Notes On Literature, Science And Art.

are only wanting their skill and labour to become fertile fields , orchards and gardens . Great as is the work which has already been accomplished for civilization by emigration ' it is capable of much improvement , by more organised efforts on the part of the emigrants ' Thus , for instance , if families known to each other , and between whom there had loud existed a bond of friendship at home , having all necessary trades among them , could agree to locate themselves in one neighbourhoodwho much less of the homesickness

, - and how much more of real comfort , they would enjoy from the first ! ' In a former Note , after noticing the Rev . T . P . Gander ' s interesting little volume on The Parish Church , I promised my readers his remarks on the building of Kin « Solomon ' s Temple , which are as folloivs : — °

"Now I am going to take you hack to the building of the first Temple . It will teach us a lesson . It was built as no building has ever been built before or since . Thirty thousand Israelites toiled among the mountains of Lebanon . In addition to these , the remnant of the Canaanites that abode in the land were pressed into the service . Seventy thousand there were that were bearers of burdens ; eighty thousand that were hewers in the mountains , ' beside the chief of Solomon ' s officers which wore the workthree thousand

over , and three hundred which ruled over the people that wrought in the work . Ancl the king commanded , and they brought great stones , costly stones , and hewed stones , to lay the foundation of the house . ' ( 1 Kings v . ) Through seven long years the hum of this vast multitude went up from the slopes of Lebanon . The stately cedars fell , and the tall fir-trees were sawn asunder ; and the wood and the stonesduly shapedwere floated on rafts down the coast to Joppafrom whence they

, , , were brought up to Jerusalem . Now we come to the special feature of its building . ' The house , when it was in building , was built of stone , made ready before it was brought thither ; so that there was neither hammer nor axe , nor any tool of iron , heard in the house while it was in building . ' ( 1 Kings vi . 7 . ) As Bishop Heber has described it : —

' In awful state The temple rear'd its everlasting gate . No workman ' s steel , no ponderous axes rung ! Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung . ' These things are all allegory . The turmoil , the labour , the dust on Mount Lebanon , t of this world

are a ype ' s preparation for a House that is being built eternal in the Heavens . In clue course , as each stone is hewn and squared and polished , it is taken away to Mount Sion , in the Heavenl y Jerusalem , and there dropped silently into its place . There there is no more toil or preparation , for that house is built of stone , made ready before it is brought thither ; so that there is neither hammer , nor axe , nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it is in building this idea in viewand it

. Keep , will explain much that is hard to understand here . Take the history of a single stone . It was , first of all , a block of the rough , unsightly granite on the mountain . It had to be hewn out . There was a rending and an upheaving , and at last the huge , unshapely mass came away . What followed 1 Why , it was orobablv rolled far awav from the

quarry , down that mountain side , to the ' sea coast below . Then , if there be found no flaw in it , the hewers of stone would begin to knock off its angles . Day by day the chisels would travel over its surface . Day by day it would be assuming a new shape . The stone squarers would fashion it according to a plan before them . They would measure it by a rule till they were satisfied . There would be a certain building far away in their eye ; > ancl a certain spot in that building , ancl for that space they woidd fit it . Then the polishers would take it in handand thwould And

, ey cleanse it with water . at last , when it was fair and beautiful ancl read y , it would be quietly taken away , to fill its place in the Temple on Mount Sion . So it is with a single soul . " And our author then proceeds ( in prose that is almost poetry , and much more poetical than many verses of rhyme one sees daily ) to complete the comparison , in true Church of England teaching , which belongs rather to the realms of theology than to « Literature , Science , and Art , " though there is much of all three in the passages that follow my quotation .