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permitted to return from Babylon to Jerusalem with a company of his people, 458 B.C. He settled the canon of Scripture, restoring and editing the whole of the Old Testament.

The Apocrypha (secret writings) consist chiefly of the stories of To'bit and Judith, the first and second books of Esdras and of the Maccabees, Ba'ruch, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach. Composed during the three centuries immediately preceding the Christian Era, they bear internal evidence, in their lack of the ancient poetical power, of belonging to an age of literary decline. They were mostly included in the canon of Scripture by the Council of Trent in 1545, but are rejected by Protestants as uninspired.

Ecclesiasticus, best of the Apocryphal books, is full of moral, political, and religious precepts, its object being to teach true wisdom and its style resembling the didactic poetry of Solomon. The following fine passage, versified by Lowth, personifies

WISDOM.

"Wisdom shall raise her loud exulting voice,
And midst her people glory and rejoice;
Oft the Almighty's awful presence near,
Her dulcet sounds angelic choirs shall hear.

Me before time itself He gave to-day,
Nor shall my spirit faint or feel decay;

I bowed before Him in His hallowed shrine,

And Sion's pride and Sion's strength was mine.
Did I not tall as those fair cedars grow,

Which grace our Lebanon's exalted brow?

Did I not lofty as the cypress rise,

Which seems from Hermon's heights to meet the skies?

Fresh as Engaddi's palm that scents the air,

Like rose of Jericho, so sweet, so fair;

Green as the verdant olive of the groves,

Straight as the plane-tree which the streamlet loves,

Richer than vineyards rise my sacred bowers,

Sweeter than roses bloom my vernal flowers;
Fair love is mine, and hope, and gentle fear;
Me science hallows, as a parent dear.

Come, who aspire beneath my shade to live;
Come, all my fragrance, all my fruits receive!
Sweeter than honey are the strains I sing,
Sweeter than honey-comb the dower I bring;
Me, taste who will, shall feel increased desire,
Who drinks shall still my flowing cups require;
He whose firm heart my precepts still obeys,
With safety walks through life's perplexing maze;
Who cautious follows where my footsteps lead,
No cares shall feel, no mighty terrors dread.

Small was my stream when first I rolled along,
In clear meanders Eden's vales among;
With fresh'ning draughts each tender plant I fed,
And bade each flow'ret raise its blushing head;
But soon my torrent o'er its margin rose,
Where late a brook, behold an ocean flows!
For Wisdom's blessings shall o'er earth extend,
Blessings that know no bound, that know no end."

The Talmud. Our treatise would be incomplete without some notice of the mysterious book whose name heads this paragraph, the Talmud. Comparatively unknown except in name for centuries, it was repeatedly suppressed in the Dark Ages by popes, kings, and emperors, as likely to be dangerous to Christianity.

Talmud means learning. It is essentially a digest of law, civil and criminal, and a collection of traditions orally preserved. It consists of two parts, viz., the Mishna, or earlier text; and the Gemara (ghe-mah'ră), a commentary on the Mishna. The age that gave birth to the Talmud was the period after the Captivity, when a passionate love for their sacred and national writings animated the Jews restored to their country and its institutions. Hundreds of learned men, all great in their day, who treasured in their memories the traditions of a thousand years, contributed to its pages.

The Talmud was a cyclopædia treating of every subject, even down to gardening and the manual arts; it depicts incidentally the social life of the people, not of the Jews alone, but of other nations also. It is enlivened by parables, jests,

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and fairy-tales, ethical sayings, and proverbs; the style is now poetical, anon sublime; and there may be gathered amid its wilderness of themes " some of the richest and most precious fruits of human thought and fancy."

After two unsuccessful attempts, the Talmud was finally systemized in a code by the Saint Jehuda (about 200 A.D.). A remarkable correspondence exists between it and the Gospel writings, explained by the fact that both reflect in a measure the same times.

EXTRACTS FROM THE TALMUD.

"Turn the Bible and turn it again, for everything is in it.

Bless God for the evil as well as the good. When you hear of a death, say 'Blessed is the righteous Judge!

Even when the gates of heaven are shut to prayer, they are open

to tears.

When the righteous die, it is the earth that loses. The lost jewel will always be a jewel, but the possessor who has lost it-well may he weep.

Life is a passing shadow, says the Scripture. Is it the shadow of a tower, of a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the shadow of a bird in his flight; away flies the bird, and there is neither bird nor shadow.

Teach thy tongue to say, 'I do not know.'

If a word spoken in its time is worth one piece of money, silence in its time is worth two.

The ass complains of the cold even in July.

Four shall not enter Paradise: the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite, and the slanderer. To slander is to murder.

The camel wanted to have horns, and they took away his ears. Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend: be discreet.

The soldiers fight, and the kings are heroes.

