we to take Scripture for our only guide, the scene of the crucifixion would be placed near the gate of Stephen." A very elaborate work on The Topography of Jerusalem, recently published by James Fergusson, F.R.A.S., adopts similar views, and fixes the site of the crucifixion about 150 yards from the northeast angle of the temple. With all deference to the opinion of these able writers, we think there are very strong grounds for concluding that Golgotha was situated in the valley of Hinnom, and that the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was among the neighbouring rocks. The Goath mentioned in Jeremiah, xxxi. 39, is understood by many biblical scholars as identical with Golgotha. Goath was near to the gate Gennath, which signifies a garden, and as this gate adjoined the palace of Herod, near which Josephus says there were many gardens, it is probable the gate received its name from this circumstance.

We do not, upon the whole, regret that the precise spot on which our Lord "made an end of sin-offering," cannot now with anything like satisfaction be determined. It pleased Jehovah to conceal from the Jews the place where he

buried Moses, and had the identical spots of the crucifixion and burial of our Redeemer, been from the beginning marked out and venerated, long ere this time they might have been desecrated, alike by the mummeries of the superstitious and the spoliation of the infidel. The address of the angel to the females who were the first to visit the Saviour's tomb, continue to utter words of rebuke as well as of consolation. To the blinded devotees who kneel in the "church of the sepulchre," we would say, “He is not here. He is risen as he said. WHY SEEK YE THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD?"

Should any of our readers feel a desire to investigate the subject of this article, we recommend to them not only the volumes to which reference has been made, but particularly two very elaborate and satisfactory papers in The Museum of Classical Antiquities, for April and May, last year. This quarterly journal displays sound scholarship and most thorough research, and if it continue to be conducted with the ability which it has hitherto manifested, cannot fail to be a great favourite with the student of ancient art.

READER, have you ever stood at the bed-side of an elder brother, as the last throbs of his heart were becoming weaker and fainter, and the motionless, unspeaking eye indicated that the shadow of death was resting over the countenance? It was thus with us many years ago, and the impressions of that scene will remain with undiminished clearness, till "the former things have finally and for ever passed away." The warm sunshine of summer had been followed by the unsteady autumnal showers. We were busied in cutting down a small

patch of corn which had been obtained for the double purpose of providing straw for the cow during winter, and supplying the household with the staple of Scotch consumpt. The evening closed over us, with nothing to betoken change. The sun went down in accustomed livery. The clouds floated eastwards, fringed with grey gloom. The moon rose as cheerfully, to occupy her watch-tower in the heavens, and look down on the wellstocked harvest fields and smiling husbandmen, as if earth had been Eden and man all innocence. Morning

came with all its joys, and without one portent of coming sorrow. It was the wonted calling of him to whom we gave the name of brother, to descend into the darksome mine, and there earn his daily bread, far below the busy walks of the men of trade and commerce. Familiarity with the thousand dangers to which such toiling masses are ever exposed had begot in us a spirit of easy unconcern. What the world, in its blindness, calls accidents had repeatedly taken place, it is true, some of them even so recently as a month before; but the warnings had come and gone, and society had spent all its consolations on the bereaved, and now it was thought that "the bitterness of death was surely past." Alas for our security, when it rests on no more solid basis than our own dim, uncertain, hopes for the future! These hopes are but the spider's web, or the vapoury exhalation of which life is composed, and which the breath of the Eternal dissipates for ever.

Before noon-day the mournful intelligence was brought that something had happened. The absence of any thing like explicitness in such messages, is the aperture that lets in the light to discover the whole truth. So was it here. Our deeply loved mother looked with wistful earnestness in the face of the narrator, and with a boding and bursting heart asked him to tell the worst, adding that she knew it all. Concealment was in vain. The sword, though designedly muffled, was too sharp-edged to be confined within its bandages, and already had hewn its way to the inmost recess of the soul. A few minutes more and the living record of the transaction was spread out before her eyes. The son of many hopes and prayers was carried across the threshold in the arms of strong men, who were, ere many days had fled, again to bear his coffin to the cold churchyard. He was washed and laid on a bed, and though death was near, the separation had

not yet taken place. The tongue had lost its utterance for ever: the eye and the ear were the last inlets to the conscious domain that remained open.

