slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

"And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes."

"And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD, which am but dust and ashes: Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five ?"

"And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it."

"And he spake unto him yet again, and said: Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake."

"And he said unto him, oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it if I find thirty there."

"And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the LORD: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake.

And Abraham said, "oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten should be found there. And he

said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake."

But there were not ten righteous men in the

whole city, and Sodom was to be destroyed.

The angels who had visited Abraham, went on to Sodom; they found Lot, and told him the city would be destroyed, but that he and his family should be saved. The following morning they took him and his wife, and his two daughters, and commanded them to make all haste and quit the city, lest they should be consumed; and on no account to linger and look back. But Lot's wife disobeyed the command of the angels; she looked back, and became a pillar of salt.

"Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven: And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain,* and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground."

"And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord: And he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and behold, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace."

"And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt."

We hear little more of Lot; he evidently was a very inferior character to Abraham, and did

*The whole plain is highly bituminous, and still bears marks of the violent convulsion which is here recorded.

not seek to please God first in every thing he did; although he might not be an idolater, nor given up to wickedness like the nations round.

The destruction of Sodom and the other cities, produced a lake or inland sea, about seventy miles long it has gone by various names, such as the Dead Sea, the Salt Sea, or Lake Asphaltites. It is remarkable for the excessive saltness of its waters, which prevents fish from living in it, and plants from growing near its borders. It is also said that the water has a petrifying quality, and that small branches of plants thrown into it soon become petrified.

CHAPTER III.

ISAAC BORN. ABRAHAM OFFERS ISAAC.

ABRAHAM's faith was now rewarded by his wife Sarah having a son: This was a source of great happiness to Abraham, but he had still a cause of uneasiness. Ishmael was fourteen years old when Isaac was born, and, as he had till then been brought up as the only son and expected heir of Abraham, he and his mother Hagar did not willingly give place to Isaac. About three years after, Sarah asked Abraham

to send away Hagar and her son, but Abraham refused, until commanded by God to do so. God promised it should be well with Ishmael, and that he should likewise become the founder of a great nation; but he was not to remain with Isaac, not inheriting the same promises.

By sending Ishmael away, dissention and unkindness in the family were prevented, while the future happiness of Ishmael was amply provided for, and a higher destiny opened for him, than could (humanly speaking) have awaited him in the house of his father. Hagar was accordingly provided with a bottle of water and some bread, the only provisions necessary in that country for a journey, and she and her son were sent away. They were probably directed to go to some friendly tribe near, but this we are not told. In the wilderness of Beersheba, they suffered dreadfully from thirst. The water they had brought with them was gone, and they saw none in the desert. What were they to do? Ishmael lay down under a tree, too much exhausted to continue his journey, and his mother "sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot; for she said, let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice and wept.”

"And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is; Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him

in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. And God was with the lad; and he grew and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer."

The Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael. When Hagar was told of the future destiny of her son, it was declared that he should be 'a wild man; whose hand would be against every man, and every man's hand against him.' This is most strikingly the characteristic of the Arabs even now, particularly the Bedouin Arabs, whose descent from Ishmael is the best attested. They live in the deserts, in tents, despising and hating the manners of civilized life, and scarcely ever dwelling in towns. They enjoy the wild free life of the desert, and are always at war, either with some neighbouring tribe, or with strangers. They are the terror of all travellers, for their hand is against every one who is not very powerfully protected, and they continue the same way of life, from generation to generation, while their domestic manners as described by modern travellers, differ little from those which we find recorded in many parts of the Bible, particularly in the lives of the patriarchs.

Abraham had shown his faith in God and his obedience to the divine commands on many trying occasions; but his faith was to be proved yet farther. His son Isaac whom he loved with