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sent for him from the harvest-field, and informed him that she was about to carry her threats into execution; and that, before she left the house, she wished some articles to be divided, to prevent future disputes. She first produced a web of linen, which she insisted should be divided. No, no,' said the husband; 'you have been, upon the whole, a good wife to me: if you will leave me, though the thought greatly distresses me, you must take the whole with you; you well deserve it all.' The same answer was given to a similar proposal respecting some other articles. At last the wife said, 'So you wish me to leave you?''Far from that,' said the husband; ‘I would do anything but sin, to make you stay; but if you will I wish you to go in comfort.' Then,' said she, 'you have overcome me by

go,

your kindness; I will never leave you.’’

It is one

This subject is, in truth, inexhaustible. great aim of Christianity to make of every family a happy home; and though the spirit which it inculcates is marred by many jealousies and strifes, yet, even in its imperfect state, Christianity does effect much towards ameliorating the condition of our social life, and introducing some of its own benignant elements into the family-circle. Still more does Christianity carry along with it the spirit of domestic and social love, by teaching not only every family to emulate the pattern of love which our Redeemer has set us, but also, by

binding all together into one family union, by the inspiring anticipation that the whole family in heaven and earth are one in Christ—one family, of which God is the Father, and in which Christ condescends to call himself the Elder Brother. Could such a spirit be infused into each of us, how would our hearts burn within us, and our affections find a constant expression in acts of generous self-denial and mutual forbearance and love. Edmeston has thus beautifully given expression to the feelings which this idea of the " one family in heaven and earth," is so well calculated to suggest :

'Tis but one family,-the sound is balm,

A seraph-whisper to the wounded heart,

It lulls the storm of sorrow to a calm,

And draws the venom from the avenger's dart.

"Tis but one family,-the accents come

Like light from heaven to break the night of woe,

The banner-cry, to call the spirit home,

The shout of victory o'er a fallen foe.

Death cannot separate-is memory dead?

Has thought, too, vanished, and has love grown chill?

Has every relic and memento fled,

And are the living only with us still?

No! in our hearts the lost we mourn remain,

Objects of love and ever-fresh delight;

And fancy leads them in her fairy train

In half-seen transports past the mourner's sight.

Death never separates; the golden wires
That ever trembled to their names before,
Will vibrate still, though every forin expires,
And those we love, we look upon no more.

No more, indeed, in sorrow and in pain,

But even memory's need ere long will cease,

For we shall join the lost of love again

In endless bands, and in eternal peace.

Such are the thoughts which should fill up the hope and the joy of each of us. Like the sister of the happy family at Bethany, when he whom Jesus loved, and whom they all loved, had been taken away, we must be able to say, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." On that one occasion, indeed, he who proclaimed himself as the Resurrection and the Life, restored the buried Lazarus to his mourning sisters, but how strange are the reflections which that happy family-circle at Bethany suggest to us. He who had been dead, and had lain in the grave, once more sat with his sisters at the social board, and Jesus, as a friend, united with them in the interchanges of sympathy and love. But death again visited that family -Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, each was summoned away to meet no more here below. How delightful the anticipation to them, as to us, that there is a reunion to be looked forward to which no death shall break, which no unkindness shall mar, which no hatred, or variance, or strife shall even interfere with; where the one law which will supersede all others, and suffice for all, will be the perfect law of love.

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IN this duty of love to our enemies, as in every other principle which ought to guide our

conduct, the Christian finds at once his

highest example and his rule of action in the teaching and the life of our Saviour. There had, indeed, existed an old law of retaliation among the Jewish people, dictated not by the spirit of love, but by the law of revenge, but that was entirely done away by the great Teacher: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them

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that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” How happy a world would ours be if this Divine maxim were universally acted upon, and men were to kill their enemies only by kindness. Some conviction of this seems even now to be gaining ground, and men who cannot see the sinfulness of retaliating wars are becoming in some degree alive to their folly. The law of retaliation to which Christ referred was, in part at least, a temporary legislation for the Jewish nation, designed to put away idolatry and vice from among them. The saying, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy," to which Christ replied, occurs nowhere in the Old Testament. It was probably a proverbial maxim of the Jews, as it is sufficiently consistent with the ideas which human nature is generally found to adopt. But many of the laws against idolatry and other sins were conceived in accordance with the Mosaic law, as where the cities of idolaters were to be utterly destroyed and made heaps, their inhabitants, the children, and even the cattle, smitten with the edge of the sword. of idolatry, and of all the holden to be outlaws and doomed enemies under the former Testament, but in striking contrast with the

"With equal abhorrence crimes of those who are

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