to establish courts of subordinate jurisdiction-a policy which prevails among all enlightened nations to the present day. After this friendly interview with Moses and the elders of Israel, and communing with them in spiritual things, Jethro departed and went his way into his own land: Ex. chap. xviii.

This Jethro, or Raguel, Moses' father-in-law, had a son named Hobab, whom Moses invited to accompany him, as a guide, through the wilderness, and to settle in the land of Canaan: and, to encourage his compliance, he assured him, that he should be a partaker in all the blessings God had promised and should bestow upon Israel: Num. x. 29-32. At first Hobab declined this invitation; but afterwards, it appears, he and others with him accepted it, and entered with Israel into the promised land, where they pitched their tents, and dwelt near Jericho, the city of palm-trees. From thence, in process of time, a part of this family removed into the southern parts of the land, into the wilderness of Judah, and dwelt on the south of Arad, among the people of that tribe: Judg. i. 16. These are the Kenites, against whom David pretended to Achish the king of Gath, that he had made a plundering excursion, in order to conceal the real object of his expedition 1 Sam. xxvii. 10. But Heber, with his wife Jael, and probably some others of his brethren, separated themselves and removed to the north of Canaan, and pitched their tents upon the plain of Zaanam, where they lived in peace with Jabin, king of Hazor, while he was warring against Israel. They showed Sisera, the chief captain of Jabin's army, that Deborah and Barak, with Israel at their feet, had come up to Tabor. Soon the battle was joined, and Sisera, being defeated and closely pursued, fled to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, where he was, at first, kindly receiv

less by a divine impulse, seized a hammer and nail of the tent, with which she smote Sisera so that he died at her feet. This heroic exploit of Jael, the victorious Deborah and Barak afterwards celebrated in a triumphant song of praise: Judges iv. 11, 17-22, and v. 24-27. ›

After this we have no further notices of the Kenites until the reign of Saul. When God sent that monarch to execute his vengeance, and utterly to exterminate the Amalekites, for their unprovoked hostility to Israel, when they came out of Egypt, a part of the Kenites dwelt among that devoted people. Saul remembered the kindness their ancestors had shown to Israel, and the relation they stood in to them; and therefore he warned them, in the most friendly manner, to depart from among the Amalekites, that they might not perish with them. They regarded the warning, and saved themselves, while judgment without mercy was executed upon those ancient enemies of Israel and of God. But these Kenites appear to have been a different branch of the same scattered family, and not the offspring of those who were related to Moses, and came in with Israel into Canaan: 1 Sam. xv. 6.

Some time after the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, and probably in the days of the Judges, or of the first kings of Israel, lived Rechab the Kenite, who, it seems, was a great and good man in his day. Of him we have no particular account. But it appears he was regarded as a chief or head of the house of his fathers, and gave his name to his posterity, who, from him, were afterwards called Rechabites.

Jonadab, a son or lineal descendant of this Rechab, was one of the greatest and best of men, and distinguished among his people. He was a man of great authority, a legislator in his family and among his descendants. He established laws

the lives and conduct of his posterity, which though somewhat singular and self-denying, they religiously observed; and one especially, which it would be well if other people would observe. This Jonadab flourished in the days of Jehu, the son of Nimshi, and accompanied that furious prince while he cut off the house of Ahab, and destroyed the worshippers of Baal out of Israel. He countenanced the terrible execution which Jehu was commissioned to effect up, on that idolatrous house: 2 Kings x. 15, 23.

The last account we have of the Kenites in the line of Rechab, is in the last days of the kingdom of Judah, as recorded by the prophet Jeremiah, chap. xxxv. When the king of Babylon invaded Judah these Rechabites, who resided in the open country removed to Jerusalem and dwelt there, as a place of apparent security, for fear of the army of the Chaldeans. There the prophet Jeremiah, at the command of God, took Jaazaniah the chief, and the whole house of the Rechabites, and brought them into the house of the Lord, and set wine before them with the request that they would drink it. But they utterly refused, and alledged for their excuse and justification the authority of Jonadab their father, who had commanded his children not to drink any wine forever. This the prophet did, not with a view to tempt these abstemious people to become intemperate, but in order to instruct, reprove, and shame the rebelious house of Israel for their disobedience to the command of their God. Soon after this Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzer, and the Jews, with the Kenites, and several of the surrounding nations were carried into captivity beyond Babylon, and thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Balaam, The Kenite shall be wasted until Ashur shall carry thee away captive.' After this we hear no more of the Kenites. Perhaps they

Character. As to the civil or political character of the Kenites, they lived in detached families or clans, scattered among the Israelites, Midianites, and Amalekites, and probably among other nations, where they sojourned as strangers, distinct from the people among whom they dwelt, governed by their own chiefs, laws, and customs, much like the Jews and Gypsies of modern times. They were a wandering people, residing in tents in the open country, and removing from place to place, as best suited their convenience or inclinations. They were a sober, peaceable, temperate, and virtuous people, strongly resembling the patriarchs of more ancient times in their manners and habits of life. They were also a people of steady habits-strongly attached to the customs and ways of their ancestors, and remarkably observant of the rules and orders sanctioned by their chiefs and fathers. This is a very noticeable trait in their character, which will still further appear as we consider their religious character.

