then, in conclusion, near many of the villages there is found an olive-press, apparently used by the whole village, while up amongst the terraces there are multitudes of smaller wine-presses, apparently cut in the rocks by each proprietor for his own use. In confirmation of this evidence I have been informed by one for many years a resident in Jerusalem, that the inhabitants are dependent for firewood on the roots of the vines and the olives still found on the desolate hillsides. The roots remain, though the trees are gone, and those roots unite in their testimony with the rocks amongst which they are found. The evidence therefore of the rocks is irresistible. The people are scattered through the nations, and the rain has washed down the toil from the broken terraces; but the rocks remain; and the proof is as clear as any proof can be of anything, that there was once a teeming population and a high state of cultivation, that the country was once a land of vines and oil olives, and that it was a land maintaining a prosperous, thriving, and painstaking people. Thus the rocks agree with the Book. Those barren hills themselves supply the evidence of their former fertility, and the stones cry out that the grand old Pentateuch is historically true. III. PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. But we have not yet done with those barren hills; for we have not yet exhausted their evidence. Some may enquire how it is that a country which was once so fertile is now become so desolate; and the answer may be given that the villages have been burned, the terraces neglected, the cisterns broken, and the water-courses choked, which is all perfectly true. But that is not enough to satisfy a real enquirer. “How was it,” the thoughtful man will ask, “that the villages were burned and the terraces neglected?” In the answer of this question the rocks can give us no assistance, and we must depend entirely on the Book; but there we find the whole mystery solved. The fact is, that the whole country bears witness to the truth of prophecy. The present state of things is exactly what God foretold in His Word. It is perfectly true that the mountains are dreary, barren, and desolate; perfectly true that it is no longer “the land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands;” but it is equally true that the change which has taken place is exactly that which God foretold in the Scriptures. What did Moses write three thousand three hundred years ago? Turn to Leviticus xxvi. 33: “And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.”