tomb are a series of shelves, and here the bodies, in their silken shrouds, are reverently laid. The general belief in the sanctity of graves protects them from all violation, although they often contain property of great value. There is an idea that the things which the dead prized in their lives may still be of some value to them; and a touching instance of this feeling was given at the burial of a bright boy of high birth, who died soon after the first mission schools were founded in the capital. In his tomb were deposited his slates, pencils, and schoolbooks, together with other articles that he had held dear.

The Brazilians, who are passionately fond of dress, generally bury the dead in their

IN

best clothes, and even enforce etiquette on the unconscious clay. A married woman, after death, is arrayed in black, with a black veil; her arms are folded, and her hands rest on their opposite elbows. A maiden lady is dressed in bride-like garb, wears a wreath of white flowers, and has her hands laid palm to palm, with palm-branches between them. Little children are decked out as friars, nuns, saints, and angels, Michael the Archangel being frequently personated. He is habited in a tunic and belt, a golden helmet and tight red boots; and his right hand rests on the hilt of his sword. Girls are dressed up sometimes as Madonnas, and if false tresses, rouge, or pearl-powder are required, the undertaker supplies them.

IN Palestine snow is not the characteristic feature of winter as it is in northern latitudes. It is merely an occasional phenomenon. Showers of it fall now and then in severer seasons on the loftier parts of the land, and whiten for a day or two the vineyards and corn-fields, but it melts from the green earth as rapidly as its sister vapours vanish from the blue sky. The snowy peak of Hermon, the true scene of the Transfiguration, is indeed seen from every elevated point of view-a perpetual vision of winter clothed in raiment whiter than any fuller on earth can whiten it; but this snow-spectre stands spell-bound as it were on the northern threshold of the land, gazing over the smiling summer landscapes, but unable to descend among them, or even chill them with its breath. But the Psalmist seized the occasional snow, as he seized the fleeting vapour, and made it a text for his spiritual meditations. Let us follow his example and make the snow which appears oftener and remains a longer time with us, lying like a dreary white shroud over the face of nature, the subject of a few timely reflections, and the means of leading our thoughts to things higher and more enduring than itself. Let us write on its fair, white surface the name of God in letters which he who runs may read.

1. Let us look first at its beauty. Every eye can appreciate the stainless purity, the delicate softness of the snow. It makes a spiritual world of this dull, dark earth of ours; and the fields that seemed fit only for the growth of man's food, and the tread of

weary feet in the common labours of lifecovered with its white immaculate carpetseem like a celestial floor on which whitewinged angels on lofty errands of mercy might alight from the kindred heavens. How softly rounded and graceful are its curves as it covers some old wayside wall, or is drifted into wreaths over the common! How picturesque are the forms into which it moulds the outlines of trees and shrubs! Have you ever entered a wood after a snow-storm? If so, you have been admitted into a scene of enchantment, at whose threshold you stand in awe and astonishment. It is a transformation-scene in which familiar objects become unreal as shapes in a dream, presenting an appearance similar to the white Liliputian forest into which the microscope changes a bit of fungus mould. It looks like a newlyformed world on the morning of creation before the sun had arisen to cast over it a prismatic radiance and baptize it with colour. What a look of sublimity does the snow impart to the mountain peak, raising it high above all human changes, into a realm of serene, passionless repose, reflecting the light of the great white Throne of which it seems the very footstool! The line of mountain snow on the blue verge of the horizon is the most exquisite of all sculpture. It yields to the eye and mind the purest and most refined enjoyment. From the stainless surface of that Alpine snow comes back the crimson splendour of the sunrise and sunset, like molten gold in the heart of a furnace

the highest earthly of the landscape thus

purified into and mingling with the heavenly. Even into the dreary prosaic city the snow enters and transfigures it; the houses become like Aladdin's palace; every cart-rut is fringed with jewels; and over smoke-begrimed railing and miry street is spread the spotless ermine of heaven's investiture.

nence.

