his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah." No doubt he gave this direction, not merely through a natural desire that his dead body should lie amongst those who had been dear to him; but in full faith that God had given that land to his descendants, and that they should eventually be put in the full possession of it. The patriarch died, and his sons religiously fulfilled the charge which he had given them. After they had embalmed his body, and made a solemn mourning for him for threescore and ten days in Egypt, they took him for burial into the land of Canaan, with a magnificence befiting the high rank which Joseph held in the court of Pharaoh. All nations that have any degree of civilization in them, have surrounded the obsequies of men of distinction and public usefulness with ceremonies and honours; and though I love not pomp and ostentation, yet neither do I love the heartlessness which would commit the dead bodies of departed relatives and friends to the earth without any pious regard and attention. The lifeless corpse cannot indeed be sensible of the feelings of the surviving mourners, nor benefited or gratified by the respect paid to it; but such regard to the dead has a good effect upon the immediate connections of the deceased, and a beneficial influence on society in general. It soothes the sorrowing heart of the widow, the child, or the parent, and it softens and humanizes the manners of all. It is right and it is grateful to inter the dead body in consecrated ground, with the sacred ceremonies of religion, and with outward circumstances suitable to the previous condition of the deceased. It should be done in full faith of the resurrection of the body, when, in the case of all those who have died in the Lord, it shall be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, and together with the spirit which was disembodied at death be eternally blessed and glorified in the presence of God. In noticing the following and closing circumstances of this interesting history, we observe that after Jacob's death the brethren of Joseph fell into great fear lest he should then shew his resentment against their previous offence, and punish them for it. They thought that a regard to their common father had hitherto influenced him, but that when that check was removed, he would avenge himself of them. They said, " Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him." Therefore they sent unto him a messenger, probably one of their own number, to deprecate his anger; and to effect this, they urged a command which had been given to them by their father before he died, who bade them say unto Joseph, " Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil." And they add their own petition to the same effect, saying, "And now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father." They remind him not only of their common earthly father, but of their common God. We can hardly suppose that Jacob himself had any suspicion that resentment lurked in the breast of Joseph; more probably he gave them this charge to remind them of their their penitence, and to make er brother. Besides Jaromit, they went, and ̈· fell they said. Behold, aus again voluntarily which had originally anger. Joseph wept was delivered to him: im, he hastened to their minds. In is own depth of :ior am I in the od man's prinTod. Some r imitation the dead has a go, I resist and avenge not youre unto wrath: for ine, I will reAbstinence from as the forgivein a previous which exclu i Christ, and crown of its it not they Nay, on as a duty nies. Thus xcels that ophers, as Conght life S over the ids as they rld at large ed by the pre ful people ar edge of his doc sperience of hi |