorations of Dr. Kane, and the Travels of Dr. Livingstone, no recent issue from the press has commanded equal sale. Dr. Barclay has enjoyed peculiar advantages for the preparation of his work, during a residence of several years at Jerusalem. It has been his good fortune to enjoy a free access to the mosque of Omar and the entire Temple area, with the substratums beneath,-a privilege which has not been vouchsafed in an equal degree to any other Frank or Infidel for many centuries. These privileges and advantages he has improved with conscientious fidelity and tireless industry, pursuing his researches at once with the enthusiasm of an antiquary and of a Christian scholar.

Our author devotes about two-thirds of his work to an account of Jerusalem "as it was," treating of the name of the city, its local features, hills, valleys, ravines, bridges, and surrounding villages, illustrated by map, chart, and model of the city and environs, which embody the result of not less than ten thousand observations, with a theodolite and other levelling instruments. In the spirit of a Christian scholar he suggests the various historical incidents and sacred associations with which each hill and valley and mountain-top is redolent to the intelligent observer, and repeatedly surprises us with the recovery of some locality long lost. The thanks of every biblical scholar are due to him for the restoration of the village of Bethphage, which

deservedly has a name and a place among the localities rescued from the oblivion of ages. His conclusions win our full assent, and, on actual observation, are so obviously appropriate, that we are only surprised that the site has so long escaped the notice of travellers and investigators.

With equal confidence and satisfaction we accept also his specification, not perhaps altogether new and original, of the place of our Lord's ascension,-a quiet, secluded place, on the eastern slope of Mount Olivet, shut out from the view of the city and of Bethany, and yet near enough to both to answer all the conditions of the narrative. "It is not a little singular that a spot possessing so fully all the requisites indicated by the case, should never before have been regarded as the place of ascension. So satisfactorily demonstrable is the proposition, that I never feel better assured of occupying ground once trodden by the adorable Redeemer than when I am here.” We cordially sympathized with the author when, recently standing in that holy place, we gave ourselves up to the conviction that just there, in quiet seclusion from the jarring world which he was about to leave forever, our Lord, having led out his disciples, lifted up his hands and blessed them; and "while he blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven."

With similar consent, in the absence of all conclusive evidence, we yield ourselves to the conviction that the author justly locates the scene of our Lord's crucifixion, at a short distance without and above St. Stephen's gate, on "a kind of head, cape, or promontory," overlooking the valley of the Kidron, and dark Gethsemane. May not this be the site of that awful scene, the crucifixion of the Son of God! It is to this day "a place of skulls," the grave of many generations, where the dead are congregated together so thickly, "that, by merely removing a loose rock or two, skulls are seen in abundance,” and are frequently thrown out to view by the jackals. Just below this field of death lies the gloomy vale of the Kidron, the banks of which are still lined with some old sepulchres. "Now could there be a more appropriate spot for the three

days' repose of the 'Lamb slain,' than the shades of this sequestered vale, hard by the garden of his mental agony?"

The topographical notice of the various movements of our Saviour from the table of the Last Supper to the tomb, is another new and interesting discussion, which relieves the drier details of walls and gates, and towers and tombs, more attractive to the Christian antiquary than to the general reader. "The supper being ended, the consolatory address concluded, and the hymn sung," they go from that upper room to Gethsemane. There, after his agony, the Sufferer is led "down the gloomy vale of Kidron, across Tophet, through Gehenna, and up the steep sides of the Hill of Evil Counsel," if indeed tradition has properly located the country seat of Annas. Thence he makes the toilsome and difficult transit of the Valley of Hinnom to the palace of Caiaphas, "on the northernmost part of Mount Zion." From thence he is led, probably over Mount Zion, by the bridge of the Tyropoon, to the court of the Sanhedrim; thence to the judgment-hall of Pilate, in the tower of Antonia, in the northwest corner of the Temple area; thence across the city again to Herod, at the palace of the Herods, near the Tower of Hippicus. Again he traverses the city to the judg ment-hall of Pilate, whence he passes without the city to Golgotha, and the cross; where, having satiated with his blood. the malice of his tormentors, and drunk the cup of his Father's indignation for our sins, he descended from the cross to his final repose in the sepulchre.

Dr. Barclay, after a careful measurement of these several transits, comes to the conclusion, that "the distance traversed by the Saviour between the upper room and Golgotha, was from four and one-third to five miles."

Entertaining the highest respect for the researches and conclusions of Dr. Robinson, he frequently dissents from the opinions of this distinguished antiquary and scholar. With Dr. Robinson, and in direct opposition to the concurring views of Bishop Gobat, and other foreign residents at Jerusalem, Dr. Barclay terminates Mount Zion "on the side of the north" at the Tower of Hippicus, near the Jaffa gate. Against these