was one great type in a certain sense; but there are particular reasons for giving David's name a prominent place in connection with it. The promise of the throne to Judah found its first realization in the person of David. The throne of Judah was therefore by a figure his throne, and that not only because he was its first founder, but because he was the head of a race of kings, none of whom (except Solomon) equalled him in personal greatness. In his relations to the Church, he stood higher than even Solomon, as the initiator of the building of the temple, and of the remodelling of the liturgical system of the nation, and also as the author of so many of the Psalms, including some that were pre-eminently prophetic. Not one of all the kings was so great as David in his life. He had been a shepherd, a character of no mean importance, as is shewn by the frequent designation of the Lord as a shepherd. He had been personally distinguished as a brave and successful warrior; he had triumphed over extraordinary difficulties; he had raised his nation to a position in which it commanded the respect of surrounding nations; he had extended the national territory, and ruled from Damascus to the Elanitic Gulf, and from the Elanitic Gulf to the river of Egypt. On all accounts, no one bore so great a name as he, and in after-times of misfortune it was natural that memory should revert to him, while hope looked forward to the advent of another David who should restore what had fallen down, and perfect what had been begun. Prophecy affirmed that another such would come, and it is no wonder if to him they gave the name of David, the best and dearest name they knew among their kings. Of Him the angel said, "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David" (Luke i. 32). It may possibly help to clear the difficulty in regard to the symbolic or typical allusions to David in his relations to Christ, if the reader will calmly examine every passage in the New Testament in which David's name occurs. So far as we can ascertain, it is not upon these that the truly typical character of David rests; nor is it upon any statements made of him in the historical books; it rests upon the symbolic language of the prophets, and upon the supposed impersonation of Christ by David in certain Psalms. We confess that we are loth to think David a personal type of Christ in the broadest sense; for if so his life must have been a prophecy in action, and every part of it as much inspired of God, as any written prophecy: or if this view is objected to, we may say that David, as a type from first to last, was as much passive as any of the ritual or sacrificial types of the law; and to such a conclusion we can never come. High as David stood and stands, he was as much responsible as we are, and was actuated by the same motives and influenced by the same things. That in which a typical character may be conceded to him is that which he peculiarly owed to the providence and grace of God; but he became symbolical even more than he was typical. We conclude with the apostle that David spoke concerning Christ, and that Christ would descend from him, and rule in the throne of which his was a shadow, but that after all David is "dead and buried," whereas He who rose and reigns is Christ. Q. The Emir's Wife.--On arriving at Abd-el-Kader's house, our party separated, the gentlemen to be presented to the Emir, whilst we, passing through a small side door, were met by a young man, Abd-el-Kader's second son, who introduced us into the harem court. Like those we had seen, it was filled with flowers, orange trees, and fountains. Our attendant had disappeared, but on the opposite side of the garden we saw a melancholy middle-aged lady, attended by a black woman, who approached to meet us. This was the Emir's chief wife. She motioned us to enter the audience hall, and seated us on the divan by her side. In her youth she must have been handsome, as her features were still fine, the eyes remarkably so; but now the whole countenance was saddened by an expression of the deepest melancholy, as if for years she had been the prey to some great grief. Her complexion was delicate and quite free from paint, the eyebrows, being left untouched, and the eyes only tinged with antimony. The face was in a few places slightly tattoed; the forehead, sides of the nose, and chin, having a small pattern traced in blue. The arms were much more fully covered, being tattooed from the wrist to the elbow, and loaded with gold bracelets; the hands were remarkably small and well shaped, and the fingers unstained with henna. A thick gauze handkerchief, embroidered with gold, was rolled round her head, over which was thrown a large muslin veil, falling down to her feet. The dress consisted of a number of coloured muslin petticoats, the upper one being of very fine white embroidered muslin. She was without shoes, but wore coarse cotton stockings. Probably it was owing to her long residence in France that she had adopted the Frank custom of sitting instead of reclining on the divan in the Eastern fashion. A pretty little child came into the room, whom she took in her arms and caressed with great apparent affection. At first her manner was cold and reserved, as if she thought we had only come to look at her; but after a time she grew friendly, and took more interest in the conversation. She told us she had been four years in Toulon, and disliked it very much, as the Emir never allowed her to go out, and the climate disagreed with her. Her condition as to freedom is no better here, for her husband never permits her to go beyond the court, nor to receive visits from any of the Damascus ladies, whom he pronounces to be very bad people. At last the real grievance was told; her husband, since he has been in Damascus, had married three other wives-one as lately as a few months ago, whom he had bought at Constantinople. She lamented in moving terms the loss of her husband's affection; and when we ventured to offer some consolation, and to hope that his love might yet be restored to her, who had shared with him so many years of trouble, she shook her head, and with tears in her eyes, said, "Allah is great! He may do it, but no one else can." The whole conversation gave us a painful insight into the sorrows and trials of harem life. To any woman possessed of mind or feelings it must be dreadful beyond endurance; and one feels that until some of its great evils are remedied-education, far from being a blessing to these poor creatures, would only make them more fully alive to the degradation of their condition. SELECTIONS FROM THE SYRIAC. No. I. THE CHRONICLE OF EDESSA. SOME of the early Christian writers refer in very eulogistic terms to the archives of Edessa. The archives were, of course, the public or royal library of the city, the existence and value of which cannot be called in question. It included both Greek and Oriental books, and was therefore a depository from which literary men could largely benefit. Moses of Chorene consulted the books while compiling his history of Armenia. Eusebius of Cæsarea