here, as in so many other instances already adduced, the stamp of truth, such as it is, is found where a miracle is intimately concerned; for if the coincidence in question be thought enough to satisfy us that Moses was relating an indisputable matter of fact, when he said that the Israelites received a supply of water at Rephidim, it adds to our confidence that he is relating an indisputable matter of fact too, when he says in the same breath, that it was a miraculuos supply--where we can prove that there is truth in a story so far as a scrutiny of our own, which was not contemplated by the party whose words we are trying, enables us to go, it is only fair to infer, in the absence of all testimony to the contrary, that there is truth also in such parts of the same story as our scrutiny cannot attain unto. And indeed it seems to me, that the sin of Amalek on this occasion, a sin which

was so offensive in God's sight as to be treasured up in judgment against that race, causing Him eventually to destroy them utterly, derived its heinousness from this very thing, that the Amalekites were here endeavouring to dispossess the Israelites of a vital blessing which God had sent to them by miracle, and which he could not so send without making it manifest even to the Amalekites themselves, that the children of Israel were under his special care -that in fighting therefore against Israel, they were fighting against God. And such, I persuade myself, is the true force of an expression in Deuteronomy used in reference to this very incident-for Amalek is there said to "have smitten them when they were weary, and to have feared not God;"* that is, to have done it in defiance

Deuteronomy, xxv. 18.

of a miracle, which ought to have impressed them with a fear of God, indicating as, of course it did, that God willed not the destruction of this people.

XVI.

AMONGST the institutions established or confirmed by the Almighty whilst the Israelites were on their march, for their observance when they should have taken possession of the land of Canaan, this was one"Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year-thou shalt keep the Feast of Unleavened bread-thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib, for in it thou camest out from Egypt, and none shall appear before me empty :-and the Feast of Har

vest, the first-fruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in thy field:-and the Feast of In-gathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field."*

Such then were the three great annual feasts. The first, in the month Abib, which was the Passover. The second,

which was the Feast of Weeks. The third, the Feast of In-gathering, when all the fruits, wine and oil as well as corn, had been collected and laid up. The season of the year at which the first of these occurred is all that I am anxious to settle, as bearing upon a coincidence which I shall mention by and by. Now this is determined with sufficient accuracy for my purpose, by the second of the three being the Feast of Harvest, and the fact that the *Exodus, xxiii. 14.

interval between the first and second was just seven weeks.* "And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath," (this was the Sabbath of the Passover,) "from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete. Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days, and ye shall offer a new meatoffering unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave-loaves, of two-tenth-deals, they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baken with leaven. They are the first-fruits unto the Lord."

At the Feast of Weeks, therefore, the corn was ripe and just gathered, for then were the first-fruits to be offered in the loaves made out of the new corn. If then the wheat was in this state at the second

* Leviticus, xxiii. 15.