the Elders for having lost much of the witness of her own spirit, she sought relief in the good opinion of others. But she oftener startled the Elders, than conciliated them, by her professions. Some doubted her sincerity, and others her orthodoxy; and she felt equally mortified by both. There was bitterness as well as truth; sarcasm as well as sorrow, in her lips, when she said of them, "that Angels were better judges of repentance."

Shesh

bazzar had thrown out the same hint to the Elders, but in another spirit. He smiled complacently, whilst he said to them, "You will soon be as glad as GABRIEL was, when he put Rachel's tears into the urn of heaven: he had seen none purer, since Hannah wept before the Lord in Shiloh." The Elders had said to him, "Her tears may be in your book, but they are not in His bottle yet." It was a harsh speech; and yet, they meant no harm. Ra

chel had long been a mystery to them; for although she never spoke "as one of the foolish women," neither did she speak like the generality of the wise women. She was often more mystical than the woman of Tekoah, and more poetical than Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth. When she called the stars, sheckinahs. in miniature, the old men thought her profane : when she said, the sun was an emblem and a pledge, that the glory between the Cherubim would, one day, fill the whole earth, they deemed her insane, or too partial to the Gentiles and when she doubted their interpretation, of both the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, and the hatred of Esau, by God, they almost charged her with blasphemy. Thus it was not wonderful, that they were but slow of heart to believe her to be a daughter of the Covenant. Her speech, they said truly, "was hardly the language of Canaan;" for it was never much

according to the shibboleth of the wise, nor the sibboleth of the weak; and now it was less so than ever. "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh;" and Rachel's heart abounded now with tastes, emotions, and aspirations, which sober truth could not satisfy, nor ordinary teachers please. When Sheshbazzar was not in the synagogue, she often staid at home on the Sabbath. She could get "no good," she said, "from the common-place of the dry Elders, nor from the whining of the weeping Elders, nor from the thundering of the fiery Elders. Merab was too controversial; Jeduthun, too legal; Jubal, too declamatory; and Hamath, too hasty. Except, therefore, when Sheshbazzar spoke, Rachel hardly listened. She preferred her own "wordless thoughts," she said, "to their unthoughtful and low words."

Esrom ministered to this fastidious taste

She herself had never thought of bringing the prayers of the Elders to its bar, until he obHer own spirit

truded them upon her notice. had long been too devotional, to weigh the words or notice the tones of those who led the synagogue of the people to the THRONE of Jehovah. Even when the Elders who had

wounded her, lifted up their hands in prayer, her heart, whilst simple, forgot all their faults and defects, and felt only that God was listening!

Sheshbazzar had often said to her, “Remember; God only is addressed in prayer. You are no longer a hearer, when His worship begins. You are then speaking unto the Lord; and what you have to say to Him, is too solemn to depend upon words or tones. Let your heart and grace; and

pray for mercy

it will ascend to heaven like Manoah's angel in

the flame of the sacrifice, even if the altar be an unhewn rock."

In the sun of such sentiments Rachel's de

votional spirit had ripened; and, until Esrom blighted it, by criticizing the prayers of the Elders, nothing that they were as men, or had said as judges, had even tarnished the bloom of her devotional simplicity. Or as Sheshbazzar had often expressed it,―place her only before the Throne, and her heart is a harp which will yield melody unto the Lord, at the touch of any "holy hands," whether laic or levitical.

Such it had been, whilst Sheshbazzar was the depositary of all its secrets. Such he himself often found it, when he led the devotions of the Synagogue. But ever since her betrothment, it had often been untuned. Her plans -her prospects-her arrangements, for the day when she should be brought to the house of Esrom, “in raiment of needlework; the virgins, her companions, following with gladness and rejoicing," had more than divided