overtaken and slain, while those who escaped fled to the mountains. The victors returning in triumph plundered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah of all the goods, wealth, and provisions of the inhabitants, and they took many of the people and carried them away captive, with design to make them slaves. Among others they took Lot, the nephew of Abram, and all his property.

Intelligence of these events was speedily carried, by a fugitive who had escaped from the scene of outrage, to Abram, who dwelt in the plain of Mamre, and who had the most friendly relations with Eshcol the Amorite, and his brother Mamre, and with Aner, all chiefs of neighbouring tribes. At the request of Abram, these warlike leaders assembled and armed their dependants and friends; and Abram also armed his trained servants, of whom there were three hundred and eighteen, born in his own house. And these confederate bands pursued Chedorlaomer and his companions, and overtook them by night, before they were aware that an enemy had come against them; and after a furious engagement, the four kings were defeated and fled; and Abram and his men pursued them unto Hobah, a place near to the city of Damascus. The victory was complete in all things. Not only was Lot rescued from his captors, but all the men and women, and the spoil which had been taken from the pillaged cities, were recovered.

It was a lovely autumnal night. The placid moon gladdened the Syrian glens, whose groves of palm and sycamore, reposing in soft and silent light, extended their lengthened shadows far over the lake of Sodom, contrasting solemnly with the wild rout and uproar of which they were unconscious witnesses. The green sod in these pathless valleys, previously untrodden by any but the herdsman and his charge, seemed, when the fray was over, to have assumed a tint of darker green, as if it loathed the violence to which it had been subjected. The sward was stained with the blood of men, horses, and camels; the mangled bodies of the dead and dying strewed the flower-sprinkled ground; and the cries and shouts of pain, of rage, and exultation made the usually noiseless night hideous.

It was pleasant, nevertheless, to behold the meeting of those who had been separated, though but for so short a space: it seemed like restoration from the grave. Wives, children, parents, friends, and lovers, torn suddenly from home, to become captive slaves in a strange country-and then as suddenly, in the midst of despair, brought back to hope and happiness. We know not how dear to us are the ties of home and kindred, how deep rooted are our affections and sympathies, until we have experienced the bitterness of

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bereavement! We know not the full sweetness of enjoyment, until we have tasted of the cup of affliction!

Abram after the defeat of the kings returned towards Sodom, and the new king of that city went forth to meet him in a valley called the king's dale, whither also Melchizedek, king of Salem, a priest of Jehovah, went to welcome and to bless him. And Melchizedek took with him bread and wine, which he distributed among the victors and those who had been wrested from the spoilers' hands; and he blessed Abram, saying, "Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth and blessed be the most high God, who hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand." There was great rejoicing on all sides, and excess of pleasure opened the hearts of all, insomuch that Abram gave tithes of all that he had to Melchizedek; and the king of Sodom offered to Abram and his companions, all the goods and property that he had rescued from Chedorlaomer, desiring only that the people who had been carried away should be restored. But Abram said, "I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich; save only that which the young men have eaten, and the