lest we should incur the charge of an affected singularity. The fact was such as Abraham had anticipated. Sarah was the object of universal admiration. She attracted the attention even of Pharaoh's courtiers, who, with the view of pleasing their master, recommended her to the king. Supposing she had been the stranger's sister, she was taken into his house. Alas! what availed all this timid policy! The very means which had been devised for the preservation of Sarah from Egyptian licentiousness, nearly exposed her to all its dreaded consequences; and Abraham was duped by his own craftiness. His wife was endangered, his artifice detected, and the household of Pharaoh visited with divine chastisements on her account. And, in addition to the pain which both he and his beloved partner must have felt, from the consciousness of having acted wrong, they were dismissed from the country. "And Pharaoh called Abraham, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou, She is my sister? So I might have taken her to me to wife: now, therefore, behold thy wife, take her and go thy way. And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him; and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had." The _beauty_ of Sarah was obviously the occasion of her committing, in concert with her husband, the sin of equivocation, and of the misfortunes which attended their Egyptian journey. If she had not been distinguished for a fair exterior, she would have escaped the admiration of these strangers, and the difficulties which she and Abraham afterwards encountered. Solomon pronounces beauty to be vain; and the history of the world will show, that, in innumerable instances, as well as that of Sarah, it has betrayed its fair possessor into many snares. Experience, however, in this respect, does not seem to teach wisdom; for the wish to acquire the attraction which beauty confers, seems to be no less prevalent in the present age, than it was at the earliest period of the world. How many hours of the day, and how many days of the wasted year, do some females devote to the improvement of their persons! Impossible as it has ever been, and ever will be found, to make one hair black or white, to add one cubit to the stature, to bend one untractable feature into the admired curve to which common consent attributes grace and loveliness; the impossible transformation is nevertheless attempted. The treasures of opulence are exhausted; the more valuable possession of health is often sacrificed at the shrine of vanity: and while the noble distinctions of cultivated intellect and solid piety are neglected, the ostentatious decoration of exterior polish is sought with useless and guilty avidity.