CHAPTER XXXVII.

But it is time to remember that we pledged ourselves to our readers to pass over a large portion of Sephora's life, and only besought their patience and indulgence, while they cast on it the transient glance of retrospection. Instead, therefore, of continuing to follow her in her pilgrimage, step by step, we will briefly observe that she reached her home in safety, that many years, after this period, rolled away, during which she felt the corrosive power of earthly joys and riches-pursued after the ignis fatuus of worldly happiness, and gradually, and almost unconsciously, lost much of the spirituality of her mind.

Though now occupying a sphere in life where her benevolence and influence might have been so much more diffusive, she never sought to exert them, but contented herself with wishing well instead of doing well, and her days passed on in a kind of benevolent

dream. If misery crossed her path, she relieved it, but she no longer sought out its wretched abode, she no longer soothed the parting hour, or pointed out the path to heaven; she no longer listened to the wearying tale of pining sickness, or received the sorrows of the burthened mind; but yielded herself up to that visionary kind of religion, that renounces all the harsh and grating duties of humanity, and forgets that we are sent into this world not to muse upon what is right, but to perform it. She thought herself above the love of the world, because she disliked the glare and noise of Keroob's house, but in truth, she was shut up in a world of her own, where her thoughts, her cares, and her joys were daily becoming more and more concentrated. And yet the cherished objects on which she leaned for rest, broke under her, one after another, and proved but wounding spears. She had several children who were taken away just when their faculties began to expand, and excite all the fondness of her heart. But these warnings of the deceitfulness of the

shore on which she was building, instead of causing her to give up her hope of terrestrial happiness, made her seek for it with increased avidity, and she no longer knew that sweet and passive joy that leaves all things with God, trusts to the tide of providence, and knows that the advancing wave that lays the treasure at our feet, and the refluent one that bears it from us, and carries it again into the ocean of eternity, are both alike under the direction of his infinite wisdom and love.

Keroob became every day more disagreeable; his greediness of gain, his love of pomp, his ostentatious charity, his all-pervading pride, increased more and more upon him, while the natural peevishness and infirmities of age, fully kept pace with his other offensive qualities.

Sephora, whose judgment was not blinded by natural affection, was probably more sensible than Caphtor to his defects. She was also become more studious of her own ease than she once was, and had lost much of that amiable indifference she used to feel about her own welfare, and that anxious desire

to promote the happiness of others. They resided occasionally for a short time in Mount Hermon. This peaceful abode formed such a contrast to the proud and discontented dwelling of Keroob, that they always thought of going there with impatience, and left it with regret. Sephora at length persuaded herself that there was no reason why they should render their lives uncomfortable by living with Keroob, and brought together a number of arguments to combat the objections of her husband against forsaking the house of his father. The probability that the death of their two first children might have been occasioned by the air of Nainthe increased peevishness of Keroob, notwithstanding all their efforts to please him, and the unprofitableness of their lives.

In urging this last objection she forgot that if their lives were unprofitable it must be their own fault, as a populous city can never fail to afford a large field for the exercise of mercy.

Keroob fretted much when he found he was to be left to his solitary magnificence,

and to be deprived of his children, who were, perhaps, full as much the objects of his pride as of his affection. His complaints did not, however, alter their purpose, but they soothed his peevishness and their own consciences by promises of frequent visits, and these engagements they were at first so punctual in fulfilling, that they were scarcely less with him than when they dwelt under his roof. When once, however, the sense of duty has yielded to self-indulgence, virtue stands but on a down hill path. In the course of time their visits became less frequent, till Sephora left them off altogether, and persuaded herself that her children required her constant presence, and that it would endanger their health either to take them with her or to leave them behind.

Caphtor, who thought the divine command of "Honour thy father and thy mother," made no exception in case of the petulant, and who had never been able so to stifle the voice of conscience, but it would sometimes tell him he had done wrong in forsaking his parent in his old age, fully purposed never to

VOL. II.

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