314
Carroprot)antrt.
OUR SPECIAL EUROPEAN CORRESPON
DENT.
DEAR EDITOR : There are so many interesting
places to visit about Paris, that it is impossible to
give a fair sketch of them all without writing a
large volume instead of a limited letter. To speak
of each in general terms would be unsatisfactory,
Sr) bear in mind that I can give you but a glimpse,
here and there, of what passes before me.
VERSAILLES
Twelve miles westward from Paris; on one of
their great lines of railway, is the most beautiful
place in France. It is an old Palace, built some
two hundred years ago, and is surrounded by
magnificent grounds. They are laid off in flower
gardens so beautiful that they bewilder you—for
ests so dense, so varied, so beautifully trimmed,
that the avenues amongst them make up a fairy
land ; while around the Palace are the finest and
largest set of fountains in the world. Inside the
building is the largest gallery of paintings any
where to be found. Fifteen miles of paintings,
most of them illustrating the brilliant events in
French history, are enough for three or four days
of study. Here there are gorgeous saloons, and
chambers of historic interest, not to be surpassed
anywhere. One should spend a week at Ver
sailles, to know much about it.
The Palace was built by Louis XIII. and his
successors, and inhabited last by Louis XVI.,
prior to the Revolution. In 1789 Marie Antoi
nette fled from it never to return. Her room is
shown, with the little door through which she
fled to the king's apartments when the mob from
Paris invaded the Palace.
The balcony upon which she and her children
stood, trying to appease the mob, is still there:
but the mob would not be appeased. They car
ried her to Paris where the guillotine ended her
days. One of her children died; but the life of
the other is a mystery. No one can tell what
became of the heir to the throne.
The paintings are the most interesting we have
seen anywhere in Europe. They are nearly all
of immense size, covering the whole side of the
room in which they are placed. Large paintings
are hung on three sides of the apartment, and
the light coming in at the fourth; this is the gen
eral plan; with smaller paintings in odd places.
The early history of France is illustrated by fine
large paintings of the battles, treaties, capitula
tions, &c., under Hugh Capet, Clovis, Pepin, and
Charlemagne. Then follow. seven rooms filled
with illustrations of the Crusaders : Peter the
,Hermit's preaching, and the great battles in the
Holy Land, all in large pictures fifteen feet long
and ten or twelve feet high at least. The later
events, down to the close of the last century,
come next; after which follow not less than twenty
rooms filled with grand scenes from Napoleon
Bonaparte's wars. They are so grand, so full of
life and action, the events are so recent and so
fresh in Europe's memory, that they form a most
interesting group. We noticed the outbreak at
Cairo, a wonderful painting, showing out the
bloody energy of Napoleon when aroused by the
massacre of his men. The army before the Pyra
mids, when Napoleon told them that forty centu
ries looked down upon them; their own and his
enthusiasm, splendidly portrayed. The terrible
battle of Eylau where the wounded soldiers froze
to death by hundreds in the snow. The battle
of Wagram—and in fact so many battles that it
was like reading the life of Napoleon over again
to look at the paintings. We saw, by the way,
where Abbott got some of his fine illustrations.
Napoleon's coronation occupies a space not less
than thirty feet long and twenty-five feet high.
Many of the paintings are by Horace Vernet, an
artist of Herculean labors. His immense pic
tures blaze in every gallery in Paris. The sur
prise of Abd El Kader's camp by the French is
a world's wonder. It was painted in eight monilis,
is sixty-five feet long and twenty-two feet high,
containing hundreds of,figures ollife'size and in
tharesheßt and most brilliant coloring, all action
and life like. Here are the Arabs, men and wo
men, soldiers and camp followers, all starting in
precipitous flight; horses, oxen, and camels, all
in entanglement; soldiers, seizing their arms, and
picking up valuable camp equipage to fly with;
a dozen frightened cattle rushing pell-mell over a
whole family of women and children on the
ground.. Here are half a dozen women hurrying
to mount into their saddles, enclosed with bow
shaped curtains, on the camels' backs. The
French army, however, qaiek, active, furious,
advanees upon them like an avalanche. There
are other fine paintings by the hundred. The
later wars under Napoleon 111., are all carefully
portrayed :—Solferino and Magenta, and the Cri
mea, and all that France did there. They have
perpetuated upon canvass, also, the retaking of
Rome in 1848, by a handsome painting. Then
there are some eight or nine rooms filled with
fine portraits of the marshals of France. Another
set of rooms with portraits of the constables of
France. Then another set with the generals,
while the monarchs, from the earliest days to the
latest, are all displayed in portraits, many of
which are drawn, in a great degree, from the im-
agination.