Je

The religious character of the Kenites, so far as the Scriptures inform us, was generally good, and in some instances remarkably so. thro or Raguel, the priest of Midian, one of their remote ancestors, was a man of superiour talents, wisdom, and piety. He appears indeed to have been a priest of the Most High God, and able to give counsel to one of the wisest and meekest of men, and

one of the best statesmen that have dived in the world. He took a deep interest in the welfare of Israel, and was highly respected and honored by their wisest and best men. He blessed and extolled Jehovah; and in his priestly character he brought a sacrifice and offered it to the God of Israel, even in the presence of Moses and Aaron, and with them and the elders of the people he ate bread before God, thus communing with them in holy things, in a manner somewhat resembling the supper of our Lord: See Ex. xviii. 1-12. Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite, was doubtless a woman of strong faith and ardent piety, and even of a divine impulse. She is highly celebrated in sacred song for her heroic deeds in aiding in the destruction of the enemies of Israel and of Israel's God. Respecting the religious character of Rechab, who gave name to a branch of the Kenite family, we have no particular account. From the very circumstance, however, of his giving name to his posterity, it appears that he was famous in his day; for among a sober and virtuous people none can attain to eminence but such as are distinguished for their wisdom and piety. But in respect to Jonadab, his son or descendant, there is the best reason to say that he was a man of distinguished excellence-a man of piety-a man of God. Jehu, when anointed king, was glad to meet him, and to receive him into his chariot, when he went to destroy Ahab and Baal out of Israel. The people seeing Jehu in company with so good a man, would naturally believe that he was acting under a divine commission, and would more readily receive and submit to him as their future king. The piety and goodness of Jonadab are further manifested in the regard he had for the virtue and welfare of his posterity. He was solicitous for their purity and happiness; and most ardently desired to preserve them from the pollutions of

the world, and to guide them safe to heaven. His pious efforts for their good were religiously regarded by his children, and especially by those whom Jeremiah brought into the temple. They appear to have been people of eminent piety and worth. God himself approved of their con duct, and on that account gave them special promise of future good. Considering there were characters of such distinguished piety and goodness among that scattered people, and the salutary influence they must have exerted upon their offspring and contemporaries; and considering their remarkable attachment and submission to the authority and will of their pious ancestors, we are compelled to believe that the Kenites were, generally, a sober, moral, and religious people.

Their relation to Israel and the true God.-The Kenites in the line of Jethro and Hobab, were naturally allied to Israel by the marriage of Moses with one of that family, whose posterity were numbered and served among the common Levites, chap. xxiii. 14: they were also their acquaintances, neighbors, and friends, dwelling among them, and partaking with them in all the blessings of Canaan. In respect to their spiritual relation to Israel and to God, all the pious among them doubtless belonged to the true Israel or church of God, and were related to him in the covenant of his mercy, and were his children by a spiritual regeneration and adoption, and thus became heirs to his heavenly kingdom. But in respect to their outward and visible relation to God and his church, the matter is not quite so clear. Moses indeed promised Hobab that if he would go with him he should be a partaker in all the good which God had promised Israel; and this prom. ise was doubtless fulfilled. But how far it extended and what it embraced beyond mere outward benefits, does not clearly appear. There is no account that the Kenites were ever

