The Voice of Prophecy. REV. CHARLES WILLIAMS. "Truth is strange, Stranger than fiction." MAN, richly endowed as he is, has been denied the attribute of prescience. Such a boon would have proved inimical to his peace; its withholdment demands, therefore, acquiescence and gratitude. In the perverseness of his spirit, however, he is often dissatisfied with this negation in his lot, and, were it possible, would impetuously rend ass under the veil which overhangs futurity; but, failing in his efforts, he welcomes every promise to draw it aside, and cast a revealing light on things to come. In this infatuation originated the oracles of antiquity, amounting, it is calculated, to not fewer than three hundred ; among which, that of Apollo at Delphos, and that of Dodona, consecrated to Jupiter, were the most renowned. So great was the charm attendant on their celebrity, that responses were received with implicit confidence, though delivered in the murmurs of a fountain, in the sounds of a brazen kettle, divine origin, are those associated with the history of Tyre, and on these a few illustrative remarks may not be deemed uninteresting or unseasonable. Antiquity speaks indeed of three cities, erected at different periods, which bore a similar designation. Tyre on the continent, called also Palæ-Tyrus, or old Tyre; Tyre, on the island, which, according to Pliny, was little more than half a mile from the continent; and Tyre on the peninsula: but it appears they were actually one, for an artificial isthmus is said to have joined the old and new cities. At the time to which allusion should first be made, PalæTyrus had attained the towering pinnacle of wealth and fame. Every part of the known world wafted treasures to her ports, and people of all languages thronged her streets. Within her boundaries, was the chief seat of the liberal arts -the mart of nations-the vast emporium of the globe. Her merchants were princes; and Tyre, having taught her sons to navigate the mighty deep, and to brave the fury of its storms, stretched forth her radiant sceptre-the empress of the seas. Amid the splendor, luxury, and pride of unsurpassed pros or by the lips of the Pythoness, who, having passed through perity, a holy seer, with ashes on his head, a countenance of the preparatory rites, and inhaled the sacred vapor, arose from her tripod, and with a distracted countenence, with hair erect, with a foaming mouth, and with shrieks and howlings which filled the temple, and shook it to its base, uttered some unconnected words, to be collected by the priests, and pronounced the decisions of inexorable fate. And, strange as it may appear, a similar fascination is still extant. Dupes are found in towns and villages by a wandering tribe, "the sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the pedigree they claim;" while modern seers, unhappily, are in no want of readers for their volumes, or listeners to their harangues. Well may the heart sicken at such proofs of human imbecility. Many are the minds which never rise beyond the infancy of their powers: and not a few are there which make a sudden lapse into a second childhood. There is, however, the consolation, that imposture proves the existence of reality, and that there are "Oracles truer far than oak Or dove or tripod ever spoke';" notwithstanding the preference which prevails for fallacies, and the too common disposition to effect the accordance of what is infallibly true with wild hypotheses. Among the predictions that substantiate their claim to a NO. XII.] noble expression, and a garment of sackcloth cast over a frame of vigorous maturity, went forth, and in tones of authority, and softened by compassion, announced, among indifferent, scornful, and insulting multitudes, the solemn prophecy of Tyre's destruction. At the sounds which fell from his lips the loud laugh often rose; the wit and the mimic made the prophet their sport at many a banquet; to every false prognostication was given the name of Ezekiel and more than one generation passed away, leaving the daring impiety of the Tyrians unvisited, and the true and holy character of Jehovah anavenged. But at length, the sword of justice, slumbering in its scabbard for more than a hundred years, awoke. Nebuchadnezzar, who had been expressly announced, came forth "from the north, with horses, and chariots, and companies, and much people," attacked Palæ-Tyrus, and continued the siege for thirteen years. Availing themselves of their physical superiority over the invader, the Tyrians made their escape by sea; hence their colonies were scattered far and wide, and the city, which was called the daughter