cess to the presence of Jehovah,-Christ the Saviour and Intercessor,-the Holy Spirit the preparatory Guide and Purifier.

"If a man love me," said Jesus to his disciples, " he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

What an inestimable blessing! What an exalted privilege!-far above that which Moses asked for on the mount, to behold, for once, some visible manifestation of the divine glory. It is to have the peculiar presence of God and the Saviour,-their spiritual presence, imparting holiness, peace, and joy to the soul, always with us;-accompanying us. through life; sustaining us in death; and proving the foretaste of that blissful vision of Jehovah, mysterious and ineffable, which those who, like Moses, bear his image on earth, and are the followers of his Son, will enjoy in heaven.

"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God."-Memorable words of the Redeemer! Do we long after the vision? Are we now preparing to have it, at length, burst upon our enraptured sight?

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Moses ascends Sinai. The divine glory passes before him He is there another forty days. He descends. The building of the tabernacle.

Having prepared the tables of stone, Moses took them with him, and once more ascended the mountain. It was early in the morning. The sun had not yet risen. It was an hour sacred to the holiest and most elevated feelings of the soul. What must have been his, who was now anticipating that vision of the Divine presence which had been promised him! In what new and resplendent form would Jehovah manifest himself? That it would surpass all that he had before witnessed, he could have no doubt. Would he be able to endure it?

He reaches the rock. The Lord descends in the cloud, and stands with Moses. He is placed in a cleft of the rock, to be screened, as it were, from the full and overwhelming glory. It comes; the very presence of the Godhead. It passes before his astonished sight. A voice issues from it. It is Jehovah who speaks, and proclaims himself, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity

and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."

Moses quickly bows his head toward the earth, worshipping, and offers up this earnest supplication: "If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance."

"Behold I make a covenant," was the reply, (that is, a renewal of the former one which had been annulled by the flagrant disobedience of the Israelites ;)" before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art, shall see the work of the Lord; for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee." Tremendous judgments will be inflicted upon the heathen, in conducting the Israelites to Canaan and giving them possession of the land. Whole nations will be driven out, to make room for the peculiar people of the Lord. While, at the same time, it is strictly enjoined upon Moses to form no alliances with these nations, nor to intermarry among them, lest it should prove a snare, and draw the Israelites into their idolatrous practices. Their altars must be destroyed; their images demolished; and their

groves for the worship of false gods, cut down. "Thou shalt worship," it was added, no other god; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." He will endure no rival. He claims to be adored alone and supremely.

God then gave several precepts to Moses, relating to the feast of unleavened bread; the redeeming of the firstling of cattle, and the first-born of the sons; the Sabbath; the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat-harvest; and the feast of gathering at the end of the year.

come up,

At these feasts all the males were required to thrice each year, from the various parts of the land, and appear before the God of Israel, at the place where the tabernacle, and afterwards the temple, stood. In doing this, their families which were left behind, and their possessions, as the Lord assured Moses, would be preserved from all harm. So far from suffering on account of any predatory incursions, or hostile attacks, even the very desires of their enemies should be controlled by the divine power. Their land should not be coveted by them, nor any evil designs indulged. A standing miracle, for such it proved to be, attending the long, subsequent history of the Jewish nation, and furnishing the most incontestible evidence that the God of the Bible is the true God.

Some further directions were added; and Moses was then commanded to write down what he had

heard; "for after the tenor of these words," said the Lord, "I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel."

Thus, after spending another period of forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai, during which he neither ate nor drank, Moses came down again, with the two new tables of testimony in his hand; on which God had written the words that were on the first tables.

A striking miracle attended his descent and reappearance before the Israelites. His face shone with such a bright and radiant glory, that when Aaron and the people beheld it, they were afraid to come nigh him. He was himself ignorant of the cause; and calling his brother and the rulers of the congregation, who, encouraged by his voice, obeyed the summons, he ascertained the reason of their fears. He, then, covered his face with a veil, and the people approaching, "he gave them in commandment, all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai."

It seems that after this, when Moses went in before the Lord in the tabernacle, to speak with him, he took the veil off until he came out, when he put it on again while delivering the divine commands to the people.

He now, in the presence of the whole congregation, once more enjoined upon them the strictest observance of the Sabbath, and then proceeded to