have been a specimen of the noblest and the finest character. I think that he thought the marriage was desirable for the ear-rings and the bracelets - that is, for the dowry - more than for the family into which his sister was to enter; for it was when he saw the ear-rings and the bracelets that he said, "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without? for I have prepared the house, and room for the camels." It is not a beautiful trait in Laban's character; it indicates, I fear, an avaricious heart. It is like showing more respect to a rich man, in a church, than to others. Afterwards, "he ungirded his camels, and gave straw and provender for the camels, and water to wash his feet, and the men's feet that were with him. And there was set meat before him to eat." But this servant in the house of Abraham was evidently a man intensely devoted to his work, and master, and mission; he would not even eat until he had explained the whole matter. In fact, from the commencement of the chapter to its close, we cannot but notice how intensely and sensitively devoted he was to his master's service, honor and happiness; and it was because his master put confidence in him that the servant requited it. The true way to get men to love you is to love them; the true way to get servants to serve you is to put confidence in them; but, if you are always suspecting, you will be always suspected; if they that serve see only the more repellent points of society, they will be repelled, and society will be destroyed, just by the absence of that which is its cohesion and its cement-confidence in one another.

It is a singular fact that this veiling of herself by Rebekah gave rise to an almost universal Eastern usage. The women are kept secluded, and in public veiled; and thus no opportunity is afforded the husband of seeing his future wife, till introduced to her at marriage. All he knows of her beauty or excellence is from the lips of her maid, or nurse.

The picture, which is exquisitely beautiful, closes by Isaac bringing her to his mother Sarah's tent; and she that was given to him in the Lord was loved by him, and he was comforted. They that marry should marry in the Lord.

THE BLESSED OF THE LORD.-A LESSON.

"And Laban said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; why standest thou without?"- GENESIS 24: 31.

I HAVE made some necessarily superficial remarks on the long but beautiful chapter from which these words are taken. I noticed in the course of my remarks how, in all the minutest, as well as in all the most momentous, interests of human life, the divine order is laid down. "In the Lord," was the essential of marriage. "In the Lord," was the peculiar and distinguishing feature of death. We read, too, that the servant, who went to make the arrangements related in this chapter, not only recognized God in all things, but did so by direct and special prayer. If you read the chapter, you will see how Eliezer, the treasurer of Abraham's house, looked to God for direction, and, without some significant intimation from on high, he felt that he could neither walk surely nor prosper in the cause that he had in hand. At the same time, you will see that while he regards God as as his duty and his privilege, he God had placed in his power, to ter the desirable result. And the issue, we read in the chapter, was complete and undiluted success. The enterprise that begins in asking the blessing of the Almighty is sure to end in success from on high. What begins in him will be blessed by him, and whatever is undertaken in defiance of his will, or in disregard of prayer for his presence, direction and blessing, may seem to have a momentary prosperity, but in the issue it will bitterly and disastrously disappoint. It is God.

the author of all, and prayer employs all the means that enable him to win and mas

that blesses, and without his blessing the greatest results are small, and with it the least apparent results are blessings indeed.

I noticed that Laban gave the invitation to the servant of Abraham, apparently not because he saw something in him that truly proclaimed him a Christian, but because he saw much with him that made him desire to have him as his friend, his relative, or his ally. I admit the words pronounced by Laban were not from the purest of motives, but what he said in his avarice we may apply truly, and feel that the blessed of the Lord are blessed indeed, and that they that are blessed of him ought to be welcome to our homes and hospitality.

Let me, in looking at these words, viewed as a Christian invitation, notice first what it is that constitutes real happiness in the sight of God. It is being blessed of the Lord. It is remarkable, in reading the Bible, how seldom any circumstantial or external excellence is pronounced the ground of a blessing, and how frequently those pure and spiritual features, which the.world cannot take notice of, are viewed by God as alone entitled to the blessing. "Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven." The world cannot understand that. It can understand, "Blessed is the rich man, the great 'man, the wise man, the healthy man;" but it cannot understand that in sickness there may be realized the greatest blessing; that in the bitterest sorrow there may be felt the greatest sunshine; and that, when all is black and ominous around, there may be a light, and a joy, and a peace within, which the world can neither give nor take away. God singles out spiritual characteristics as the subjects of his blessing; never those external and circumstantial things which flit and pass away with the evanescence of the flowers of summer, leaving less than these of satisfaction behind them.

Nor are they pronounced blessed here who belong to some

,

external ecclesiastical community. God's blessings are pronounced no more upon ecclesiastical distinction than they are upon political, or civil, or circumstantial position. The churchman has no monopoly of blessing; the dissenter can claim no exclusive spiritual right. God looks through these

the outer and the evanescent distinctions, and he stamps the signature of his own benediction where he has impressed the image of himself, whatever be the name by which the subject of it is known, or whatever be the form in which the object of it worships. "Come in, thou blessed of the Lord." Such ones may be blessed, too, who are cursed of men. Many of God's saints have been cursed by synods, cursed by popes, cursed by general councils; but the curse has never cleaved to them, because God had previously blessed them. All the Balaams of the world cannot curse where God hath blessed, and they cannot bless if God has cursed. The blessed of the Lord may be cursed from all the points of the compass, but they are blessed notwithstanding, and their blessing no man taketh from them.

But who are they that may be said to be emphatically blessed? First, they who are justified in the sight of God. "Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, to whom the Lord imputeth no iniquity." No man is really happy, unless he has some humble reason for believing that his sins are blotted out. As long as he has the persuasion that his sins cleave to him, so long he must make the inference that the curse follows him. The shadow does not more surely follow the body in the sunlight, than the curse follows and cleaves to sin upon the soul. Man was made holy and happy; sin brought the curse, not God; and wherever there is the curse tasted in its bitterness within, or stamped and branded on the man without, there we have the echo of sin, the shadow of iniquity, the absence of all blessing; but when sin is blotted out through precious blood, and the sinner is justified by a fin