IX.

MORE ABOUT THE KENITE.

HE next Sabbath afternoon the company assembled in Mrs. Richardson's room was a larger one than before, for it included both Captain Johnson

and Sandy.

Mrs. Fraser felt somewhat averse to resume the story of the Kenite before the captain, but he insisted that she should, and was seconded therein by Mrs. Richardson.

"What is the next mention of the Kenite?" said Donald, when, with his little Bible in his hand, he was seated on a low bench at his mother's feet.

"The next mention," said Mrs. Fraser," you will find in 2 Kings x. 15. Jehu, a bloody man,-for his cruelties, though in fulfilment of

the Lord's denunciations of the house of Ahab, were none the less cruelties,-while in full pursuit of his bloody work, came suddenly on Jehonadab, the son of Rechab. With much sagacity at once he determined to make this venerable man, the head of the Kenites, his friend and ally."

"But," said Donald, "how do you know that he belonged to the Kenites? It does not say so here."

"You will find the answer to your question in 1 Chron. ii. 55.”

Donald read: "And the families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez; the Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and Suchathites. These are the Kenites that came of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab.'"

Mrs. Fraser, taking up a little volume from the table, said: "An excellent writer thus speaks of Jehonadab: 'A simple tent, over which the branches of the terebinthine tree extend themselves, rises up before us; a little flock grazes quietly and peacefully in its vicinity. We approach the unassuming tent, and are met by the venerable old man, with

silvery locks and simple pastoral attire, Jehonadab, the chief of the Rechabites. Here he dwells, far from the bustle of the world, happy in God and his love. The aged Jehonadab had just cheerfully stepped forth from his pastoral dwelling, boding nothing ill, when a chariot rolled rapidly to it, in which a man in martial attire rose up, who immediately made himself known as the newly elected king, as Jehu, the divine scourge. Jehu requests his silver-haired friend to seat himself by him in his chariot. "Come with me," he says, "and see my zeal for the Lord." Jehonadab accedes to the king's proposition. The two are now hastening to Samaria, to a fresh scene of bloodshed. Jehonadab will only be a spectator of it; the sword-bearer is Jehu.' All this shows the importance of the Kenite family, and while Jehonadab could not approve of the spirit of Jehu, he could not object to the destruction of Baal, and the rooting up of idolatry. The worship of this false god could not be any more offensive to the Israelites than it was to the Kenites.

"The next we hear of the Kenites, or as they are henceforth called the Rechabites, is in Jeremiah xxxv. 2, and other verses in that chapter."

Donald read from the beginning of the chapter: "The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak unto them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink. Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habaziniah, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites; And I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan. And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink ye wine. But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons forever: Neither shall ye build house,

nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any; but all your days ye shall dwell in tents. Thus have we obeyed

the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father. And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath commanded you; Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me forever."

999

"They were good teetotalers," said Captain Johnson, "and stood fast by their colors, under severe temptation. But what do you suppose was the object of Jonadab in making this perpetual and invariable command?"

"They were Bedouins," said Mrs. Fraser, "a wandering tribe. The name of one of their chief ancestors, and from which their title is derived, Rechab, means Rider, and Jonadab no doubt dreaded the influence of