subject which we are about to propose for consideration, is not practicable; we must therefore imitate travellers in a foreign country, whose limited time will not permit them to pass through the land in the length and the breadth of it we must enquire what things are most worthy our regard, and to them bend our attention. There are two events previous to THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH, which require us to pause, and to indulge the common feelings of nature, and which cannot fail to impress, because they speak at once to the heart. It is impossible to pass through Canaan without turning aside to the land of Moriah, and contemplating the sacred mountain on which a patriarch's faith triumphed over a father's feelings. According to the promise of God, Isaac was born when Abraham was an hundred years old. He had seen his son preserved from the perils of infancy. His mother had gazed with unspeakable pleasure upon her child-the son of her vows, who was now fast pressing towards manhood, The parents of this amiable youth were looking forwards to a peaceful dismission from the toils of life, and to the happy termination of a tranquil old age. Abraham "planted a grove in Beer"sheba," and rested under it's shadow. quiet retreat, alas, is not impervious to sorrow!

This

This delightful serenity resembles the stillness

of the air which usually precedes a tempest-it bodes approaching trial. "And it came to pass "after these things, that God did tempt Abra"ham, and said unto him-Take now thy son, "thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and

get thee into the land of Moriah: and offer "him there for a burnt-offering upon one of "the mountains which I shall tell thee of."What a command was this! To stain his hand with the blood of a lamb which he had fed, would be a task to a feeling mind: but the requisition is for a "Son." To select one from a numerous family, would be a cruel effort. Let the mother look round upon her children, when they are assembled before her like a flock, and say, which she could spare from among them? But the demand is, "take thine only son"-in whom the life of both parents is bound up. To part with an only child for a season, opens the fountain of a mother's tears, and adds to the grey hairs of his father. To lose him by death, is to cause them to go bitterly in the anguish of their soul all their days. What was it, then, to offer an only son as a sacrifice, and to be himself the priest who should plunge the knife into his bosom? But he obeys-obeys without a murmur! He rises early in the morning to immolate his child, and to offer, on the altar of God, all that he held most dear in this world.

And

On the third day, the destined mountain marks it's elevation along the line of the horizon, and meets the eye of the afflicted parent. The servants are not permitted to witness the awful scene, the solemnity of which they might disturb by lamentations or the execution of which they might prevent by force-or, wanting their master's faith, might draw from it inferences unfavourable to religion. At this moment, to awaken in his bosom extreme torture, "Isaac "spake unto Abraham his father and said, My "father: and he said, here am I, my son. "he said, Behold, the fire and the wood: but "where is the lamb for a burnt-offering? And "Abraham said, My son, God shall provide "himself a lamb for a burnt-offering: so they "went both of them together."-Bat we will no longer attempt to scent the violet, and to paint the rainbow. We must draw a veil over the scene: for who can enter into a father's anguish as he raised his hand against his child? and who shall be bold enough to attempt a description of his rapture, when heaven, which had put his faith to so severe a trial, commanded him to forbear, and indeed provided itself a victim?

Before we enter upon the immediate subject of this evening's discussion, humanity requires us to drop a tear, also, over the grave of the

once lovely Sarah, who ́" died in Kirjath-arba.” Twelve years after the trial of his faith, this heavy stroke of calamity fell upon him; "and "Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to

weep for her."-Let not the unfeeling, and the gay, break in upon the sacred privacy of domestic sorrow! It is not the semblance of grief, which spreads a cloud over the forehead of yonder venerable patriarch: real and unaffected anguish causes those tears to flow. She had been long the companion of his lifeshe had shared his joys and sorrows-she had sojourned in tents with him, a stranger in a strange land-she had regarded him with fondness up to her hundred and twenty-seventh year. Her communion and friendship had sweetened his distresses, and lightened his labours. The dissolving of this long connection was loosening the fibres which entwined about his heart; and while he exhibited the resignation of a saint, he felt as a man. Before "the cave of the field of Machpelah" closes it's mouth for ever upon the precious dust, let the young and the beautiful come, and look, for the last time, upon the person whose loveliness had kindled desire in every bosom, and had more than once ensnared her husband. Let them gaze upon the dishonour of that cheek, which even time had respected, and age had

R

spared. Let them learn a lesson of humility, while they behold the triumphs of death, and hear a husband entreating "a possession of a burying place, that he may bury his dead out "of his sight," and hide that form from his eyes, which he had never before beheld but with rapturous delight!

We pass over the events which occupied the few remaining years of the life of Abraham, and the interesting account of the marriage of Isaac. We leave his two sons, to bury in the grave of their father their mutual animosities; and we commit the dust of that patriarch in silence, to rest by the side of his beloved Sarah, till the morning of the resurrection. We pass over the life of Isaac, whose disposition, according with the kind dispensations of Providence, led him to prefer the tranquillity of domestic life, to the noise of state, and to the applause of fame; and who was "a plain man, dwelling in tents." In the bosom of his family, old age stole upon him, and he heard the voice of years calling him to rest with his father Abraham. The fraud of Jacob, and the sanguinary disposition of Esau, must alike be overlooked; nor can we pause to comment upon that, which might furnish so much instruction-the sad consequences of the deception which lie practised upon his father. Sin