On the Desert. By Henry M. Field, D.D. (T. Nelson
and Sons, New York.)—Even after Dean Stanley, the traveller who keeps his eyes open can pick up interesting facts and make a fresh story of the oft- told tale of Sinai and Palestine. Dr. Meld has not the picturesque power of Dean Stanley, but he has a good deal of Yankee humour and insight ; and, with the exception of a few unfortunate chapters, which are nothing else but a windy and commonplace sermon d propos of the Mosaic law, suggested by Sinai itself, has produced a novel and interesting book of travels. The best, because the newest part of it, is the description of the Convent of St. Catherine, and espe- cially of its inner life, in which Dr. Field and his companion shared for some time. The results of his experience are not favourable to the monastic life. "As to the pretensions of superior sanctity, any such impress;on is quickly dispelled. It is enough to look in the faces of these men to see that they are, with scarce an exception, of a low stamp. They are very ignorant. I do not see bad faces, but they are common and coarse faces, with which one cannot associate any idea of spirituality. One or two of the younger ones look as if they were half-witted. These join the convent not from any religious impulse or inspiration, but as a security against want Nor is their life one of self-denial. Of course they submit to the prescribed fasts of the Church. They will not touch a particle of animal food, but they will drink to excess. We often see them the worse for liquor." " But the grand charge is their utter indifference to the poor Bedaween, by whom they are surrounded. When Justinian founded this monastery, he endowed it with 200 slaves. The descendants of those slaves are here to-day, and so kindly and wisely have they been treated by their Christian masters, that they have all- turned Moslem." When Dr. Field's party got into Palestine itself, they had an encounter with the Bedouins, or Bedaween, as he rightly pre. fere to write them, which did not raise their opinion of Moslem morality—at least, as exhibited by the Arabs. Indeed, in Palestine they were in considerable danger of being treated as Professor Palmer and his companions were treated by the Bedaween in more trouble= times. It is curious, however, to learn that the Bedaween have as great respect for a bond, signed and sealed, as Sbylock or a convey. ancing counsel ; and had anything really happened to Dr. Field and his party, the tribe to which their dragoman belonged would have been disgraced and bound to avenge them—a poor consolation in• deed, but still one which makes for safety. But a bond with one set of robbers is, after all, but a frail protection against a stronger set ; and it is no slight condemnation of Turkish misrule that, alike in the Wilderness of Sin and on the road to Jericho, robbers should abound as much as they did in the days of Moses or of Christ.
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