How significant is the white of the snow! The hue of water in violent agitation-of the foaming cascade and the raging surf-belongs to vapour frozen into calmest permaExtremes meet; and the water, that on the one side purifies itself by motion, on the other side purifies itself by rest: symbol of the frequently opposite modes of discipline by which God carries on the work of sanctification in the soul. Out of white all the colours spring, and to it they return. All summer hues are gathered back into the uniform radiance of the snow, and we retreat from a world of life and beauty to a world of death and beauty. Nature's coat of many colours gives place to the white raiment with which we clothe the infant in its innocence, the bride in her purity, and the dead in their rest. Washed by the waves of the world, and refined by the fires of God, the landscape, like a gigantic lily, unfolds its white petals to the sun, and reflects the light in all its integrity and chastity; and then, clothed in the vestal humility of winter, it is prepared for the many-hued splendours of

summer.

But it is to the eye that searches into the heart of things that the snow reveals its most wonderful beauty, for it is of that truest kind which bears the closest inspection. Take one of the myriad snow-flakes which obscure the atmosphere as they fall, and put it under the microscope. It melts almost instantly, but not before you have caught a glimpse of loveliness that astonishes you. It is a perfect crystal, consisting of six rays spreading in the most symmetrical manner from the centre, and often provided with smaller branching

rays.

Formless and uniform as a wreath of snow looks, it is composed of myriads of such crystals, whose shapes are so exquisite that the eye is never weary of looking at them. Their variety is most wonderful. Thirty different kinds may be observed during any of our own snow-storms; while in high northern latitudes, upwards of a hundred varieties have been delineated that looked as if designed from a kaleidoscope, yet all based upon the simple plan of the six-rayed star. We see in these minute crystals of the storm the sign of the cross, which is impressed upon the whole of nature,

and enters in some form or other into all our art and science and literature-thus linking our religious life with all our ordinary thoughts and labours. When the first command was issued, "Let there be light," that subtle power shot forth into the primeval darkness in the form of an infinitude of crosses, and arranged the chaos of the world into this shape throughout the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Water freezes and flowers blossom into the form of the cross, and man himself, the crown or creation, assumes it in every outspreading of his hands in prayer. And thus all creation by wearing this sacred symbol upon its bosom testifies of Him who is the true light of the world, who formed the world to be the theatre of redemption, and by the power of His cross brings order out of its confusion and life out of its death.

The snow-crystals are the blossoms of inorganic nature. According to the beautiful system of prefiguration which prevents all abrupt beginnings in nature, and sounds a herald voice of coming glory; the snowflowers which winter grows in such boundless and careless profusion, foretell by the symmetry of their forms, the blossoms of summer. They seem, indeed, like the ghosts of the departed flowers; the models of the spirit-world after the pattern of which the snow-drop and the lily and the Star of Bethlehem are constructed. They look as if their translucent spiritual beauty needed only the Promethean fire to glow into the rosy life of June. A wreath of snow is thus, indeed, a bank of flowers; and we little think, when walking over its cold and barren surface, that we are treading down at every step a tiny garden. I know of no purer intellectual joy than that of gazing through the microscope upon these miracles of loveliness; and it is a careless mind indeed that is not impelled to ask whence came these figures so exquisite and yet so frail and fleeting, so full of wonder and yet so long unknown, and still so little recognised by thousands who tread them under foot. Their beauty is not a chance endowment. It is God's hall-mark attesting that the work is His. It is the quality that is superadded to everything that God has made-to the moulding of the fleeting vapour into the sunset cloud, and the unfolding of the brilliant, fragrant flower from the summer sod

in order that our thoughts may be raised from the perishing loveliness of the creature to the enduring glory of the Creator, from the beauty of nature to the beauty of

holiness. Such beauty is a reflection of the Divine image-not something that God does, but something that He is, really and suitably a part of Himself. All true beauty is something higher than creation and independent of it, something that God has not made, an attribute as much linked with our conceptions of Him as His wisdom and justice. It awakens that curiosity about God, which is an essential element of worship.