incorporated with Israel in their national covenant, or received any inheritance among them in the division of Canaan. They always lived as strangers in a strange land. Nor does it appear that they ever practised the rite of circumcision. It is evident they did not practise it in the days of Jethro; for Moses did not circumcise his sons, who were born in Midian; and Zipporah, his wife, reproached him as a bloody husband, because of that bloody rite: Ex. iv. 25, 26. Nor is there any evidence that Hobab, and those of his people who accompanied him into Canaan, nor any of their posterity who lived and died there, ever submitted to be circumcised, without which no one could belong to the house of Israel, and partake in their religious privileges; and for the same reason they were not proselytes to the Jews' religion. They observed none of the rites and ceremonies, feasts nor fasts, established by Moses, by which the Israelites were distinguished from all other nations, and became the visible church and people of God. The conclusion then is, that the Kenites bore no visible relation to Israel, or to the true God, by any visible covenant, token, rite, or privilege. They were entirely a distinct and separate people, and of a different religion, so far as externals are regarded. They dwelt in a land in which they had no inheritance-a land indeed of friends, but among a people with whom they had no visible religious connexion. They were undoubtedly much instructed, and their religious views and feelings were greatly enlarged and purified by the revelations which God gave to Israel, and the religious observances he had established among them; but in the outward forms and ceremonies of that religion they had no immediate or special concern. They did not belong to that visible church.

It will here, probably, be asked, of what religion then were these Kemites or Rechabites? They appear VOL. II.-No. IV.

24

to have been a pious people, worshippers of the true God, and heirs of his kingdom; and yet they did not belong to the house of Israel, which then constituted the only visible church of God in the world; to what church then did they belong? or what was their religion? The proper answer to such questions is this; that they belonged to the patriarchal church, which existed from the fall, down to the days of Moses; and their religion was the same with that of Adam,of Enoch, of Noah, of Shem, and of his pious offspring till the times of Abraham. It was the same with the religion of Job and his three friends, of Jethro, and doubtless of many other pious people, who lived in those ancient times, and before the heather nations were wholly sunk into idolatry. The church and true religion existed long before the dispensation given by Moses, as it does still exist since the law is abolished. People, therefore, may belong to the true church, and possess the true religion, who never belonged to the house of Israel, or to the church as modelled by the Mosaic ritual. And this was the case with the Kenites. They believed in and worshipped the only living and true God, who created the heavens and the earth, and who governs and disposes of all things after the counsel of his own will. They believed in the promises made to the fathers in the earliest times, and trusted for deliverance from sin and the curse, in that Seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head. As the manners and habits of that singular people were of the most ancient stamp, so also was their religion. It was purely patriarchal, and of the most simple form; yet being founded on God's early revelations of mercy, it was sufficient for all the purposes of piety and salvation. This religion the Kenites inherited from their remote ancestors; and such was their attachment to it, that they retained and practised it during all

the days of their sojourning in Canaan. And thus, though they sustained no visible relation to Israel, or to the church of God as formed by the Sinai covenant, yet they belonged to the true spiritual church,

TO PENA FLOR.

(Continued from page 141.) DURING my residence in Santiago I was invited by two acquaintances to accompany them to Peña Flor, a small village, twelve leagues to the south-west of the capital. The object of my companions in this excursion was to inspect a chacra (farm) which they had designs of purchasing; my object was to see the country and its people.

The ground over which we travelled was generally level, and, at this season of the year, exceedingly dry, except along the neighborhood of a stream of water. I was particularly struck with the gravelly character of the soil, and gravel of such coarseness as to show that the whole surface over which we passed was but a deposit from the continued washings of the Andes. You see these round smooth pebbles in the beds of the deepest canals; and in one instance where they were digging a well of sixty or seventy feet in depth, the earth thrown up contained a large portion of small stone evidently rounded and polished by the action of the water which brought them from the mountains.

Our journey was across the celebrated field of Maypo, where, under San Martin, the second great battle was fought, in the history of Chilian independence. The ground consists of two long, but not high, parallel ridges, with an intervening valley of two or three miles in width. On one of these ridges the Spanish army un

pectedly stationed during the night of April 5th, 1818, and when the sun arose was within full view of the capital. The Spanish general was boldly attacked by the patriot forces, and at length driven from his entrenchment, but again fixed himself on the second ridge. After another. severe engagement, the royal army was forced from this position also, and sought for protection in a large farm house enclosed by a high and thick wall. This enclosure was soon demolished, and a cruel slaughter, with swords and knives, ensued, and the lives of some hundreds were sacrificed. Osorio, by assuming the dress of a country peasant, escaped, and a few others with him, while the greater part of his army were either slain or taken prisoners. As this was a battle from which the liberty of Chile sprung, as I had often heard it described by the citizens of Santiago, who saw and heard it from their house-tops, and by a countryman too, an officer, who was severely wounded in the engagement, I surveyed the field with deep interest.

A little incident of the battle was related to us by an aged widow, whose hut is near the centre of the field, and which account, with the earnest gesticulation of the narrator, I shall not forget. "O sir," said she, "there never was such a battle as this, so many men and horses, and such loud guns, and all so unexpect ed."

Osorio, by a rapid march from the south of Chile, reached the field of Maypo at a dead hour of the night.