The royal apartments of Louis XIV. are quite
interesting. We enter one of the handsomest sa
PARIS, Aug. 8, 1867
THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1867.
loons or parlors in all the world: the Grand Gal
lery of Glass, nearly two hundred and fifty feet
long, some thirty-five feet wide, and about twenty
five feet high. On all sides the windows look out
on a most - brilliant prospect : the handsomely
laid-out Palace garden, full of flowers of endless
variety. Opposite each window on the other side
of the room, is a large mirror on the wall; be
tween each of the windows and of the mirrors are
splendid gilding and fresco painting, while the
arched ceiling is laid off in gorgeous style, all the
circles, arches, and corners being filled with fine
fresh fresco paintings, all commemorating the
life of the great monarch, Louis XIV. The di
vans and sofas along each side of the saloon are
covered with' scarlet damask. The floor is of
polished oak, laid off in squares and diamonds,
no one board being over three or four feet in
length. On this floor the brilliant balls of the
gay courts of Louis XIV. and XV. were held.
Here the courtiers of those days of abandonment
to pleasure and luxury, held high carnival. No
painter's art nor poet's lay can ever fully describe
the brilliant scenes that these silent walls have
looked down upon.
In this room, too, the king had his throne
brought, on great occasions. Here, in recent
days, Queen Victoria danced with Napoleon 111.
at a ball given in honor of her visit some twelve
years since, reviving, as she danced, some of the
gaiety of the old halls.
We pass to the royal chamber where Louis XV.
died. Here stands the bed with the crimson
satin curtains and covers, just as that Emperor
left it. He died of small pox and was completely
deserted by everybody in his last hours. So
great was the consternation among his servants
and courtiers that not one could be found who
would remain with him, and, monarch as he was,
he died all alone, though surrounded with wealth,
splendor, and luxury. The bed-room has been
unoccupied ever since, though it is a cheerful,
sunny room, looking out upon the grand avenue
between the trees a mile long, with the lake a
mile in length beyond it.
Near this room is a saloon which was used as
a waiting room for the courtiers of Louis XIV.
It was a famous place for intrigue and villainy.
Just beyond it is one of the most beautiful cor
ner rooms of the Palace, with sunshine streaming
in at the windows, while the look-out combined
a view of fountain, forest, and flower-beds, the
most varied and beautiful imaginable. Here the
kings and their courtiers drank their wines or
sipped their tea around the gambling tables,
night after night, often keeping up the games
until daylight. Here millions of dollars have
been lost and won, and many a heart has ached
over their fall from wealth to ruin. It is said
that one of the ladies of the court once lost here
a million of dollars in a single night.
We pass on to the apartments of Louis XVI.
At the side of one of the south windows is fas
tened an iron plate a foot square, with a small
hole in the centre large enough to admit your
little finger. Through this opening a beam of
sunlight marked its way across the floor of the
room. Along the floor is a brass plate an inch
wide and five or six yards long, screwed down ex
actly on the meridian line. The iron plate out
side the window and the brass one on the floor
were put there by Louis' own bands. He had
quite a turn for mechanical pursuits, and kept a
work-bench, a vice, hammers, chisels, files, and
other machinists' tools, with which he amused
himself through many idle days. We saw the vice
and tools in the Museum of the Louvre in Paris,
preserved with great care in a glass case, and not far
from Napoleon Bonaparte's chapeau and old gray
over-coat, sword, pistols, saddle, camp bedstead, &c.
