Esrom nor Rachel understood it; but neither could forget it. "Is there any thing before me," said Esrom, "which, without her, I could not go through?" "Does this leprosy bear upon

my Betrothed, as well as upon myself?" said Rachel. "I will explain, in the Tent," said the old man.

No. III.

VARIETIES, FROM MISTAKES.

WHATEVER may be the faults or the defects of our character and spirit, there is not one of them so peculiar, but that some ancient proverb might be found to reprove it, or some experimental maxim to condemn it. Indeed, if either exposures or reproofs could cure faults, the conscientious would soon be faultless: for, what sin, of heart or life, has not been found and declared, by many, to be "an evil and a bitter thing?" Experience, as well as Revelation, has planted a "flaming sword" upon the gate of all wrong habits and tempers; and, although the sword of the former does not, like that of the latter, "turn every way," nor

turn at all in the hands of "Cherubim," it turns and flames too, enough to render us without excuse when we yield to temptation. For, who, of all the hosts of the peevish, the impatient, the irritable, or the rash, ever left a dying testimony in favour of their besetting sin? Many a tombstone in the church-yards of our cities and villages, records the domestic happiness and the public esteem, which the virtues and graces of Christian character gained for their possessors; but not one tells of a vice that did no harm, nor of an imperfection that did any good. Gravestones often flatter the dead; but they never say that a passionate or peevish woman was happy, in heart or at home, notwithstanding her ill temper. They never ascribe conjugal love nor maternal influence, to fashionable follies, or to frivolous accomplishments. Neither the toilette nor the piano, the pencil nor the harp, is ever en

graven on the URN, as the explanatory emblem of the character of the deceased; except, indeed, she has been an actress!

But not only do proverbs and experience condemn our faults: we ourselves condemn the same faults in others, whenever they affect our own interest or convenience. Then we are quite sure, that one might be more courteous, and another more reasonable, and a third more amiable, and a fourth far less talkative, if they would only try! Thus we see no difficulty to prevent them from being to us,

all they ought to be;

when they offend us.

be polite to one?

and no excuse for them,

"Is it not very easy to What good do they get to

themselves, from their high airs, or from their snappish humours, or from their capricious. conduct? I have no patience with such insolence, nor with such impertinencies."

There it is! We can chafe ourselves into a

bad spirit, by chiding, even in thought, the faults and follies of others. Let them only interfere with our comfort, or be somewhat more and greater than our own, and we can be Lawgivers and Judges against both.

Even this is not the weakest nor the worst side of our hearts, in regard to our faults. We can condemn them in ourselves, and yet continue them. We can lament them, and yet allow them to go on. We can even give up excusing them, and yet expect others to forgive and forget them: or rather to overlook them entirely; for we do not like the idea of being forgiven by any one but God.

Would that this were all ! But it is not. We are quite capable, even after having found our besetting sin of habit or temper, a hinderance to prayer, and a dead weight on hope, to give way to it still. Who has not resolved, at a sacrament it embittered, or under a chas

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