Admah, Zeboam, and their sisters in guilt, quite as graphically as it is told in the Word of God.

It was a common tradition among the Jews, that the "pillar of salt" was still standing, and to that common faith our Lord referred when he said, "Remember Lot's wife." Josephus alluded to it, Clement of Rome, Irenæus, and others of the fathers. But all investigations were dangerous. The Turk could not or would not afford protection, and the wild man of the desert was, to all explorers, like a "bear robbed of her whelps." But years have wrought great changes, and it remained for the Government of the United States to vindicate the sacred history about the pillar of salt, and confirm the opinion of eminent Jewish Rabbis, that it stood to this day.

In 1847, under the authority of the United States Government, an officer fitted out an expedition, with boats, tools, and all needed authority. Amid universal solitude-amid withered boughs, without birds, flowers, or grass-where no boat had fretted the waters since the day God destroyed Sodom, the little craft was launched. Tradition pointed to one spot, on which the foot of man for centuries had not pressed. Here hidden things were brought to light, and the Word of God found a marvelous corroboration. A marvelous mission! Our national banner was the first to be wet with the spray of the Dead Sea; the first to float over Sodom; the first to salute Lot's wife, and hang over the pillar of salt; to drag out from their mysterious retreat the hidden evidences of four thousand years to the truth of God's

Word. The search and the pillar are thus described in the official report made to Government :

"Soon after, to our astonishment, we saw, on the eastern side of Usdum, one-third the distance from its northern extreme, a lofty round pillar, standing apparently detached from the general mass, at the head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt chasm. We immediately pulled in for the shore, and Dr. Anderson and I went up and examined it. The beach was a soft, shiny mud, incrusted with salt, and a short distance from the water, covered with saline fragments and flakes of bitumen. We found the pillar to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front and pyramidal behind. The upper, or rounded part, is about forty feet high, resting on a kind of oval pedestal from forty to sixty feet above the level of the Sea. It slightly decreases in size upward, crumbles at the top, and is one entire mass of crystallization. A prop or buttress connects it with the mountain behind, and the whole is covered with debris of a light stone-color. Its peculiar shape is, doubtless, attributable to the action of winter rains. The Arabs had told us, in vague terms, that there was to be found a pillar somewhere upon the shores of the Sea; but their statements, in all other respects, proved so unsatisfactory, that we could place no reliance upon them."

The lessons this history teaches us lie on the surface. The admonition runs through the Bible. We live in a world doomed to destruction. Plain and timely warnings are given. Messengers who have sounded the cry, "Up and out of this place," have laid their hands on us, as the angels did on Lot, to

urge our escape. We have the conditions of deliverance, and may, if we will, escape the coming doom. We must be more than awakened. Lot's wife had this. We must do more than start on the way of salvation. We must run on, and keep the conditions to the end. Worldly ties are powerful. Human affections are strong. The unbelief and jeers of the ungodly are mighty. By them many a strong runner has halted in the race, and been overtaken and slain. With an eye on the point of safety-deaf to all cries that can impede, retard, or turn his stepthe panting fugitive can not rest till he reaches Calvary, and lies down at the foot of the cross.

XV.-TOMB OF RACHEL; OR, THE DEATH OF CHILDREN.

"There is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there;

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair.

"The air is full of farewells to the dying,

And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,

Will not be comforted."

In the sweet vale of Ephratah, near the cradle of our divine Lord, Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, was laid in the tomb. As he journeyed with his family from Bethel to Bethlehem, sudden labor came upon Rachel. She gave birth to Benjamin, and died in agony and sorrow. Jacob loved her with a deep and tender love, that twenty-one years of wedded life had not cooled. To all her descendants her sepulcher has been sacred. Over her rural tomb the munificence of strangers has placed a noble mausoleum, which to this hour is held in reverence by all her descend

ants.

Faith and affection have clustered much poetic beauty around this tomb. Rachel is regarded as the matron of Jewish maids and mothers. Hebrew poets represent her as holding a living and intimate oversight of all that concerned the happiness of children. When the King of Babylon conquered Jerusalem, the

sons and daughters of Judea were gathered near her sepulcher, and, as long lines of captives assigned to bondage and the sword passed by her tomb, filling the air with loud cries and wailings, the faithful mother of Israel is represented as rising from her grave. A loud lamentation, weeping, and much mourning were heard in the field of Ephratah. Rachel refused to be comforted amid the sorrow and exile of her children. The Babe of Bethlehem invests the tomb of Rachel with new beauty. He was born not far from the grave of the mother of Benjamin. His birth created general alarm among the rulers who dwelt in Jerusalem. The attendance of angels at his manger cradle, the worship of wise men, the star in the east, proclaimed the advent of some mighty personage. The chief priests added to the consternation by declaring that God, by his prophets, had said that the King of the Jews should be born in Bethlehem of Judea. It was resolved to end the reign of the young monarch by taking his life, and Herod sent out the bloody decree that "all the children that were in Bethlehem and the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, should be put to death." The execution of this bloody law followed the command. The infant children of Bethlehem were the first martyrs for Jesus's sake. The wail of the mother and the shriek of the child rent the air of Ephratah; they disturbed the repose of the dead. The memory of Rachel was sweet to the daughters of Zion. In the hour of their great calamity they looked on her tomb, and invoked her aid. Wailing and loud lamentation went out among the hills and plains of the City of David. Rachel could