- ter among the people; he says nothing to that; he was a patriot, yet he does not seem to have been overwhelmed with sorrow when he heard that his country was conquered; he was a man, and yet he does not seem to have had his heart broken when he heard that there was a great slaughter among the people; -"and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead,” — he was a father, and yet he does not seem to have been much affected by that; and the messenger added, "and the ark of God is taken!" Now, mark what follows. "And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died; for he was an old man, and heavy; and he had judged Israel forty years." You observe that he could bear the destruction of his country, and the slaughter of his countrymen, the death even of his two sons; but so did that man's heart cling to that which was the symbol of the glory and the presence of the God of Israel, that when the loss of that was mentioned to him, he fell, his heart burst, "his neck brake, and he died." And there is another instance, scarcely less touching than that, which we read of directly afterwards. "And his daughter-in-law, Phinehas' wife, was with child, near to be delivered: and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her fatherin-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself, and travailed; for her pains came upon her. And about the time of her death, the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast born a son," the greatest joy of an Israelite mother. "fear not; for thou hast born a But" the first time that it had ever occurred in Israel "she answered not, neither did she regard it." And then it is added: "She named the child I-chabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken." Can you have a more striking representation of the interest felt by the Israelites in the ark of son. God? And, my dear friends, do we thus love Christ? Does he hold this place in our hearts? Mothers in Israel, have you left father and mother, and sister and brother, and son and daughter, as no relations in comparison with him? They were in a dark dispensation, we are in a bright one; they saw but a glimpse of the Redeemer's glory as he passed by; Jesus Christ has been set forth, preached before us. Do we trust him? Are we seeking happiness through him? Are we altered by the fact, that he has suffered and died for us on the cross? Is religion any thing to us but creed, and ceremony, and name, and habit; or is it life, power, light, guidance? And, lastly, let your hearts be more and more where the true tabernacle now is; that when this new tabernacle shall come down from heaven, adorned as a bride for the bridegroom where no sod shall be broken for the dead, where no tears shall be shed for the living, where former things shall have passed away, and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness we may be for ever in that happy home that remains for the people of God. CHAPTER XXXII. MOSES TARRIES IN THE MOUNT. THE ISRAELITES SEEK AN IMAGE PUNISHMENT. I THINK the chapter we have read records one of the most humiliating incidents in that chequered and instructive history which we have been perusing from Sabbath to Sabbath. Here is a people brought forth from the land of Egypt, their prison house, amidst special mercies, before whom God's omnipotence had moved to open a pathway through the deep, to rain down bread from heaven to satisfy their wants, to guide and to comfort them in their way; and yet this people, thus crowned with loving-kindnesses and with tender mercies, seized the very first opportunity of the absence and the apparent delay of their leader, and made a calf or a golden image, to represent the living and the true God, notwithstanding that they had heard the law proclaimed amidst the thunders and lightnings of Sinai, “Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image," and in which, as in all the other commandments of the Decalogue, they had expressed their belief, and to which they had declared their steadfast determination to adhere. But let us see the greatness of the sin by the incidents that are recorded in the chapter. We may notice, not only their ingratitude to God, but their signal ingratitude to Moses, his chosen minister, their kind, their forbearing, and their magnanimous leader. He had been forty days in the mount, as commanded by God, but these forty days were spent, not in his own work, but in contact with Deity, and specially for their benefit. The words that these insolent and ungrateful tribes use, are, "Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses,"- the language of contempt- a sneer, "the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him;" he may be dead, if so we do not much care; but as we have lost him we must have some representation of Deity, in order to go before us. Great benefactors of mankind must not look for recompense on earth. It is your privilege, it is your commission to do the duty that devolves upon you in the providence of God, and to look for recognition beyond the grave; for even the world's greatest benefactors have not received the homage that they deserved; we must not calculate on it; and, therefore, whether we receive it or not, we must be guided by a sincere and deep sense of duty and of obligation, not by any prospect and hope of reward in this world. Never was there a leader so kind, so patient, so forbearing, so devoted, and yet these are the words he hears from this ungrateful people, "This Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him." The next, and painful and rather a perplexing feature in this narrative is that Aaron instantly complied with their wish. It has been supposed that Aaron here tried a plan that is, in fact, old and not new, and that man constantly has recourse to, yet with constant refutation of its value, and always attended with evil consequences. the plan of expediency. It is supposed that Aaron, when he heard them demand some image of the Invisible, in order to put them to the test, or to put them off, or in order to make an appeal to their avarice a reason for getting rid of the sin into which they were prepared to plunge, said to them, "Very well, then, take off all your golden ear-rings, and all your valuable jewels all that is precious about your per sons - take them off; and, if you are prepared to do that, then we will make an idol from them." It has been supposed that he did not think they would do so that he thought he could keep them from committing a great sin by proposing a way of accomplishing it that they would not submit to. But the result shows that it is most dangerous to tamper with what is clear duty. If the thing was right, he ought to have sanctioned it; but if the thing was wrong, he ought to have said that it was so; all ingenious expedients for trying to keep men in the way of duty which are not straightforward may seem very plausible, but they are never very prosperous. - We read, that he received the ear-rings from them after they had taken them off, which shows that their idolatry overcame their covetousness, and they were melted into one piece, which was cut or chased into the form of a calf. You naturally ask Why this strange image, a calf. You will recollect that in Egypt the sacred bull, or the Apis, was the great object of the adoration or worship of the Egyptians, as you will see upon many of the remains, and monuments, and inscriptions of that country, and it is thought that the Israelites carried with them a faint recollection of the idol- - the sacred bull which the Egyptians worshipped, and that they made the nearest approximation to it. Thus early evil associations engender sad memories, and mingle with holier feelings. And you will observe that they did not profess to make a god, to be a substitute for Jehovah, but to make a god that should be the representative of Jehovah; for the language that they used was "These be thy gods, O Israel!" The word gods conveys to the common reader a wrong impression. The Hebrew word for God, used almost always in the original, is Elohim, which is the plural number. For instance, in Genesis - |