8. Welcome, in the eastern cloud, 9. Hark! the nightingale, afar IO. Cool and tranquil is the night, Nature's sore afflictions cease, James Montgomery. 1. Express in your own words the sense of verses 3 and 4. 2. What would be a safe place, and what a dangerous place, to be in during a thunder-storm? 3. Write down six adjectives ending in -ful, such as "fearful," and six ending in -less, such as "harmless. Cen'-tre (sometimes written center), the middle. Cinc'-tur-ed, girt, surrounded. De-li'-ri-ous, frenzied, mad. Her'-mit-age, abode of a hermit or solitary. " THE CRUSADER KNIGHT BY THE SHORES OF THE DEAD SEA. 1. THE burning sun of Syria had not yet attained its highest point in the horizon, when a knight of the Red Cross, who had left his distant northern home, and joined the host of the Crusaders in Palestine, was pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, where the waves of the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no discharge of waters. 2. The warlike pilgrim had toiled among cliffs and precipices during the earlier part of the morning; more lately issuing from those rocky and dangerous defiles, he had entered upon that great plain, where the accursed cities provoked, in ancient days, the direct and dreadful vengeance of the Omnipotent. 3. The toil, the thirst, the dangers of the way, were forgotten, as the traveller recalled the fearful catastrophe, which had converted into an arid and dismal wilderness the fair and fertile valley of Siddim, once well watered, even as the garden of the Lord, now a parched and blighted waste, condemned to eternal sterility. 4. Crossing himself as he viewed the dark mass of rolling waters, in colour as in quality unlike those of every other lake, the traveller shuddered as he remembered that beneath these sluggish waves lay the once proud cities of the plain, whose grave was dug by the thunder of the heavens, or the eruption of subterraneous fire, and whose remains were hid, even by that sea which holds no living fish in its bosom, bears no skiff on its surface, and, as if its own dreadful bed were the only fit receptacle for its sullen waters, sends not, like other lakes, a tribute to the ocean. 5. The whole land around, as in the days of Moses, was "brimstone and salt; it is not sown nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein;" the land as well as the lake might be termed dead, as producing nothing having resemblance to vegetation, and even the very air was entirely devoid of its ordinary winged inhabitants, deterred probably by the odour of bitumen and sulphur, which the burning sun exhaled from the waters of the lake, in steaming clouds, frequently assuming the appearance of water-spouts. 6. Upon this scene of desolation the sun shone with almost intolerable splendour, and all living nature seemed to have hidden itself from the rays, excepting the solitary figure which moved through the flitting sand at a foot's pace, and appeared the sole breathing thing on the wide surface of the plain. 7. The dress of the rider, and the accoutrements of his horse, were peculiarly unfit for the traveller in such a country. The one as the other was almost completely sheathed in steel of tremendous weight. But habit had made the endurance of this load of panoply a second nature, both to the knight and his gallant charger. 8. Numbers, indeed, of the western warriors who hurried to Palestine, died ere they became inured to the burning climate; but there were others to whom that climate became innocent and even friendly, and among this fortunate number was the solitary horseman who now traversed the border of the Dead Sea. Sir Walter Scott. "The Talisman.” The Crusades were a succession of wars undertaken by the nations of Christendom for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre of the Redeemer from the possession of the Mahomedan unbelievers. There were five Crusades, the first commencing in 1096 under the command of Walter the Penniless, the last concluding with the capitulation of Acre to the Saracens in 1291. "The Crusader Knight" in the story is the Prince of Scotland, who has assumed the cross and is now on his way to join the army of Richard of the Lion Heart, King of England. The Dead Sea, so called partly on account of the lifeless appearance of the lake itself and its surroundings, partly in memory of the cities which are said to be buried under its waters, is situated in the south-east of Palestine. It is about 40 miles long and 9 miles broad, with a depth which varies from extreme shallowness to as much as 220 fathoms. Its surface, which is lower than that of any water known, is 1312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. The southern shore is low, marshy, and desolate, the air choking, and not a living thing to be seen; and here it is that the ancient Sodom is said to have stood, near to a remarkable mass of rock, still called Usdum or Sodom. The accursed cities are Sodom and Gomorrah, which are said to have been destroyed by brimstone and fire from heaven for their wickedness. Gen. xix. Even the very air, etc. This is a mistaken belief. Birds have been seen to fly over the Dead Sea, and even to sit upon its surface; and here and there upon its brink, amongst the thickets of oleander and tamarisk, birds sing as sweetly as in more highly favoured quarters. 1. Name the chief inland seas of Europe, and describe their situations. 2. Pick out the adverbs in the following, and assign each to its proper class: "not yet attained," "well watered," once proud," "deterred probably," "almost intolerable," "peculiarly unfit," 66 everywhere visible.” 3. Explain the words horizon, vicinity, defiles, skiff, devoid, deterred, intolerable, traversed. Ac-cou'-tre-ments, dress. Pal'-es-tine, the Holy Land. Sub-ter-ra-ne-ous, under the earth. |