sive forehead, the brilliant, prominent eye, and the delicately-shaped ear, would testify to nobleness in any animal: the high withers, and the shoulder well thrown back; the fine, clean limbs, with their bunches of starting muscle; and the silken skin, beneath which all the veins are visible; show proofs of blood that never can deceive.

The choicest horses come from the remoter parts of the desert, and cannot be said to have a price, as nothing but the direst necessity will induce their owners to part with them. There are three great classes recognised, the Kochlani, the Kadischi, and the Atteschi. The first are said to derive their blood from Solomon's stables, the second are of a mixed race, and the third have no claim to gentle breeding.

The Kochlani are, as may be supposed, extremely scarce; but a great deal of their blood is distributed among the nameless breeds; and I never saw an exception to docility, high spirit, and endurance, even among the hacks of Beyrout and Jerusalem. A friend of mine rode his horse from Cairo to Suez, eighty-five miles, in twelve hours; and, resting for twelve more, returned within the following twelve: during these journeys the horse had no refreshment, except a gulp of water once to cool the bit. I have been on the same horse for twenty-four hours on one occasion, and for upwards of thirty on another, without any rest or refreshment, except once, for half an hour, when a few handfuls of barley were the only food. In both these instances the horses never tasted water throughout their journeys.

Some of my young naval friends used to ride the same horses at a gallop almost the whole distance to Djoun and back, about sixty miles, over roads that would appear impossible to an English horse to climb. I only mention these instances as of daily occurrence. The horse of the true Nedjed breed will gallop, they say, one hundred and twenty miles without a thick breath.

Nedjed is a mountainous country in the Hedjaz, not far from Mecca, which possesses the horse in the most perfect form known. The pedigrees of these animals are sometimes worn round their necks; but on such I should be inclined to look with suspicion. In the more remote regions of the desert, where alone the pure blood is to be found, writing is unknown. Oral pedigrees, well borne out by the hieroglyphics of noble blood, that may be read in the outward structure, so eloquent of the power within,— these are the pedigrees most to be relied on.

The mare is far more valued than the horse; as the Bedouin believe that the mother gives character to the race, and deduce the descent of the horse through the female line. The mare is also supposed capable of enduring greater fatigue, and requiring less sustenance.

In all the Arab tales, the horse figures largely in connexion with the human heroes. Thus, Achmed was accounted the most generous man of his time; and it was said that he could refuse nothing to the veriest stranger, except a celebrated horse, which shared his tent and his bread. The Sultan, hearing such report of his generosity, sent one of his officers in disguise to test its truth.

Arrived at Achmed's encampment, the stranger was received with all hospitality; and though it was said that the Arab Chieftain had become impoverished, a splendid banquet of horse-flesh was served up. The next morning, as the guest was departing, his host inquired if there were any means by which he could compensate him for the honour he had conferred upon his tent by accepting its hospitality. "Alas!" said the stranger, “I

have but one request, and that I shrink from asking: my wife is ill; she sickens with desire to possess that noble horse of which all Damascus has heard so much." "Wretched man that I am!" exclaimed the Arab: "I had nothing else to regale you with last night, and I slew him for your repast."

A French officer, who was Ambassador to a Syrian Pasha, observed a very beautiful horse, ridden by a Bedouin, and offered a large sum of money to its poor proprietor: his offer was refused; and the Pasha sent to the Arab, to say the horse must be given to the Frank, his friend. With tears in his eyes, the poor man dismounted from his loved companion, and kissed him on the forehead; then, suddenly exclaiming, "Thou hast been the friend of the free, thou shalt never be the servant of the slave!" he shot him dead.

THE CHRISTIAN FEMALE IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE.*

FROM this saddening picture of heathen darkness, the eye turns with delight to the bright beams of that Gospel which brought life and immortality to light. Here all is harmony and beauty; every relative and social duty is based upon the immutable authority of the Creator, who is the inexhaustible source of love,-deep, pure, and unfeigned. As he is the first supreme object of love, so is he also the author of it in our hearts towards the whole human family. Love is the very badge of the Christian profession, and is made by our blessed Lord the test of our love to him. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one toward another." The Apostles, when enforcing the same doctrine, still make "Jesus Christ and him crucified" the motive, end, and aim of every social duty. Thus they exhort the Christian wife to evidence her love to God by submitting to her own husband "as unto the Lord," and to do so not merely towards a believing partner, but to him also who "obeys not the word;" children are admonished to a dutiful obedience to their parents, as "well-pleasing unto the Lord;" while the very bond-slave is commanded to discharge his duty "heartily as to the Lord.”

