are first to honour, seeing them all in him, as we nature, and must, therefore, expect some, and are to see him in all things. But, in regard to possibly the heaviest, of its sorrows. We are all the tender relation in question, great affection is the sons of men. "Man that is born of a woman not only permitted but commanded us. It is is of few days and full of trouble." If we were pointed out as the very spring of the duties of unfallen angels, we might look for an exemption the conjugal state. "Husbands love your wives from the ills to which flesh is heir. But, as the even as Christ loved the Church." The union sinful children of sinful parents, all our joys, like presumes preference originally, and that it may be theirs, must one day become the sources of our preserved, the preference must be continued. The sorrows. The road in which they have passed to party ordained by God to be a help meet for man rest is the one in which we are to follow them. soothes him under the cares of active life, relieves Our sufferings, indeed, may be more severe than and counsels him, and a community of interest those of many, but still there are some who parhallows the tie. Insensibility to loss of property, ticipate with us in them. So far, therefore, from even constituted as we are, would argue a per- replying against God, we are disposed rather to verted mind; and the fountains of sorrow un-exclaim, "What is man that thou art mindful of seal themselves as the parental or fraternal rela- him, or the son of man that thou shouldst visit tion is dissevered, but who shall venture to fathom him!" the depth of that wound which is inflicted, as the very desire of the eyes is removed? "Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke."

II. The suddenness of the removal next invites our notice. The tearing asunder of such a relation, under any circumstances, is always painful. It never finds us prepared for it. Even after it has existed for a long series of years, and youthful affection has died away, or settled very much into moral esteem, an identity of interests has grown up which renders the parting of two such old companions very hard. The past, however long it seemed while yet unentered on, now lying behind us with its incidents which memory easily recals, is looked upon as a dream, and the widowed heart droops as it seeks in vain for its wonted stay. But to detach, as it were, by a rude hand, these fibres so recently intertwined, and leave the mourner before he has time to prepare for being alone, is a violation of nature's feelings against which, however she may be silenced afterwards, we are not surprised, that she instantly and violently rises. Separations here, indeed, are always felt to be sudden; so brief, even when most extended, does any intercourse we have, appear. But in the relation in question, under the aggravating circumstances of an unlooked-for departure, the mind for a little labours under a kind of incapacity. It is stunned by the blow; it is overawed; and is unable, until restored to its natural action, even where the best of principles are usually in operation, to extricate those views of the visitation which are at once required and salutary. Time has its work to do as well as grace. The desire of the eyes is taken away with a stroke.

If, besides, as sharing in human nature, we share in its sorrows, we have part also in those dealings which are mercifully peculiar to the children of He who knoweth our frame appoints the condition suited to us, and, through the very experience we would put away, trains us for a happy and holy world.

men.

And, sharing in human nature, we share in the guardianship peculiar to it, as a creature of God, defiled though it be. He will not forsake the work of his own hands. A sparrow does not fall to the ground without his permission. But we are of more value than many sparrows, and if a shock be given to our frame, through an unlooked-for appointment of God, strength as extraordinary will be imparted to enable us to bear it. He will not suffer us to be tried beyond the limits within which alone such creatures as we are can endure, as the support vouchsafed under extreme suffering every day proves.

Such, then, or similar calamities await you. The lapse of another year may not have revealed them in your experience, but, as the next advances behind it, the fearful event may sadden your dwelling. They have occurred to others. They may occur to you. Death is always going its rounds. If not in your abode it is in another, and, even while you are not aware, may it enter your own door and smite, as by a blow, the pride of your circle. Others are now mourning, as signs to you, or warnings, as Ezekiel was, of the desolation speedily to overtake yourselves.

Be ye ready. Fortify yourselves with the principles and dispositions which the severest ordeal may require, that should a sudden call be given to the dearest of your earthly friends, it may be reIII. But, nevertheless, we observe, further, we lieved of at least part of its surprise. And should are not to be surprised if even so severe an afflic- you yourselves be the victims, seek reconciliation tion as this form part of our lot-an idea which now with your Maker, through his Son, that a wellwe gather from the appellation given to the pro-founded hope may cheer you as you pass through phet on the distressing message of his wife's death the dark valley of the shadow of death. The few being conveyed to him," Son of man,” -an ap-sands that remain of the present year will soon pellation indeed intended, frequently as it was given, no doubt, to distinguish him emphatically from other men, as the servant of God for important purposes, but also to remind him that he shaed in a common, sinful, and suffering human

have run down. The division of time marks its progress. Every year you seem to hear its solemn tread; and the last may now be dying away from you.