Louis XVI. appears to have had a liking for
astronomical investigations on a small scale. On
the grounds not far from the Palace, is a little
dairy farm, in which Marie Antoinette, Louis'
wife, amused herself in attending, like a peasant,
to farm labor—feeding chickens, milking cows,.
and,clkurninkln4W4 r A Syyks,
diminutive lake, and a small vegetable garden are
among the scenes in which she spent much of.
her time.
Is it any wonder that the mighty throes of the
French Revolution put an end to the rule of such
a race of monarchs, as those who flourished in this
grand old Palace ? They seemed to have no idea
that the chief business of their lives was the man
agement of the affairs of a great nation, but
passed their time in revelry, gambling and vol
uptuousness, surrounded by a crowd of flatterers,
harpies, and vampires, more debased than them
selves; or like Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette,
allowed the nation to take care of itself, while
they like children, amused themselves playing
the mechanic, or shepherdess, or dairy maid.
We cannot now speak of the gorgeouA chapel
in the Palace. We are struck with its size, but
we see the necessity of so large a place, when we
remember that in days of which we have been
speaking there were no less than three thousand
living here as ministers and advisers, relatives
and courtiers, servants and waiters, footmen and
pages, butlers and cooks, gardeners and grooms.
The stables, which are now used as barracks of
cavalry, had stalls for one thousand horses.
This Palace was sacked by the mob .in 1789,
when they dragged Louis XVI. and Marie An
toinette to Paris. Much of the furniture was
thrown out of the windows, destroyed and carried
off. Some of the precious articles were hidden
away in safe places, but when Napoleon I. came
into power it was very much dilapidated.
Louis Philippe brought it to its present perfec
tion, designing it to be a museum of French his
tory and glory. Hespent upon it five millions
of dollars, much of which, it is said, came from
his own private purse. He brought the water
works and fountains to their present perfection,
had the immense galleries of paintings filled up
by orders and purchases in great profusion.
Our guide through Versailles was an old man
over eighty years of age, quite sprightly and in
telligent, named Marchand. He had been body
servant to Napoleon from 1804 to 1812; had tra
velled everywhere with him, had waited on him
and his officers at table, and knew each officer
whose portrait appeared in the pictures; told us
which were likenesses and which were not. He
had often carried the little King of Rome about,
and in fact had eaten from the same dish with
him, as his wife was the nurse of the little fellow.
He showed us just which representation of the
Emperor was a good one, and had many little in
cidents of his life that. were very interesting.
His presence certainly helped to make our day at
Versailles one of the most pleasant and memora
ble we have spent in Europe. ' G. W. M.
LETTER FROM PALESTINE. XIII.
BY REV. EDWARD PAYSON HAMMOND
On our way from Jerusalem to Joppa, we
stopped for the night. at Ramleh with the monks
in their convent. After our kng ten hours' ride,
we were glad of even the poorest accommodations
—our tents would have been far preferable. It
was only the appearano6'of rain that drove us to
the convent. Yet no doubtmany are pleased to
find a shelter at these places. In the morning
we ascended the lofty tower near Ramleh which
overlooks the whole country. By one hundred
and twenty-six steps we reached the top, which
is about one hundred feet above the ground. The
church, of which this tower is by many supposed
to have been the campanile, has been thrown
down by repeated earthquakes, but this solid
tower remains without a rent. It was a glorious
morning. Before us lay the whole Plain of Sha
ron, stretching from the sea to the mountains of
Judea, and from the base of Mt. Carmel away to
the south as far as the eye could reach. What
a garden it must have been when Solomon ruled
in "the city of the great King," and sang of the
"rose of Sharon."
