disappoint and try? Who shall not look well to himself, if placed in circumstances of worldly prosperity? for, though all things may be prosperous and felicitous without, yet within there may be naught but famine, and leanness, and spiritual death! And who that has set out in the ways of his heart, will not be warned betimes to extricate himself from the deadly grasp which the world is about to fasten on his soul?

There is a greater evil in life than either poverty or obscurity, than toil or trial, than suffering or sorrow: it is to be left of God to eat of the fruit of our own ways, and to be filled with our own devices." There is a sentence more dreadful than that of immediate death and damnation: " Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone!”

Kibroth-hattaavah! What lessons of wisdom may be gathered at that place! what solemn warnings rather are there uttered! There, from generation to generation, the world has buried its votaries. There are the graves of the sensual, the covetous, the ambitious. Where be their pleasures now? their riches? their honours? all the vain things they lusted after, and for which they bartered their souls?

My soul turns in horror, and exclaims: "Let God do with me as seemeth unto him best; only let me be humble, grateful, and submissive; yea, let me "deny all ungodliness and worldly lust, and live a godly, sober, and righteous life!" ever seeking "the kingdom of God and his righteousness. This is an object worthy of all our thoughts and desires: for this we may ever long, and strive, and pray: it is adapted to the nature of the soul, and will fill and bless all its capacities. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled."

To

The children of this world must needs be sceptical of the nature and tendency of religion to confer lasting good. Infatuated by their own heart's lusts, they can not easily conceive of a happiness separate from selfish gratifications. such, there is a seeming reality in the shadows they pursue; and hence, even the disappointments and losses to which they may be subjected do not change the current of their desires. But the Christian, having awaked to a sense of his high relations, knows from his own experience, that he is never so free from disquietude as when he is waiting upon God, so happy as

when he commits his way unto the Lord; that there is no where else such peace as flows from "the light of God's counte nance." In view of that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, O what a feeling of the vanity of all earthly things sweeps over his consciousness! a feeling that suffers no abatement, until, through the transforming influence of faith, he is able to exclaim: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee."

"Give what thou canst, without thee I am poor;
But with thee, rich, take what thou wilt away.

THE CONSPIRACY DEFEATED.

He who does wrong is apt to do worse, either that he may conceal the wrong, or enjoy the fruits of his iniquity. The fear of exposure, or the fear of loss, counteracts the remonstrances of conscience and the motives to repentance, until the mind becomes blinded in its perceptions of right, and the heart loses all sensibility to crime. Thus falsehood leads, as by a moral necessity, to perjury; overreaching, to forgery; libidinous desire, to the violation of domestic purity; and the wrathful passions to the destruction of human life; while each criminal deed, as it were, seeks and claims support from the other, as the degraded, wretched inmates of a prison contrive to keep each other in countenance. Sad is it to think of the transformation which human nature may undergo, from virtuous promptings and resolves, to evil passions, and polluting practices, and criminal deeds; from that which promises a useful happy life, to all that betokens degradation and despair. But time is necessary to the development of evil propensities. Conscience must be injured by other and deeper acts of wrong, before the man is left to the unrestrained control of his own heart's lusts. Let the first promptings to evil be unresisted, the first wrong unrepented of, and no youth may say of what he may not be guilty: even that bright and beautiful boy may become a monster in crime.

Thus was it with Absalom. He had given loose to evil passions, and, by adding crime to crime, had at last rebelled against his kingly father; and, not content with having wrested sceptre from his hand, and driven him from his home, he now aims to compass his death; the bloody death of that father who had lavished on him, from his boyhood, all the smiles and

the

favours of paternal love! Never had a father a more lovely and promising son; and never did a son more grievously disappoint a father's fondest hopes.

It might be supposed that Absalom's treatment of his father would have frustrated his traitorous designs; but his personal attractions, together with his plausible address, predisposed the people to accredit his statements; while his incipient success served at once to decide those who had wavered or stood aloof from motives of policy. In times of civil commotion, the many, without pausing to decide on the merits of a cause, will incline now to this side, and then to that, according as either gives promise of triumph; but though Absalom's conduct must have appeared in an odious light, yet David himself had made many personal enemies; he had even given occasion for the enemies of God to blaspheme; and it is not unreasonable to suppose, that some among his people waited but an opportunity to show their contempt of his religion, and their hatred of his rule.

It must be admitted, however, that men are seldom wanting to second the designs of selfish ambition. The less restrained by principle, the more artful will one be in his efforts to entrap the unwary, and the more adroit in the selection of his agents. Thus it happens that a corrupt politician sometimes enjoys the support of well-meaning, but credulous men; or that a flagrant offender in the Church is, in some instances, upheld even by good men; they have been flattered by his attentions, or cajoled by his artifices; perhaps, he approached them on their blind side, and in return for the compliment, they cover him with the mantle of their charity. There were men in Absalom's train who, however opposed to some of David's acts, could not have been insensible to the heinous ingratitude of his son's conspiracy, unless they had been blinded by his arts, or seduced by his promises; these were some of the elders of Israel! as men of official dignity have since been detected in advocating the wrong against the right. But others sided with Absalom, from a regard to their own interests rather than to his, opportunely availing themselves of his conspiracy to gratify some long-cherished passion: as there are not a few at the present day who, having nothing to lose by any political convulsion, would even plunge their country into the horrors of a civil war,

rather than forego the chance of personal aggrandizement. Thus men of talents without principle are found engaged in a bad cause; nor are men of superior penetration always ingenuous. When their object is good, they are wont to effect it in a circuitous, rather than in a direct and simple way; and thus a habit of acting is formed which impairs integrity and precludes confidence. No man is more to be avoided than he who prides himself on his ability to devise ways and means. Rather than be subjected to the mortification of failure, he may betray others, as well as be betrayed, into iniquitous measures. He who thinks that he sees further than other men, will be tempted to overreach. At any rate, a reputation for great wisdom does not prove its possession. Many an obscure man can give us better counsel than the oracle of a party, or the chief of a profession. One may excel in worldly wisdom, yet be utterly devoid of moral principle; but wisdom without grace, is the wisdom of the serpent.

Absalom had engaged the ablest counsel in the kingdom; and to human view, this was a triumph on his part. David himself thought that he might better have lost any other man than Ahithophel. That one man is a host in himself. То receive his counsel, is as though one had enquired at the oracle of God.

Absalom therefore, in all probability, relied on Ahithophel, as men in a strait are apt to lean on their own understanding, or to defer to casual suggestions. But Ahithophel relied on himself: he could hardly have had such a reputation, and not presumed on his sagacity. We may detect this same spirit of self-reliance not less in the ecclesiastic who has distinguished himself for his politic measures, than in the statesman who has been long acknowledged as the thinking head of his party. Hence, such, sooner or later, outwit themselves and defeat their own ends. Wise as Ahithophel conceived himself to be, he made the mistake that worldly-wise men so often commit: he left God out of his counsels, and in so doing, lost all respect to the right. How to accomplish his end' is now the question; the nature of the means to be employed is of minor consideration. Hence the folly and the wickedness of his first It proves that, with all his wisdom, he 1 2 Sam. xvi, 21.

advice to Absalom.