Nor mourn unsuitably to your nature, I would

have

say. You are the sons and daughters of sinful and
suffering humanity. No trial comes upon you but
such as is common to man. Who are these that
before
gone
you?
They have left the print
of their footsteps in the very path you are tread-
ing. And, blessed be God, they have left on the
road-side monuments of the support they received.
Here is "Jehovah-Jireh, in the mount of the
Lord it shall be seen;" and there "Ebenezar,
hitherto hath the Lord helped us." Wherefore
whomsoever you accuse, accuse not God. Be
silent, at least, if not resigned. "I was dumb, I
opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it."
But O aspire after that nobler liberty of spirit, in
which, realizing your relation to God completely,
a fallen being yet saved by grace, in nature's ex-
tremity itself you can say with truth, "The Lord
hath given, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord."

SCENES FROM THE OLD AND NEW
TESTAMENTS.

BY THE REV. J. A. WYLIE,

Minister of the Associate Congregation of Original Seceders at
Dollar.
No. IV

THE BIRTH OF MOSES.

:

"God

you out of this land." Such were the last words of
Joseph. To sustain the hopes of his brethren, and
mitigate the severities which his departing spirit doubt-
less foresaw to be awaiting their posterity in the land
of their sojourn, he left his bones behind him, as a
sacred pledge for the fulfilment of the promise.
will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones
from hence." Two hundred years had now nearly
passed away, but the promised deliverance came not.
gathered upon shade, till at last the thickening gloom
One by one did the stars of their firmament set. Shade
deepened into midnight; and who can tell the horrors
of that night, when darkness that might be felt, fell
down upon the soul of a whole people? Since Joseph
breathed his last, no deliverer had been raised up to
stand between them and the scorching tyranny of Pha-
raoh; generation after generation of their race had
arisen, doomed to the same inheritance of slavery, and
after passing a wretched existence on the plains of
Egypt, had sunk into their graves. Even heaven itself

was silent; no revelations were now vouchsafed from
Him who had appeared so often to their fathers; no
friendly token conveyed to them the assurance that
Jehovah saw their affliction, and was numbering up the
years of their doleful captivity; He who had been a
protecting shade to the patriarchs "when they went
from one nation to another," appeared to have cast off
their descendants in his wrath. And when they turned,
as their last hope in their misery, to the dying prophecy
of Joseph, alas! the dust of centuries rested upon his
coffin, his bones were mouldering away into oblivion,
and the promise was fast passing into forgetfulness;
the chains of Pharaoh were more firmly rivetted on
their limbs than ever, and the tyrannous law which had
just been promulgated threatened their race with utter
extinction. The calm of death, the sullen silence of
despotism brooded over them, and was it surprising
that the nation's soul, sickened with hope deferred, and
embittered by the hard bondage they endured, at last
bowed to this accumulated misery, and refused to en-
tertain any feeling but that of despair?

The deductions of reason, and the strong promptings of faith, in many cases, are exactly opposite. There is a buoyancy in the latter principle, which lifts it above the waves of trouble, when reason sinks, and is lost. Undismayed by the gathering darkness, faith ascends her watch-tower, and descries and hails the coming morn, before reason is aware that the day has begun to break. What different conclusions would have been formed by the one and by the other regard

IT was now a long time since the garment of Joseph, torn and stained with blood, had been brought to his afflicted father, that he might pronounce whether this were his son's coat or no. The too faithful memory of the parent instantly recognised the garment of the son. "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces." Three-andtwenty summers had visited the earth, and enriched the fields; but he who owned the torn and stained mantle had not returned to greet the eyes of his disconsolate father; and now the oil-dried lamp of the patriarch was on the eve of going out, without any hope of again beholding his lost child, when his sons returning from Egypt, communicated to him the happy tidings," Joseph is yet alive." Long was it since he had heard that name, and now not only to hear it, but to be told that Joseph still lived, that that beloved son who had gone forth from him in his youth and beauty, and whom he had seen no more-whose forming the prospects of the posterity of Jacob? Could he believed had long since faded from the earth,—was alive,—was governor over all the land of Egypt: oh! this was joy too great. The tender recollections of the past, the hopes inspired by the future, fear lest this lovely vision should vanish as suddenly as it had arisen, all rushed at the same instant into his anxious yet happy breast. The feeble frame of the patriarch could with difficulty sustain the shock. "Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not." But when he had been shown the chariots which Joseph had sent to carry him into Egypt, his spirit revived. "It is enough; Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die.

