rior, and the expression of kindness to an equal. According to this custom, Abraham's ervant was provided with sumptuous gifts, of jewels, of gold, and of silver, of wearing apparel for the bride, and for her family. These were brought forth and distributed, and he and his servants, in their turn, were hospitably entertained. The next day he requested, that they would permit him to depart. The mother of Rebekah very naturally desired, that their separation might be delayed for a few days, but the man entreated that he should not be detained; and Rebekah consenting to go, they were affectionately dismissed, with the blessings and prayers of her family.

FANNY. Isaac, I remember, however, went out to meet his bride.

MRS. M. You cannot say so much, my dear. Isaac, it is said, "went out to meditate in the field at eventide.” Perhaps it was his daily custom, and on no occasion of his life, was meditation and prayer more suitable than on the present, when he was about to receive as a companion, a stranger on whose character his future peace was to depend. It is not even said that he expected to meet her. But as he walked, he lifted up his eyes, and beheld the train. Rebekah discovering him at a distance, inquired who he was; and being told that he was Isaac, her destined husband, she alighted from her camel, put on her veil, and prepared to meet him with modesty and respect. The tent of Sarah was prepared for the nuptials; thither Isaac conducted Rebekah, and she became his wife, and consoled him for the loss of his mother. (B. C. 1856).

The marriage of Isaac thus happily accomplished, Abraham took to himself another consort, and had other

sons besides Isaac and Ishmael. To those he gave portions and sent them away to the countries east of Canaan; whilst Isaac remained with his father, and became the chief heir of his temporal possessions; and to him, as they had been to his father, these were abundantly multiplied. He was, too, the inheritor of his virtues, for in his long life, which is, however, related with brevity, we hearof but one deviation from rectitude. In several circumstances of their history there was a striking resemblance. · Driven, like his father, by famine to Gerar, the same fear of losing his wife, induced Isaac to employ an artifice similar to that into which the pious Abraham had suffered himself to be betrayed.

By the general excellence of his character, the propriety of his intention was advocated with the king, when the imposture was discovered. Whilst he reproved the weakness of the husband, he commanded his people to pay the highest respect to `the strangers, and permitted them to remain near the Court and cultivate the land; until their possessions became immensely great. Their flocks were innumerable; the produce of their fields exceeded that of the Philistines, beyond all calculation, and the servants of their household were like the retinue of a prince, Such splendour of prosperity at length awakened the jealousy of the people, although the conduct of Isaac afforded no cause of complaint. They were obliged, therefore, to tell him plainly, that they dreaded his increasing power, and desired his removal. Nor were they satisfied by his compliance in returning to Beer-sheba, until Abimelech and some of his principal officers, had paid him a visit and persuaded him to enter into a permanent treaty

of friendship, the "Well of the Oath," bearing witness to their covenant, as it had done many years before, to that of their fathers.

CHARLES. How many years did Abraham live?

MRS. M. Many more than we do now; yet the life of man had been greatly abridged after the flood, and was still gradually decreasing. Abraham died at the age of one hundred and seventy-five years, (B. C. 1810) and his father, Terah, had lived two hundred and five.

CATHERINE. Lives so very long, must have been chequered with a great variety of entertaining events.

MRS. M. Certainly: yet it was not the design of the Holy Spirit in giving us a revelation, to detail all the events that might entertain us, in any of the lives which it records; but chiefly to show the universal depravity of man, and the mercy of God in providing a Saviour; and the historical narrative is pretty generally confined to such particulars as tend to elucidate this one grand design. Hence the annals of a thousand years, are contained in a very few pages. If a Messiah was to come in due time, it was necessary previously, so to point him out, that he should be acknowledged when he should appear. Many of the prophecies, therefore, which predicted his advent, delineate such peculiarities of character, as apply to no other person that ever lived. He was to be of the stock of Abraham, and that this descent might admit of irrefragable proof, they were separated from all other people, and governed by a polity that was calculated to keep them pure. They were not allowed, for example, to intermarry with their idolatrous neighbours; and therefore the servant of Abraham was sent to bring a wife for Isaac, from the house of his brethren.

To return to this narrative. In the fortieth year of his age, Isaac was married to Rebekah, and in the sixtieth, his only children, Esau and Jacob, were born. (B.C. 1837.) The boys grew, and displayed very different dispositions; and a very different destiny awaited them. Esau was active and bold; Jacob, mild and affectionate. Esau delighting in sports of the field, procured the venison which Isaac loved. Dressing it with his own hands according to the taste of his father, he became his favourite; while Jacob, devoted to the gentler pleasures of domestic life, remained near his mother and secured her almost exclusive attachment.

Having lived a century and a half, and become nearly blind from age, Isaac thought his days were almost numbered; anxious, therefore, to settle the inheritance on his eldest son, he called Esau, and directed him to take his bow and once more procure the dish that he loved; that he might eat of it, and bless him before he died. This was overheard by Rebekah, who immediately conceived the design of imposing on her husband and procuring the blessings for her favourite. Accordingly she directed Jacob to run quickly and bring a kid from the flocks, with which she would imitate the venison of Esau so completely that the latter would be supplanted.

Jacob's conscience disapproved of the fraud. He hesitated. "I shall bring a curse on myself," said he, “instead of a blessing." But his mother silenced his scruples: on me be the curse," said she-" only obey me." FANNY. What else could poor Jacob do, when commanded by his mother?

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MRS. M. Parents very seldom desire their children to do what is obviously wrong. If from ignorance or depra

vity, they so criminally disregard their own duty, they are not entitled to obedience. Perhaps Rebekah remembered, though Isaac had forgotten, the prophecy which had declared before their birth, that the blessing was entailed on the younger; yet she ought also to have recollected, that He who pronounced it, did not require the unjustifiable arts of his creatures to accomplish his purposes. But Jacob was probably aided by selfishness to yield to the dictate of his mother's affection. Yet we are not unwilling to plead in his behalf, that he was laudably ambitious to succeed to the spiritual inheritance bestowed on his family, and which he knew must be transmitted either through him or his brother. He was encouraged, too, by Esau's apparent carelessness of the distinction; for he had before this agreed to relinquish to Jacob for a trifling recompence the privileges of an elder brother, even then desirable, though they were afterwards augmented when the first born were required to be peculiarly devoted to the services of religion. He was persuaded, however, to disguise his person and present the dish prepared by his fond mother; nor did he hesitate to assure his father that he was "his very son Esau." "God give thee," said the patriarch, "of the dew of heaven and the fatness of earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee; be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee; cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee;" Searce had this imposition been effected, when Esau came in, and presenting his venison, demanded the promised benediction. Astonished at the fraud of which he had been made the victim, Isaac lamented that a "Deceiver had come," and to him he had given the superiority! "I