religious craving and seeking of the soul at night (ver. 9). I. The soul's religious longing in the night. "With my soul have I desired Thee." For what in God does it hunger?-1. For the assurance of His love. 2. For revelations of His mind. II. The soul's religious searchings in the night. "Yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early." 1. The soul seeking for God implies a consciousness that it has not got Him. 2. It implies a belief that He may be obtained (D. Thomas, D.D.). When Thy judgments are in the earth (ver. 9). I. The Author of those judgments with which we are visited. 1. Judgments come from God. 2. Why does God visit us with judg ments? 3. There is a fitness in judgments to awaken men to righteousness. They deeply affect us, appeal to fear which moves men. II. Why the judgments of God do not always teach men righteousness. 1. By disbelief of His declarations. 2. By false views of His character. 3. By unscriptural views of our own condition. 4. By base inattention to the operations of Providence. 5. By a stupid insensibility to our danger (H. Hollock, D.D.). The vision of future glory. I. The impregnable city. II. The Celestial city. III. The attributes of Jehovah. 1. The firmness of His purpose (ver. 3). 2. The constancy of His Being (ver. 4). 3. His irresistible power (ver. 5). 4. His just dealings. III. The song of the Church (E. Johnston, M.A.). The Bulwark of Salvation. I. God may defend us by what He does for us. In the case of Hezekiah, Jerusalem was saved by the destruction of Sennacherib's army. II. God may defend us by what He does within us. He may give a spirit of wisdom: He may strengthen us with strength in our soul (R. Tuck, B.A.).

PRIDE AND INTEMPERANCE

REBUKED.

ISA. xxviii. 1-13.

Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkardsRather, "proud crown of the drunkards" (J. Horsley). The reference is to Samaria, the capital city of the kingdom of Israel, which city is here called Ephraim. Samaria was built on a beautiful oblong hill, fertile to its summit, rising from the centre of a rich plain or vale, beyond which is a circular range of mountains. The hill is verdant with grass, grain, olive-groves, and vineyards (J. T. Bannister).

A fading flower. The splendour of the capital was like a rose plucked and soon to wither, for already, probably, the Assyrian commanders were studying their charts and planning their campaign. Crowns of flowers were commonly placed on the heads of riotous feasters. They had always been hard drinkers in North Israel. Fifty years before, Amos flashed judgment on those who trusted in the mount of Samaria, "lolling upon their couches and gulping their wine out of basins," women as well as men. Upon these same drunkards of Ephraim, now soaked and "stunned with wine," Isaiah fastens his Woe. Sunny the sky and balmy the air in which they lie stretched upon flowers-a land that tempts its inhabitants with the security of perpetual summer. But God's swift storm drives up the valleys-hail, rain, and violent streams from every gorge. Flowers, wreaths, and pampered bodies are trampled in the mire (G. A. Smith). Ver. 5. In that day. When Samaria's " glorious beauty" is at an end, then will the Lord invest the residue of His people (Judah xxxvii. 4) with His own beauty and glory (Speaker's Commentary). The Christian's crown: The crown and the diadem are, in the eyes of the world, objects of great beauty and value. Hence employed to set forth that which God regards as the most precious ornament of His people. It is the soul taken from its pollution and adorned by the Divine grace with heavenly purity. In what obscurity at present are these heirs of royalty. Characteristics of this heavenly crown-1. It is imperishable in its nature. 2. It will be worn without care or peril. 3. It is a crown of righteousness. 4. It is a diadem of beauty. All its beauteous lustre it obtains from the glorious perfection of Christ's work as Redeemer. 5. It is a crown of life (J. W. Adams, D.D.). Ver. 7. But they also have erred through wine. Having predicted in the foregoing verse that, when Ephraim fell, Judah should continue to enjoy the protection of Jehovah, the prophet now describes even this favoured remnant as addicted to the same sins which had hastened the destruction of the ten tribes, viz., sensual indulgence and the spiritual evils which it generates (J. A. Alexander). Results of intemperance. it-I. Honour is humiliated-" the crown of pride" is "trodden under feet." II. Beauty is spoiled-its "glorious beauty" become "a fading flower." III. Strength is sapped

By

overcome with wine." IV. Wisdom is misled "they err in vision, they stumble in judgment" (ver. 7). V. Influence is forfeited -"The priest and the prophet have erred" (ver. 7). VI. It leads down to that which is loathsome (ver. 8). VII. It consumes its consumer-" eateth," ""swallowed up" (vers. 4, 7). VIII. God is decidedly and emphatically against it (W. Clarkson). What is a drunkard? He is a man possessed and ruled by an evil force. This may be illustrated by showing: I. The unnatural effect produced by strong drink on the physical frame. II. The effect on the moral nature, especially in exciting sensual passions. III. The influence on the descendants of the self-indulgent (R. Tuck, B.A.).

