faith of even His chosen messengers, to fail on the first fiery trial which assails them! How was the Lord pleased to confirm his promise to Moses?

MARY. He was to make Pharaoh let his people go, with a strong hand.

MAMA. And that he did! But it is to a change in the wording of His covenant with His chosen people, that I wished to direct your attention. Hitherto He had been known to them only as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; henceforth, under His newly revealed title of Jehovah, He was, in the execution of His promises to one people, to make manifest His glory to the whole world. What was to be the first pledge of this renewed covenant?

MARY. Giving them the land of Canaan. Why is it called the land of their pilgrimage? MAMA. Because they had been " strangers and pilgrims" there at God's command, four hundred years before it was made their own. So little was it their's in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that tents were the only dwellings these mighty patriarchs lived in, as if to acknowledge the precarious nature of their present tenure. But do you remember two strong marks of their faith that it was ultimately to be their rest?

MARY. No, Mama.

MAMA. Did not Abraham buy for a large sum, a burying-place there, for Sarah and all his family? And do you not remember Joseph, on his death-bed, desiring his bones to be carried thither ? Oh, Mary ! would that every one of us looked forward with as steady and believing an eye to the "rest that remaineth for the people of God," as Abraham from his tent, and Joseph from his palace, contemplated the typical rest of Israel in the earthly Canaan! But we are told by an Apostle that even they have left us an example of looking beyond it to a "better country, even an heavenly." Let us beware " lest by an evil heart of unbelief, we seem to fall short" of that ultimate "rest" of which Canaan was but a type. Did the children of Israel open their heart and ears to these reviving promises?

MARY. No, Mama, "for anguish of spirit and cruel bondage."

MAMA. Strange! that worldly sorrow should, as it sometimes does, shut the heart against heavenly joy thus defeating the blessed and gracious end of Him "who afflicteth not willingly, nor grieveth the children of men." But cast your eye, Mary, over the genealogy which occurs at this part of your chapter-do you remark any thing in it?

MARY. Yes, Mama; what you told me yesterday. It tells all about Aaron and his family, but not a word of Moses or his; and you said it was on account of his strange wife.

MAMA. Nay, Mary, I only conjectured. The omission may have arisen merely from his being the younger son. It affords, at all events, conclusive evidence of the humility as well as veracity of Moses.

MARY. Mama, what does Moses mean by saying he was of " uncircumcised lips?"

MAMA. What was circumcision a sign of, Mary? Remember, it answered to our baptism. Dedication to God, I suppose.

MARY.

MAMA. Well; " uncircumcised," throughout the Bible, just means unprepared for his service. Jeremiah complains that the people's ears were " uncircumcised," so that they could not "hearken." Stephen calls them " uncircumcised both in ears and heart." A strong figure! and but too applicable to the unrenewed among us, whom the waters of baptism have failed to cleanse, or the vows then registered to bind in allegiance to their God.

But there is another lesson we also may draw from the uncircumcision of lips and heart of Moses and his countrymen. They were backward to believe, and slow in accepting the pro

mised deliverance of their God. Dismayed by perils, disheartened by opposition, willing to submit to the vilest and most degrading bondage rather than risk the slight measure of ease and safety which an enemy's country afforded,-preferring (as they afterwards did in the wilderness) the 66 flesh-pots of Egypt," with all their accompaniments of toil and servitude and degradation, to emancipation and the free service of Jehovah.

Is it not so with us, Mary, when, with criminal supineness, or yet more criminal obstinacy, we shrink from the difficulties of a conflict with the world, in which the same Almighty arm is pledged to support us, and the issue of which is the far more glorious liberty of the sons of God?"

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MORNING FOURTH.

LESSON.-Exodus, Chapers vii. and viii.

MAMA. We had already gathered, my dear Mary, from former chapters, that pride and presumption were the predominant features in the character of Pharaoh. This day's reading has exhibited their influence as capable of hardening him against the most sensible evidences of the superior power and majesty of the unknown God, with whom he vainly sought to strive. There is something frightful, and at the same time deeply instructive, in the congeniality of this besetting sin of pride to the nature of man, and the tenacity with which he clings to it at the expense of his happiness, his safety, nay, his immortal soul. Pride lost the angels Heaven, and our first parents paradise. It cost Pharaoh the devastation of his kingdom, and life of his firstborn. Nebuchadnezzar sacrificed to its gratification his throne and reason; and many, many a proud nominal Christian, by refusing, like Pha

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