of Sidon, became the parent of Carthage. Success was, therefore, to the conqueror only the harbinger of disappointment; he found Tyre stripped of its treasures and almost deserted; and in the furious exasperation of his wrath, he put the remnant of a vast and luxurious population to a cruel and immediate death, and consigned the scene of their departed glory to utter destruction. G. BERGER, Holywell Street, Strand; & S. GILBERT, 26, Paternoster Row. [Price Twopence. ( and " If, however, unlike the fabled phoenix, it was forbidden to rise from its ashes, it was permitted to resemble the father who lives again in his son, for insular, or New Tyre, soon rose to distinction, became a mart of universal merchandize, heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets." Surrounded by a wall, a hundred and fifty❘ feet high, built upon the very extremity of the island, and laved on every side by the ocean's billows, it appeared impregnable. But the revival of power was transient-the semblance of security was delusive, for scarcely had a century elapsed, when Alexander panted to reckon it among his proud possessions. Rushing to the city to slake his burning desires, eagerly as the hunted deer hurries to quaff the cold waters of the lake, he found a spirit of resistance awakened, equal in energy to the ardor of conquest. Never did the collision of human passions enkindle a contest more violent and sanguinary than that which immediately commenced, the heart chills at the recollection of its details, and the hand refuses to present them to the eye. Furiously repelled by a desperate people, the invaders had to contend with exasperated elements. A junction with the main land, rendered necessary by the previous destruction of the isthmus, was almost complete, when a storm arose-the waves dashed with resistless force against the mass-the waters penetrated the strong foundation-and like the sea-girt rock, riven by an earthquake, it sunk at once in the yawning abyss. No sooner was this repaired by the aid of the patriarchs of the vegetable world,-the cedars of Lebanon, "Coeval with the sky-crowned mountain's self," and the military engines placed upon it, hurling arrows, stones, and burning torches on the besieged, while the Cyprian fleet approached the harbor, to the unutterable terror of the Tyrians, than, suddenly, thick and gloomy clouds enwrapt the sky;-every moon-beam was extinguished;-the vessels fastened together were torn asunder with a horrid crash ; and the flotilla, once tremendous and threatening destruction, returned a wreck to the shore. Dispirited by these circumstances, and by unquenchable ( valor, Alexander had almost determined to raise the siege; but a supply of eight thousand men having arrived in compliance with his demand, from Samaria, (then the asylum of all the malcontents in Judea,) he gave fresh energy and horror to the conflict; and at length, amid the shouts and yells of infuriated multitudes, the ocean-sceptre of Tyre was broken-the splendid city was given to the devouring flame -and two thousand victims remaining, when the soldiers B83 were glutted with slaughter, they were transfixed to crosses along the sea-shore. And now, as the traveller seeks for ancient Tyre, he will find its reliques in a miserable spot named Súr. Instead of a magnificent spectacle, enkindling admiration, delight, and astonishment, nothing but the fragments of scattered ruins will meet his view; instead of gay and glittering throngs, he will recognize only a few wretches, plunged into the deepest poverty, who burrow in vaults, and subsist on the produce of; the waters; and strange will be the darkness of his mind, and apathy of his heart, if, as he muses on the contrast, and marks the implements of fishing lying on the solitary cliffs, he does no homage to the prophetic voice which said "Thou shall be built no more-thou shalt be as the top of a rock, thou shalt be a place on which fishers shall dry their nets !". -But another fact must now be remarked. (To be concluded in our next.) Love and Fear. PRESIDENT EDWARDS. GOD hath so constituted things, in his dispensation towards his own people, that when their love decays, and the exercises of it become weak, fear should arise. They need fear then to restrain them from sin, to excite them to care for the good of their souls, and so to stir them up to watchfulness and diligence in religion. But God hath so ordained it, that when love rises, and is in vigorous exercise, then fear should vanish, and be driven away; for then they need it not, having a higher and more excellent principle in exercise to restrain them from sin, and stir