From the frequent exhortations addressed by the Apostles to the converted wife of an unbeliever, it would almost seem that the freedom of the divine grace in choosing whom it will-" one of a city, and two of a family"-was more especially exerted in rescuing the weaker vessels from the thraldom of sin, and bringing them into the glorious liberty of the children of God. It appears that some of the early disciples were under the erroneous impression, that their conversion to Christianity released them from the civil and religious obligations contracted in their heathen state. To correct this error, St. Paul, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, chap, vii., verse 27, ordains, that every one shall abide in the state in which the Lord called him, and strongly urges married Christians to continue united to their unbelieving yoke-fellows. To the female disciple he says, "The woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife;" that is, through her instrumentality he is, or may be,

"The Female Disciple of the first three Centuries of the Christian Era: her Trials and her Mission. By Mrs. Henry Smith. London. Longman and Co. 1845."

brought into communion with the church at all events, the strong affection of a Pagan for a Christian wife sanctified or rendered him meet to remain united to her, because his attachment was the best pledge for the faithful discharge of his duties, and of their common care in the education of their offspring, to whom a separation would prove highly injurious. "Else," continues he, "were your children unclean;" they would be Heathens, out of the pale and covenant of God; "but now are they holy," members of the church of Christ, and therefore capable of being received into the congregation of the saints, and admitted to the seal of the covenant, as much as if they were descended from parents who were both believers. Chrysostom, in his nineteenth Homily on Corinthians, remarks on this text, "What harm is there when the duties of piety remain unimpaired, and there are good hopes about the unbeliever, that those already joined should so abide, and not bring in occasions of all sorts of unnecessary warfare? For the question now is, not about those who have never come together, but about those who are already joined. He did not say, 'If any one wish to take an unbelieving wife;' but, If any one hath an unbelieving wife;' which means, if any after marriage, or being married, have received the word of godliness, and then the other party, which had continued in unbelief, still yearn for them to dwell together, let not the marriage be broken off, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife.' And this he said, not to signify that he is holy, but to deliver the woman as completely as possible from her fear, and lead the man to desire the truth.

..If he make no disturbance, remain, saith he; for there is even profit in this; remain and advise, and give counsel and persuade; for no teacher will have such power to convince as a wife.”

"But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart: a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases." Yet, even under such an event, the Apostle reminds the Christian wife that, God having called us to peace, she is bound, as much as in her lies, to maintain a quiet and submissive carriage, and not suffer the difference of religion to be an occasion of strife. He encourages her not to seek the dissolution of such a marriage, but to wait in faith and patience; and to endeavour, by earnest prayer, and a spirit of forbearance and love, to win the soul of her husband. "For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?” The mere possibility of success ought to be sufficient to reconcile us to many trials, and quicken our diligence to bring to a knowledge of the truth all who are connected with us by the bonds of nature or affection.

The Apostle, having laid it down as a fundamental principle of Christianity, that "the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth," proceeds to say, that "if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband; but if her husband is dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord." Having once experienced the misery of being unequally yoked with an unbeliever, let her unite herself only to a disciple of the Saviour. "But," continues St. Paul," she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment," and live unmarried, which is good for the present distress and tribulation to which the followers of Christ were exposed she will be less encumbered about the things of the world, and be more able to devote her time and talents, her soul and body, nay, even life itself, to the cause of her Redeemer.

The second reference to such unequal marriages occurs in 1 Peter iii. 1, 2: "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not the word, they also may, without the word, be won by the

conversation of their wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." Christians were to be, in their life and conversation, a living comment upon the truth of the Gospel, an "epistle known and read of all men ;" so that," without" hearing "the word" preached, the unconverted husband might be won over by the all-powerful persuasive of his wife's consistent conduct. She was not, however, to seek and gain him by any compromise of principle. Her obedience must still be "in the Lord;" nor must she be "afraid with any amazement," and suffer the fear of offending her husband to lead her into sinful compliances with idolatrous rites and practices.

