reign land, and obey the mandate of an unknown bridegroom.

The opening of this character of Rebekah finely illustrates the beauty of a justly regulated mind, alive to the best duties of life, and prepared to yield to the visible designs of God. Her generous protection of the stranger- her eager anxiety to make him welcome - her advocacy of his plea, to return immediately to the house of his master and her high resolution to suffer no feminine weakness to intercept the lofty march of her new destinies, undertaken by the will, and began under the evident protection of heaven form altogether, in my opinion, a constellation of some of the most attractive gems that are to be found scattered in the mine of life.

CHAP. XI.

REBEKAH. ISAAC. ABRAHAM.

It was eventide; and Isaac, who dwelt in the South country, came from the way of the Well Lahai-roi, and went out, as was his usual custom at the close of day, to meditate in the field on the goodness of his Creator, and to offer up the silent aspirations of a devout and grateful heart. As he chanced to lift up his eyes, in the direction by which he expected Eliezer to arrive from Padanaram, behold! the camels and train from Mesopotamia come in sight. Isaac hastens forward to reach them. Rebekah speedily observes him, and enquires of the steward who the person might be that walked across the field to meet them. She is told it is her destined husband. Immediately she alights from the camel, and veils herself— while Eliezer briefly communicates, apart, to his

young master the particulars of his conduct and success. With the most respectful tenderness Isaac approaches the fair Syrian stranger, and conducts her into the tent that had been his mother's, and which he had allotted and decorated for her apartment. They were soon after married. Isaac soon found her virtues, no less than her beauty, create a powerful interest in his heart; and her amiability and endearing society soothed his wounded spirit, for the first time, for the long deplored loss of an affectionate mother.

Το

Shortly after this period, Abraham again married. Keturah was the name of his second wife. his six sons, by her, Abraham during his lifetime gave select portions of his property, and sent them far away from the vicinity of Isaac, into the East country; in order that all cause of irritation and dispute might hereafter be avoided; and that all possibility of rivalry between them might for ever be extinguished, respecting the final division of the patriarch's possessions upon his decease.

When Isaac married Rebekah he was forty years old. They had been united twenty years before it pleased Divine Providence to bless them with issue and which blessing was, at the end of that period, conceded by an indulgent God to

Isaac's importunate prayers for such mercy. Rebekah presented him with twins - Esau, or Seir, and Jacob. Isaac was then sixty years old.

When the twins were fifteen years old their grand-father Abraham, who had survived Sarah, the mother of Isaac, forty years-was gathered unto his fathers, when his age was an hundred and seventy-five years, and was buried by his two sons, (the offspring of the bond-woman, and of the free,) Isaac, and Ishmael, in the cave of Macphelah; and which he had formerly purchased for the interment of his beloved Sarah.

The boys grew up to manhood. Esau became a skilful hunter was of a more robust constitution and daring mind than his brother-and, from his dexterity in the fields, was able to supply Isaac with choice venison a food of which his father was particularly fond. Hence, independent of other causes, Esau became a greater favourite with his father.

Jacob, on the contrary, of a more delicate habit, and attached more to domestic life, pursued his pastoral occupations; and being more at home with his mother, and attentive to all her wants, and ready always to execute her wishes, was particularly beloved by Rebekah.

Nothing can be more ill-judged in parents, or injurious to children, than any species of favouritism extended to any particular members of a family. It is bottomed on injustice, disposes to haughtiness, and warps, insidiously, to crime. It rends asunder affections which ought never to be separated, and excites an envious hatred, not unseldom sealed in blood. It is often an unmerited, and always a most pernicious treason against the dictates of nature - by whose decree every child is, or ought to be, equally the object of parental love—and is, farther, a sin most grievously committed against heaven itself, for an abuse of the blessings it confers.

Of this we shall soon have a painful proof.

Esau and Jacob having arrived at man's estate, the former, upon a certain day, chanced to return from the chace fatigued and hungry. At the moment of his return Jacob had been seething some lentil pottage, (a kind of pulse, somewhat resembling our vetches, or coarsest pease,) of a reddish colour. Esau was extremely tired from hunting, and faint from hunger. He therefore implored Jacob to give him a portion of the mess; explaining to him at the same time the oppressive urgency of refreshment for him. Under circumstances of