we can believe nothing. Not content with this as applied to modern facts, we are never satisfied until we have rooted up all old traditions, and proved their error, by rɛ and yɛ criticism, or by proving the spot in question to be actually a hundred yards or so out of its place. Every book of travels slaughters some old tradition or theory, and where is the benefit? Does it benefit us to prove that a black stone in the valley of Sinai was not the judgment-seat of Moses? Are we one whit the better Christians for all our accurate biblical geography, than our ancestors, who almost believed in Sir John Mandeville? These traditions, it is replied, have been perverted to a bad end; pilgrimages sprang from them, and the devotee risked life and happiness to reach a spot where the traditional event never could have occurred. Be it so. The pilgrim's devotion was not lessened by the traditional error. His object may be a mistaken one-at least it deserves, it commands respect. The modern traveller seeks the same places to while away his time, or to cavil at the traditions of the place. His is a different mode of seeking happiness to that of the pilgrim; both are equally successful,-the one dispels his ennui, the other satisfied his devotional feelings. The scientific traveller is also but a pilgrim, his god is knowledge, and the shrines of his god are everywhere, and in all places, so are his wanderings and pilgrimages. To the monks, who generally reside near these traditional localities, our curiosity-prompted wanderings are inexplicable; and there was much truth in the monk's objecting to the travellers entering the convent church, because the service was performing, as if it was something utterly uninteresting to the curiosity-seeking Frank.

On their arrival at Akaba, the travellers had a specimen of Arab cunning, owing, perhaps, to the attempt, on the part of their messenger, to deceive the sheikh, who was to be their guide and protector to Petra. The messenger represented the party as that of an European consul; but, as no one was prepared to accept the sheep which the sheikh humbly led into the encampment, the old Arab discovered the trick, and recompensed them for their folly. The consequence was, most exorbitant charges, and less respect than they otherwise would have experienced. We have already occupied so much space, that we cannot follow Mr. Formby on his route to Petra, or ramble with him in that Enigma of Enigmas, the city of the tombs. To give, however, some idea, not of the tombs themselves, for they have been so often sketched and described since Burckhardt first visited them, but of the scenery of this locality we will extract two engravings, and a short description of the new track struck upon by one of the travellers, in his wanderings about the valley of Wadi Mousa :

"In a short time, away we started to the eastward, passing the great tomb on our right. At first the ground was tolerably open, but as we advanced, the valley appeared to narrow itself, and we followed, for some time, the dry bed of a water-course. Had we continued this course, it would have led to the foot of the hills that form the eastern barrier between Petra and the desert; but at less than half a mile to the east of the great

tomb, the guides pointed out a path, by which we scrambled up to a small table-land of rock, commanding a fine view of the western rocks; and, crossing this, we came in view of a solitary archway, thrown over a chasm in the rock, in a position more singularly wild and majestic than any we had yet seen, in the midst even of Petra. We were here entirely out of the region of tombs. Indeed, this solitary arch was the only visible trace of human labour having approached the spot. Underneath it, at a great

depth below, trickled a stream, so weak, that a little further on it expired in the porous sandy bed of its own course. We were for some time under

the mistake that this was the archway described by M. Laborde, as crossing the main entrance; but on descending into the ravine, and scrambling under it, it was clear that no beast of burden,-much less a camel-could ever come here, or, if brought here, could ever move away."-Pp. 276, 277.

Every traveller who has inspected the excavations in the rocks of Petra, has given in to the opinion that it is, as it now appears, a city of sepulchres; whilst, in order to provide for the immense population that would have required these tombs, not a few have given in to the theory, that in the open spaces of the valley, there were once the buildings of the city of the Edomites, and that Time, who has spared the sepulchres of the nation, has long since destroyed their dwelling-houses. Doubtless, as but one generation can be alive at one time, and yet each generation might choose to erect its own tombs, the sepulchres of a city might very much exceed the dwellings of its inhabitants; and that the excavations of Petra are the work of successive generations, the detail of the remains is no mean evidence. Still this is a cumbrous theory-and we much prefer that of Mr. Formby-which would people the excavations themselves with the inhabitants of the city, and unite in close neighbourhood the living and the dead. To our western notions it seems impossible that a nation should live in the rocks, in an immense track of perforated precipices, rather than on the level plain, or the rich valley; but is it so inconceivable to an Eastern mind? Is not the rock-dwelling a familiar part of the domestic economy of the people of the East ?

