Читать книгу: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450», страница 7
THE APPLE OF THE DEAD SEA
We made a somewhat singular discovery when travelling among the mountains to the east of the Dead Sea, where the ruins of Ammon Jerash and Ajoloun well repay the labour and fatigue encountered in visiting them. It was a remarkably hot and sultry day. We were scrambling up the mountain through a thick jungle of bushes and low trees, which rises above the east shore of the Dead Sea, when I saw before me a fine plum-tree, loaded with fresh blooming plums. I cried out to my fellow-traveller: 'Now, then, who will arrive first at the plum-tree?' and as he caught a glimpse of so refreshing an object, we both pressed our horses into a gallop, to see which would get the first plum from the branches. We both arrived at the same moment; and, each snatching at a fine ripe plum, put it at once into our mouths, when, on biting it, instead of the cool, delicious juicy fruit which we expected, our mouths were filled with a dry bitter dust, and we sat under the tree upon our horses, sputtering, and hemming, and doing all we could to be relieved of the nauseous taste of this strange fruit. We then perceived, and to my great delight, that we had discovered the famous apple of the Dead Sea, the existence of which has been doubted and canvassed since the days of Strabo and Pliny, who first described it. Many travellers have given descriptions of other vegetable productions which bear analogy to the one described by Pliny; but, up to this time, no one had met with the thing itself, either upon the spot mentioned by the ancient authors or elsewhere.—Curzon's Visits to Monasteries in the Levant.
INVOCATION
Creator of the universal heart
In nature's bosom beating!
Life of all forms, which are but as a part
Of Thee, thy life repeating!
Soul of the earth, thy sanctity impart
Where human souls are meeting!
Bright as the first faint beam in mercy shewn
Unto the barren-sighted,
Where, on the yet unbroken darkness thrown,
A sunny ray hath lighted,
The glory of thy presence streameth down
On us, the world-benighted.
To us the shadow of the earth is given,
And ours the lower cloud;
But though along its pathways tempest-driven,
Our hearts shall not be bowed,
While yet our eyes unto the stars of heaven
We lift, and pray aloud!
Not with the prayers of long ago we pray,
With red raised hand beseeching—
Not with the war-voice of our elder clay,
With the mammoth's bones now bleaching—
Not for the mortal victories of a day,
But—for the Spirit's teaching!
Be Words of Light alone our javelins hurled,
While Truth wings every dart:
Oh, welcome, then, the legions of a world!—
But ours no warrior's part;
The ensigns we would bear are passions furled—
Love, and a child's young heart!
O.
ART-EDUCATION OF CHILDREN
Let us here mention, that we have found the children of the sovereign of Great Britain at nine in the morning at the Museum of Practical Art; and on another occasion, at the same hour, amidst the Elgin marbles—not the only wise hint to the mothers of England to be found in the highest place. Accustom your children to find beauty in goodness, and goodness in beauty.—The Builder.
