[For Manford's Magazine.] SIDON, CHRIST AND THE SYROPHENICIAN.

REV. E. CASE.

In writing of ancient cities, what surprises one is, the very little knowledge we have of the most of them beyond the mere fact that they once existed, and left behind them a name. I have before me a list of about sixty cities that once were renowned for their greatness, for being the seats of empire, and celebrated for their magnificence and beauty, or famous for some useful art or science that tended to the happiness and convenience of the world. And yet we search history in vain for anything but the most meagre accounts of them. Who can tell us aught of moment of the cities of Egypt - Thebes, Memphis and a dozen others? What do we know of Baalbec, Palmyra, Persepolis? What of Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica? What of Tyre, Sidon, Gath, Askelon? What of Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, Samaria, Cæsarea and twenty more in the Holy Land in the days of Christ? About as near nothing as may be.

And what we do know is mentioned generally in connection with the name of some plundering robber, or national highwayman like the heroes of Plutarch, who either sought, or made an enemy of all mankind, like Macedonia's madman; or the huge scoundrels who destroyed the Roman republic; or the abominable wretches who reigned as Roman emperors for ages after! It is amazing that cities once so great and so flourishing, and that often were less than fifty or an hundred miles from one another, knew so little of each other, or have left so little account of each other's grandeur. The traveler stands amid the mighty and magnificent ruins the fragments of Baalbec, of Palmyra, of Persepolis, of Thebes

and Memphis, and when he would know their history, nothing but silence that has brooded for ages over the fragments of mighty temples and ruined shrines reigns around; and history itself has not so much as a word or a whisper to answer, or to tell. Even the streams, fountains and rivers that once watered and refreshed them, are dried up; and all that is left to the soul is awe, conjecture and amazement, utterly overwhelming and unsatisfactory.

Such is the case with the city whose name stands at the head of this article. Its origin runs in antiquity so remote that no one knows who laid its foundations or gave it a name. Long before the Israelites entered Canaan, Sidon had an existence as a flourishing and enterprising sea-port city. She sat down at the gates of the sea, and sent out her ships and her colonies to distant islands and remote lands, and maintained her prosperity and independence for ages, before Tyre or Carthage had an existence. She furnished mechanics and artisans for building Solomon's Temple. She was famous for the abundance of her useful and precious metals, with which her soil was richly impregnated. And above all other cities, she was celebrated, or her women were, for the richness, splendor and excellence of her dyes, her cloths, and more especially for her needlework and embroidery. The celebrated Tyrian purple, unequaled for its richness and beauty, and the splendor of its hues, was wrought from her instructions; for Tyre was colonized by Sidon; and hence is called "the daughter of Sidon," in the Scriptures.

The wealth that was accumulated there was simply enormous, and to such an extent that it was an eyesore and such a temptation to the Persians that they could not resist, at a time

in the world when fire and sword and desolation, robbery, ravishment and murder were perfectly lawful, and made the greatest heroes. It was this that drew upon the city the Persian armies long before the days of Alexander, and subjected it to Persian rule. It was this that drew there the Macedonian army and Alexander himself; and it was this that long subsequent, subjected Sidon to Roman authority in the days of our Savior, and caused her ruin long after. In the apportioning of Canaan by Joshua, Sidon, then the capital of Phenicia, was assigned to Ashur; but the Israelites never got possession of it, notwithstanding the prediction of Moses, Deuteronomy 33: 5.

We may as well mention here that the Sidonians were celebrated for the exquisite beauty and excellence of their workmanship in gold and silver; and more than all, that they were the first to discover and manufacture glass. This discovery was purely accidental, and was made after some merchants, with ships, had landed and built a fire on the sand; in doing which they were compelled to use nitre--salt-1 t-petre--which melted and combined with the sand, producing glass.

Twenty six years after the city was subjected to the Persians, Alexander got possession of it, and bestowed on it a king, a very poor and virtuous man, whose virtues had made him famous far and near. He was a gardener and was at work not far from the city, when Alexander's ambassadors found him and bestowed on him the royal apparel, and carried him before Alexander, who was so delighted with his truthfulness and noble bearing that he not only made him king over Sidon, but bestowed on him an additional province. The

name of this poor but noble man, was Abdalonymus.

