existence with thyself alone;
Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er!
Being, whom we call God, and know no more!

Thou art! directing, guiding all. Thou art!
Direct my understanding then to thee;
Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart,
Though but an atom 'mid immensity.
Still I am something fashioned by thy hand!
I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth,
On the last verge of mortal being stand,
Close to the realms where angels have their birth,
Just on the boundaries of the spirit land.

Oh, thoughts ineffable! Oh, visions blest!
Though worthless our conceptions all of thee;
Yet shall thy shadowed image fill our breasts,
And waft its homage to thy Deity.
God! thus alone my lowly thoughts can soar;
Thus seek thy presence--Being wise and good!
'Midst thy best works admire, obey, adore!
And when the tongue is eloquent no more,
The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude.

[Illustration: Ascent of Elijah.]

[Illustration: Elisha on His Death Bed.]

THE BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND

PATRIARCHS, KINGS, AND KINGDOMS.

HEBREW CAPTIVES; OR, MORDECAI AND ESTHER.

The next pictured scene is in the Court of Persia. It will not be
forgotten that Daniel was a captive in Babylon under the last kings, and
probably died there after the city was taken by Cyrus. Of this great
man's history as a captive we shall learn more when we go with the
prophets of God in their peculiar mission.

Nabonadrius, the son of Darius, usurped the throne after his father's
death; and after reigning several years, Cyrus, a nephew of Darius, a
Persian general who was occupied in foreign wars, turned his attention
to the reigning monarch.

He marched against the gorgeous metropolis, and besieged it for two
years in vain. He at last thought of a stratagem which displayed his
genius and boldness of action. He determined to turn the channel of the
Euphrates, which went through the whole length of the city, from the
walls where it entered, and get into the capital through the dry
channel, under the massive pile which no battering rams could crumble.
He succeeded in making a new bed for the stream, and his troops went
into Babylon over a path washed for ages by the waters of the Euphrates.

Media, a word some suppose to be derived from Madai, the son of Japheth,
was the name of a region adjacent to ancient Assyria, inhabited by
warlike hordes for centuries. The little