Oh! with what unutterable anguish did that mother stand by the dying bed of her speechless son, and by all the possible arts and artifices which a mother alone knows how to employ, did she seek to soothe the last moments of the sufferer! She was the mother of nine sons, all of whom were with her; but in that hour of agony she could have given them all for him who now lay at death's door. "Can a woman," says the prophet, "forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" Ah no! How much more, to complete the quotation, will that Heavenly parent, who has graven the memorial of His adopted ones on the palms of His hands, not forget His own!

Our humble cottage stood at some miles distance from ny town, so that the services of a medical man could not be procured for a considerable time after the catastrophe had occurred. Drearily did the minutes drag along till the man of science came; and so great was the impatience of the bystanders, that the writer of this paper was despatched, with all expedition, to hasten the arrival of the doctor. But man's skill was useless, long before it could be brought into requisition; and when it was the province of the writer again to approach that bedside, his eye fell on the pale corse of his dead brother. His first words were "Is he The sighs, and sobs, and tears of the women that crowded the place gave too sure answer to be misunderstood. All was now over. Death's day's work was done. One house was plunged in the abyss of sorrow-one mother reft of one of the strongest cords that bound her to earth. The winding sheet was rolled about the clay of the departed-the coffin-lid nailed down-the deathwatch sat through the sleepless nights

dead?" trickling

-the hearse, with its cypress plumes, came to the door; the sable procession wended slowly along to the family burying-ground-the remains were laid side by side with those of his father-the grave filled-the green Bods placed above the narrow house, and the churchyard style was shut against the last retiring member of the sad cortege.

The deceased, whose mournful departure we have just sketched, had often expressed his desire that we should devote our energies and life to the sacred professiou the pastorate. The difficulties that seemed to intervene betwixt us and the realization of such an object looked too large, in our estimation, at the time, to think of overcoming them. But the admonition or advice of one, that has gone to the realm of spirits, has so much in it that is sacred and solemn, that we are irresistibly impelled to the performance of the required duty by all that is within and around us. Years of chequered gloom and gladness at length rolled by, and we found our feet, like those of the priests of old, that "were dipped in the brim of the waters of Jordan," standing on the last step of the staircase that conducts to the halls and galleries of active life. The wilderness, with its wild beasts, its plagues and pestilences, its discontents and disquietudes, lay far behind the dark horizon, beyond which we had passed. Before us lay the glassy waters of that Jordan, that were to separate, by a sweep of the mantle of faith, and standing upon an heap, leave a dry passage into the new land of rest. As we thus stood, a train of conflict

THE great Arbiter of Life and Death, in the exercise of an infinite and unerring wisdom, has called another of his aged servants home to glory. Before the publication of our last Journal had com

breathed out his pure spirit to the skies. The career of the two ministers had much in common. They both belonged to the same denomination, wrote largely on kindred subjects, preached incessantly, were pre-eminently catholic in spirit, obtained universal fame and honour among the churches of all Evangelical denominations, and died in a good old age like shocks of corn fully ripe. The memories of these fathers in Christ will long be fragrant unto men, for while their ascended spirits, "clothed upon" with life and immortality, are "for ever bathing in the fount of bliss," the noble monuments of genius sanctified which they have reared and left behind, will remain, the blessing and the joy of countless generations yet to live.

