hint that he had any relative within ten days' journey of the place. All we know is, that Abraham entreated for it with great passion that he entreated for no other place, though others were in the same peril—that he endeavoured to obtain such terms as seemed likely to be fulfilled if a single righteous family could be found there. And then we know, from what is elsewhere disclosed, that the family of Lot did actually dwell there at that time, a family that Abraham might well have reckoned on being more prolific in virtue than it proved.

Surely, then, a coincidence between the zeal of the uncle and the danger of the brother's son is here detailed, though it is not expressed; and so utterly undesigned is this coincidence, that the history might be read many times over, and this feature

of truth in it never happen to present itself.

And here let me observe, (an observation which will be very often forced upon our notice in the prosecution of this argument,) that this sign of truth (whatever may be the importance attached to it,) offers itself in the midst of an incident in a great measure miraculous: and though it cannot be said that such indications of veracity in the natural parts of a story, prove those parts of it to be true which are supernatural; yet where the natural and supernatural are in close combination, the truth of the former must at least be thought to add to the credibility of the latter; and they who are disposed to believe, from the coincidence in question, that the petition of Abraham in behalf of Sodom was a real petition, as it is described

by Moses, and no fiction, will have some difficulty in separating it from the miraculous circumstances connected with itthe visit of the angel-the prophetic information he conveyed-and the terrible vengeance with which his red right hand was proceeding to smite that adulterous and sinful generation.

III.

THE 24th chapter of Genesis contains a very beautiful and primitive picture of Eastern manners, in the mission of Abraham's trusty servant to Mesopotamia, to procure a wife for Isaac from the daughters of that branch of the Patriarch's family which continued to dwell in Haran. He came nigh to the city of Nahor—it was the hour when the people were going to draw water. He entreated God to give him a token whereby he might know which

of the damsels of the place he had appointed to Isaac for a wife. "And it came to pass that behold Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her pitcher upon her shoulder"—" Drink, my Lord," was her greeting, "and I will draw water for thy camels also." This was the simple token which the servant had sought at the hands of God; and accordingly he proceeds to impart his commission to herself and her friends. To read is to believe this story. But the point in it to which I beg the attention of my readers is this, that Rebekah is said to be "the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah which she bare unto Nahor." It appears, therefore, that the grand-daughter of Abraham's brother is to be the wife of Abraham's son-i.e. that a person of the third

generation on Nahor's side is found of suitable years for one of the second generation on Abraham's side. Now what could harmonize more remarkably with a fact elsewhere asserted, though here not even touched upon, that Sarah the wife of Abraham was for a long time barren, and had no child till she was stricken in years?* Thus it was that a generation on Abraham's side was lost, and the grandchildren of his brother in Haran were the co-evals of his own child in Canaan. I must say that this trifling instance of minute consistency gives me very great confidence in the veracity of the historian. It is an incidental point in the narrative-most easily overlookedI am free to confess, never observed by myself till I examined the Pentateuch with a view to this species of internal evidence. * Genesis, xviii. 12.