Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1852, by the AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. No books are published by the American Sunday-school Union without the sanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting of fourteen members, from the following denominations of Christians, viz. Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reformed Dutch. Not more than three of the memb

W ithin a few centuries after the flood, while some who had witnessed the sin and the destruction of the antediluvian world were still living, Jehovah saw fit, in accordance with his designs of eternal wisdom, to separate Abraham from his brethren, calling upon him to leave the land of his birth and go out into a strange land, to dwell in a far country. He was to pass the rest of his days as a sojourner in a land which should be thereafter given to a people yet unborn,—to a nation which was to d

The Hebrew patriarch led his flocks and herds, surrounded by his large household, from Haran to the land of the Canaanites; from thence to that of the Philistines, down into Egypt; wherever so numerous a family and such large flocks could find sustenance—water and herbage. And as he thus sojourned, many of the poor of these lands flocked to him for employment and support; and while he bought the services of the parents, the children born in his house became members of his family, were trained as

A fter the departure of Hagar and her son from the tents of Abraham, peace seems to have returned, and it became the abode of filial and parental as well as of conjugal affection. Sarah's days were still prolonged, that she might exercise the duties and enjoy the pleasures of a mother. The heir of wealth, and the child of love and indulgence, the character of Isaac seems to have been the reverse of his brother, the restless, wandering Ishmael. The one, cast off from the care of the father and ta

T here are two characters, which by some associations of memory, or caprice of fancy, are ever blended in our recollections—the one of ancient, the other of modern days—the one of sacred, the other of profane history. Catharine of Arragon, the unloved consort of the King of England, and Leah, the daughter of the Syrian shepherd, the hated wife of the Hebrew patriarch. There may seem to be as little assimilation of character and destiny, as there is of condition, between the daughter and the wife

T here were designs of infinite wisdom to be accomplished by the long sojourn of the children of Jacob in Egypt. The people of Israel were appointed to guard the name and worship of Jehovah, until He who was to bring life and immortality to light should rise from among them. Until the "Star" that was to come from Jacob should shed its glorious radiance over this darkened earth. When all the children of men were departing from God, He chose this family to perpetuate the memory of his works and hi

The book of Judges gives a concise view of the people of Israel for a period of four hundred years, extending from the death of Joshua to the birth of Samuel. It is peculiarly interesting as showing how God deals with the nations of the earth in visiting national sins with national punishments. It has ever been the painful office of the historian to record the crimes and misfortunes of mankind, and to present the outbreaks of society rather than to note its gradual advance and improvement, or to

A lthough the family of Jeroboam were soon swept from the throne of Israel, yet those who succeeded still pursued the policy by which he had been governed; and through all the contention and bloodshed which marked the reigns of different dynasties, they all persisted in the idolatry established by him. "They all did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, wherewith he made Israel to sin." But of Ahab, the son of Omri, it is written that "he did more to pr

T he pious king of Judah not only formed a political alliance with Israel, but he even permitted, and probably encouraged, his son, and the heir to his throne, to marry the daughter of the impious Ahab and the idolatrous Jezebel. Jehoshaphat saw not the Queen of Israel as we see her—as unlovely as she was unholy. Dazzled by the splendour of her court, won by her grace and queenly bearing, he may have overlooked her crimes. The most unprincipled have sometimes carefully and successfully cul tivat

W hen Isaiah wrote, Babylon sat a queen among the nations, in the pride of pomp and power, in the full security of strength; yet he graphically depicted her desolation and foretold her present state, while he pronounced her doom—a perpetual desolation. She shall never be rebuilt! Her towers are fallen and her site marked by ruins. The decline of Babylon had begun. It was certain, although slow. Years were to pass before the sentence should be fully executed. At the period, when the transactions