"

But now the bones of Jacob were sleeping in Canaan: Joseph, too, had been gathered to his fathers, and his bones, embalmed in spicery, lay in Egypt, waiting the promise of God, that He would visit his people, and bring them out of this land. The patriarchs had run their courses; Egypt was governed by a king who knew not Joseph; and the country they had sought as an asylum, and which had given bread to the house of Jacob in the famine, had now been converted into their prison.

reason have discovered at this hour any indications
that the bondage of Israel was drawing to a close,
that the blazing fires of that iron furnace were
in a little to be quenched?
It could not.
Still,
faith would have viewed their condition as pregnant
with hope, and from the very rigour with which they
were oppressed, would have interred that their de-
liverance was not distant. To the ear of sense all
was silent-no sound announced an approaching de-
liverance; but let the ear of faith listen, and it
will hear those very sounds coming from the shroud of
Joseph which once came from his lips,-aye, it will hear
the mouldering bones cry, "God will surely visit you.'
Reason would have conducted an argument to which
we could not have refused the praise, that it was spe-
cious; faith would at once have adopted a conclusion
which would have possessed the greater merit of being
sound. Surveying with an anxious eye, and recount-
ing with a faultering voice, every possible difficulty,
reason would have pled her cause in this manner: Will
the heart of Pharaoh relent, or will his captives collect
the fragments of their shattered strength, and loose
their own fetters? Under the jealous eye, and the

"

"I die; and God will surely visit you, and bring heavy rod of cruel taskmasters, by what means are

which these dues could have been rendered; the babe who made his cradle amid the waves of the Nile; the man who stood unhurt amid the thunders of Sinai, and conversed with God as we do with our friend; yet we know not if one voice rejoiced to say, "a man-child is born into the world;" yea, we know not whether the mother that bare him was not, at this hour, blessing "the wombs that never bare, and the breasts that never gave suck."

The birth of Moses was illustrated by an event of a different kind; the cruel edict of Pharaoh, that all the males of Israel should be drowned in the Nile, appears to have been given forth about the time that Moses was born. Aaron and Miriam, the brother and sister of Moses, were older than himself; but we do not read that their parents incurred any peril in nursing them; which gives us ground to think that the edict of Pharaoh was not then in existence; besides, the history in Exodus seems to connect, in point of time, these two events, by placing them together in the narrative; the first chapter closes with the edict of Pharaoh, and the second opens with an account of the birth and education of Moses.

they to dissolve the power which, stronger than a band | the birth of man, this was the most fitting occasion on of brass or iron, chains them to the soil of Egypt? And even supposing that they have achieved their deliverance from the "house of bondage," how are they to support themselves in their journey through the mighty wilderness? Will the sands of the desert give them bread, or will the rocks of the wilderness afford them drink? Granting that the desert is crossed, and their tribes at length all encamped on the borders of a land" flowing with milk and honey," will they not find it possessed by numerous and warlike nations? Few in numbers, broken in spirit, and without means of attack, how are they to achieve the conquest of that land? For captives in Egypt, labouring in the brickkilns, their lives made bitter by reason of their hard bondage, to cast their eyes on the rich fields and the wealthy cities of Canaan, and to think of subduing and possessing them by their valour, appears more like one of those dreams with which we will at times amuse our waking fancy, than a project which we gravely entertain, or have serious thoughts of accomplishing. Such would have been the view which reason would have taken of their condition and prospects; it would have concluded that the one was hopeless, and that the other were extravagant. Faith would have acted in another manner; it would have gone to the shroud, and clung to the bones of Joseph, and over these bones it would have pled the promise which the dying saint had given, and pled till the deliverance came. Had he not taken an oath of his brethren, and with his last breath confirmed the promise, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence?" Those cautious and prudent men who seek for less questionable grounds of faith than ingenious analogies, may deem it a little fanciful, but we cannot withhold the remark, that one ground, at least, of our hope, that the cause of truth will be revived in our own land, is similar to that which maintained the hopes of Israel during their oppression in Egypt. Had an Israelite been asked why he believed that his bondage would come to an end, and that he would yet possess the land of Canaan; he would have replied, that he had the promise and the bones of Joseph. If we are asked what ground we have for the hope that our own "captivity will be turned back," and that the oath which a united people sware to the highest Lord will yet again be renewed, that our sons will enter into it with the same solemnity, unanimity, and joy, with which their fathers sware it; we reply that we have the bones of the men who fell in defence of that cause, and who died, like Joseph, foretelling its revival; and these bones must first be torn from the bosom of our land before we can forego the hope that God will revive the cause which they perished struggling to maintain; "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

