the crown of glory.'

How animating the motives here
Those who have already

held out to the Christian!
finished their course, are represented as witnesses, a
cloud of witnesses, around our's. They anxiously watch
our progress, they long for our success; they await
the time when we shall gain the victory, for they,
without us, cannot be made perfect.' Well, then, may
each say,

66 Awake, my soul! stretch every nerve,

And press with vigour on."

The Grecian wrestlers and racers exerted themselves to obtain a corruptible crown, (corruptible, indeed, for it was of laurel or parsley !) but we, an incorruptible. And woe unto us, if we exhibit less energy than they! So run we then, not as uncertainly; so fight we, not as one that beateth the air!-See REV. S. S. WILSON'S Malta, &c.

ROMAN SOLDIERS.

MATTHEW viii. 9.

“I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it."

2 TIMOTHY ii. 3.

“Thou therefore, endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

The strictest subordination and obedience were exacted of every Roman soldier. The Roman infantry were divided into three principal classes, each of which was composed of thirty companies, and each company contained two hundred men. Over every company were placed two centurions, (one to each hundred,) who were, however, very far from being equal in rank and honour, though possessing the same office. Two of the classes

were esteemed more honourable than the other, and had their centurions elected first; and these took precedency of the centurions of the remaining class, who were elected last. The humble centurion of the Gospel appears to have been of the inferior order. He was a man under authority," of other centurions, and had none under him but the hundred men, who appear to have been in a state of the strictest military subordination, as well as of loving subjection to him.

66

Even in the present day we may find the same subordination exemplified in the East. A captive chief, who was marching to the British head-quarters, on being asked concerning the motives that induced him to quit his native land, and enter into the service of the rajah of Nepal (as he had done), replied in the following very impressive manner: 'My master sent me. He says to his people, to one, Go you to Ghurwal. To another Go you to Cashmire, or to any distant part. My Lord, thy slave obeys; it is done. None ever inquires into the reason of an order of the rajah.”—DR. A. CLARKE; FRASER'S Notes.

What hardship a Roman soldier endured, the following passage in Josephus will evince. It forms a striking commentary upon this text. "When they march," writes the historian, "out of their encampment, they advance in silence, and in great decorum, each man keeping his proper rank, just as in battle. Their infantry is armed with breast-plates and helmets, and they carry a sword on each side. The sword they wear on their left side is by far the longest, for that on the right is not above a span's length. That select body of infantry, which forms part of the general's life-guards, is armed with lances and bucklers; but the rest of the phalanx have a spear and a long shield, besides which they bear a saw and a basket, a spade and a hatchet ; they also carry with them a cord, a sickle a chain, and provisions for three days, so that a Roman foot soldier. is but very little different from a beast of burden."JOSEPHUS.

BARBAROUS CUSTOM IN EASTERN WARFARE.

2 KINGS, X. 8.

"And there came a messenger and told (Jehu), saying, They have brought the heads of the king's sons; and he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning."

Mr. Morier, in an account he gives of a treaty of peace between two armies, one of Russians and the other of Persians, says :— "One of the articles was, that their (the Russians) heads were not to be cut off; an act which in Persian and Turkish warfare is a common custom. During this fight ten tomauns were given for every head of the enemy that was brought to the prince (of Persia); and it has been known to occur, after the combat was over, that prisoners have been put to death in cold blood, in order that the heads, which are immediately despatched to the king, and deposited in heaps at the palace-gate, might make a more considerable show. Such barbarities make us shudder in England, but they only tend to show how little the manners of Asia have changed since the remotest times."-MORIER's Second Journey through Persia, &c., p. 186.

DESOLATIONS OF WAR.

JUDGES Vi. 2—6.

Describing the state of the country during the Affghanistan war, Mr. Allen writes, "It is distressing to reflect that the poor cultivators, who have but little interest in the quarrel, are the great sufferers. Their standing crops destroyed, and villages burnt, they have a fearful prospect for the coming year. The state of this country appeared to me strikingly, and literally,

illustrative of a passage in the Book of Judges, which I met with in course of Scripture reading, and which present circumstances rendered peculiarly impressive. "And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds." Often have I watched at night the flitting lights in these "dens and strong holds," in the rocky mountains around Kwettah. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the East, even they came up against them. And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth...for they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers, for multitude, for both they and their camels were without number, and they entered into the land to destroy it."

It is difficult, nay, impossible to those who have not witnessed it, to conceive the sudden and total desolation caused by the passing of an Eastern armament, in which the cattle and followers are generally in the proportion of four or five to one of the fighting men. It may truly be said, 'The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.'

Mr. Allen had thus described the day's march :-" A fine road, richly cultivated on both sides, with no impediments the whole way. Though the irrigation had been much neglected, the barley was still very fine, and much of it in ear. As we did not expect to find much forage for the two or three following days, all hands were employed on the line of march in cutting the green wheat and barley, and loading bullocks, and asses. A kind of farm-house on the left, and a village on the right of the road, were fired by our people, and sent up volumes of smoke and flame."

Again he writes, "We came to (a spot of vegetation in a sandy desert), the village was deserted and ruined. A multitude threw themselves upon the growing crops,

and speedily converted them into forage. A melancholy sight! but such as the cruel necessity of war rendered inevitable, for how otherwise could about four thousand head of various kinds of cattle have subsisted ?"-REV. J. A. ALLEN's Scinde and Affghanistan, pp. 148, 150, 151, 165.

"Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat."

The manner in which the Modern Tartars pillage and destroy, may illustrate these words, which are descriptive of the devastations of the Chaldeans.

"It was decided," writes one who was present in the