HEZEKIAH'S PRAYER AND

DELIVERANCE.

ISA. xxxvii. 14-21, 33-38.

A KING in trouble.-I. Hezekiah's trouble. 1. Kings cannot escape trouble. 2. Piety does not prevent trouble. 3. Trouble may arise, not from our own wrong-doing, but from the wrong-doing of others. 4. Great troubles may be conveyed to us by insignificant means. A letter. II. Hezekiah's refuge. 1. Hezekiah sought God, his refuge, in the Temple. 2. He would set a good example to the nation. 3. He would publicly manifest his confidence in God's power to protect and save (W. 0. Lilley). A sure refuge in trouble. Our first duty and best resource in any emergency. (1) Sorrowful ones take note of it. (2) Connected with Hezekiah's sorrow there was fear. (3) Another feeling which the perusal of Sennacherib's letter was likely to produce in Hezekiah's mind was irritation. Religion makes a great difference in trial of any kind (James Marrcott). A foolish king and a wise one: I. The foolish king, Sennacherib. 1. Pride and arrogance. 2. Blasphemous undervaluing of the power of God (vers. 18-20). II. The wise king, Hezekiah. 1. He began with demonstrations of repentance. 2. Beginning with repentance he could cherish hope (J. H. Pott). A king's prayer: I. Hezekiah prayed to Jehovah as the God of his nation, "O Lord God of Israel." II. In his prayer Hezekiah recognizes the sole supremacy of Jehovah, "Thou art the God." III. He appealed to Jehovah as the Maker of heaven and earth. IV. Hezekiah prayed with great earnestness, "I beseech Thee.". Earnestness

is needed. 1. That the strength of our desires may be revealed. 2. That we may

be raised from the low condition of formal devotion. 3. That we may have all the spiritual culture which the outcries of real need may impart. 4. That we may be prepared to receive deliverances thankfully. V. Hezekiah recognized the greatness of the deliverance which he sought. 1. Deepens sense of our own helplessness. 2. Stimulated the exercise of great faith. 3. Prepares for the manifestations of God's great delivering hand. VI. Hezekiah associated the glory of Jehovah with the deliverance which he sought (W. O. Lilley).

THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR.
ISA. liii.

VER. 1. Who hath believed our report? I. The character here given of the Gospel. A report. 1. In what respects it resembles a report. A statement of facts which we have not witnessed. 2. In what respects this report differs from all other reports. It is concerning important truths, confirmed by good evidence. II. The question which the prophet asks. These do not believe it who are living in sin (E. Cooper). Ministerial solicitude. I. The report which the ministers of the Gospel make. 1. It demands attention, for we bring it fron heaven. 2. It is of universal interest, for i is made to all the world. 3. It is of the very highest importance, for it refers to the state of the soul. 4. It is of the strictest veracity, being confirmed by many credible witnesses. II. The anxiety which the ministers of the Gospel feel. 1. That this report is very generally neglected. 2. This neglect is the result of unbelief. 3. This neglect of the report is a subject of deep regret. 4. When this report is believed, it operates with Divine efficiency (Essex Remembrancer). Ver. 3. He is despised and rejected of men. I. Christ was an object of scorn and contempt. 1. He was despised as an impostor, 2. He was despised in his teachings. 3. He was despised in His work. 4. He was despised in His claims. II. Not only was Jesus an object of contempt and scorn, but of absolute rejection. What a history of naked ignorance and sin is here disclosed (J. Higgins). Christ rejected. I. The first reason assigned for the rejection of the Messiah by the Jews was the gradual and unostentatious manner of His manifesta

