command? could a human sacrifice propitiate his favour? could he delight in seeing a father imbrue his hands in the blood of his own son? These and many other surmises might have risen in quick succession in the mind of the patriarch, and combining with the strong dictates of nature, might have urged him to disobedience. But he was sure that this was the word of the same God who had called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and for whom he had forsaken his country and kindred and father's house; and therefore in simple faith in his wisdom and goodness he immediately obeyed: "And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him." There is something very affecting in the minute detail of these trivial circumstances, when taken in connection with the feelings which must have been passing through the patriarch's mind. He occupied himself in preparations for his journey with all the coolness of deliberation; he arranged the particulars himself; and even clave with his own hand the wood which was to consume his son! This was not the result of a sudden ebullition of faith; it was the effect of resignation and habitual confidence in God. During his long and painful journey he had time to consider well of his conduct; for three successive days did this affectionate father travel with his innocent victim by his side, and even then he saw the place of "trial afar off." Leaving his young men at this spot, lest they should attempt by interference to oppose the will of God, it is said, " Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together." And here a touching incident is mentioned, which if any thing were wanting to heighten the conflict of the father's feelings on such an occasion, must indeed have wounded him to the very

soul. Isaac, in the simplicity of his heart, "spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father and he said, Here am I my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering." How little did he think at that moment that he was himself the sacrifice which his father was commanded to offer! The reply of Abraham was full of faith and resignation; he said, "My son, God will himself provide a lamb for a burnt-offering." Thus they pursued their way. Reaching at length the fatal spot, we are surprised as much by the meek submission of Isaac as by the constancy of his believing father. He was now about twenty-six years of age, and therefore must have voluntarily suffered himself to be bound. His early piety, which is afterwards commemorated, gives us every reason to believe that he did So. The crisis was now arrived in which Abraham's faith was to be finally ascertained; he had built the altar, and had laid the wood in order, and had bound Isaac, and had laid him on the altar upon the wood, and as he stretched out his hand to grasp the fatal knife that was to slay his son, the angel of the Lord suddenly called to him out of heaven saying, “Abraham, Abraham: and he said Here am I." Yes, he was there in the path of duty, in the act of obedience: he would have slain his son had not the Lord recalled his command; but it was enough; he had proved himself willing to part with every earthly object, however beloved, and to rend asunder the dearest human ties if God required it of him: "And the Lord said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thy only son from me." And God made good the words of the patriarch, for he did provide a sacrifice—a ram caught in a thicket-and Abraham offered it in the place of his son, calling the name of the place Jehovah-jireh, which means "the Lord will provide." And God called him a second

time out of heaven, solemnly declaring that "because he had donethis thing, and had not withheld his son, his only son, in blessing he would bless him, and in multiplying he would multiply him;" and that he should be the progenitor of the Messiah, for " in him all the nations of the earth should be blessed." Thus, every difficulty was removed; the trial proved the forerunner of an enlarged blessing, and the apparent harshness of the command only sweetened the mercies to which it led.-Rev. F. Close.

AFFLICTION.

Much has been said, and said well, on the subject of affliction. It is a chord on which many changes have been rung, and some of these have no doubt often soothed, and comforted, and consoled under one or other of the various forms in which affliction has presided over human destiny. But the very variety of these forms seem to justify the number of those attempts, which from time to time, have been made to mitigate its bitterness, or to extract its sting. And while every day, perhaps, as it wings its flight, witnesses a new aspect of suffering, it would only betoken, surely, a fitting proportion in the amount of sympathy, should every day witness a new endeavour to alleviate the sufferer. We are aware, it is one thing to contemplate, and to moralize from the calm regions of theory, and another and very different thing to writhe under the rod—to agonize in the very fire of endurance, and to practise the lessons of an untroubled hour. Yet we are not without the hope that we may be able to offer some improving or consolatory suggestion to meet the case of one or other of the sons and daughters of affliction. With this view we would endeavour to enumerate some of the more obvious purposes which, in the wise

economy of Providence, afflictions seem intended to subserve, and by remarking those features in our character and condition, which those purposes pre-suppose, and to which they have relation, we may discover somewhat of the mercy as well as the wisdom of those arrangements which at first sight may appear, at the best, but dark and mysterious.

The character of the first purpose to which we shall advert, is discovering; of the next, subduing; and of the third purifying.-Affliction may be first considered as discovering, or opening up to us clearer views of our own character and that of the great Being with whom we have to do. It is, indeed, a sword in our bones, but may be compared to the sword that divideth between joints and marrow; discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. The world, ourselves, our position, our pursuits, and our prospects, appear to us in a new and altogether different light from the bright hues they wear in the hey-day of health and prosperity, resigning the glow of ideal radiance for the sober colouring of truth. And as our views of things which are seen and temporal, shrink into their relative proportion, our conceptions of things unseen and eternal, expand towards some measure of their real importance, till we are at length enabled to say with a tried sufferer of old, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

As the corresponding feature of our constitution to which this tendency of affliction has respect, we remark our natural ignorance, both of our own hearts, and of the divine Being, aggravated as it is by our propensity to self-deception. The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it? We are prone to see all objects through a false and distorting medium. We have " eyes of flesh." The world appears to us deserving of our most engrossing attention-its opinions worthy of our most profound res

pect-its wealth-its power-its honours meriting our most unwearied exertions. The world is our God-its smile our highest reward-its frown our greatest dread. Our own characters are beheld with the jaundiced eyes of partiality and self-esteem, their failings gilded-their faults extenuated-their virtues magnified. Nay, we call darkness light, and good evil; we put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. Our false estimates extend to the nature and character of the great Author of our being, and the obligations and requirements under which we are laid by him; "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." On this point, indeed, we can attain to no ideas but what are vague, general, and indefinite, without the intervention of an express revelation. This, however, is provided, and we remain ignorant still. We are blinded by prejudice, and a carnal mind, by which the things that be of God cannot be known, because they are spiritually discerned. Our wishes frame our creed; our vitiated desires warp our judgments, and darken our understandings. The veil is on our hearts and our eyes, and merciful is that dispensation of our lot that will rend it asunder, though it should convulse every nerve and sinew of our mortal frames. We "feed on ashes, a deceived heart hath turned us aside, and we shall go down to the grave with a lie in our right hand," unless some heaven-commissioned stroke shall dash the scales from our eyes, unmask the awful severities of truth,reveal us to ourselves in all the hideousness of sinners, and our God in all the immaculate holiness, the inflexible justice, the inexhaustible mercy, that meet in the cross of Christ.

But, 2ndly, Affliction may be considered as subduing. It is the hammer that breaketh the flinty rock in pieces. It possesses a softening influence, that brings down every high thought, and every imagination that exalteth itself. It humbles the pride of man, it lays the mightiest low;

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