Love your wife like yourself, honor her more than yourself. Whoso lives unmarried, lives without joy, without comfort, without blessing. He who forsakes the love of his youth, God's altar weeps for him. It is woman alone through whom God's blessings are vouchsafed to a house. She teaches the children, speeds the husband to the place of worship, welcomes him when he returns, keeps the house godly and pure, and God's blessings rest upon all these things. He who marries for money, his children shall be a curse to him.

Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts their tears.

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The world is saved by the breath of school-children.

When the thief has no opportunity of stealing, he considers him self an honest man. The thief invokes God while he breaks into the house.

Get your living by skinuing carcasses in the street, if you cannot otherwise; and do not say, 'I am a great man, this work would not befit my dignity.' Not the place honors the man, but the man the place.

Youth is a garland of roses; age is a crown of thorns.

The day is short and the work is great. It is not incumbent upon thee to complete the work: but thou must not therefore cease from it. If thou hast worked much, great shall be thy reward; for the Master who employed thee is faithful in his payment. But know that the true reward is not of this world.”—DEUTSCH.

RETURNING THE JEWELS.

"Rabbi Meir, the great teacher, was sitting on the Sabbath-day and instructing the people in the Synagogue. In the meantime, his two sons died; they were both fine of growth and enlightened in the law. His wife carried them into the attic, laid them on the bed, and spread a white cloth over their dead bodies.

In the evening, Rabbi Meir came home. 'Where are my sons,' inquired he, that I may give them my blessing?'-'They went to the Synagogue,' was the reply.-'I looked round,' returned he, ‘and did not perceive them.'

She reached him a cup; he praised the Lord at the close of the Sabbath, drank, and asked again, 'Where are my sons, that they also may drink of the wine of blessing"-"They cannot be far off,' said she, and set before him something to eat. When he had given thanks after the repast, she said: 'Rabbi, grant me a request.'— 'Speak, my love! answered he.

'A few days ago, a person gave me some jewels to take care of, and now he asks for them again; shall I give them back to him?''This my wife should not need to ask,' said Rabbi Meir. 'Wouldst thou hesitate to return every one his own?'-'Oh! no,' replied she, 'but I would not return them without thy knowledge.'

Soon after she led him to the attic, approached, and took the cloth off the dead bodies. 'Oh! my sons!' exclaimed the father sorrowfully, My sons!' She turned away and wept.

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At length she took his hand, and said: 'Rabbi, hast thou not taught me that we must not refuse to return that which hath been Intrusted to our care? Behold, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; praised be the name of the Lord.'

The name of the Lord be praised!' rejoined Rabbi Meir. 'It is well said: He who bath a virtuous wife hath a greater treasure than

EXTRACTS FROM THE TALMUD.

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costly pearls. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.""

THE PAINTED FLOWERS.

"The power of Solomon had spread his wisdom to the remotest parts of the known world. Queen Sheba, attracted by the splendor of his reputation, visited this poetical king at his own court. There, one day, to exercise the sagacity of the monarch, Sheba presented herself at the foot of the throne: in each hand she held a wreath; the one was composed of natural, and the other of artificial flowers. Art, in constructing the mimetic wreath, had exquisitely emulated the lively hues of nature; so that, at the distance it was held by the queen for the inspection of the king, it was deemed impossible for him to decide, as her question required, which wreath was the production of nature, and which the work of art.

The sagacious Solomon seemed perplexed; yet to be vanquished, though in a trifle, by a trifling woman, irritated his pride. The son of David, he who had written treatises on the vegetable productions 'from the cedar to the hyssop,' to acknowledge himself outwitted by a woman, with shreds of paper and glazed paintings! The honor of the monarch's reputation for divine sagacity seemed diminished, and the whole Jewish court looked solemn and melancholy.

At length an expedient presented itself to the king; and one, it must be confessed, worthy of the naturalist. Observing a cluster of bees hovering about a window, he commanded that it should be opened. It was opened; the bees rushed into the court, and alighted immediately on one of the wreaths, while not a single one fixed on the other. The baffled Sheba had one more reason to be astonished at the wisdom of Solomon."-D'ISRAELI.

NOTES ON WRITING, EDUCATION, ETC., AMONG THE HEBREWS.

The art of writing practised by the Hebrews at a very remote period. In primitive times, records of important events cut in stone; the letters sometimes filled with plaster or melted lead. Engraving also practised with the stylus on rough tablets of boxwood, earthenware, or bone. Leather early employed; the Law written on skins (of "clean animals or birds") in golden characters. The skins rolled round one or two wooden cylinders, the scroll then tied with a thread and sealed. Parchment written on with reed pens, which, together with a knife for sharpening them and an ink of lamp-black dissolved in gall-juice, were carried in an inkhorn suspended from the girdle. Letter-writing in vogue from the time of David.

Many ancient Jewish cities far advanced in art and literature. Reading and

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