In the Gospels, we are told the beautiful story of Christ and the Syrophenician woman. This woman was a Greek, and an inhabitant of Sidon. The whole story is told in the 15th chapter of Matthew, and is one of those beautiful and sublime, yet simple stories that excel as far as day excels the night, all that is found in Homer or Herodotus, in that which touches and awakens the noblest and best feelings of the heart. And who can forget the awful pathos with which Christ appealed to Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida, when he cried, "Woe unto you, for if the mighty works which have been done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, in sackcloth and ashes."

How often Christ visited the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, we have no means of knowing, or how long he continued there; but that he had a rich and deep sympathy for that celebrated country we may be assured from the fact of his going there, the beautiful and touching incident with the Syrophenician woman, and from the allusion to Tyre and Sidon in the woes pronounced on Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.

In this story of the woman and her child, and Christ's treatment of her, we have the element of the parable of the good Samaritan carried out by Christ himself, who not only was the Great Teacher, but also the great doer of what he taught, showing that his sympathies were not confined to his own narrow race and nation, but were vast enough for his universal kind, and justly entitle him to be called the Savior of the world. And we may justly conclude, that had the poor Syrophenician woman been present at the crucifixion,

she would have been one of those who were "last at the cross and first at the sepulchre!"

We have spoken of the skilfulness of the Sidonian women in the acts of dyeing, needle work and embroidery. They were noted for this in the days of Homer, and he alludes to it in the following lines:

"The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went,

Where treasured odors breathed a costly scent;

There lay the vestures of no vulgar art, Sidonian maids embroidered every part, Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore,

With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore. Here as the queen revolved with careful

eyes

The various textures and the various dyes, She chose a veil that shone superior far, And glowed refulgent as the morning star."

It is interesting to remember that Tyre, "the daughter of Sidon" was founded 2760 years before Christ. It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar 573 before Christ; was rebuilt, and destroyed again, by Alexander, 332 before Christ; and while at present not a vestige of Tyre remains to tell of its former greatness, Sidon still exists as the principal seaport town of Damascus, though its former greatness and opulence have perished in the wreck and ruin of ages.

PRESIDENT MADISON AND WIFE.

Writing from President Madison's old home in Virginia, a correspondent of the Philadelphia Press gives the following reminiscences of Mr. and Mrs. Madison:

The character of Madison's wife for social ability, warmth of disposition and what is called spirit, will probably give her precedence over any mistress of the White House. Her husband was cold, snarlish, expert, capable for public business,

tractable to his superiors; but he made no impression on the public.

A portrait of Mrs. Madison reveals the secret of her strength. She was large, with brilliant eyes, with a trace of mischief in them; her arms are bare and show full health; there is an Oriental turn to her nose, which otherwise is rather vulgar; she wears a lace turban, and her hair falls in ringlets around her forehead.

She was a native of North Carolina, and was brought up a strict Quaker in Philadelphia. She was christened plain Dolly Payne. While quite young she married Mr. Todd, a Philadelphia lawyer. He kept her out of society, but she was known before his death to be strikingly handsome.

He died while she was almost a girl, leaving her with one son; her father was also dead, and it is the tradition that she and her mother kept a boarding house in Philadel phia, to which came several members of Congress seeking board.

Madison was one of the richest. His disposition was too cold for matrimony, and he married, no doubt, because the widow Todd supremely fascinated him. He was at the time forty-three years old. Our Constitu

tion had then been in existence about five years, and Madison was regarded as one of the most useful men under it.

At the time he married, Madison already had one of the most distinguished reputations in the country. She stepped at once out of a plain Quaker family into the control of a great Virginia mansion.

When the capital was removed to Washington City, which was a mere wilderness filled with brambles and alders, Mrs. Madison at once demonstrated her capacity to take hold of society and give it form.

Her husband went regularly to his office, and took very little interest in society doings, but he gave her the fullest freedom.

[For Manford's Magazine.] PURITAN OR PARISIAN SUNDAY. REV. J. H. RHOADES.

It is a peculiarity of life that great questions are always presenting themselves for solution. To the man who makes of life a real and earnest work, there comes no day but that brings with it some problem which involves the duty, the interest, and the happiness of men. Our own day and time furnishes no exception to this rule. True we have not been idle. We have given effective thought to the principles of government. We have settled the important question of human slavery, and instituted a system of social economy surpassing in excellence anything which the race had previously achieved. But notwithstanding this, the moralist, the humanitarian, the Christian, the man, finds no opportunity for rest. A few grand victories have been won, but the campaign is not ended. We must not be denied the privilege of mutual congratulation, but the time has not yet come for a distribution of laurels, and the abandonment of arms, in the belief that morality and right have actually carried the day, and conquered a permanent peace. We

are called to consider the "Twin Relic;" we are asked how the great and growing question of Mormonism is to be settled. That it must be settled, appears from the fact, that the two diverse systems, monogamy and polygamy, cannot dwell peaceably in the same government.

Beside this, we are continually annoyed by the reflection, that our principles and our practices in the matter of suffrage are in perpetual conflict. We are all the while con

scious of living in open violation of our own theories in regard to the reciprocal rights and obligations of taxation and representation. Here too is a wrong which must, at last, be righted, since no organization can long subsist and disregard one of the fundamental principles of its own being. The question of equal suffrage is one that cannot be ignored. Much less can we disregard the popular interest in the question of temperance. Life may be-it evidently is

-too brief for the adjustment of all the grave questions of justice and morals that confront us. But this one question of dram drinking is, of all questions, most importunate. And what is more, the emphasis with which it appeals to us is constantly increasing. Other questions, like the moon, have their phases. They wax and wane. Not so with the question of intemperance; that is always a growing question. While we were fighting the "bondman's" battles, the crime of intemperance was a growing crime. While we were deliberating as to the rightful position of the "freedmen" in our social compact, the vice of intemperance was a growing vice. Day by day this moral blight is spreading, so that, to-day, at least two incipient drunkards are "being nursed and tended by mother love in baby cradles, for the one old toper dead and degraded that lies in his coffin. Not a night of all the year but that scores on scores of volunteers are enlisted into the "Brewers' Brigade." This army is always growing; for while a few here and there desert, it is a sad truth, that almost without exception, these are all, in good time, returned to the ranks, and become faithful, though reeling and debauched, vassals of their captains, the makers and the vendors. Day and night, the questions involved in this social scourge

are growing questions. Even the sacred Sabbath presents no barrier to the spread of this malevolent influence. Indeed while we worship, while we sing and pray, while we preach and lend our best thought to the study of God's letter of love to men, even then this the great curse of our race is a growing curse. Monday morning finds the police magistrates of this Christian nation with more "business" than upon any other morning of the week.

men

More

are murdered between nightfall of Saturday, and Monday's dawn, than during all the balance of the week together. Yes, this question is always mercilessly growing in malignant importance and it must be settled. As families, as churches, as communites, as a nation, we cannot hope to subsist half drunk and half sober. We must banish intemperance from our homes, or at no distant day it will render our homes hardly worth the having. Another question of growing importance to us is the "Sabbath question."

From time immemorial, men have been wont to observe a rest day. With most Christian people, this custom has been recognized as receiving the Divine sanction. But independent of this idea of Divine appointment, Sunday has come to be regarded as an economic institution of such value that it is defined and declared by statutes. It is by this means removed from its religious associations, and transferred into a civil institution that is to be maintained in the interests of the state. The proportions of this question are such as to command our most considerate attention. It involves oneseventh of our time-fifty two days in each year. To the man who is able to bear the strain of forty-two years of business life, the law comes and demands six of them. It re

quires that during these six years we shall refrain from all active, gaingetting pursuits. It stops the plows in ten thousand furrows. It calls a halt to the great army of harvesters. If it does not absolutely stay the tide of travel and traffic, it seriously interferes with it. In this nation alone, there are more than twenty millions of laboring people. If we estimate for them an average salary of one dollar per day, then the cost of each Sunday in the matter of wages to this nation is twenty millions of dollars. At this rate, which may be considered fair, the cost of our Sunday institutions for a single year is $1,040,000,000. That is to say, the wages for these fifty two days, would amount to this sum of money. It is from this money consideration, among many others, that we hear it urged, that the custom of Sunday observance should be discontinued. We are told that the poor in our communities ought to be permitted to earn what they can upon each of the seven days in the week. We are assured that

Sunday laws" interfere with personal rights in the pursuit of happiness and in the acquirement of property. And this manifest divergence of opinion, as well as the inconceivable interests involved, leads not a few to ask, "Is it expedient that we have Sunday at all?" In answer to this question, we submit that the custom has received the sanction of the wisest men the earth has produced in modern times. And in all these years, no man that has earned any real distinction for goodness or greatness, has lifted his voice against it. Experiments have been made in many directions. Sometimes the effort has been to increase the number of Sundays in a year; sometimes, to diminish them; and in a few, rare instances to abolish Sunday customs altogether. But notwithstanding