again to duty and affection. But what will not vice? When once we enter upon the commission of it, we give ourselves out of our power-we give the helm to the adversary, and we are turned about whithersoever he listeth. Thus, at once assailed with lust, and pride, and disappointment, not long she hesitated; forth from their dragon seed, up sprung Revenge, like an armed giant, to seal her infamy with blood. The deserted garment favored her resolve, and she accuses the stainless Joseph of a crime, which, he had shown to her, his righteous soul abhorred. Masking herself in the grossest hypocrisy, and under the pretended agitations of offended honor, she sets up the hyena-cry of distress, and claims the attention of her astonished household; SEE, he hath brought an Hebrew unto us to mock us; he came in unto me, to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice; and it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my

voice, and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled, and got him out. So ready is falsehood to aid the commission of every crime; and no wonder, since he who is the author of sin, is also the father of lies.* Having succeeded thus far, she lays the garment by, and awaits the arrival of her lord; to whom, with the same artfulness, she repeats her complaint, and, as we might well expect, his wrath was kindled. To be thus abused, and by one, on whom he had conferred so much confidence and favor-by one, who, from being his legal bond slave, he had raised to an office of trust and a post of honor-by one, who had always worn the garb of superior virtue, and who even appeared to be the avowed favorite of heaven. To be thus abused, and by such a person-the sense of so high an indignity, of such base ingratitude, and such deliberate treachery,

* John viii. 44.

might well have called forth his fiercest anger, and provoked him to the severest punishment. Now the inflexible integrity of Joseph, the simplicity of his nature, and the evidence of the divine favor which his master had observed, might have raised a doubt as to the truth of such an accusation, had it proceeded from any other tongue than hers, for whom, nature, honor, virtue, all combine to claim a favorable hearing, and where all the tender endearments of connubial love forbid us even to cherish a suspicion. This over-mastering influence, added to the plausibility of her story, banishes at once every other consideration. Deaf to all appealevery opinion-every feeling gives way, and the unhappy Joseph is degraded from his well-earned honors, and consigned to the gloom and hardships of a dungeon! where, his feet they hurt in fetters, and the iron entered into his soul. Unhappy, said I? Unhappy! the heart

less adulteress, with all her show of innocence, though resting on the lap of indulgence, and feeding daintily upon

all the luxuries of life, might have exchanged with the prison-bound son of Israel for advantage! For what are all the pleasures of the world, when mingled with agitations, and the compunctious visitings of a guilty conscience? What is honey if it be sweet only in the mouth, but like the roll in the Apocalypse, it turn to bitterness in the belly? All other sorrows are comparatively light and easy to be borne, but this we can neither wrestle with nor elude; the spirit of a man, saith Solomon, will sustain his infirmities, but a wounded spirit, who can bear? While we are blest with tranquillity within-with a conscience void of offence towards God and man-the arrows of affliction may strike, but they cannot harm—they may threaten, but they cannot subdue. Witness the lions in the den of Babylon, divested of their

natural ferocity, and turning the playmates of the prophet; and the raging furnace of Nebuchadnezer converted to a temple for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to hold communion with their God! Beside, to the righteous, there are pleasures in reserve, which the wicked can neither feel nor apprehend. Witness the first Christians, in the midst of persecutions-nor prisons, nor pains, nor death, could damp their ardor, nor bend their dauntless spirits. Inspired by that strength and comfort from above, through which St. Paul declared he could do all things, martyrs in ecstacy have breathed out their souls in blood and flame; and the same St. Paul, with Silas, his companion in affliction, once on a time, did make the prison walls of Philippi to echo with their songs of praise. Nor does the Almighty ever forsake his faithful servants. see him in this instance of their imprisonment, shaking the foundations of

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