MAMA. Then it was probably a graven image of wood. But we have not yet done with idolatry. Where did Asa's mother put her idol, when she had made it?

MARY. In a grove, Mama.

MAMA. Now, Mary, we read often in Scripture of the worshipping in groves, and always as particularly odious and displeasing to God. Why so? Was there any thing in the quiet retirement of a wood unfavourable to devotion?

MARY. No, Mama.

MAMA. No, certainly; else our Saviour would not have retired to the olive-grove, to spend the night in prayer. But, unfortunately, the darkness of woods was more favourable still, in heathen times, to deeds of cruelty and bloodshed. The rites practised there were always of the most barbarous kind; and the Druidical worship (one of the oldest in the world, and the one which, but for Christ, you and I, Mary, would probably have been slaves to, as it prevailed in Britain), sacrificed yearly a great number of human victims.

MARY. What is a victim, Mama?

MAMA. You are very right, Mary, always to stop me when I use a word above your capacity. A victim is any animal or person slain with the idea of pleasing or appeasing God.

MARY. Oh! Mama, the true God could never

be pleased with either men or animals being killed!

MAMA. We have his own authority for the contrary, Mary: have you forgotten the Pascal Lamb already? But, besides the oxen and sheep, which, for wise reasons, and as shadows of a purer sacrifice, He was pleased to accept, do you remember no case in which God expressly demanded a human victim?

MARY. No, Mama.

MAMA. Were you never sorry for any one laid bound upon an altar by his own father, whose very knife was raised to kill him?

MARY. Oh yes; poor Isaac and good old Abraham! but you know God did not let him be killed.

MAMA. Very true. In his case it was but a trial of faith, and an illustrious type of Christ. Hard as the trial was, Abraham must have been thankful it had been imposed.

MARY. Why, Mama?

MAMA. Mary, Who does Christ tell us saw his day and was glad?" (A pause.) Was it not Abraham?

MARY. Oh! yes.

MAMA. Then, as we nowhere read that Abraham was a prophet, the Salvation of Christ was probably explained to him at this very time, as a

reward for his cheerful obedience. But, what victim did God, after all, provide? for even before both law and gospel, without shedding of blood there was no remission.

MARY. A ram, Mama. I have seen it caught by the horns, and struggling to get loose.

MAMA. Well, Mary, this also was a figure that God would condescend to accept animal sacrifices, till Christ should abolish them for ever by "the sacrifice of himself." The subject of types is rather difficult for you yet; but you see what a deal of useful knowledge we have managed to get from two verses of the history of Asa. Let us learn further from it how highly God values sincerity in religion. David and Asa are both called perfect for that very quality. Let us also draw thankfulness, that the stumbling-block of idolatry is removed from among us; but never forget that we may cherish idols in our heart, as dangerous as the beautiful statues of Greece, and as ugly as the shapeless monsters of India !

35

MORNING FIFTH.

LESSON.-1st Kings, from 25th verse of Chapter xv. to 29th of Chap. xvi.

MAMA. We are now, my dear Mary, come to the fulfilment of the terrible denunciations against Jeroboam and his family, by the prophet of Bethel. In whose time were they executed?

MARY. In Nadab, his son's, Mama; "who did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel to sin."

MAMA. Take particular notice of this last expression, Mary: it is not repeated so continually throughout this book, without an awful meaning. Why is Jeroboam held up as so peculiarly an object of God's displeasure?

MARY. Because he "made Israel to sin."

MAMA. So you see that those who, by their evil example, lead others into iniquity, have a double and fearful account to render. We, in private life, Mary, cannot cause whole nations or communities to go astray; but, whoever wilfully,

or even thoughtlessly, induces a servant of God to "break one of his least commands," is a partaker in the guilt of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, "who made Israel to sin,"-an expression of reproach which has accompanied his name to this present hour, and will go down with it to the end of the world! Who was made the instrument of God's vengeance?

MARY. Baasha.

MAMA. And how did he execute it?

MARY. He conspired against Nadab.

MAMA. Do you understand what conspiring means?

MARY. Not exactly, Mama; I only know he killed him.

MAMA. That he might have done alone: most murders are committed by one person; but a conspiracy requires several to agree in it. And what was Baasha's first act on becoming king?

MARY." He left not unto Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according to the saying of the Lord, because of the provocation wherewith they provoked the Lord God of Israel."

MAMA. You have here an awful instance of a father's sins "visited on the third and fourth generation," as you lately had a gracious one of the mercy "kept for thousands" in Israel, for the