MOSES DESCENDING WITH THE RE

NEWED TABLES.

WHEN Moses had destroyed the golden calf, reducing it to powder and mixing it with water, which he obliged the idolatrous Hebrews to drink, and punished the ringleaders with death, he promised the repentant people that he would once more intercede with God for them. To show them, however, how grievously they had offended the Lord by their apostacy, he pitched a tent at some distance without the line of the encampment, and called it the Tabernacle of the Congregation. The cloudy pillar was immediately withdrawn from the camp and rested on the tabernacle, to show the lately disaffected Israelites that God would no longer dwell in the midst of them, as he had hitherto done. To this tent Moses was henceforth accustomed to repair whenever he wanted to consult the Lord. Shortly after he had pitched the tabernacle without the camp, he ascended the mount again, where the Almighty revealed to him as much of his glory as Moses was capable of beholding, when, prostrating himself before the Lord, he succeeded in propitiating the divine mercy for the sins of the people. Having renewed the tables, the Hebrew lawgiver pledged himself in behalf of the people that they would henceforth cease from disobedience and rebellion. "And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone, while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him." This illustration represents the Hebrew law giver descending from the Mount with the renewed tables, and the chief persons among the Israelites, who had gone out of the camp, accompanied by Aaron, to meet him, alarmed at the supernatural radiance of his countenance.