the more striking, inasmuch as the directions given on this head are immediately connected with those which are given as to another subject of primary importance-prayer.

A third passage which I refer to from our LORD's teaching, is in the case of the demoniac child. He chides His disciples, by telling them that they needed direct fasting to cast out that kind, saying, "that this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." These three passages, amongst others in our LORD's public teaching, enforced as they are by His own example in the desert, speak with arresting force to all Christians.

Such is the historic position of fasting.

4. But there are other aspects of it which are most important,-the spirit in which it should be pursued-the limits to which it should be conducted the effect on ourselves, which should be the criteria and standards of its use to us individually. Elijah and those who stand with him in the vista of the long past, represent the historic form of the question. We find ourselves arrested by the calls of the Church and the practice of good men, as we look back to see what the history of men has been who feared God, and we find every person

marked by the adoption of this practice. Every one whom we have believed to be in heavenevery one whom we believe to be in the great multitude whom no man can number, has subdued his nature by this discipline. In the forefront of that army it was enforced by Moses, Elijah and David, Daniel and the prophets, who especially made this their practice. The Captain Who leads them, was He Who began His great example by the fast of the Forty Days. The stream of historic Christianity confirms the same impression. And those who have illustrated the moral history of Christianity have dwelt among us with this mark upon their countenances. The historic claim is strong enough.

In connection with other characters I will dwell hereafter on other portions of this great subject. It is, meantime, no small consideration that that company, members of which we delight to be, should be represented by men, every one of whom have practised a discipline which, communing personally with God, they have found so efficient, so necessary, and so blessed.

LXXII.

REBEKAH.

UNDUE NATURAL AFFECTION AND PARTIALITY IN PARENTS.

GEN. XXV. 28.

"AND ISAAC LOVED ESAU, BECAUSE HE DID EAT OF HIS VENISON; BUT REBEKAH LOVED JACOB."

1. WHILE the account of Rebekah in holy Scripture is so brief, that it would be difficult to draw many reflections from the study of her character; her position is suggestive, and her conduct by no means without important practical results. She first comes before our notice, as the future wife of Isaac, and, in that capacity, at once attracts the interest of the student of the patriarchal age. When the steward of Abraham set out upon his mission to find a wife for Isaac, he went to Mesopotamia, the old country of Abraham, his master. Having reached that land, he made it a matter of

prayer to God, that He would guide him in the choice of the damsel by an external sign, dependant on the conduct of the next visitor to the well. Rebekah, the granddaughter of Abraham's brother, came to fetch water in her pitcher; her words and her conduct at once answered the token which the steward had suggested, and he proceeded to engage her interest by the gifts of bracelets and earrings. Struck by the magnificence of the gift and with the natural simplicity of a girl, Rebekah ran to tell her mother; and Laban, her brother, ran out to meet the steward of Abraham. Few things

can be more beautiful in the description of the manners and customs of the early world than this account of Rebekah given in the 24th chapter of Genesis. The servant narrates the history of his mission, and the providential token, to Laban and Bethuel: and Rebekah is consigned to the care of the steward by her own choice.

The following description is given of her setting forth on her bridal journey :

"Then Laban and Bethuel answered and said, The thing proceedeth from the LORD: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before thee, take her, and go, and