selves, and hoped to make their city great, rich, and powerful. So that Nineveh was a city of idolaters.

CHAPTER III.

God often punishes the wicked in this world. God hates wickedness. The danger of children becoming wicked as the people of Nineveh were.

No doubt, all I have mentioned was but a small part of the wickedness of the people of Nineveh. For the people who are murderers, and liars, and idolaters, we may be sure, will be very, very wicked in a great many other different ways.

Their wickedness was so great, that God said, it had come up before him. It had risen as it were to the heavens, as dark smoke rises from a great fire. It had risen to the place where God is, to his very throne, and had come before him, so that he saw it in all its greatness, and saw that it was time for him to punish the people of Nineveh very severely, if they did not repent.

You read in the Bible how often God has punished wicked people who kept on in their wickedness, and did not repent. He destroyed, you remember, all the wicked people who lived in the world, by a deluge, saving only Noah and his family in the ark. He destroyed the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the people who lived in them, by fire sent down from heaven, saving only Lot and his two daughters; though Lot's wife would have

been preserved alive also, if she had not been disobedient to the angel of God.

God hates wickedness; he cannot bear to look at it. He is very merciful, it is true, and will forgive those who have been wicked, if they will be truly sorry for their sins, and trust in Jesus Christ to save them, and show that they really do so, by forsaking their sins and obeying the commands of God. But the wicked, who keep on in their wickedness, and do not repent and trust in Christ, and who do not love and obey God, he will punish very severely indeed. For Jesus Christ himself tells us, that such wicked people will be sent, at the day of judgment, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

Think of these things, my dear children. You may not be, and I think you are not murderers, liars, robbers, and idolaters, as the people of Nineveh were. But are you never somewhat like them?

Are you not sometimes angry with your brothers and sisters, and with other children, so that you strike them and hurt them? Suppose you keep on to do so more and more, till you grow up to be men and women. Is there not great danger that you will become very passionate, and have a very bad temper, and that, sometime or other, you may get in such a rage as to kill somebody?

For the murderer himself will tell you, that when he was a little child he never thought he should be a murderer. And yet, you see, he has become so, because he did not repent of his sinful anger when he was young, and pray to God to enable him to

overcome it. Children who get into a passion, and strike and hurt others, and keep on doing so, are certainly in great danger of becoming murderers, as the people of Nineveh were.

were.

You may not be liars, as the people of Nineveh But have you never told any falsehoods? Have you never deceived any body, and said what was not the exact truth? Remember, if you keep on doing so, you will grow more and more careless about telling the truth, and will be in great danger of telling falsehoods; and of doing this more and more, and at last of becoming liars, as the people of Nineveh were.

You have never robbed any body. But have you never taken any thing that was not your own, and kept it? Have you never kept any thing that you have found, without trying, or even wishing to find the owner, and return it to him? People do not become great thieves and robbers at once. They take little things at first, which they think are not worth much, and which others will not miss, or even want to use again. And they keep on taking things, till they become more and more wicked, and at last get to be great thieves and robbers, as the people of Nineveh were.

Besides, people would not steal any thing if they did not first covet it, or wish to have for their own what belongs to another. And this is the reason why God, in the tenth commandment, says, "Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbor's;" thou shalt not wish to take from another what belongs to

him, and deprive him of it, and have it for thy own. Have you never broken this tenth commandment? If so, and if you continue to covet things which belong to others, although you may not yet have begun to steal any thing, is there not great danger of your doing this, and of your becoming thieves, and perhaps robbers, as the people of Nineveh were?

You do not make any idols to worship. Many of you have never seen an idol. But, although you do not worship idols instead of the true God, do you not love many things more than you love God? If so, it is very much the same thing as if you loved and worshipped idols, instead of loving and worshipping the true God.

For why do people make and worship idols ? It is because they do not feel willing to love, and obey, and worship God. They dislike to do this. There is something in the true God which they do not like. They like their idols better. They know that the true God commands them to be like himself, and to quit all kinds of wickedness, and to be good, and to do good. They know, too, that the idol does not command these things. While they love, and serve, and worship the idol, or false god, they can keep on in all their wickedness. So they choose to do it.

Now, if you love any thing more than you love God, you have your idols. They may not be idols of wood or stone, such as the people of Nineveh had; but they are things which you love so much, that they keep you from loving and obeying God as you ought. And you do indeed break the first com

mandment as truly as the people of Nineveh did. The first commandment is, thou shalt have no other gods before me; and Jesus Christ has told us that this means the same thing as to say, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.

Do you thus love God, or do you love other things a great deal more than you love God? If you do not love God the most, I fear, if you had lived in Nineveh, you would have worshipped their idols, and been an idolater like them.

Think of these things. Look into your own minds and hearts. See if you have right thoughts and feelings, such as God commands you to have. See if you love him more than any thing else. See if you say and do what he commands.

If you have not done this; if you have had wrong and wicked thoughts and feelings; if you have said and done, very often, what you ought not to say and do;-then God has been very much displeased with you. And he is still displeased with you, and will continue to be so, if you do not feel sorry for all your wickedness, and trust in Christ to

save you.

Do not think, because you are not now as wicked as the people of Nineveh were, that you are but a little wicked, and that God will not punish you. He will punish all the wicked persons who do not repent of their wickedness and forsake it.

Fear, too, that if you keep on in your wicked