lated what had happened, and endeavoured to palliate her own conduct by describing the dreadful alternative to which she had been reduced. A peasant, however, who was among the by-standers and heard the recital, took up an axe, and with one blow killed the unfortunate woman, saying at the same time, that the mother who could thus sacrifice her children for the preservation of her own life was no longer fit to live. The man was committed to prison, but the emperor subsequently gave him a pardon."

In the sacred Scriptures we do not find the wolf very often alluded to; but in the few references how strikingly and justly is his character depicted! The dying patriarch ascribes to his youngest son the cruelty and rapacity of this animal. "Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil" (Gen. xlix. 27). The history of the tribe of Benjamin, to which we can only allude here, will abundantly explain and vindicate the comparison. Engaged in a fierce and urgent war with the other tribes, after two centuries it was almost exterminated; and though it afterwards

partially recovered its importance, and gave the first king to Israel in the person of Saul, it was ultimately absorbed in the tribe of Judah.

The prophet Jeremiah associates the wolf with the lion in the execution of the judgments of God (Jer. v. 6); and Ezekiel compares the rapacious and cruel conduct of the princes of Israel to the mischievous inroads of this animal. "Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain" (Ezek. xxii. 27). The apostle Paul, in his address to the elders of Ephesus, compares to it the false teachers, who pervert the faith and disturb the peace of the church. "I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock" (Acts xx. 29). And our blessed Lord himself alludes to the sanguinary and rapacious character of the wolf, comparing his disciples to sheep in the midst of a flock of these ravenous creatures. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves;" and in another passage, in describing the character of a worldly-minded pastor-" But he that is an hireling . . . seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth

the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep" (John x. 12).

Other passages in which reference is made to this animal, all indicating a creature savage and remorseless, without one glimpse of nobler feeling, occur, Isa. xi. 6; lxv. 25; Zeph. iii. 3; Hab. i. 8. Matt. x. 16; Luke x. 3, &c.