submission to the will of God. God may answer your prayer, as he did that of Jonah, by a speedy deliverance. But he may not think it best to do so; he may answer it in some other way. He may put off answering it for a long time. He may not answer it at all, by delivering your body from suffering, and danger, and death. He may answer it only by saving your soul from eternal death—and, throughout eternity, you will praise and bless him for this greatest of all deliverances.

Jonah speaks of God's hearing him out of the belly of hell. What does this mean?

It means that the dark and dismal place inside of the fish, in which Jonah was, was, in some respects, like the place in the other world to which the souls of the wicked go after death. That place is dismal indeed. All there is sorrow and suffering. Sin and remorse are there. Guilt and shame are there. Envy and revenge are there. Hatred and malice are there. They are in the breasts of all its miserable inhabitants. No one has any love to God or to others. All are opposed to God. Each is the enemy of all the rest. All are wretched; and what makes their wretchedness the more dreadful, is, that they have no hope of escape from their prison-house of despair.

Jonah felt that he was shut up in a prison somewhat like this, and that he was in it on account of his great wickedness, suffering the just displeasure of an offended God. He must have been in great distress and anxiety, not knowing how long it would

be before he would die, and, indeed, fearing death every moment. In this situation he cried unto God, and God heard his voice.

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For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about; all thy billows and thy waves passed over

me."

It was the mariners who cast Jonah into the sea; but he knew that they did it because God had so directed that it should happen. God caused the storm to arise, which alarmed the mariners so much and led them to cast lots. God caused the lot to fall upon Jonah, who was led by it to confess his guilt; and I think that in some way God directed Jonah to tell the mariners to cast him into the sea, that they might be saved. So that Jonah, knowing that God directed all these things, might well say-" Thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas."

"All thy billows and thy waves passed over me." David used words like these in the forty-second Psalm, where he says that his soul was cast down and disquieted within him. Like Jonah, he was in great distress. Like Jonah, he prayed to God, and trusted in him, and was able to say to his soulHope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

Jonah probably had seen these words of David, and remembered them as well suited to his situation. David used them figuratively, that is, he meant to say that God had brought troubles upon him,

as great and dreadful as the troubles of mariners are at sea, when real billows and waves roll over them. Jonah felt that God had caused the real billows and waves of the sea to roll over him, and that they were intended by their noise and fury to show him the very great displeasure of God against him, as if ready, like the waves, to overwhelm and bury him in utter destruction.

This it is, my dear children, that makes some troubles which happen to us so distressing, and some dangers which threaten us so terrible. If we have reason, as Jonah had, to consider them as showing us the great displeasure of God against our sins-then they are distressing and terrible indeed. Nothing is more terrible than the displeasure of God against sin. You know how it was shown against the wicked in their destruction by the deluge, and against the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire sent down from heaven, bringing ruin upon them and their cities. "It is a fearful thing" for sinners "to fall into the hands of the living God."

If trouble, and distress, and danger, overtake us on account of our sins, if in this way we have to say, as David and Jonah did, "all thy billows and thy waves pass over me," let us humble ourselves before God. Let us confess our guilt-acknowledging the justice of our punishment-beseeching God to forgive us, and crying unto him for mercy and deliver

ance.

CHAPTER X.

Jonah almost in despair. Yet he hopes in the mercy of God. He looks toward the temple of God, at Jerusalem. Do we love the house of God? God can deliver from the greatest danger. God is very kind to listen to our prayer.

WHILE crying unto the Lord, Jonah seems to have been in great distress of mind. "Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever."

It seemed to Jonah as if God had determined to forsake him entirely, and not even to look on him again with any favor or compassion: just as a father sometimes says to an ungrateful and wicked child; "Go out of my sight—I can have you with me no longer; I must leave you to go on in the way of sin and ruin which you have chosen, since you will not treat me with any respect or obedience."

And God, sometimes, leaves sinners to go on in their wickedness, after he finds that they will give no regard to his advice and warnings. He casts them out of his sight. He abandons them to the destruction which they themselves have chosen. They will be for ever banished from his presence in heaven, never to behold his goodness and glory there;

and never to enjoy the holiness and happiness of those who are to spend a blissful eternity in his love and service. Think what a dreadful evil it is to be cast out for ever from the presence of God, into outer darkness, far, far from the light, and peace, and joys of heaven! Faith in Christ will save you from such a dreadful evil. Go to him. Give your heart to him. Trust in him. Love him. Obey him—without delay -and you will be safe.

Jonah still dared to hope in the mercy of God— to hope a little, though he did it with fear and trembling. Yet I will look again toward thy holy temple." As if he had said, "I will not forget thy holy temple in my own land, in which I have so often worshipped thee. I will think of it, and the recollection shall save me from falling into utter despair. For have I not, in times past, there prayed unto thee, with some degree of sincerity and love? Have I not there taken delight in singing thy praises, and in listening to the instructions of thy word? Have I not there, in obedience to thy commands, offered up my sacrifices? Have I not felt, as the blood of the victim was poured out, that my own life was forfeited by sin, and that I had no hope of forgiveness but in thy mercy, through the Savior whom thou hast promised; and who, when he comes, shall redeem his people from their sins? Have I not there had my thoughts and my affections raised from the things of this world to thyself, and to heaven, the habitation of thy holiness and thy glory? Hast thou not there heard my prayers, and accepted the sacrifice of a