without shuddering? As the destruction was unexpected, it was the more terrible; and as it was sudden, it admitted of no escape. The sons-inlaw of Lot mocked his admonitions; and they were roused to a sense of their importance and truth, only by the hand of death. Let this consideration prepare us for a still greater event, in the solemnities of which we must all participate; and which will be equally sudden and unexpected; for "as it was in the days of Lot, even so shall the coming of the Son of man be!"

"Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." Some commentators translate the words "brimstone and fire," brimstone inflamed; and the interpretation which they build upon this translation is, that brimstone inflamed, in the Hebrew style of writing, signifies neither more nor less than lightning. It is reasonable to conclude, that this lightning penetrated so far into the veins of bitumen, with which these plains are known to be impregnated, as to enkindle the combustible matter; which would quickly communicate its heat and flame to the cities, and to the whole country, more entirely and expeditiously than the lava of a burning mountain lays waste the lands over which it flows: and after consuming all that was capable of such a destruction, formed the heavy, fetid, unwholesome lake, called

the Dead Sea, from its wide expansion, and the stillness of its waters. Justin observes, respecting this sea, that it cannot be moved by the winds, by reason of the large quantity of bitumen immersed in it; which also renders it incapable of being navigated. The same remark will not be found to apply to the same sea, in the present day; as we have instances of some modern travellers having ventured to bathe in it: but this also may be accounted for on the same principle; the diminution of the bitumen; which is continually removed, by persons on the spot, as it emerges from this singular lake. Neither is it true that no bird will adventure to stretch his, wing across it, as some ancient writers have asserted-for many have been observed to sport along its dreary banks: but the salt with which it is impregnated is inimical to vegetation; its waves retain a sufficient degree of malignity to endanger the health of those who are rash enough to plunge into its unnatural waters; and it retains a sufficient degree of desolation, to justify the description of the destruction suggested in the present Lecture, and to confirm the general account of antiquity, making a reasonable allowance for the alterations which time may be supposed to have effected.

"But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." A learned writer* ob

* Dr. Taylor, in his Scheme of Scripture Divinity.

serves, "The sulphureous storm did not begin to fall upon Sodom, till Lot was safely arrived at Zoar. But his wife looked back before he reached Zoar: for she looked back from behind him, as he was going to Zoar. When she looked back, Sodom and its plains appeared as pleasant as before. She looked back with affection to the place, and regret at leaving it: according to the import of the original word. This implied unbelief." She wavered -"she stopped by the way, and left her husband to go by himself"-in the fluctuations of her mind, "she would proceed no farther; and might be at a considerable distance from Zoar, and so near to Sodom, as, probably, to be involved in the terrible shower, and thereby turned into a nitro-sulphureous pillar:"'—or at least to be suffocated by it, and incrusted with it. "This gives proper force to our Lord's admonition, Remember Lot's wife. Let the judgment of God upon her, warn you of the folly and danger of hankering after, and being loath to part with, small and temporal things, when your life and happiness, the greatest and most lasting concerns, are at stake."

SARAH'S GRAVE.

HUMANITY requires us to drop a tear, also, over the grave of the once lovely Sarah, who “died in Kirjath-arba." Twelve years after the rial of his faith, this heavy stroke of calamity ell upon him; "and Abraham came to mourn for

Sarah, and to weep for her." Let not the unfeeling and the gay, break in upon the sacred privacy of domestic sorrow! It is not the semblance of grief which spreads a cloud over the forehead of yonder venerable patriarch: real and unaffected anguish causes those tears to flow. She had been long the companion of his life-she had shared his joys and sorrows-she had sojourned in tents with him, a stranger in a strange land—she had regarded him with fondness up to her hundred and twentyseventh year. Her communion and friendship had sweetened his distresses, and lightened his labours. The dissolving of this long connection was loosening the fibres which entwined about his heart; and while he exhibited the resignation of a saint, he felt as a man. Before "the cave of the field of Machpelah" closes its mouth forever upon the precious dust, let the young and the beautiful come and look, for the last time, upon the person whose loveliness had kindled desire in every bosom, and had more than once ensnared her husband. Let them gaze upon the dishonour of that cheek, which even time had respected, and age had spared. Let them learn a lesson of humility, while they behold the triumphs of death, and hear a husband entreating "a possession of a burying place, that he may bury his dead out of his sight," and hide that form from his eyes, which he had never before beheld but with rapturous delight!

PATRIARCHAL FAITH, OR TRIAL OF ABRAM.

He

It is impossible to pass through Canaan without turning aside to the land of Moriah, and contemplating the sacred mountain on which a patriarch's faith triumphed over a father's feelings. According to the promise of God, Isaac was born when Abraham was an hundred years old. had seen his son preserved from the perils of infancy. His mother had gazed with unspeakable pleasure upon her child-the son of her vows, who was now fast pressing towards manhood. The parents of this amiable youth were looking forward to a peaceful dismission from the toils of life, and to the happy termination of a tranquil old age. Abraham "planted a grove in Beersheba," and rested under its shadow. This quiet retreat, alas, is not impervious to sorrow! This delightful serenity resembles the stillness of the air which usually precedes a tempest-it bodes approaching trial. "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I shall tell thee of." What a . command was this! To stain his hand with the blood of a lamb which he had fed, would be a task to a feeling mind; but the requisition is for a "Son." To select one from a numerous family, would be a cruel effort. Let the mother look