While upon that lofty eminence we turned our
eyes away to the northeast to Lydda, now called
Ludd, surrounded by its olive groves. We thought
of visiting it, as it was but two or three miles
distant, but we fancindathat, with the clear light
of the bright-sun, and with the help of our, glass,
from that high tower, we ha'd a sufficiently good
prospect of it. We had often found in Palestine
that " distance lends enchantment to the view."
Especially was this the case with Jerusalem. We
read the last part of the ninth chapter of the
Acts with new pleasure as we looked down on
Lydda. We thought of what a joy.it, must have
been to Peter's heart, when, as he thus spake to
the palsied man, "lEnmas, Jesus Christ maketh
thee whole, arise," to see that "he - arose immedi
ately." No wonder that " all that dwelt at Lyd
da and Sharon saw and turned to the Lord."
Would that God's servants everywhere, in all
times, might go with something of the same con- .
Hence to sin -sick, dying souls, and with unwa
vering faith say to them, "Jesus Christ maketh
thee whole." Would not such faith be almost
contagious 7 or at least might not God use such
confidence to inspire faith in the perishing to
"believe in the Lord Jesus Christ" to their sal
vation ? 0 for more boldness such as Peter pos
sessed! May the Lord grant it to you and to
me, 14 dear reader.
Lydda is about ten miles from Joppa, amt. our'
way that morning must .Ive:been much" in the
same line as that taken by e - ter when hastening
•
to 'the. house" Dorcas. While on the road we
fell in with a; Russian princess on horseback, who
could speak English very well. She seemed
pleased to enter into conversation with us. Though
a Greek Catholic, she had much love for the Sa
viour. The loss of her mother had led her ap
parently to think of her Saviour, and to trust in
him. We were pleased to find that she and her
brother were to take the same steamer with us at
Joppa.
Suddenly our conversation was interrupted by
a shout from Michael : Look, look, there goes
a gazelle!" My horse was ready for a chase, and
away we flew like the wind. We gained rapidly
till we came to a marshy place, where the light
bounding gazelle had the advantage, and we had
to abandon the idea of capturing the beautiful
creature. It? resembled a small deer very muoh.
Michael told us that he, often shot them for food,
and found them very delicate eating.
As we drew near to Joppa, we entered the
finest orange groves wet had ever seen. 0 what
luscious oranges! Hciw tempting they were !
Acres of them in all diatections ! I could not re
sist the temptation of reaching up my hand and
plucking some, and afteiour ten miles' ride they
were most refreshing.
Our tents were soon pitched on a beautiful spot
not far from " the house of Simon the tanner."
One of the first excursions we made was to that
house. We 'could not Lee any evidences that
Simon ever saw the builctmg now shown as having
once belonged to him. It seemed too far up
from the sea, and its appearance was too modern.
Some shrewd money-making man has evidently
taken this house to show to travellers. The vi
sion, however, seemed to us none the less a real
fact. As we stood upon that house-top we kneW
that before us lay the same sea that Peter gazed
upon when he was taught that " God hath also
to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life."
Acts xii. 18. It seemed fitting that Peter should
have been shown this vision on the shores of the
boundless sea. He might thus have been re
minded that the glad tidings of salvation were
not to be confined to the narrow strip of land be
tween him and the desert, but that they were to
be sounded abroad to the millions who were sit
ting in the regions of darkness far beyond the
sea.
THE JOPPA COLONY
That afternoon we paid a visit to the Ameri
can colony at Joppa. I must say that the sight
of a plow and reaping-machine gladdened my
heart. All over Palestine we had seen men
scratching the earth with something not much
better than a stick, drawn by a sad looking don
key or stunted oxen—or cows which looked like
starved calves. Was it strange, therefore, that
we were glad to see a plow and improved imple
thents of industry? I might write a long letter
about what we saw and heard while visiting the
American colonists at Joppa; but I have only
time now for a quotation from Mr. Adams' ser
mon a few weeks before our arrival. I copy the
sketch from a private letter:—
Yesterday afternoon I went to the American
service, which they bold in a wooden house erect
ed on their plot of ground, and which will be
their school-house. There were several officers
from an English man-of-war present, and several
of the residents in the town, and I, suppose Mr.