To the multiplied events of such a life as that of William Jay, unusually extended in duration and remarkably abundant in labour, it is impossible in these pages to do other than very scanty justice. The tiny babe, on whose lips hereafter thronging multitudes were to hang with rapture and be divinely instructed, first saw the light in the obscure village of Tisbury, in Wiltshire, on the 1st of May, 1769. On the same day was born the late Duke of Wellington, and, in the same year, Napoleon Bonaparte and Sir Walter Scott. Mr. Jay's parents were in humble life, and he himself, in the days of his boyhood, helped to earn his bread by manual labour. Cornelius Winter, of Marlborough, in the course of his ministerial labours in the neighbourhood, visited Tisbury and met with the lad. Struck with his early piety, and the intelligence which beamed from his ruddy, vigorous countenance, he became interested in him, and at length proposed that he should come and live under his care, with a view to preparation for the ministry. After deliberation and some difficulties, the way appeared to be open, and from that time Cornelius Winter was William Jay's beloved tutor and friend. It is generally known that Mr. Jay subsequently wrote the biography of Mr. Winter, which, it may be observed in passing, contains certain letters of

that amiable and excellent man, giving the best account by far that has ever appeared, of the private deportment and the general preaching of George Whitfield, with whom Mr. Winter's earliest years were spent in the Tabernacle House, in a somewhat equivocal capacity; going on errands, copying letters, and performing a number of minor offices, such as a son does for a father.

Before Mr. Jay became a man, he was deservedly celebrated as a preacher of the gospel. He was generally known as "the boy preacher"; and no wonder, for he had actually preached nearly one thousand sermons before he was of age. On this circumstance Mr. Jay has remarked in one of his numerous publications:-"Now I do not boast of this; yea, I should rather reflect upon it, had it been the result of my own forwardness. But I was under a tutor whose authority I was bound not to dispute, but to obey." It would seem, however, that, although Mr. Winter not only encouraged but commanded this early appearance in the pulpit, he was fully aware of the danger with which it was attended. With much trembling anxiety he regarded his young charge, when he was honoured with an invitation from Rowland Hill to preach in Surrey Chapel, for on July 29, 1788, with a mind but half relieved, he thus writes: "If you really have performed your appointment for Mr. Hill, I would advise you to attend to no further invitations, but leave London immediately. Come into the country to pray and reflect." And again, Sept. 1788: "I bless myself in my heart, that you are out of London." And yet once more, Nov. 21, 1789: "What a noise you have made in the world! Show that you can be popular without being proud." Mr. Jay would seem to have left Mr. Winter in his 19th year, and it is most gratifying to find that he was singularly preserved from the dangers to which a premature popularity must necessarily have exposed him. That popularity, indeed, was not a bane without its antidote. It was so well merited as to have attracted admirers above and beyond the

mere mob of prodigy-hunters; bringing many men of high education and mature Christian character, who well knew how to season their applause with discrimination, and had the sense and consideration to repay with good counsel the pleasure which had been afforded them. Among these, besides many others, were William Wilberforce and the Rev. John Newton-both of whom were among his admirers, and, what was far better, his friends and advisers.

Upon quitting Mr. Winter's happy hearth, Mr. Jay wisely deemed himself too young to accept the pastoral office. He, therefore, as he tells us, chose a retired village, where he had preached frequently while a student, to enjoy retreat and to pursue his improvement. Income he looked not after, provided that his personal wants were supplied. His fixed salary was thirty-five pounds a-year, with board in a private family. Being popular, however, he was frequently drawn forth to supply the neigh bouring churches; and being but ill supplied with books, the design of his retirement was in a great degree frustrated.

At this time, he met with Lady Maxwell, who engaged him to officiate in her chapel at the Hotwells. There he was for nearly a year, with cheering proofs of acceptance and usefulness. The place was crowded; and he was pressed by Her Ladyship to take the oversight of the congregation; but, having preached in Bath before and during the illness of his predecessor there, the Rev. Thomas Tuppen, a learned and popular preacher of that day-who, with his dying breath, recommended him to succeed him-he received an invitation also to settle in Argyle Chapel. For a time he was perplexed; but, while deliberating on these proposals, circumstances arose which immediately determined his movement towards Bath. "The step," he says, was an event of unmistakable importance; but it was instantly followed by a conviction that I was where I ought to be; and this conviction never for a moment wavered. Disregarding, therefore, all subsequent offers to change my situation-and some