The Covenanters Remembered.
From the public prints we observe that special services were held in the New Greyfriars, Edinburgh, near the end of February. Dr. Theodore Marshall, Moderator of the General Assembly, and Prof. Paterson dealt with the “Covenant.” The Covenanters, if ever men deserved to be remembered, should not be soon forgotten by the country which gave them birth. But there is such a thing as the children of those who killed the prophets, garnishing the tombs of those that were slain. And it is from lack of charity or blindness to the state of religion in this country at present, that we are led to say that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of our countrymen who applaud those noble heroes for their courage, had they been their contemporaries, would have regarded them as an impracticable element in the religious life of Scotland, and a narrow-minded set of fanatics that were more to be tolerated in pity than in love.
Discoveries in Babylonia.
Dr. Pinches delivered a lecture recently on the above subject; he made the following references to the Tower of Babel:—”Unfortunately,” he says, “the remains of the Tower of Babel—that structure so renowned of old—had within recent years been cleared away to build the dam of the Hindiyeh Canal, and, instead of a great monument, the depression, where its foundations were laid, was now all that existed. The basement of the tower was square, and not, as the pictures in old family Bibles and elsewhere showed, circular in form and tapering with a spiral ascent until the top was reached. According to Dr. Weissbach, the structure measured about 309 feet each way, and the height was about the same. Though this was only a third of the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it was still sufficiently imposing as a high monument. The lowest stage was much higher than any of the others, and the topmost stage was the upper temple or sanctuary of the god Bel or Merodach, a hall of considerable size, 80 feet long, 70 feet broad, and 50 feet high.”
The International Commission on Opium.
This Commission closed on 26th February. It adopted a number of resolutions recommending the gradual suppression of opium smoking. In its first resolution “the Commission recognises the unswerving sincerity of the Government of China in its efforts to eradicate the production and consumption of opium throughout the empire, the increasing body of public opinion among the Chinese by whom these efforts are supported, and the real, though unequal, progress already made in a task of the greatest magnitude.”