emotions of filial grief, and had wept bitter tears over the grave of her father, and her warm heart both responded to his love and embraced his faith. Now they bend not beneath the nightly sky to worship the stars of heaven, nor the moon bathing with glory nature in her calm repose. Nor as morning breaks over their native hills, painting the landscape with gold, purple, and crimson, do they go forth to join in the adorations of their idolatrous kindred. They repair to a holier altar, and Sarai feels a new and strange rapture, as her mind rises above nature to nature's God. Her soul's deep recesses are illumined by light more soft and radiant than that of the sun, and all the poetry and deep devotion of her active and sensitive nature find ample expression in her worship of the Allbountiful Father. Her great beauty, her finely-developed person, her noble and generous qualities of mind and heart, made her, what her name imports, a princess, and worthy to be the wife of one who was to be the father of the faithful. In happy and harmonious fellowship they lived in their native land, sharing each other's joys and sorrows, until a voice divine came to them, saying, "Arise, this is not your rest, and go to a land of which I will tell you."

But not the least of Abram's comforts was the love of his dutiful wife. He had numerous relatives and

attendants, but no eye greeted him with the affection, and no voice sounded so sweet to him as his beloved Sarai's.

She was a true wife, making home a paradise, a green spot, redeemed from the curse of sin, where the weary pilgrim forgot his exile and his cares, enjoyed the present, and hoped, in the divine promise, for the future. He possessed all the elements essential to happiness—a contented heart, a loving wife, and an unshaken trust in a covenant God.

At length we observe an unusual stillness pervading the vale of Mamre. The vine still covers the hill-sides -verdure clothes the fields, and the rich light from above mantles every object with a calm and quite beauty. The birds are singing in the groves, and all nature is serenely joyful. But the patriarchal encampment seems solitary and deserted. At times, the attendants are seen to move noiselessly to their necessary duties, without the usual interchange of mirthful greetings. They appear stricken and sad. No sound of joy comes from the neighbouring fields, for the pipe of the shepherd is still. The keeper sits pensively beside his

flocks, and allows them to wander at will. But lo! there comes the patriarch himself-he has heard melancholy tidings, and his noble face is darkened with sorrow. He directs his steps to the tent of his wife, she who came with the sojourner from beyond the Euphrates, and having reached it, he sits down at its door in the attitude of a deeply-stricken mourner. Alas! the sad crisis has come. No more shall the vale of Mamre be trodden by the fair daughter of the land of Mesopotamia. The mistress of the tent, pale as the snow, yet beautiful as morning, is laid out in her long and last sleep. The journeyings of Sarah have found an end. The afflicted patriarch was bowed to the earth, and refused to be comforted because of the departed idol of his youth.

She had grown up under his eye, in his native land. She had clung to him in all the changes of his fortune. Her beauty had been the ornament of his tent, and her piety the comfort of his life. She had been the companion of his wanderings, and the partner of his faith, and the best tribute to her worth were the tears he now shed. But the dead must find sepulture; and he rises from beside the corpse of his once beautiful wife, where he had been for three days and nights, and still, trem

bling with the excitement of grief, he stood before the princes of Canaan, and said, "I am a stranger and a sojourner with you, give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." He purchased the cave in the field of Machpelah, shaded with forest trees, and with princely funeral pomp was it consecrated for a family burying-place, and here he laid, amid the lamentations of a thousand voices, the form he loved when a beauteous maiden, and had cherished as the noblest of wives, and the best of mothers. With Isaac weeping at his side, he turned away to tread, for a time, as a pilgrim, this

green earth, and to wait patiently until his change should come, and his spirit united with the loved and the lost

RUTH.

In language similar to the prophetic declaration of her royal descendant, did the voice of Heaven speak to her heart: "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy father's house so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, and worship thou Him."Ps. xlv. 10, 11.

To this voice she heartily responded, and she and Naomi both pursued their long and weary way to Bethlehem. Many, doubtless, were their surmises, fears, and deep anxieties about the future: but, faith was triumphant-their journey is ended-and the young Moabitess is a gleaner in the rich fields of Boaz. Here another admired trait appears in the character of Ruth. She submits her hands, unused to toil, to the hard drudgery of the harvest-field. She had been delicately trained in the land of Moab; she had moved in the gay saloons of pleasure; she had been admired and caressed for her beauty and virtue, and was illy prepared for so hard a lot; but unmurmuringly she submits, and, prompted by affection, and with a happy heart, she says to Naomi, "Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn: and she said unto her, Go, my daughter: and she went and gleaned in the field after the reapers." And the God "under whose wings she had come to trust," favoured her, and at nightfall she returned to her mother, laden with the precious fruits of her labour. Her strange beauty, her unaffected modesty, and respectful address, had attracted the attention of Boaz, and he had directed the reapers to treat her kindly, and to let fall handfulls of grain on purpose for her. In