Adams, the leader of the sect, took the opportu
nity to explain his motives for coming here. He
said the time had come when there would be
great revolutions on the earth, that the last dread
ful struggle would soon take place, and then
would come universal peace. We have, he said,
come here in fulfilment of prophecy. We have
not come out of political motives, we have not
come as missionaries, we have not come to inter
fere with other religions, but we will hold forth
the pure, the beautiful, the glorious truth of
Jesus the Messiah. He said also: Soon will this
land be teeming with fertility, soon will these
barren plains be covered with wheat, barley, etc.,
etc., as people come in to till the soil. America,
and England the mother country, were to be
chiefly instrumental in bringing about this happy
state of things.
What has this groaning earth been lonaing and
praying for, in all ages, but peace ? What has
been the prayer of the Church for thousands of
years? What has for centuries been the prayer
of all Christian denominations —Protestant, Greek,
Roman Catholic—but Thy kingdom come ? and
soon will that prayer be answered. The last of
the mighty kingdoms of this earth is passing
away, and on its ruins will be set up the everlast
ing kingdom of the Messiah. •
I suppose "he does not always preach in this
style—it is only for the benefit of strangers who
are present. There are some nice people amongst
them, and one thing is certain, they seem very
earnest in what they are about.
There are among those people, numbers, it
must be admitted, who seem truly to love the
Lord Jesus.. No doubt some of them have been
disappointed in Palestine, yet I can but feel that
they will in many ways do good. One of their
chief objects is to teach the natives, by example,
the way to cultivate the land, and when .those
wretched inhabitants see that with proper imple
ments one man can accomplish more than ten of
them, it will certainly prove a valuable lesson to
them. If truly converted men and women, with
the love of Christ in their souls, would colonize
among the heathen and teach them the practical
value of Christianity, their attention would soon
be arrested, and they would thus .be.led toasters
to the story of the death and suffering of Christ
to save a guilty world from punishment due to
their., sin. "Truth is the daughter of time."
History will therefore show whether Mr. Adams
has intentionally deceived these Christian people
in inducing them to leave their homes in Ameri
ca. However that may be, I was pleased to see
them, and most of them told us they were con
tented.
A WESTERN LAYMAN ON RE-UNION.
BROTHER MEARS : We do not need two eyes
to see that the same state of feeling exists now in
both branches of the Presbyterian Church thht
existed in 1836-7-8. Then the Old School
charged the New School with bad faith and hete
rodox principles. Now, see Dr. Hodge in the
Princeton Review. Such charges against the
New School body ought to be correctly under
stood and appreciated, but I regret that our good.
friends of the Evangelist should go into a labor
ed reply. Thus it was thirty years ago---aaser
dons and charges from the same side, and column
after column of defence on the other.
The papers of the " other branch" I do not
see, and therefore know nothing of their contents
except what is reflected through our own organs
From them I learn that we are thus assailed, and
I wish to ask if we are always to be on the defen
sive ? ..Are we to spend precious time in defend
ing " our branclf! against outrageous charges
emanating from Princeton, or any other quarter?
For one, I say No, most emphatically. Our time
is too precious to be thus employed. Our line
of duty does not lie in that direction, and if my
voice could reach our entire communion I would
ask all our brethren not to reply to any one who
assails us on these topics.
We hake a great work to do. Why should
the work cease while we come down to you? S ee
Nehemiah vi. 3.
If a public record of thirty years and the en.
dorsement of the blessed Spirit's sacred influence
in very many instances is not sufficient to estab.
lish our Presbyterianism, then, and in that case,
let it go.
