Mark the origin of those depreciating reports which they contrived to put in circulation. They had taken some offence respecting Zipporah, his wife, who is called the Ethiopian woman. The precise occasion of this offence cannot, and need not, be ascertained. Some have supposed it was on account of his having married her; but as this had taken place forty years before, and, being perfectly legal, could have furnished no just ground of crimination, the probability is, that some recent occurrence, grounded perhaps on personal and long cherished antipathy, produced a difference. Some private contention might have existed; that ungovernable member, the tongue, had inflamed resentments; and a revengeful spirit fastened the blame upon Moses, whose only offence was, probably, some meek and pacifying word. But what connexion subsisted between the marriage of Moses with an Ethiopian woman, and the pretentious of Aaron and Miriam to an equality with their illustrious brother? Truly, none at all. Their conduct is a striking display, not only of the virulence of envy, but of the progress and resentful nature of anger. It always wanders from its subject, and ranges around for new materials upon which to operate. It possesses the perverse capacity of converting every thing into an element of mischief, of inventing circumstances and envenoming objections. It seeks to enlist others into its services, and to bring every thing into a confederacy against the peace of its object. It is limited by no bounds, and restrained by no considerations; it will often, like the exasperated judge of Israel, pull down ruin upon his own head, for the sake of destroying others. The present contention began about Zipporah, but it ended in Moses himself. It was, perhaps, at first, a common-place strife; but at length it assumed the shape of a settled hostility. It was but a spark, and if angry passions had not blown it, soon it might have gone out; imprudence and revenge raised and extended it into a vast conflagration. Family quarrels are, of all other dissentions, the most to be deprecated. We should be careful to prevent them, and if they occur, take effectual and speedy measures for their extinction. Let us not be tenacious of our own opinions, or determined upon practising our own plans. It becomes the Christian, both for his own sake and for the interest of religion, to make every possible sacrifice to peace. Pour the oil of gentleness upon the stormy billows of strife: ever remembering that "a brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and their contentions are like the bars of a castle."