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ure appeared in the pillar of cloud at the door of the tabernacle, and called the culprits before him. In a few burning words he vindicated his servant Moses, assuring them that he would speak with him face to face, and even condescend to manifest himself visibly to him.

"Wherefore then," he goes on to inquire, "were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses ?"

Miriam and her brother were speechless before the awful presence and rebuke of Jehovah; but when the cloud had departed, as Aaron looked on her, behold, she was a leper, white as snow from the effects of that terrible disease.

Agonized at the sight, he humbled himself before Moses, confessing the sin of which they had both been guilty, and entreating him to pardon Miriam. Moses, whose forgiveness had instantly followed the offence, carried her case to the Lord, praying earnestly that she might be healed. The request was instantly granted; but the Lord commanded that Miriam should be excluded from the camp for seven days, as if still leprous, since this was only a

fitting recognition of her guilt and the divine. displeasure. During that time the encampment was not broken up, and doubtless the people partook in some degree of the sorrow and humiliation of their revered prophetess.

Such a lesson as this was not likely to be forgotten, and we have no intimation that Miriam ever again incurred the anger of God for a similar offence.

She died at a good old age, and was buried at Kadesh in the desert of Zin, a few leagues from Hebron, where her great ancestor Abraham so long resided.

Miriam was not permitted to see the entrance of her people into the promised land, but her faith beheld and rejoiced in it; and though her ashes rest far from those of her kindred, yet doubtless angels watch over them, and when the last trump shall call up the sleeping dead from land and sea, Miriam the prophctess, with all who have loved the appearing

of our Lord, shall be caught up in clouds to meet him in the air, to go no more out from his presence for ever.

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landscape which met the eye of Barak the son of Abinoam, as he pursued his way south from Kedesh-Naphtali towards mount Ephraim, whither he had been summoned by Deborah, the prophetess-judge of Israel. Around him on every side, fields of ripening grain smiling in the golden sunlight, and meadows

of waving grass, gemmed with flowers of the richest hue, foretold an abundant harvest; while in the distance mount Carmel, clothed with luxuriant vegetation to its very summit, stood like a sentinel guarding the scene from the approach of evil.

But the heart of Barak was sad as his eye drank in the loveliness of the scenery about him; for this fair land, with its wealth of beauty and fertility, the gift of God to his chosen people, was groaning under a yoke of oppression so intolerable that the hearts of the people had nearly died within them. They had rebelled against the Lord, their rightful Sovereign and King, and had been left by him to fall into the hands of Jabin king of Hazor, chieftain of one of those petty but warlike tribes among whom the land of Canaan was originally divided. With his nine hundred chariots of iron, he swept away or cut in pieces the brave men, the flower of Israel, who had dared to defend their hearths and altars, and ruled with relentless tyranny the defenceless people he had subdued.

But the Lord's time for the deliverance of

his oppressed people had now come, and in spite of the precautions of the tyrant, thousands of determined hearts were ready to face death in making one more effort to regain their lost freedom.

This was the errand on which Barak had left his home, and was seeking the presence of the illustrious woman who for many years had judged the people with a sway so just and impartial, that her name was everywhere coupled with blessings through the length and breadth of the land.

When she commenced her long and glorious public career, anarchy and oppression were universally prevalent, and the peaceful inhabitants of the villages fled to the shelter of caves and woods from the bands of lawless plunderers who infested the whole country, rendering life and property alike insecure.

But under the wise administration of the prophetess-judge, this state of things had been gradually changed. All disputes among the people were submitted to the arbitration of this "mother in Israel;" and social love and harmony took the place of intestine strife and division in the homes of the Jews.

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