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The allusion made by St. Peter to the purity and chastened modesty which characterized the Christian female, is evidently by way of contrast to the prevailing licentiousness of heathen manners. In truth, it was the spirit of holiness and love, shining so conspicuously in their lives, which rendered the Christian women at once the brightest ornaments and the most powerful advocates of the Gospel. "What women have they among these Christians!" was the admiring exclamation of the heathen philosopher Libanius, who had never conceived the female character capable of such exalted virtues as he saw springing up under the influence of Christian principles. "Matrons and women," says Porphyry, compose their Senate, and rule in the churches, and the priestly order is disposed of according to their pleasure ;" an assertion which, though notoriously without foundation, is a beautiful homage to the pervading influence of the piety of the early female converts. The Emperor Julian, likewise, a bitter enemy to Christianity, bears the same testimony. He reproaches the people of Antioch for permitting their wives to give away everything to the Galileans: "They nourish from your means a parcel of beggars; and thus do they raise the greatest admiration in the minds of men for this godless religion."

"So is it with true Christian hearts;

Their mutual share in Jesu's blood,
An everlasting bond imparts

Of holiest brotherhood."

"O, might we all our lineage prove,
Give and forgive, do good, and love;
By soft endearments and kind strife
Lightening the load of daily life! "

It was the heart-felt spirit of brotherly love which the Christians manifested, not only among themselves, but even toward the Heathens, in every season of sorrow, pestilence, or famine, which, more than any other feature of their religion, struck their pagan contemporaries. "Behold how these Christians love one another!" "This surprised them beyond measure," says Tertullian, "since they are accustomed to hate one another, that one man should be ready to die for another."

Indeed, it is the lovely harmony of the evangelical graces, that adorned the lives of the early believers, which shines as the day-star amid the surrounding gloom. To obtain some insight into the depth of corruption into which the most enlightened portions of the heathen world were plunged, we need only peruse the opening chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and the various passages scattered throughout his letters to the Corinthians, Ephesians, and Colossians, where, after a melancholy catalogue of the prevailing vices of the age, he says to those who are now his "joy and crown of rejoicing," "Such were some of you; but ye are

washed, ye are sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

Ample testimony is borne to their subsequent exemplary lives by the various apologists who were called upon, by the aspersions of the Heathens, to vindicate their character. Among these we would particularly refer to Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, both of whom had been pagan philosophers; Tertullian, Minicius Felix, Origen, and Lactantius.

Justin Martyr, who wrote about the middle of the second century, says, in his famous Apology to the Emperor Trajan, "We, who formerly delighted in adultery, now observe the strictest chastity; we, who used the charms of magic, have devoted ourselves to the true God; we, who valued money and gain above all things, now cast what we have in common, and distribute to every man according to his necessities; we, who hated each other, and refused to associate with those of a different tribe, now familiarly converse together since Christ's coming, and pray for the conversion of those who unjustly hate us."

"Among us," says Athenagoras, "the meanest labourers and old women, though unable to discourse and dispute for the usefulness of their profession, yet demonstrate it by their lives and good works. They do not, indeed, critically weigh their words, and recite elegant orations, but manifest honest and virtuous actions. Being buffeted, they strike not again; nor sue those at law who spoil and plunder them; they give liberally to those who ask, and love their neighbour as themselves."

"We do not deny," says Tertullian, "a pledge left with us; we piously educate orphans, relieve the indigent, and render to no man evil for evil." Clement of Rome, in his epistle to the Corinthians, commends these once most depraved of Grecians for their many virtues: "Who," says he, "did ever live among you, that did not admire your sober and moderate piety, and declare the greatness of your hospitality? You do all things without respect of persons; walking in God's statutes, subject to those who rule you, giving due honour to the Elders. You command men to live soberly and honestly; women to live chastely and holily, loving their husbands, and managing their household affairs with all sobriety. You are humble, not proud; content with the daily bread which God supplies, hearing diligently his word, and enlarged in charity."

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Inquire," says Origen, in his celebrated reply to the attacks of the philosopher Celsus, written about A.D. 246, "Inquire into the lives of some amongst us, compare our former and present mode of life, and you will find in what impieties and impurities men were involved before they embraced our doctrines. But, since they embraced them, how just, grave, moderate, and constant are they become ! Yea, some are so inflamed with the love of purity and goodness, as to abstain even from lawful enjoyments......... We reclaim women from immodesty, quarrelling with, or parting from, their husbands; men from the wild extravagance of the games and theatres ; and restrain youth, who are prone to vice and luxury, by painting not only the vileness of lust, but the punishment reserved for the vicious and dissolute."

Lactantius, who had once been a heathen philosopher, and was Tutor to Constantine the Great, speaks to the same effect: "They are not Christians, but Pagans, who rob by land and commit piracy by sea; who poison their wives for their dowries, or their husbands that they may marry their adulterers; who strangle or expose their infants...and commit other crimes odious to relate."