them up to duty. No other principles will ever make men conscientious, but one of these two, fear or love: and therefore, if one of these should not pre-, vail as the other decays, God's people when fallen into dead and carnal frames, when love is asleep, would be lamentably exposed indeed. Hence God has wisely ordained, that these two appointed principles of love and fear, should rise and fall, like the two opposite scales of a balance; when one rises, the other sinks. Light and darkness unavoidably succeed each other; if light prevail, so much does darkness cease, and no more; and if light decay, so much does darkness prevail. So it is in the heart of a child of God; if divine love decay and fall asleep and lust prevail, the light and joy of hope goes out, and dark fear arises; and if, on the contrary, divine love prevail, and come into lively exercise, this brings in the lightness of hope, and drives away black lust and fear with it. Love is the spirit of adoption, or the childlike principle; if that slumbers, men fall under fear, 1 which is the spirit of bondage, or the servile principle: and so on the contrary. And if love, or the spirit of adoption, be carried to a great height, it quite drives away all fear, and gives full assurance; "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear." These two opposite principles of lust and holy love, bring fear or hope into the hearts of God's children, just in proportion as they prevail, that is, when left to their own natural influence, without something adventitious or accidental intervening; as the distemper of melancholy, doctrinal ignorance, prejudices of education, wrong instruction, false principles, peculiar temptations, &c. : fear is cast out by the Spirit of God, no other way, than by the prevailing of love; nor is it ever maintained by the Spirit, but when love is asleep. Verses for an Album. LAMB. FRESH clad from heaven in robes of white, A spotless leaf; but thought and care, And time, with heaviest hand of all, And error, gilding worst designs Like speckled snake that strays and slimes; Betrays his path by crooked lines. And vice hath left his ugly blot,And good resolves, a moment hot, Fairly begun-but finished not. And fruitless late remorse doth traceLike Hebrew lore, her backward paceHer irrecoverable race. Disjointed members-sense unknitHuge reams of folly-shreds of wit— Compose the mingled mass of it. My scalded eyes no longer brook Epitaph. PENSEVAL. HERE in a little cave, The prettiest nook of this most grassy vale, Their heads into my little vault and mourn- I am not forgot, A small hoarse stream murmurs close by my And o'er me a green willow Still questioning the air, "Why doth she sleep, Even the very winds Come to my cave and sigh: they often bring O'er my earth; and leaves of violent blue, Fresh is my mossy bed; The frequent pity of the rock falls here, A sweet, cold, silent tear; I've heard, Sometime, a wild and melancholy bird Warble at my grave head. Read this small tablet o'er, That holds mine epitaph upon its cheek of pearl; "Here lies a simple girl, Who died Like a pale flower nipped in its sweet spring tide, Ere it had bloomed:"-No more. Death of a Christian. HEMANS. CALM on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit! rest thee now! E'er while with ours thy footsteps trod, His seal was on thy brow. Dust to its narrow house beneath! Soul to its place on high! They that have seen thy look in death, No more may fear to die. Poetry. PERCIVAL. THE world is full of Poetry-the air And sparkle in its brightness. Earth is veil'd In harmonies, too perfect, and too high, The year leads round the seasons, in a choir 'Tis not the chime and flow of words, that move Or blend it with the movings of the soul. That meet him in the charm of grace and power. 'Tis not the noisy babler, who displays, In studied phrase, and ornate epithet, Saturday Afternoon. WILLIS. I LOVE to look on a scene like this, And my locks are not yet gray! For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart, To catch the thrill of a happy voice, I have walked the world for fourscore years, And my heart is ripe for the reaper Death, And my years are well nigh told. It is very true-it is very true— But my heart will leap at a scene like this, Play on! play on! I am with you there, I can feel the thrill of the daring jump, I hide with you in the fragrant hay, And I care not for the fall. I am willing to die when my time shall come, And I shall be glad to go, For the world, at best, is a weary place, And my pulse is beating slow; But the grave is dark, and the heart will fail And it wiles my heart from its dreariness, |