Allow me to inquire, what prospect have w e
of the right kind of union, when a number of
Presbyteries and a large minority of our 0. S.
brethren oppose it? We all know what a power
there is in an active minority, when aided by
learning and talents of a high order. It was just
such an active and talented minority who brought
about the passage of the excision act thirty years
ago; and depend upon it, like results will follow
a re-union with a small minority in active oppo.
sition. To put it in two words, we shall be in
"hot water" again;
We can afford to wait until unanimity marks
the councils of our 0. S. brethren, at least to a
greater extent than: now. We are not responsi
ble for the division, and I cannot see what w e
have to gain by a re-union under present circum.
stances. Our Church machinery, Boards, &c.,
have but just begun to operate and are operating
well. Why disturb them, unless with at least the
prospect of something as good or better in return
—a union of heart and soul, and which shall not
carry with it an important disturbing element.
PROM OUR ORIOAGO 001MESPONDENT.
PARSONS' SEMINARY
Mention was made in a previous letter of this
institution. It deserves a more extensive notice,
in view of its prospective importance to our de
nominational interests, as well as to those of
Christian education and sound learning in lowa.
Parsons' Seminary is located at the thriving
and attractive young city of Cedar Rapids, an
important point on the C. & N. W. R. R., 81 miles
west-of the Mississippi river. The place has also
a railroad communication with Dubuque, and
will soon be supplied with other advantages of
the same sort. Its location upon " the Cedar,"
furnishes it with a superabundance of fine water
power, already utilized for flouring, paper, and
other mills, and doubtless is destined to make it
an important manufacturing centre. The town
is also an unusually attractive one from the beau
ty of its location-and the "timber" by which it is
sheltered. When it is added that we have here
a vigorous church, ministered to by our widely
and well known brother, Rev. James Knox, and
that a noble church edifice of stone, both costly
and beautiful, is now nearly ready for its roof,
enough will have been said to mark its fitness as
the site of an important institution of learning,
such as this Seminary aspires to become.
Through the liberality of a former resident of
the place, eighty acres of finely wooded, elevated
ground, in the very border of the city, has been
donated to its use ; while through the indefatiga
ble labors of its financial agent, Rev. G. E. W.
Leonard, some $14,000 have been secured, mainly
in the immediate vicinity, in subscriptions to its
funds. It also entertains the hope of receiving
a very large bequest, made by the late Mr. Par
sons, of Keokuk, to be applied to educational
purposes in the State, in connection with the Sy
nod of our Church. Should this bequest be as
signed to the Seminary, it be will be in posses
sion of the beginning of a large endowment. A
fine brick edifice, designed as a beginning only,
is in process of erection, and the Rev. Alvah
Goodale and Mrs:Goodale,"late missionaries of
the Americaraioard in Turkey, and respectively
graduates of Amherst College and Mount Holy
oke Seminary, have been employed to open a
school in a building secured temporarily for the
purpose. This whole enterprise is under the au
spices of our own denomination, and should be
fostered and encouraged as one to us of great
prospective value. Hitherto we have been far
behind all others in the matter of educational fa
cilities in this State. The successful inaugura
tion of this Seminary, and that for young ladies
at Lyons, will mark the dawn of a better day.
And both are earnestly commended to the favor
of those at the. East who are willing to aid in un
dertakings of so great promise of good.
NORTH-WEST
DES Monizs, lA., Sept. 23, 1867.
CHINA.—From Dr. Treat's eloquent and able
argument for enlarged zeal and enterprise for the
conversion of China presented to the American
Board at Buffalo, we extract the following: —
" The Man of Sin is there, and will be there,
whoever else is absent. His concern for the
Chinese began far back in the past. Five hun
dred and sixty years ago he placed au Archbish
op at Peking, with seven suffragans. Though
the door seemed to be shut against him for a
time, his labors for the last three hundred years
have scarcely been suspended. Toe extremest
threats have been made and executed; but they
have only verified the maxim, Rome never
yields.' The prize is great, even the conquest of
one-third of our race; and the sacrifices made to
gain it will be great. Recently an extraordinary
zeal has been manifested. ' The activity of the
Romish Church in China,' says Sir John Davis,
has no rival as to either numbers or enterprise•'
Such a record, in coming years, ought to be sia l "
ply impossible."
LAYMAN