No rightly constituted mind can behold the wealth of beauty in the snow-flowers without being awed and humbled. We see in the fair structure of these inorganic blossoms, as well as in every lovely thing in nature, the transcript of the Divine image originally impressed upon our own souls; and while these fleeting crystals of vapour perfectly obey the laws of their formation,

and exhibit the original beauty stamped upon the first snow-flake, we have perverted our nature and made ourselves unworthy of a world which God has made so fair for us. We stand between two systems, each of which reminds us that we, and we alone, have introduced confusion and defilement into the works of God. The pure snowcovered fields of winter beneath our feet and the pure angel-tenanted starry heavens above our heads, alike typify that we are not in harmony with God's creation. But while there is this wholesome humiliation in the sight of nature's beauty, there is inspiration in it also. Although we have lost the Divine image, it can be restored, and we can be brought again into accordance with the beautiful harmony of the world. As wonderful a transformation can be wrought by the

THE

HE name Bechuana or Bachuana, or, as latterly written, Bechwana or Bachwana, includes all the tribes speaking the Sechuana language.. There have been various opinions as to its origin. Ba or Be is a personal pronoun, when the adverb chwana is applied to persons, and thus according to some, they are alike, or the same kind of people. Others have supposed that the name is derived from nchu, black, the diminutive of which would be chwana, meaning a little black, and applied to a person, Mochwana, one dark coloured-not black. Mo is the prefix to the singular number, and Ba to the plural when persons are spoken of. All the tribes have the prefix Ba, whatever be the name by which they are distinguished. Some are named after certain animals, from which it has been supposed that at some distant period they were addicted to the worship of animals, like the ancient Egyptians. For example, we have the Batlhapi, the tribe to which the Gospel was first sent; Ba-tlhapi, they fish, or of the fish; Ba-khatla, they of the monkey; Bakuena, they of the crocodile; and Batau, they of the lion. When an individual is asked, to what tribe he belongs, sometimes the question will be, What do you dance? The reply will be, kea bina kwena, or whatever the tribe may be. It is said they hate these animals by which they are named, and dread killing them. The Bechuana tribes were first visited by missionaries at the beginning of the present century. Many long years, however, passed over before any important result was attained. They did not want the Gospel-they hardly wanted the missionaries, and sometimes wished to drive them away. The customs and superstitions in which they and their forefathers had been brought up, they did not wish to abandon, for they considered them to be altogether good. Their character, though bad, was no worse than that of other tribes in South Africa. They were brave and proud, displayed a great love of independence, and with all their barbarousness were not without some noble sentiments. But their minds were very dark, and their hearts very cruel and wicked.

The Bechuanas had no idols, no temples, no altars, and had no symbols or signs of any form of heathen worship. No fragments existed among them of former days, as mementos to succeeding generations, that their ancestors ever loved, served, or

A reverenced a being greater than man. profound silence reigned on this subject. It is wonderful, as showing to what depths the human spirit may be degraded, that Bechuanas, Hottentots, and Bushmen, seem to have had every vestige of religious impression erased from their minds, leaving them without a single ray to guide them in the dark and dismal future, or a single link to unite them with the skies. Thus the missionary could make no appeals to them respecting God and immortality, and to other religious ideas which mankind generally in some form entertain. If they had ever had a religion, it had entirely disappeared, like those streams in the wilderness which lose themselves in the sand. To tell even the gravest of them that there was a Creator, the Governor of the heavens and the earth, that man had fallen and had been redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, to speak to them of the resurrection of the dead, of immortality and eternal life, was to address them on matters which appeared more fabulous and extraordinary than many of their own extravagant stories about lions, hyenas, and jackals. The influence of "the rain-maker" over the people was exceedingly great; but although they recognised in his agency what they supposed to be a mysterious power, yet this in no sense could be regarded as of the nature of religion.

In their intercourse with other tribes the Bechuanas were vindictive and treacherous. Their expeditions against the Bushmen especially were characterized by intense ferocity and cruelty. They seemed to take a pleasure in slaughter. Many of their wars were mere predatory expeditions, undertaken for the purpose of destroying the villages of their neighbours, of butchering their inhabitants, and of carrying off their cattle. In their persons they were very filthy, and lubricated their bodies with grease and red ochre. Indeed, they could not understand our habits of cleanliness, and were much amused at our putting our legs, feet, and arms into bags, and using buttons for the purpose of fastening bandages around our bodies, instead of suspending them as ornaments from the neck or hair of the head.

A great obstacle to our work was polygamy. Any innovation on this ancient custom was looked upon with extreme suspicion. While war, hunting, watching the cattle, milking the cows, and preparing furs and skins for