;

picturesque, and animated scenery; its verdure is rich particularly at this season you see there the green cornfields, the meadows covered with flowers, and the trees in blossom; scattered over the plain you behold tents pitched, horses, camels, and sheep grazing, and hundreds of men, women, and children, of all nations, and in every variety of costume, strolling about, enjoying the evening breeze. So rich and full of interest is the walk round mount Zion, down to the brook Kedron, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the village of Siloam, to the garden of Gethsemane, and from thence up the mount of Olives, that we cannot look upon it without delight and heartfelt admiration."-Missionary Labours in Jerusalem, p. 93. "As we looked over the precipitous brow of the hill into the valley of Hinnom, which is very deep, and shaded by trees hanging over its sides, we thought how, in other days, the cries of the human victims sacrificed to Moloch must have risen from this valley, now so still and peaceful, to the palaces of Mount Zion; or perhaps only the sound of drums and other instruments drowning the cries of agony, that they might not disturb the mirth of the king. What must Manasseh have felt after his conversion, when he walked along the brow of this hill, and looked down into the valley below? Surely the remembrance of his groves and his idols, with their attendant horrors, and, above all, the thought of his own murdered infants, must have led him the more earnestly to the blood that cleanseth from all sin."-Narrative, P. 151.

&c.

SCRIPTURE NOTICES.

"AND all the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over: the king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over, toward the way of the wilderness."-2 Samuel xv. 23.

"For it shall be, that on the day thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die ."-1 Kings ii. 37. "And Asa destroyed her" (Maachah's) "idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron."-1 Kings xv. 13.

B

"And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest to bring forth out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the grove, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them without Jerusalem, in the fields of Kidron . . . And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves of the children of the people... And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron."2 Kings xxiii. 4, 6, 12.

"And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron . shall be holy unto the Lord . . ."-Jeremiah xxxi. 40. "When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples."--John xviii. 1. (See GETHSEMANE.)

"The deep valley on the east of Jerusalem, (now called the valley of Jehoshaphat,) appears to be mentioned both in the Old and New Testament only under the name of the brook or torrent Kidron. Josephus also gives it only the same name. The prophet Joel, indeed, speaks of a valley of Jehoshaphat, in which God will judge the heathen for their oppression of the Jews; but there seems to be no ground, either in the Scriptures or Josephus, for connecting it with the valley of the Kidron. . . The name Jehoshaphat, however, was already applied to it in the earliest ages of the Christian era; there is, therefore, no good reason why we should not employ this name at the present day.

"Below (the fountain of En-rogel) the valley of Jehoshaphat continues to run SS. W. between the mount of Offence and the hill of Evil Counsel, so called. . .. (The valley afterwards bends off to the south-east, and pursues its way to the Dead Sea.) Below the well . . . it is full of olive and fig trees, and is in most parts ploughed and sown with grain. Further down, it takes the name among the Arabs of 'Monk's Valley,' from the convent of St. Saba situated on it; and still nearer to the Dead Sea it is called 'Fire Valley.' Of this part of the valley Mr. Robinson has the following notice in a subsequent visit. "We came to the deep and almost impassable ravine of the Kidron, coming down by Mâr Saba, and thence called 'Monk's Valley,' but here bearing also the name 'Fire Valley.' At this place it was running in a deep narrow channel between perpendicular walls of rock, as if worn away by the rushing waters between these desolate chalky hills. There was, however, no water in it now; nor had there apparently been any for a long time. It enters the (Dead) Sea (just below the promontory called) Râs-el Feshkhah, the northernmost promontory of the Dead eight hundred or a thousand feet above its

Sea, waters.

No

"The channel of the valley of Jehoshaphat, the brook Kidron of the Scriptures, is nothing more than the dry bed of a wintry torrent, bearing marks of being occasionally swept over by a large volume of water. stream flows here now except during the heavy rains of winter, when the waters descend into it from the neighbouring hills. Yet even in winter there is no constant flow nor is there any evidence that there was anciently more water in it than at present. Like the (valleys) of the desert, the valley probably served of old, as now, only to drain off the waters of the rainy season."-ROBINSON's Researches, vol. i. pp. 396, 401, 402; ii. 249, 250.

"Some surprise has been expressed by travellers at perceiving the channel of the brook Cedron sometimes dry, and at others. overflowed with sudden torrents. Such observations are just, but with reference only to that particular season of the year when they happened to be made; for at the time I was in Jerusalem, there appeared to be a regular stream of water in the channel, the ground having been saturated by the autumnal rains, and it often rushes with great impetuosity. Indeed, the very existence of a bridge over it, appears to be a sufficient indication, that at particular seasons this brook, which is referred to in Scripture, is with difficulty, if at all, fordable. It discharges itself into the Dead Sea. An idea has been entertained that the name Cedron, signifying dark or black, originated from the number of cedar-trees formerly planted on its banks, which overshadowed it; but there exists no proof of this at the

E