that the threatened vengeance had been accomplished. From that time to the present, the Dead sea remains a standing memorial of the wickedness of man and the justice of an offended God.

Soon after this event, Abraham left his pleasant abode at Hebron, and journeyed southward, passing through Kadesh, and pitching his tents in Gerar, a city of the Philistines, near Gaza, and southwest of Judah.

Here, Abimelech the king, seeing and admiring the beauty of Sarah, made inquiry concerning her; and understanding that she was the sister, and not the wife of Abraham, ordered her to be taken into his harem, intending to make her his wife. It seems hardly possible that the fault of the patriarch could have been thus repeated in his old age, and the act betrays a lack of faith in God which we should not expect to find in Abraham. Once more a forgiving God interposes to save him from the consequences of his error.

God appeared by night to Abimelech, informing him who the fair stranger really was, and commanding him instantly to restore her

to her husband, on pain of death in case of disobedience. The king, who evidently knew and feared the God of Abraham, appealed to him for his innocence in this matter, and promised compliance with his direction.

The wife of Abraham must have been a woman of extraordinary personal attraction at the age of ninety, thus to rivet the attention and admiration of all who looked upon her. But whatever had been Abimelech's expectations, his conduct was a model of right feeling and generous kindness. He gently rebuked Abraham for the subterfuge to which he had resorted, and when informed that Sarah was indeed his half sister, his remarks to her show that he regarded this as but a weak apology for a misrepresentation by which he might have been fatally misled. "Behold," he says, "I have given to thy brother a thousand pieces of silver; let him be to thee for a covering of the eyes unto all that are with thee, and to all others."

The covert satire contained in this gentle rebuke must have been deeply felt both by Abraham and Sarah, conscious as they doubt

less were that their misconduct had brought reproach and dishonor on the holy name by which they were called. Loaded by Abimelech with valuable gifts, they departed from Gerar and returned to their pleasant and beloved home at Hebron.

HERE is joy and rejoicing in the tent at Mamre, such as never before lighted up its walls; for a new life has there commenced its course, destined to flow on while eternity itself endures. The promise of God is fulfilled: a son has been given to Abraham, and Sarah, as she sheds happy tears on the soft cheek of her first-born, can hardly believe that all this bliss is a reality, that this precious gift of God is indeed her own, a part

of herself, from which henceforth nothing can ever separate her affection. The babe is well named Isaac, or laughter, for his coming has opened a perpetual fountain of gladuess in the hearts of his parents. They see in him not only the child of their old age, the stay and staff of their declining years, but the heir of promise, and the inheritor of a legacy of blessings such as only God could bestow.

But amidst the general rejoicing at the birth of Isaac, one heart feels nothing but mortification and disappointment. Ishmael, who has hitherto looked upon himself as the heir to the vast possessions of his father, regards the advent of this new claimant as a personal injury, and nurses his indignation until he almost hates the beautiful child who, he thinks, has usurped his place in the heart and home of his father.

Such was his state of feeling, though probably the influence of Hagar restrained him from any violent outbreak, until the time came for the weaning of Isaac, when, according to custom, a great feast was made by Abraham in honor of the infant heir. Ishmael could no