"In the village of Siloam, near Jerusalem, the greater part of the inhabitants live in rooms cut out of the rock. In the wilderness of Engaddi are numerous caves; which local tradition relates to have been the

abodes of hermits. Indeed, St. Jerome himself spent some part of his life in that kind of solitude. The early monks, who chose these retreats, did not make them themselves; a race, of whom we know nothing, made and, doubtless, dwelt in them. The so-called Cave of Jeremiah, near the Damascus-gate of Jerusalem, is now partly a dwelling-place. Again, the caves in the rock of Upper Egypt and Nubia were, in St. Anthony's time, favourite retreats of the Egyptian monks; and yet they did not make them. Mr. Hope, a well-known traveller and architect, is of opinion that the excavated temple, as found in Egypt and parts of Asia, was the first original form of temple that the human race has possessed, and anterior to any edifice, the first attempts of which, when they began to be made, were in imitation of the excavated form. If so, why may not a rock-dwelling have preceded any attempt, on the part of man, to build himself a house, notwithstanding that the Roman poet forgot to enumerate this, as one of the stages of civilization through which he considers mankind to have passed." -Pp. 211, 212.

That the people of the East were familiar with the notion of a rock-habitation, is seen in the language of Scripture, where our own life is represented as dwelling in a tent, God's mercies, "as a dwelling in a rock." "Be Thou to me as a rock of habitation," says the Psalmist, to whom the rocks of Maon and Engaddi were more than once a refuge-house. "What hast thou here," says Isaiah, "and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre, as he that heweth him out a sepulchre on high, and graveth a habitation for himself in a rock?" (xxii. 16.) Again, Jeremiah says, "Oh ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock." (xlviii. 28.) But these passages might be increased, even beyond what appear in Mr. Formby's chapter.

"From these and similar passages," says that writer, "it would appear that the idea of rock-dwellings was once familiar to those times. It prevails, as we have seen, in the Scripture, and is so interwoven into the genius of its imagery, as almost to become a special feature in its language. With this view of the case, then, it is difficult to refuse assent to the literal meaning of the words of the prophet? but if a strong proof be still needed, a very remarkable one is afforded in another passage of Scripture. The wilderness of Engaddi, and the whole range of rocks bordering upon the western bank of the Dead Sea, are remarkably like the rocks of Petra, and abound in excavations of a similar, but a much ruder form. This tract of country was known to have been, in former days, the settlement of the people of the Kenites, respecting whom the prophecy of Balaam speaks as follows:-'He looked upon the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, 'Strong is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock. Nevertheless, the Kenite shall be wasted, and Ashur shall carry thee away captive.' Now the two people, whose countries, to this day, exhibit the strongest vestiges of these supposed rock-dwellings, are precisely those people who are addressed by the inspired prophets, the one as putting his nest in the rock, the other as dwelling within its clefts. It may be almost superfluous to add, that St. Jerome, the catholic father of Bethlehem, who had himself travelled in this country, in a work which treats geographically of the cities of Palestine, after stating the boundaries of the territory of Edom, goes on to say, "This is the land that was in the possession of Esau they had their simple dwellings (habitatiunculas) in the caves of the rock."-Pp. 215, 216.

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The objection of uniting, as it were, un ler one roof, the dead and the living, as this supposition would, to a certain extent, necessarily involve, however repugnant the custom may be to our notions, is refuted by the custom of Eastern nations, and particularly of the Egyptians of old. In the minds of the Eastern people, death and the tomb have nothing repulsive in them; they regard the one as a release from the miseries of this world, the other as an earnest of a happier life. As the children of Esau became gradually mixed up and leavened by the encroachments of their neighbours, new manners and new buildings would necessarily arise, and the Roman tombs and theatres are, equally with the remains of the very few dwellings that exist in the valley, the memorials of an age centuries later than the rock-excavations among which they stand.

There are many more most interesting and valuable chapters in the work which we have been endeavouring to review, especially those on Primeval Theology, and the Parallel Testimonies of the Egyptian Monuments, and Books of Holy Scripture considered as Sacerdotal Records; on Egypt and the Jewish Prophecy; on the Prophecies relating to Edom, and the Wanderings of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai; but we cannot now do more than mention them, and close this our notice with earnest commendations of the book, from which we have drawn so much sound sense and information, as well in the way of text as in the form of extract. The engravings speak for themselves.

Twelve Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion. Delivered in Rome by NICHOLAS WISEMAN, D.D. Second Edition. 8vo. London: Dolman, Bond Street. 1842. THE motto prefixed to these lectures shows their nature and design: -"Science should be dedicated to the service of religion." Religion supplies those "poles of truth," as Lord Bacon finely calls them, around which the human mind revolves; sustains and guides it in its planetary course, and subordinates its varied movements to the great" FATHER OF LIGHTS, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Religion is the living root from which all lawful intellectual enterprises spring, and through which they draw the vital sap that nurtures even their minutest branches, adorning them with foliage and crowning them with fruit. Theology is the queen of literature and science, whose highest glory is to bear her train and cast their richest offerings at her feet. This is the theme here chosen by Dr. Wiseman.

"My purpose in the course of lectures to which I have invited you, is to show the correspondence between the progress of science and the development of the Christian evidences. . . . And when I use the word 'evidences,' I must