before the judgment-seat, and have gone to their own place. May God prepare us to stand at the same tribunal! Amen. Ever your brother, in haste for eternity, trusting in the alone merits of Jesus Christ our Lord.

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE SAME.

J. C.

MY DEAR SIR,

*

Paris, September, 1844.

I HAVE seen a great variety of interesting objects within the last few days; a detail of which seems better adapted for a private conversation than for a letter. * * * * * I omitted to mention, in my last letter, our visit to the Place de la Concorde, more properly, the Place de la Revolution, a little more in keeping with the bloody character of the scenes enacted there. "Fearful baptisms has that spot known," says one," from the trampling down of thousands, in the fatal rush at the marriagefestival of Louis XVI., to the sad spectacle of his own decapitation, and that of the throngs, who, night and day, fed the guillotine. In the two years that succeeded his death, more than two thousand persons, of both sexes, were executed here; until it was said, that the soil, pampered with its terrible aliment, rose up, and burst open, and refused to be trodden down like other earth." But the principal attraction in this place, is the Obelisk of Luxor,-a venerable and imposing object. It stands upon a massive pedestal,

in a site at once beautiful and commanding. As this Obelisk was the first of the kind we had ever seen, it excited our attention and interest in no small degree. It is a relic of ancient Egypt,-one of the two that stood in front of the great temple of Thebes, where they were erected, fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, by Rameses III.,-in history, the great Sesostris of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. I have not learned its exact height, but should judge it to be about one hundred and twenty feet. It is of a single block of speckled granite, of the red sienite species, having a polished appearance, and is covered from bottom to top, with hieroglyphics, the meaning of which, notwithstanding all that has been said and written by the learned, will, it is likely, remain a secret to the end of time. "In such good preservation is this relic of antiquity and art," says a late traveller, "that the mind is slow in believing, that nearly three thousand four hundred years have elapsed, since it was first placed in front of the great temple of Thebes, the modern Luxor."

OBELISK OF LUXOR,

IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCOrde.

"Thou here! What but a miracle could tear
Thee from thine old and fav'rite spot of birth?
And o'er the wave thy pond'rous body bear,
Making thee thus at home in foreign earth?
While countless throngs with curious glance regard
Thy strange and sanguine face, with hieroglyphics scarr'd.

Thou hadst a tedious voyage, I suppose,
Sea-sickness and rough rocking-was it so ?
Thou wert as Jonah to the mariners,

I understand, and wrought them mickle woe;
And when the port was reach'd, they fear'd with pain
Thou ne'er would'st raise thy head, or be thyself again.

Dost think thy brother Monolinth will dare,
Like thee, the dangers of the deep to meet?
I learn he has the viceroy's leave to take

The tour, his education to complete:

Thy warm, fraternal heart right glad would be
Here, in this stranger land, his honest face to see.

What can'st thou tell us? thou whose wondrous date Doth more than half our planet's birth-days measure! Saw'st thou Sesostris, in his regal state,

Ruling the conquer'd nations at his pleasure? And are those stories true, by hist❜ry told,

Of hundred-gated Thebes, with all her power and gold?

Didst hear how hard the yoke of bondage press'd
On Israel's chosen race, by Nilus' strand?
And how the awful seer, with words of flame,
Did in the presence of the tyrant stand?

When with dire plagues the hand of Heaven was red,
And stiff-neck'd Egypt shriek'd o'er all her first-born dead?

Tell us who built the pyramids; and why

They took such pains those famous tombs to rear,
Yet chanced at last to let their names slip by,

And drown in dark oblivion's waters drear ;—

Didst e'er attend a trial of the dead?

Pray, tell us where the judges held their seat?
And touch us just the key-note of the tune,

Which statued Memnon breathed, the morn to greet;

Or sing of Isis' priests the vesper-chime;

Or doth thy mem'ry fail beneath the weight of time?

How little didst thou dream, in youth, to be
So great a trav'ller in thy hoary years,
And here, in lilied France, to take thy stand,

The silv'ry fountains playing round thine ears,
And groves and gardens stretching 'neath thy feet,
Where sheds the ling'ring sun, his parting lustre sweet.

Yet beautiful thou art in najesty,

As ancient oracle, from Delphic shrine,
Which by the ocean cast on stranger shore,
Claims worship for its mysteries divine;

And Egypt hath been prodigally kind,

Such noble gift to send, to keep her love in mind.

The earth whereon thou standest hath been red
And saturate with blood, and at the rush
Of those who came to die, hath quaked with dread,
As though its very depths did shrink and blush,
Like Eden's soil, when first the purple tide

It drank with shudd'ring lip, and to its Maker cried.

Be as a guardian to this new-found home,

That fondly woo'd thee o'er the billows blue,
For 't were a pity sure, to come so far,

And know so much, and yet no good to do:-
So from the Place la Concorde' blot the shame,
And bid it lead a life more worthy of its name."

The

The view from the pedestal of the Obelisk is exceedingly fine. To the left are the groves of the Champs Elysées; farther on, at the top of a noble avenue, is Napoleon's Arch of Triumph; to the right, the gardens of the Tuilleries, enlivened by fountains and sheets of water, and speckled with statuary. Chamber of Deputies stands at a greater distance, but in solemn majesty; from thence the eye rests upon the lofty dome of the Hôtel des Invalides; forward, at the head of a wide and beautiful street, stands the Madeleine, one of the handsomest buildings in Paris,— perhaps in the world. Around the Obelisk itself, but in closer proximity, is a noble and imposing circle of statuary.

We now stand in front of the Madeleine Church. We have been here several times before; have viewed it from various points, and always with admiration. This, I am aware, will not satisfy you, so long as you maintain the right to ask the old question, "Why did you admire?" Its form is a rectangle, three hundred and twenty-six feet by one hundred and thirty. It is seated upon an elegant basement, and shows an altitude nearly equal to its length. We have been informed, that the exterior is similar to the Parthenon at Athens. Indeed one could scarcely believe that

any of those ancient temples of Greece, which were once the glory of the country, could have much exceeded the Madeleine, in shape, proportions, simplicity, and beauty; to say nothing of material, masonry, and sculpture. How sublime and grand is that peristyle of fifty-two Corinthian columns, with which the structure is surrounded on every side! A portico and a double row of columns, surmounted by a triangular pediment, beautify the north and south fronts. Those figures within the pediment of the southern front, are objects of considerable instruction to those who are in the habit of looking up; but, of all the multitudes who have thronged past us the last hour, not one has deigned a glance thitherward. The space allotted to these figures is extensive,-say one hundred and fifteen feet in length, and twenty or more in height. The principal figure is Christ, with Mary Magdalene at his feet. Innocence is approaching the Saviour, surely the sculptor did not intend this personage to plead the cause of the disconsolate sinner; but Innocence brings with her, Faith, Hope, and Charity. A company of angels yonder, are contemplating the fair penitent, and seem as if admiring the circumstances of her conversion. On the other hand is an angel, with a flaming sword, driving before him Envy, Lewdness, Hypocrisy, and Avarice. Slily, in an angle of the pediment, is a demon in the act of hurling the souls of the licentious into the flames of perdition. There are uncommon life and spirit thrown into these groups of sculpture. But it is not sculpture, nor painting, nor poetry, that will ever arrest the profligacy and debauchery of Paris. The gospel of Jesus Christ only can do it ;-and that gospel faithfully, powerfully, and completely preached. that Frenchman yonder has seen quite enough,—a significant shrug of the shoulder, and a turn of the eye downward, indicate that he has little interest

Ah!