days of the heritage, when every man dwelt
safely under his vine and under his fig tree, there never was a race who
sang so often the odes of David as the people of Great Britain.

Vast as the obligations of the whole human family are to the Hebrew
race, there is no portion of the modern population so much indebted to
them as the British people. It was 'the sword of the Lord and of Gideon'
that won the boasted liberties of England; chanting the same canticles
that cheered the heart of Judah amid their glens, the Scotch, upon their
hillsides, achieved their religious freedom.

Then why do these Saxon and Celtic societies persecute an Arabian race,
from whom they have adopted laws of sublime benevolence, and in
the pages of whose literature they have found perpetual delight,
instruction, and consolation? That is a great question, which, in
an enlightened age, may be fairly asked, but to which even the
self-complacent nineteenth century would find some difficulty in
contributing a reply. Does it stand thus? Independently of their
admirable laws which have elevated our condition, and of their exquisite
poetry which has charmed it; independently of their heroic history which
has animated us to the pursuit of public liberty, we are indebted to the
Hebrew people for our knowledge of the true God and for the redemption
from our sins.

'Then I have a right to be here,' said Tancred of Montacute, as his eyes
were fixed in abstraction on the stars of Arabia; 'I am not a travelling
dilettante, mourning over a ruin, or in ecstasies at a deciphered
inscription. I come to the land whose laws I obey, whose religion I
profess, and I seek, upon its sacred soil, those sanctions which for
ages were abundantly accorded. The angels who visited the Patriarchs,
and announced the advent of the Judges, who guided the pens of Prophets
and bore tidings to the Apostles, spoke also to the Shepherds in the
field. I look upon the host of heaven; do they no longer stand before
the Lord? Where are the Cherubim, where the Seraphs? Where is Michael
the Destroyer? Gabriel of a thousand missions?'

At this moment, the sound of horsemen recalled Tancred from his reverie,
and, looking up, he observed a group of Arabs approaching him, three
of whom were mounted. Soon he recognised the great Sheikh Amalek, and
Hassan, the late commander of his escort. The young Syrian Emir was
their companion. This was a visit of hospitable ceremony from the great
Sheikh t