declares himself to have been indebted to this library for his account of the conversion of Edessa, the correspondence between Jesus Christ and king Abgar, and a few other matters true and false, to be read at the end of the first book of the ecclesiastical history. We have substantial reasons for saying that in the particular instance first mentioned, Eusebius was deceived; that the documents he quoted could not have been long written, as appears from further portions of the same story now in the British Museum, under the title of the Acts of Addi.a The estimation in which the Edessene archives were held, is shewn by the following sentence from an old Syriac chronicle, some extracts of which are given in Cowper's Syrian Miscellanies:-"In the year 309 of the era of Alexander of Macedon did our Redeemer appear in the world (i. e., about B.C. 2); and he was in the world thirty-three years according to the evidence of the true books of the archives of Edessa, which err in nothing, and which make everything known to us truly." This is something like the stereotyped phraseology for allusions to the historical documents at Edessa. The Maronite, Joseph Simon Assemani, devotes a chapter of his great work, the Bibliotheca Orientalis, to the "Chronicle of Edessa." He gives the Syriac text of the Chronicle, with a Latin translation, introduction, and notes. Considering that the matter is of some importance, we propose to give a version of Assemani's introduction, and of the Chronicle itself. The introduction is to the following effect: The Chronicle of Edessa. We have hitherto not discovered who was the author of the Edessene Chronicle, nor in what age he flourished. Yet it is a For an account of these curious relics see J. S. L., Third Series, Vol. VII., p. 423, for July, 1858. Syrian Miscellanies, p. 81. • Bibliotheca Orientalis, vol. i., cap. ix., p. 387, et seqq. sufficiently plain that he followed the Catholic faith, because he declares that he admits four holy councils down to the year 838 of the Greeks, and also because he expressly rejects the opposers of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, strongly commending their orthodoxy, which was a most certain mark of the Catholics of the time in which he lived. He seems, indeed, to have lived about the year of Christ 550, for he brought down his history to the year 540, as will shortly appear. That he copied it out of the archives of the Edesscne church is shewn by its beginning, course, and end. In the beginning of the history he describes the flood of waters which overflowed Edessa under the emperor Severus and king Abgar, according to the acts formerly drawn up by the notaries, and preserved in the archives, and put by us into their proper place. Moreover, the author is almost wholly occupied in registering the series of bishops of Edessa, and in describing their deeds. He leaves off writing just when the Jacobite pastors began to invade that church. The epoch which he uses is that of the Greeks, also called that of the Seleucidæ, or the Syro-Macedonian. He affirms that the Christian era was later by 309 years, according to the common opinion of the Edessenes. But if we look closely into the indictions which he sometimes mentions, and the days of the month and of the week, which he often mentions, it becomes evident that the aforesaid years are called 309, but are really 311; and, therefore, the nativity of Christ, according to his view, fell in the three hundred and eleventh year of the Greeks, and not in the three hundred and ninth. That is plainly the case from what he writes of the earthquake at Antioch, and the death of Simeon Stylites, who he affirms was taken to heaven in the year 771 of the Greeks, on the second of September, and on the fourth day of the week, which answers to the vulgar era A.D. 460, not 462. He relates that the earthquake at Antioch happened in the year 837 of the Greeks, on the 29th of May, and on the sixth day of the week, which will be A.D. 526, when May 29th fell on the Friday, not A.D. 528, when it could not happen on a Friday. To the year of the Greeks 850 he also adds the "second indiction," which nevertheless answers to 539 A.D., and not to 541. Therefore the vulgar Christian epoch, according to his view, must be later than the era of the Greeks 311 years, and not 309. He starts at the beginning of the kingdom of Edessa, which he ascribes to the year 180 of the Greeks. He ends at the year of Christ 540, when the Persian war was waged between Justinian and Chosroes. Although he sometimes neglects the order of time or disturbs it, I think this is to be attributed rather to the copyist than to the author. In publishing it, therefore, I shall first restore the events to their own place and order. Some notes which seem to throw light upon it or other histories I shall place in the margin. The Chronicle is intitled A history of events by way of compendium. [Translation.] 1. In the year 180 kings began to rule in Edessa. 2. In the year 266 Augustus Cæsar was made emperor. 4. In the year 400 Abgar the king built a mausoleum for himself. 5. In the year 449 Marcion forsook the Catholic Church. 6. The year 465, in the month Tammuz, on the eleventh day (i. e., July 11th, 154 A.D.), Bardesanes was born. 7. Lucius Cæsar, with his brother, subjugated the Parthians to the Romans in the fifth year of his reign. 8. In the year 513, in the reign of Severus, and in the reign of Abgar the king, son of Maano the king, in the month Tishrin the latter (i. e., November), the fountain of water which proceeds from the great palace of Abgar the great king increased, and it prevailed, and it went up according to its former manner, and overflowed and ran out on all sides, so that the courts and the porches and the royal houses began to be filled with water. And when our lord Abgar the king saw it, he went up to the level ground on the hill above his palace, where dwell and reside those who do the work for the government. And while the wise men considered what to do to the waters which had so greatly increased, it happened that there was a great and violent rain in the night, and the Daisan (river) came, neither in its day, nor in its month. And strange waters came; and they encountered the cataracts (? flood gates) which were fastened with great pieces of iron which were overlaid upon them, and with bars of iron which supported them. But not prevailing against them, the waters rose like a great sea beyond the walls of the city. And the waters began to come down from the apertures of the wall into the city. And Abgar the king stood on the great tower which was called that of the Persians, and saw the water by the light of torches, and he commanded, and they took away the gates and the eight cataracts (? flood-gates) of the western wall of the city where the river flowed out. But that very hour the waters broke down the western wall of the city, and entered the city, and overthrew the great and beautiful palace of our lord the king, and they carried away everything that was found before them, the desirable and beautiful edifices of the city, whatever |