tendance from his youth on the person of Moses, must have tended admirably to fit him for the more spiritual part of his new and important office. In what terms was he solemnly invested with it by God?

MARY. He was commanded to arise, and go over Jordan with the people, and divide for them an inheritance the land which God sware unto their fathers to give them.

MAMA. Right; this constituted the substance of the commission conferred on him. What was the encouragement to, and condition of, its fulfilment ?

MARY. God was to be with him as he had been with Moses, and never to fail or forsake him ; only Joshua, on his part, was to be "strong and of good courage," and never turn to the right hand or left from the law of Moses, but meditate on it day and night, that he might do it ; and then his way was to be prosperous, and God would give him "good success."

MAMA. A clear and succinct summary, my dear, of the words before you, and one with which I am well pleased, as shewing that you are capable, by attention and practice, of digesting and condensing what you read. May you, in so doing, by the blessing of God, make its spirit as well as substance your own! Did Joshua, thus com

manded and encouraged, a moment hesitate to advance?

MARY. Oh! no. That would have been very unlike him. On the contrary, he told the people boldly, that in three days they should pass over Jordan to possess the land. If they had listened to him once before, Mama, they might have been in it forty years ago.

MAMA. Do you know why he particularly addressed the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh? I don't think we read the chapter in which it was agreed that they should retain (as peculiarly fitted for flocks and herds), the district on the further side of Jordan,-holding themselves, at the same time, bound to pass across it to assist their brethren also, in gaining possession of their inheritance.

Did they now adhere to this equitable and brotherly arrangement?

MARY. Oh, yes! willingly; and they said "they would hearken to Joshua in all things as they had hearkened to Moses." Mama! this was

not saying much.

MAMA. No: but the near view of the promised land seems henceforward to have removed (though not in the most meritorious way), the sinful disposition to revolt against authority which had hitherto characterized the Israelites. In those

tribes who had already actually enjoyed the fruits of the promise, distrust would have been as foolish as criminal, so it is no wonder their concurrence in the commands of Joshua was prompt and decided.

MARY. But why did Joshua himself send out spies to search the land? I thought the people's doing so before, was distrustful of God, and so punished.

MAMA. It was, and therefore punished; especially as its result served but to confirm the distrust it ought to have utterly removed. But Joshua's search for intelligence was doubtless dictated by a very different spirit, and merely designed to discover the weak points of a city, of God's miraculous designs in the overthrow of which, he was not yet aware.

Before proceeding to the interesting account of the escape of the spies from Jericho, let us see if we cannot remove the slur, perhaps unduly cast, on the character and profession of their courageous hostess, by the unfortunate correspondence of the Hebrew word for persons keeping houses of public entertainment, with that denoting women of abandoned character; which last it would be difficult to suppose justly applicable to one, not only a chosen instrument of safety to God's persecuted servants, but herself a monument of redeeming love, and classed by an Apostle with the

most eminent examples of faith under the Old Testament dispensation. We are the more confirmed in our charitable conjecture, by the knowledge that Rahab afterwards married Salmon, a prince of Judah, and that King David having descended from him, our blessed Lord did not disdain to number among his ancestors "according to the flesh" this Canaanitish heroine.

How did she act on being summoned by the King of Jericho to surrender her lodgers to his vengeance?

MARY. She hid them, Mama, and that was both right and bold; but I am sorry she told a lie about them.

MAMA. It is always distressing to an upright mind to falsify or distort the truth; but if ever deceit is pardonable, it must be when its double object is to save the innocent, and further the counsels of Omnipotence. Without some such subterfuge, Rahab could not, humanly speaking, have long screened her guests from the search of an enraged tyrant; to whom, being convinced on divine authority that his "kingdom had already departed from him," she probably felt released from all duty and allegiance. This latter persuasion, it was no doubt, which palliated, nay sanctified, her whole course of dissimulation; from which I am glad, however, to find your love of truth recoiled, and which we must beware, as in

other cases recorded in Scripture, of "wresting to our own destruction," by unauthorized imitation of what is rather connived at, or permitted, than enjoined.

In Rahab's conduct, however, sanctioned as it is by the applause of an Apostle, we must look for higher and deeper grounds of approbation, and we can only find them, with Paul, in the "faith" which first enabled her to discern, in the conquests of the Israelites, the "finger of God;" and then impelled her to flee, unhesitatingly, to the refuge, which, even amid the utter destruction of an idolatrous city, His protecting arm could (and faith told her would) infallibly provide. In this, and this alone, she is held up as a model for imitation; and well would it be for thousands in our professing land, were the only sure test of inward conviction, viz. a life of active and devoted obedience, as conspicuously displayed in the sight of their brethren, as the scarlet line, the symbol at once of hope and safety, in the window of this believing woman of Canaan !

MARY. Mama, the roof of the house seemed a very public place to hide the men in. You have told me they were flat, and used often for sleeping on; and the Bible mentions for praying also, and many purposes.

MAMA.

The simple and scantily furnished