Thus again announcing the one unchanged, consistent purpose of the Deity in all his management of his defiled creation.

And now again the people of Israel were numbered, and the land of Canaan, as it lay before them, though in possession of others, was parted out and divided amongst them by lot, as if it were already theirs. The number of men above twenty years of age was found to be six hundred and one thousand, seven hundred and thirty, beside the Levites, who were in all twenty-three thousand. And of these there was not found one who had been numbered in the previous numbering of the people in the desert, excepting Joshua and Caleb-all had died by the way according to the sentence passed on them.

The life of Moses now approached its termination. He was commanded of God to go up on a mountain that overlooked the surrounding country, and look out upon the land on which he was not to enter. The object of his long and arduous task was accomplished—the forty years of banishment were well-nigh expired-the rebellious generation had passed away, and all things were ready to complete the purpose of Omnipotence. Moses saw it and was content. About a month elapsed between this warning and his departure from the world. This period was spent in perfecting his commission upon earth. By God's command he presented Joshua to the people as his successor in the government. He renewed to them the ordinances and injunctions received from heaven for their future guidance. He recited before them all that had occurred since they came forth from Egypt. He added many further commands respecting their wars with the enemy and the division of the lands-he recapitulated the promises, threatenings, and injunctions he had at various times received from the Lord respecting them and all that he had done and suffered for their sakes; and above all things warned them against the idolatry to which he knew them prone. In the ears of the assembled nation he repeated the com

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mandments written of God on Mount Sinai and in the name of Jehovah renewed the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would be to them a God, and establish them as a people for himself, separated to him from out of the whole world. And Moses wrote also during this period, or finished to write, the books which have passed to us as his, to be laid up by the priest in the sanctuary, an everlasting memorial of the wisdom and mercy of God, and a declaration of his will as long as this sublunary world shall last.

This done, Moses was warned that his hour was nigh: and assembling the people together at the tabernacle, he spake before all the congregation one of those beautiful specimens of poetry which nothing in any age has equalled; at once descriptive of the past, and prophetic of the future mercies of the God he served. And then he went up again to the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah; and again he looked out upon the land which the Lord had given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And there he died, a hundred and twenty years old, "while yet his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." The children of Israel mourned for him thirty days; but his body was never found, nor his grave discovered. B.C. 1851.

We may write of countless ages more, boastful of their heroes and their kings-but we shall find no character so great, so beautiful, as that of Moses, the honoured type of Him, whose mission upon earth he represented and foretold. Greatness, the aim of other heroes, he put offsplendour and royalty he laid aside. The people for whom he laboured, showed him no gratitude: his sufferings purchased him no earthly glory-the fruit of his toils was not for him to gather-the land of promise was not his to enter. To do the will of Him who sent him was all his glory and all his gain. Highly endowed and gifted as he was, he thought not, spoke not, judged not for himself. The Lord spake, the Lord commanded-in every difficulty, "Moses spake unto the

Lord." This is all the language of the lowly historian of his own deeds, who was in his own sight as nothingthe passive and willing agent of the Omnipotent. He only, of all the ungrateful multitude, rescued from their chains, looked not back upon his princely estate in Egypt. When his forty years of banishment for others' sins should be expired, and the object of all their wanderings be even in their grasp, he was to die-not bequeathing the princely fruits of victory to his children, that last gratification of hardly-earned eminence-Joshua, his servant, was to be his successor; of his family, no mention is made.

Of Moses, as a writer, we have already spoken. What language can surpass the farewell song in which he spake to the people of their still-neglected, still-enduring God, as contained in the last chapters of Deuteronomy. But they were assuredly the words of God, and not of man-he spake as he was moved by the Holy Spirit.

(To be continued.)

LETTERS TO A YOUNG LADY

ON LEAVING SCHOOL.

LETTER THE SECOND.

WHAT shall I tell you, my dear M., of the world I bade you pause to contemplate-of that broad plain, over which you are now to bend your way? Some will persuade you, or have persuaded you long ere this, perhaps, that it is all of flowers and sunshine. They picture life as a gay holiday, with no defect but that of being too short; and since it is so, they would have us make what haste we may to enjoy it without regard to the consequences or the end. They teach you that when the trouble of learning your lessons and doing as you are bidden is over, the sorrows of your life are passed,

so you but mind to forget its dreaded termination. They dazzle your eye with pictures of friendship immutable, of love that never wrongs, pleasure that never tiresease, liberty, and indulgence-beauty, talents, fortune, all in league to make us blessed-if we have them: and if we have not, we may fancy some and expect the rest. In short, a very fairy-land of bliss-subject, it cannot be denied, to a few casualties; but these we may be so lucky as to escape-and liable to an untimely termination; but this we may be so prudent as to forget. These dreamers of pleasant dreams have set you up a waymark too, by which to direct your steps over this fair plain. It bids you be virtuous, because "virtue is its own reward," and vice is productive of misery-but if there should be any virtue the world has marked with contempt, or any vice that fashion has sanctioned, you are by no means to follow injudiciously the letter of this direction. You must be generous, kind, and benevolent, because these are pleasant feelings and purchase goodwill of men, so far as they interfere not with your own interests-but you must be just to yourself, maintain your rights with spirit, show a proper degree of pride, and be sure never to let your good dispositions lead you to any thing that is not expedient-in plainer terms, not to your advantage. The law of God-Alas! it is one of the few dark spots upon their brilliant scene they scarce know how to ease you of. You must not go counter to it for fear of future consequences, unless it is essential to your present enjoyment to do so: in that case you must make amends by being very strict in things that do not so much cross your inclinations. But be above all things careful not to waste your spirits by thinking of these things; rather employ your mind on subjects useful and agreeable, such as may keep your heart at rest, leaving you to the enjoyment of the bliss that is before you. Trust this report and follow this guidance, my dear M., and you will begin the world in a delusion, be strangely bewildered by the way to find it so unlike what you ex

pected, and after turning hither and thither in search of what you fancy you have missed, will close it in shame and disappointment.

And there are others, not a few, who paint a dark reverse to this fair picture. The world is with them a scene of such unmixed misery, one almost begins to wonder how a God of justice can do his creatures so much wrong as to force them to remain in it. Talents, and youth, and beauty, they tell us, so far from being valuable gifts, are but snares set up on purpose to entrap us into sorrow. Wealth is the treasure that a packhorse bears, a burden but no profit, all love is selfishness, all friends are false, all pleasure poisonous, and all hope a lie. Virtue, being always oppressed, while wickedness triumphs, is only a source of added suffering. To go safely through this world of theirs, we must be sure we never allow ourselves to be happy--if we feel no evil, we must anticipate it; if we have enjoyments, we must distaste them; if we have friends, we must not trust them; if we see excellence in others, we must not believe in it. Of the termination of life they do indeed remind us, when it may mar our joys by the sense of its brevity, but never as a termination of our sorrows-and miserable as they describe this life to be, the worst of its miseries is, that it must come to an end. One evil only it should seem they overlook, the evil of our own corrupted hearts—and one suffering only they forbear to tell of, the suffering that may await us after death. Go forth with these, and you will be wretched in yourself, unjust to all around you, and ungrateful to your God. More successful than on the former path, you will not fail to find the misery you seek.

But the world, my love, on which you are about to enter, is neither of these. That world which the Word of God came forth from heaven to create, at whose birth the hosts of heaven shouted for joy, which love created, and mercy spares, and wisdom rules, can never be a scene of unmixed misery. That world which man by