which should spring from such gentle seed, is given in the prophetic blessing which Israel pronounced on his children upon his death-bed. It is shortly, but forcibly, expressed in the words, " Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf." Every tribe is likened to some animal. Judah, for instance, to the generous-hearted lion; but cruelty and rapacity are characteristic of the wolf, and these were in later times the distinction of the Benjamites. There is a tradition among the Jews, that these animals became "the ensigns of their house," and were painted on the standards which marked the station of each tribe during their pilgrimage in the desert. Some modern writers, however, assert that the name of the patriarch formed "the ensign of his house." Others suppose that the standard was only distinguished by its colour, which corresponded with the stone on Aaron's breastplate, upon which the name of the tribe was written.

The blessing of Moses seems at first sight to have been of a different tenor from that of Jacob. He says of Benjamin, "The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him, and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders." But this refers entirely to the situation which this tribe should attain in the promised land. Benjamin's possessions lay immediately around the holy city; and in consequence of this vicinity, when the kingdom of Israel was rent in twain, Benjamin sided with Judah, and dwelt in safety "between the shoulders of the Lord;" that is, beside the temple which he had chosen. It is not improbable that both these prophecies may have been misunderstood, and the double mistake have contributed to form the character of the tribe. When surrounded by enemies, the fierceness of the wolf would seem to figure and excite warlike virtue, and the pro

mise of safety and continuance in the Lord would naturally engender confidence, and add to courage. But courage carried to excess soon degenerates into ferocity; and in times of general corruption, a tribe which formed its character upon this equivocal virtue would easily be persuaded that it might sin with impunity.

The number of the men of Benjamin above twenty years of age, and able to bear arms, taken in the beginning of the second year after their escape from Egypt, was thirty-five thousand and four hundred. This generation perished to a man in the wilderness; but its children, when the army passed over Jordan to take possession of the promised land, amounted to forty-five thousand and six hundred fighting men. These found abundant need of all their valour and military skill in rooting out the Canaanites, who occupied their allotted country. The war was one of extermination. God had commanded Israel utterly to destroy the nations, on account of their brutal and abominable vices; but this command was never fully executed. Overcome with fatigue and bloodshed, every tribe sought peace and rest before its work was done. Even Judah and Benjamin, the fiercest of them, left cities in their borders unconquered, and these became, according to God's denunciation," thorns in their sides;" seducing them from their allegiance, keeping them in continual alarm, and not unfrequently reducing them to slavery. Fourteen cities were in the territory of Benjamin, but Jebus, the chief of these, afterwards called Jerusalem, was not taken. This important citadel was strongly situated on the ridge of hills which cuts Judea from north to south, and is a little more than twenty furlongs distant from Gibeah, the strong-hold of Benjamin, which possessed several local advantages. It probably was never at

tacked, for its height secured it from an escalade, and the sling, an arm of war in which Benjamin peculiarly excelled, would in such an attempt have been useless. Long after Benjamin's power was annihilated, and Gibeah, its rival, laid in ashes, Jebus remained to annoy Israel, and was at last taken with great difficulty by David, who made it the capital of his kingdom, and the seat of the ark of God. We read of no other city that withstood the might of Benjamin, and it is probable that the pride and cruelty of this tribe grew up with their power. But in due time the whole nation began to feel the effects of their disobedience, in uniting with the idolatrous nations around them.

In less than a century after their entrance into Canaan, the people of God were twice brought into captivity-first, by the King of Mesopotamia, who kept them in subjection eight years, and forty years afterward by the Moabites, who, for the space of eighteen years, grievously oppressed them. From this condition they' were rescued by the valour and military conduct of a Benjamite, Ehud, the son of Gera; who, after assassinating Eglon their king, totally routed the Moabite army. The effects of this victory were rest and liberty for fourscore years; and during the administration of Ehud, it is probable that his tribe increased in power and reputation; but the brevity with which the affairs of these times are recorded in the Book of Judges, precludes all political remarks. Ehud is distinguished for a property which was much esteemed by his descendants. He was left-handed; and appeared before Eglon unarmed, trusting to execute his purpose with a small dagger, which he concealed under the raiment of his right thigh, an unsuspected place, from which none but a left-handed man could readily extricate and use a

weapon. His success shewed the advantage of using both hands with equal facility, and made it a part of military practice. In the account of the army of Benjamin, mustered for the defence of Gibeah, this advantage is particularly mentioned, as well as the skill of the tribe in the use of the sling. "There were seven hundred chosen men left-handed; every one could sling stones at an hair-breadth, and not miss."

Nothing occurs after this deliverance from Moab, which separately affected the Benjamites; but it seems that pride and cruelty and abominable lust polluted the whole tribe, and in no long time drew upon it the same punishment which Divine Justice inflicted on the nations of Canaan. They hastened to fill up the measure of their iniquity, and God was pleased to overthrow them by a signal destruction, and crush for ever the power which they had so grossly abused. Perhaps there is no historical fact on record, so full of poetic incidents as this, so deeply pathetic in its cause, so sullenly grand and terrible in its execution, so strikingly awful in its effect. The Wolf could not change his nature. He sinned with unrelenting fierceness, defended himself with indomitable resolution, and was at last overpowered and annihilated, not subdued.

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It would be equally presumptuous and idle to detail what is fully and passionately described in Scripture. The three last chapters of the Book of Judges are occupied solely by this affecting tragedy. The first contains the rape and murder of the Levite's wife by the inhabitants of Gibeah; the second, the war which these sins excited, the total overthrow of the guilty city, and the near extinction of the whole tribe; the last gives the means adopted for restoring the name of Benjamin, "lest one should be wanting in Israel." A reader of any

taste cannot pass coldly over these chapters, nor will the following brief analysis lessen the interest of any, if such there be, who have not perused them.

A Levite, dwelling in the land of Ephraim, married a woman without a dower. A wife of this poorer order was termed a concubine; a word which has passed into vulgar reproach, but was then honourable. This woman sinned against God and her husband, and, smit with a just sense of her crime, withdrew from her home, and took refuge with her father, a man of Bethlehem. The just are never the first to cast a stone at female frailty. There may have been circumstances of which we are ignorant, which mitigated the guilt of adultery in this instance. At all events the injured man exerted the god-like privilege of forgiving, and set out to seek and reclaim his lost one. He was received, as might be expected, with unfeigned gratitude by the father of his wife, who detained him four whole days, and till the evening of the fifth day, thereby inconsiderately exposing him to the danger of a journey by night. His servant urged him to turn into Jebus and lodge there, but he preferred travelling on to Gibeah, the chief city of Benjamin. Here he was suffered to remain, unnoticed, in the street, with his recovered wife and servant, till an old man of Mount Ephraim, a sojourner in the city, took him in, and treated him with hospitality. But ere long the men of the city, "Sons of Belial," assaulted the Ephraimite's house under the cover of darkness, and forcibly took away the wife of his guest, whom they abused the whole night.

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When the day began to spring, they let her go. She crawled to the door of the stranger, her husband's host, fell down on the threshold, and died. Her husband took up the corpse in silence, and "gat him to his