which I now so dimly shadow in words, some of those who now hear me shall soon be the living witnesses, as of a foretaste of rewards, whose full enjoyment can be yours, only after the weariness and misery of this poor life are all passed. Years of toil, dangers, pain, and sorrow,――lives passed in contempt and disgrace,――deaths of ignominy, of unpitied anguish, and lingering torture, must be your passage to the joys of which I speak; while the earthly honors which you now covet, shall for ages continue to be the prize of the base, the cruel, and the foolish, from whom you vainly hope to snatch them.” THE TRANSFIGURATION. The mysterious promise thus made by Jesus, of a new and peculiar exhibition of himself, to some of his chosen ones, he soon sought an occasion of executing. About six or eight days after this remarkable conversation, he took Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and went with them up into a high mountain, apart by themselves. As to the name and place of this mountain, a matter of some interest certainly, there have been two opinions among those who have attempted to illustrate the topography of the gospels. The phrase, “a high mountain,” has instantly brought to the thoughts of most learned readers, Mount Tabor, famous for several great events in Bible history, which they have instantly adopted, without considering the place in which the previous account had left Jesus, which was Caesarea Philippi; hereafter described as in the farthest northern part of Galilee. Now, Mount Tabor, however desirable in other particulars, as the scene of a great event in the life of Jesus, was full seventy miles south of the place where Jesus had the conversation with his disciples, which led to the remarkable display which followed a few days after, on the mountain. It is true, that the intervening period of a week, was sufficient to enable him to travel this distance with ease; but the difficulty is, to assign some possible necessity or occasion for such a journey. Certainly, he needed not to have gone thus far to find a mountain, for Caesarea Philippi itself stands by the base of Paneas, which is a part of the great Syrian range of Antilibanus. This great mountain, or mountain chain, rises directly behind the city, and parts of it are so high above the peak of Tabor, or any other mountain in Palestine, as to be covered with snow, even in that warm country. The original readers of the gospel story, were dwellers in Palestine, and must have been, for the most part, well acquainted with the character of the places which were the scenes of the incidents, and could hardly have been ignorant of the fact, that this splendid city, so famous as the monument of royal vanity and munificence, was near the northern end of Palestine, and of course, must have been known even by those who had never seen it, nor heard it particularly described, to be very near