subjects of arbitrary power-they had their courts and their witnesses, and guilt or innocence was ascertained with caution; but their judicial and typical laws, were sometimes blended together, of which peculiarity, the city of Refuge is an instance. The allusions to it in Scripture, both under the Mosaic, and the Christian dispensation, instructs us, that it was intended to teach them, that their most indifferent actions were not innocent-that they were continually obnoxious to punishment, and that pardon and salvation were to be obtained only through the merits of the life and death of their promised Messiah, our exalted High Priest.

DEUTERONOMY.

CHARLES. My impatience, mother, to pursue the history of the Israelites has led me to anticipate our conversation. I have looked into the book of Deuteronomy, but have met with nothing that you had not told us before.

MRS. M. I am very much gratified in finding that you have attended so carefully, for your conclusion is nearly correct. The book of Deuteronomy is a book of repetition, and that is the import of the name.* It is the valedictory discourse of Moses to the Israelites.

Their pilgrimage was now drawing to a close, and the life of their venerable legislator was restricted to that period. He had earnestly desired to enter the promised land, but his prayer was rejected, and he submitted.

The near approach of their separation awakened all his paternal love for the people of his charge-his anxious concern for their happiness, and his apprehensions of the disastrous consequences of that levity which had severely put his constancy to the test, and finally, in effect, occasioned his exclusion.

The generation that was now to enjoy the blessings promised to Abraham, had not incurred the unpardonable

* From the Greek words Deuteros, the second, and Nomos, a law.

guilt of despising" the voice that spake from the mountain that burned with fire unto the midst of heaven"-the tremendous spectacle displayed on mount Sinai; they were "the children-the little ones" whom those incorrigible men had often complained were brought out of Egypt to die of hunger and thirst. The precepts and the prayers of Moses had failed to avert the penalty of disobedience from their fathers, yet flattered by his own invincible affection, he indulged the hope, that the last words of a long tried, and now departing friend, might stimulate their children to pursue that course of virtue and piety, which alone would secure their peace in the inheritance of Abraham.

He assembled the nation, therefore, on the plain of Moab, on the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year of their abode in the desert, and delivered to them the persuasive address contained in the book of Deuteronomy.

And first, because the most of his auditors were either very young, or not yet born, when the posterity of Jacob had walked through the dried bed of the Red Sea, he recited briefly their journey from Horeb "through the great and terrible wilderness, by the way of the mountains of the Amorites," to the place where they then stood-the unceasing care of an ever-watchful guardian, who had provided for all their wants; and travelling before them in a fire by night, and a cloud by day, had directed them where to pitch their tents-who had enabled them to overcome all opposition, and delivered their enemies into their hands -yet they had not put their trust in Him-even refusing at Kadesh, when they were told to go up at once and possess their inheritance !

CHARLES. But the people to whom Moses now spoke,

were not the fearful men who refused-why then did he accuse them so harshly?

MRS. M. They were not in the first instance, but as they grew into manhood, they had sufficiently manifested the same culpable dispositions, to justify Moses in warning them both from the example of their fathers, and their own aberrations. He might remind them, that they had themselves been encompassed by the mercies of the "mighty one of Israel"—" they had been fed without bread, and their raiment had not grown old by the way." But he had yet another and equally decisive plea. "The Lord," said he, “made not this covenant in Horeb with our fathers, but with us—even us, who are all of us alive this day. Hear, therefore, O Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I speak in your ears this day-that ye may learn them and do them, that it may be well with you. The Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love him, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. These words shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children-and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Thus solemnly and earnestly did Moses demand the serious attention of the Israelites, while he proceeded to rehearse the principal laws, and added others, both moral and judicial; explaining and enforcing all, as his fervent zeal dictated, by every consideration of their own utter unworthiness, by the peculiar nature of the obligations they were under,-and by the free sovereign goodness of God; who had not "set his love upon them because they were more in number, for they were the fewest of all people:" nor for their righteousness had

he chosen them, "for they were a rebellious and obstinate people." He bade them, therefore, take heed, when they possessed houses full of good things, which they filled not, and wells, which they digged not, and vineyards and olives, which they planted not-that they did not forget the Lord who brought them out of the house of bondage, and say, "by my might and my power have I gotten this wealth." To promote this modest temper, peculiarly becoming in a people so greatly distinguished, he commanded them, when they should have peaceable possession of their inheritance, and came with the first fruits of the earth annually that they should confess, while they put their offering into the hands of the priests

"A Syrian ready to perish, was my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty and populous-and the Egyptians afflicted us, and when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, he looked upon our affliction and brought us forth with a mighty hand, and with signs and wonders." Such transporting recollection crowding into the mind of the grateful chieftain, he exclaims-" For ask now of the days that are past, since the day that God created man upon the earth, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it."---“ Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of fire, and live ?" " Or hath God essayed to go and take him a nation from amidst another nation, by temptations, by a mighty hand, and by great terrors; according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? And now Israel," he asks, "what is the reasonable service the Lord requires of thee, but to fear him, to walk in all his ways, to loye him with