Jacob's reiterated persuasions, he accepted them; and after expressions of mutual regard, they parted in peace and love. Esau returned to Seir; there Jacob probably visited him according to his promiseand then removed to Succoth, where he built a house, or rather a tent, and remained a sufficient time to refresh his family after their fatigues. He then crossed the Jordan, and settled himself at Shechem. Here he immediately reared an altar to the God who had preserved him, brought him safely back to Canaan, and conferred on him a new and honourable name; and dedicated it to El-EloheIsrael; i. e. God, the God of Israel.

Christians, let this deliverance of Jacob inspire you with confidence in all your dangers. In prosecuting his history, you have often seen this patriarch in perils and distresses. But did his God ever abandon him? Did not Providence ever interpose in the season of his extremity? This same Providence still watches over you; the God of Jacob is still the refuge of his people-" a very present help in time of trouble." The angels, who, missioned by the Almighty, so often cheered Jacob in solitude, in darkness, and in distress, still attend us, and perform for us a thousand offices of love. With confidence, then, cast your cares upon the Lord. Though you see no mode of deliverance from the enemies who encompass you, yet cry, with pious Jehoshaphat, (2 Chron. xx. 12.) "O our God, we have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do; but still our eyes are upon thee." He can turn the hearts of your enemies, as he did those of Laban and Esau. He can deliver you in a thousand modes. Our perpetual alarms and distrusts impair our felicity, and do little credit to our faith and our religion.

Look at Jacob, ye haughty spirits, who, when you have injured your brother, think yourselves degraded by acknowledging it; and learn submission. How many are there, who, with a brutal pertinacity, will ever defend their past conduct, however criminal! How common is it for men to hate those whom they are conscious that they have injured! Had such been the character of Jacob, he would not have deserved our esteem; and instead of having his past unkindness obliterated by the fraternal tears and forgiveness of Esau, he would perhaps have beheld his family slaughtered around him, and himself been sunk to the tomb by the hand of violence.

Revengeful and implacable men, who never forgive an injury-ye votaries of honour, falsely so called, whose memories can forget all the kindnesses of God, while they treasure up the unkindnesses of man; look at Esau, and learn your duty. Would he have appeared half so noble, had his sword been imbrued in the heart's blood of his brother? Would the dying groans of Jacob's family, though they might have satiated his revenge, have been recalled by him in after years, with so much delight as this affecting and generous reconciliation? Would he not have shuddered in anticipating the judgmentbar, when he remembered that blood shed by him was pleading for his perdition before the tribunal of the Avenger! Barbarians, whose god is revenge, to whom you, like the worshippers of Moloch, offer human sacrifices, tremble! for the day is coming when the arm of Him, to whom alone vengeance belongeth, shall be raised to crush you.

Jacob, having now returned to his native land, probably expected to pass the rest of his life in tran

quillity and peace. Alas! misery soon invaded his new habitation. A succession of woes, far more intolerable than any he had hitherto encountered, was just commencing. Those children, who he expected would be the stay and comfort of his declining years; whose virtues and attachment he supposed would lighten the infirmities of age,-planted daggers in his heart. We can more easily bear the afflictions that spring from a stranger or an enemy; but all the consolations of religion are necessary to prevent the heart from being crushed in the dust, and broken with anguish, when it is a friend or a child who wounds us. Jacob had an only daughter; and though surrounded by so many sons, his affections were doubtless fixed upon her with peculiar force. She was now of that age, when parental anxieties with regard to her were most alive; when a few years were to decide her future character. Through vanity, through pride, and love of pleasure, she went out to see the daughters of the land." Seduced by the gayeties around her, she fell a victim to the lawless passions of the prince of Shechem. She covered herself with infamy, and gave a wound to the soul of the patriarch, of which surely none but a parent can conceive. Let the children of vanity and dissipation, who, despising domestic duties and domestic enjoyments, fly abroad "to the daughters of the land," to the giddy maze of festivity, in search of happiness,-remember the history of Dinah. Ah! how many melancholy instances have there been of those, who, nurtured amidst indolence, soothed by vanity, unrestrained by religion, have rushed into the tumult of the world, with desires afloat for pleasure, with passions never subject to restraint! Ignorant, inexperienced, and

exposed to danger, the conclusion of their history has been told by the agonies of their parents' bursting hearts, by the conscious blush of shame that suffused their own cheeks, and by the slowly pointing finger of scorn and contempt that was directed towards them. With what delight do we turn from such a character, to a Rebekah, cultivating all the domestic endearments and the still pleasures of affection; and by the fervour of her charity, the meekness of her piety, and the warmth of devotion, blessing all who are around her!

Severe as were the sufferings of Jacob on this occasion, they were aggravated by the conduct of Simeon and Levi. To Shechem, desirous of repairing the injury brought upon their sister, they were guilty of the basest treachery. Nay, they interposed the sacred name and ordinances of religion, and made them a cloak for their murderous designs. Would to God, my brethren, they were the only persons who had thus prostituted the benevolent religion revealed to us from heaven! Alas! numberless other examples of such conduct are recorded in history. But what then? Shall we, with the unbeliever, attribute them to that religion which condemns them, and which threatens eternal punishment to those who perpetrate them? Than this, nothing can be more disingenuous and uncandid. Let us execrate those who thus blasphemously sport with the name of God, and abuse his religion. But let us not cast the blame upon that pure and holy system, which utters its severest anathemas against such conduct.

When the Shechemites, in consequence of submitting to the sacrament proposed to them, were unable to make resistance, Simeon and Levi, assisted

by their servants and friends, entered the city, plundered it, and destroyed all its male inhabitants. The new stab that this conduct gave to a heart bleeding already from the conduct of his daughter, is shown, not only by the pathetic lamentation which Jacob utters when first informed of these transactions, but also by his recalling it to the remembrance of his sons so many years after, when he was upon the bed of death.

Believers, there are some of you, who, like Jacob, have children who are the enemies of God. When you fix your eyes upon them, you are distressed to think that they are the slaves of Satan, and that, if they die in their present condition, they must be the heirs of eternal perdition. We pity you. You need the consolations of God. Yet your trials are not peculiar to you. Remember Jacob. When he looked upon Dinah, Simeon, and Levi, he had cause to regret the time when he was first accosted as a father. Remember Aaron, as he beheld his two sons, smitten by the vengeance of an insulted God. Remember David, as his heart was torn by the iniquity and awful death of Absalom. Thousands have preceded you, poor parents, in the path in which you tread; and the God who supported them is still able to console you.

And do you, who, like these children of the patriarch, wound the hearts of pious parents, remember that you will have an awful account to render. Every groan that you have forced from them, every sigh that they have uttered, every tear that they have shed, every admonition and entreaty that they have given you, will, in the decisive day, aggravate your guilt. Oh! if you love those parents, and would give joy to their hearts; oh! if you love yourselves,