part of the country, is called the Sea of Galilee, or of Gennesareth, and also the Sea of Tiberias. In our Saviour's time, it went by the name of the lake of Gennesareth. It is an immense lake, said to be almost as grand and beautiful in its appearance as the lake of Geneva in Switzerland ; the northern part of it is full of fish. Its waters are clear as crystal, and very sweet, cool, and refreshing to the taste. The river Jordan runs through it with a strong current.

The lake or sea of Sodom, into which the river Jordan empties itself, is an exceeding large lake, in the southern part of the Holy Land, about seventytwo miles long and nineteen broad. It has been called the Salt Sea, from the salt and bitter taste of its waters; and the Dead Sea, from an idea, though not a true one, that no living creature could exist in its unwholesome waters, which are far more salt than those of the sea. The land which surrounds the lake is so salt, and the air so poisoned with the vapours that rise from it, that no plants or trees of any kind will grow there. A deep silence, solemn as death, hangs over this lake. Here once stood those cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were burnt with fire, as you remember, in the days of Abraham and Lot. The plains, where these cities stood, had been once fruitful and pleasant as the garden of the Lord; but when the sins of the people had brought down the wrath of God upon them, the very country around became sadly changed and altered, being partly overflowed with the Dead Sea, and partly desert, dried up, and uninhabited; covered with briers and brambles; a land of salt and sulphur, where there could

read of in the New Testament, where John the Baptist dwelt so long, and where our blessed Redeemer was forty days and nights without food.

E. Were these the deserts where the Israelites wandered for so long a time?

M. Yes, these deserts, of which we have just spoken, were but different parts of that great wilderness in which the Israelites spent so many years, and by which we are to understand the vast desert of Arabia, reaching from the western side of the Red Sea, to the borders of the land of Canaan : in the Scriptures it is particularly called The Desert. Moses said of this wilderness, as you may, perhaps, remember, that it was “a desert land, a waste howling wilderness;" and again he called it" a great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water." One of the prophets of the Lord too, of whom you will hear by and by, called this wilderness a lond and of nita

vi urought and of the shadow of death, a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt.” There it was that the Israelites suffered so much at first from the want of food and of water, so that "hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.” But, perhaps, you do not yet understand exactly what a desert is ? Let me tell you, then, that this, as well as others of the same kind, is a plain, which seems to have no end, of sand and stones, sometimes mixed with mountains of all sizes and heights, without any roads, or any shelter from weather, and with scarce a plant that produces food. The few trees that do grow there, are often seen quite withered and burnt up by the scorching heat of the