nd one
they will have hard work to justify even to themselves.

The admirals have, it is true, requested Djevad Pasha to order all the
Turks in the island disarmed with the exception of the Turkish soldiers.
If he refuses they threaten to ask for his recall, but this is a very
poor conclusion after all the fuss that has been made, and the trouble
the interference of the Powers has caused.

* * * * *

There is good news from the Soudan.

After the British had taken the town of Abu Hamed, about which we told
you a short while since, they continued to advance up the Nile toward
the next important town that lay in their route to Khartoum.

This town was Berber.

It was expected that the Mahdists would make a fierce resistance at this
place, and the British troops were prepared for severe fighting.

What was their surprise on reaching Berber to find that the Mahdists
had fled before them, and were encamped at the city of Matammeh, where
they intended to make a stand against the invading army.

Berber had been left in the hands of a few Soudanese who were friendly
to the English, and willingly permitted them to take possession of the
town.

This city is only about two hundred miles from Khartoum, and no place of
importance now lies in the way of the British advance on Khartoum, the
Mahdist stronghold.

* * * * *

A very interesting movement is on foot to secure the return of the Jews
to Palestine.

We are all familiar with the beautiful story of Moses, and how he led
the Jewish people out of their captivity in Egypt into the promised land
of Palestine.

We can follow out the history of the kingdom of Israel through its years
of prosperity under David and Solomon; we can read how the Jews again
became a conquered people, and fell under the rule of the Assyrians, the
Babylonians, the Persians, and how under the leadership of Maccabeus
they once more became a nation, only to fall into the hands of the
Romans.

History tells us how they revolted again and again under the Roman rule,
and how at last, in the year 135 A.D., Jerusalem was taken by the Roman
Emperor, and the Jews, driven from their country, ceased to be a nation,
and were scattered over the face of the earth.

From the year 135 Palestine remained in the hands of the Romans, and
when they became converted to Christianity this land was regarded by
them with great veneration. Bethlehem of J