now sunk and covered over with a great lake, or sea, called the Dead Sea. The waters are uncommonly salt and bitter. No fishes can live in them. No plants grow in the sea, or in its immediate vicinity, where every thing is dull and cheerless. If branches of trees are thrown into it, they are speedily changed into stone. And sulphur and brimstone are to be found near it at the present time.

In some parts of the Bible, the prophets who wrote many years ago, speak of Sodom and Gomorrah, and say that these places shall be desert and dried up, and uninhabited, that they shall be covered with briars and brambles, a land of salt and sulphur, where can be neither planting nor sowing. How strikingly these prophecies have been fulfilled!

You know there are some people who say, that God is so very kind and merciful that he will not punish the wicked in another world. He is almighty, they assert, and can so order things that it will not be necessary hereafter to inflict any suffering upon those who disobey him.

Why, then, did he inflict such an awful

punishment upon the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah ? Was he not a merciful and almighty Being then as well as now? If he is so full of compassion that he will not punish sinners in the other world, why does he punish them in this? Can he not so

order things that it will not be necessary to inflict suffering in the one case as in the other? Is it not as easy for him to spare the wicked in this world as in the next?

No, my dear reader, this is all a sad and dangerous mistake. God is just, as well as merciful. He must be just, that he may be good.

Is that a good father, and really kind to his family, who suffers some of his children to be as disobedient and wicked as they choose, and throw the whole household into confusion and unhappiness, because he is so very merciful that he cannot punish them?

Is that school-master a good and kind one, who takes no notice of the bad and mischievous boys, who are making a disturbance in the school, and, when they go out to play, quarrel with the other boys, and strike and abuse them, but treats them just as he does those who behave well?

Would you like to live in such a family, or attend such a school? You surely would not. For you know what disorder and wretchedness must prevail there.

And what a disorderly and wretched place this world would be, if God were so kind and merciful that he could not inflict punishment upon the wicked, and assure them, by his awful threatenings, that he will do it,-if not always in this life, yet certainly in the

next.

good.

God must be just, that he may be

Why did God permit Jesus Christ, his only and well-beloved Son, to suffer so much, and to endure the agonizing death of the cross; and this, too, when he was free from all sin,-a perfectly pure and holy being?

God is truly merciful, and yet he permitted this. He is Almighty, and yet he did not use his power to prevent it.

Will he not inflict punishment, in the future world, upon a man who has been a great and vile sinner in this; when he sent his Son upon our earth, to endure the most tremendous sufferings, knowing that he would be perfectly innocent of all sin. He

had good reasons for this. It was that he might be just, and yet merciful to every one who believes in Jesus Christ. And he has good reasons for inflicting punishment upon sinners.

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Yes; a day is coming in which the terrible displeasure of God against sin, will be more awfully displayed than it was in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is the Judgment Day, when you, and I, and all men will stand before Jesus Christ; and when he will sentence the impenitently wicked to a place of endless and inconceivable suffering. The Bible calls it the day of the wrath of Jesus Christ. Think what it must be to endure the wrath of this rejected Saviour.

Now go to him for pardon and peace, and under his protection you will be for ever safe.

STORY XVII.

GOD TRIES THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM.

WHEN Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Abraham was living at Mamre. Very soon however, after that awful event had

must feel the weaknesses and infirmities of old age. Isaac would be able to take care of them, and to comfort them. He would - watch over their sick beds. He would be with them in their dying hour, and see that they were laid quietly and decently in their silent tombs.

Parents are delighted, you know, to have a new, little infant given to them. But Abraham and Sarah were peculiarly so, for the reasons that have been mentioned. I dare say, his mother embraced her dear Isaac hundreds of times, thinking over all the promises and blessings connected with his birth; while his father often took the smiling babe in his arms, and kissed him, and wept with gratitude and joy that God had bestowed so precious a gift upon them.

They doubtless, too, prayed for the child that he might early know about God, and love him; and grow up to obey and serve him; and do good to his fellow-men; and be prepared to go, after death, and join his parents in the world of eternal bliss.

Did ever parents rejoice over the birth of a child under more interesting circumstances? Can we think of one to whom a fond