66

The future saviour of Israel comes into our world unnoticed and unheralded. Who could have told that in this hour Moses was born? We are not told that the sun rose in greater glory on that day, that nature paused to celebrate the birth of a mighty event, and pay deference to the future greatness of him who had that hour stepped upon our stage. There was not one astrologer in all Egypt who could read in the heavens that the babe was born in Goshen who was to overthrow the power of Pharaoh, and humble their own pride by showing greater signs and wonders in the sight of the Egyptians than any they could perform. Princes are ushered into our world by the rejoicings of courts, and the acclamations of nations; we call that day happy on which they are born; and in our fancy (though the fancy is vain) nature sympathizes with man, and, by some joyous burst, or some dread convulsion, signalizes the hour in which the future hero or monarch becomes an inhabitant of our world. None of these things signalized this hour, and yet a greater than Solomon is here. If ever nature paid homage at

Thus the cruel law which was to destroy the Church, and the saviour who was to deliver her, came together. We ought not hastily to decide on any of the dispensations of Providence, especially on those that are afflictive; we feel the calamity the moment it is sent, not unfrequently does the mercy remain a long time hid. If a decree has been given forth to destroy the Church, how know we but a Moses has been born to counteract it? When the mighty oak has spread its branches, and is waving them in air, as if conscious that it shall see the coming of a thousand summers, the worm at its root has destroyed its strength, and its glory withers in an hour. The iron hand of Pharaoh had already grasped Israel who shall "now come between the dragon and his wrath?" who shall prevent Pharaoh from making the Nile the grave of the Church? Now had the moment arrived for God to interpose; in the famine, he had sent a man before them by whom they might be fed, even Joseph, "whose feet was hurt in fetters;" and now, in the very spring-tide of Egyptian tyranny, he raised up a deliverer, even Moses, who had nearly perished by the edict he came to counteract. The river of Egypt was the trust of Pharaoh, and now that river sends forth from its womb a deliverer to overthrow his power. How nicely are the times of God balanced! How often does the extremity of his people, and the appearance of their God, as it were, meet! We remember another incident on the sacred page so alike to this, that we cannot resist the thought that the one was meant to be the type of the other. In the first pages of the New Testament we read that Cæsar Augustus gave forth a decree that all the world should be taxed. Then had the kingdom of darkness reached its height. It was incorporated with the Roman State, and that state had risen to a pitch of power, and acquired an extent of dominion unexampled hitherto in the history of the world; but when the decree came forth, lo! a babe was born in a stable and laid in a manger. It was not till Abraham had lifted up the knife, and it trembled over his beloved son, that he heard the voice calling "Abraham! Abraham!" and when he looked around, "lo! a lamb caught in a thicket." The darker the hour, we say it is the nearer to the dawning. The blacker the cloud, the storm will burst the sooner, and the joyous day, in a little, will be seen laughing above it.

When the angels who stood among the myrtle trees had walked to and fro through the earth," and behold it was still and at rest," then was the voice heard, "Oh, Lord of Hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten

years?" "I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies," | less still, the compassions of the Egyptians? Here was was the response, "my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of Hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem." When John saw the beast which arose out of the earth, giving forth his commands, that all who would not receive his mark in their right hand, or in their forehead, should be slain, lo! "another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues."