there finds a plentiful and wholesome supply of food for the animals, while troops of the tall ostrich, and the wandering antelope, driven also from the heights, share the repast, and enliven the scene. But how soon is the country again deprived of all its glory! It scarcely continues more than a month. As the days begin to lengthen, the revived power of the mid-day sun checks once more the lately awakened powers of vegetation. Soon the streams begin to dry, the springs scarcely flow, till at length the complete drought compels the colonists to seek again their more elevated homes. Every day the Karroo grows more and more solitary, and by the end of September it is wholly deserted. The hardened clay bursts into a thousand cracks, which evince to the traveller the vast power of the African sun. Every trace of verdure is vanished, and the hard red soil is covered over with a brown dust, formed from the ashes of the dried and withered plants." 28 The River Niger presents nearly a cruciform appearance where the Quorra that flows from the Kong mountains, as well as the Tchadda which flows from the opposite quarter, make their confluence with the main river. The discoveries and sanguine anticipations of Messrs. Laird and Oldfield recal to mind the words of prophecy, Isai. xliii. 19. “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth : even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." I will 29 "Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side."-Ps. lxv. 11, 12. 30"And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp. ... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain."—Isai. xi. 7—9. 31 "He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. to comfort all that mourn."-Isai. lxi. 1, 2. 32 "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."—Isai. xxxv. 1. THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS. ᏢᎪᎡᎢ 1. THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS AS IT WAS. "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." I. JOB XXXviii. 7. It was but a whisper of heavenly grace; Yet fast it sped and far: Down from the high and holy place, And away to the outermost realms of space, It travelled from star to star. |