tions. II. The second reason is His unattractive appearance when manifested. Take heed that we are not scandalized by His poverty and sorrow (H. Allon). The Lord Jesus despised of men. I. A historical fact. II. An extraordinary marvel. 1. Who was the Person rejected? 2. What was the nature of His character? 3. What sort of teaching did He deliver? 4. His miracles. 5. His sacrifices. The most extraordinary marvel ever known on earth that He should be rejected. III. An instructive truth. It proves : 1. The utter corruption of our human nature. 2. Our need of the Holy Spirit's influences. 3. The greatness of our guilt. 4. The matchless love of God (W. Conway). A Man of sorrows. Christ a man of sorrows. I. It is here predicted that Christ should be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 1. It must have been painful to such a person as Christ to live in a world like this. 2. Another circumstance which contributed to His sorrow was the reception He met with from those whom He came to save. 3. Another circumstance was His clear view and constant anticipation of the dreadful agonies in which His life was to terminate. II. We have in this prophetic message an account of our Saviour's conduct under the pressure of these sorrows. Meek and patient. III. The manner in which Christ was treated when He thus came as a man of sorrows to atone for our sins. Learn1. That if Christ was a man of sorrows, we need not be surprised if we are often called to drink of the cup of sorrow. 2. If our iniquities were laid upon Christ they will never be laid on us (E. Payson). Ver. 4. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Christ's identity and sympathy with the people. I. The completeness of Christ's identity with the people. "He took our nature upon Him"-in its truth and entireness. 1. In its external trials. 2. In the temptations of the body. 3. In the troubles of the mind. II. The closeness of His sympathy. Identity is the source of sympathy (H. Stowell). The suffering Saviour. I. The sufferings of Christ. 1. These sufferings cover a wide range of experience-physical, mental, sympathetic. 2. These sufferings were an essential part of the revelation of God through Him; "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him." Christ crowned with thorns reveals God to men (1 Peter i. 11). 3. These sufferings were endured that men might be delivered from the curse of sin: "All we like sheep have

gone astray." Stripes must fall-this an inevitable law. The love of God so great that they fell on His Son. 4. These sufferings were the means by which Christ became our Mediator. Grief, friendship, fear, hope, anguish, all the emotions which belong to man, He knew. 5. These sufferings result in the glorious triumph of Christ as the Saviour of mankind; "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." His sufferings were not in vain. The nail driven into His hand becomes a sceptre. II. The subject suggests-1. Reasons for remembering Christ's sufferings. 2. The fruits of holy endurance (A. E. Dunning). The Saviour: I. A rejected Saviour. II. A sorrowing Saviour (vers. 3-4). III. A sin-bearing Saviour (vers. 4-6). IV. A suffering Saviour (ver. 7). V. A dying Saviour (vers. 8-9). VI. A reconciling Saviour (vers. 10-11) (J. L. Hurlbut, D.D.) Ver. 8. For the transgression of My people was He stricken. Christ stricken. I. Who was -stricken? II. Refer to His sufferings. How was He stricken? 1. With reproach. 2. With ingratitude. 3. With poverty. 4. By the rod of His heavenly Father. III. The object of these sufferings "For the transgression of My people." 1. By this justice is satisfied. 2. By this conscience is at peace. III. The fruits of His sufferings. 1. The devil is now destroyed. 2. All possible consecration is secured (J. Parsons). Ver. 11. He shall see of the travail of His soul. Messiah suffering and Messiah satisfied. I. The nature and design of the sufferings of Christ. 1. They were expiatory and sacrificial. 2. Vicarious. 3. Intense. 4. Voluntary. II. The effects arising from His death. What are the nature and the sources of His satisfaction? 1. From the clearest discovery made through His death of the attributes of the Most High. 2. From the most exalted benevolence being gratified, and gratified to its fullest extent. 3. From the fact of His own achievements as connected with it (T. Adkins). Messiah satisfied. I. The travail of the Saviour. It is travail of "the soul," and of such a soul. II. The fruit of this travail which the Saviour sees. 1. In the glory it has brought to God in the highest. 2. In the new condition into which He has brought a fallen world towards God. 3. In every sinner brought from sin to God. 4. In the spread and triumphs of His Gospel. 5. In the great consummation of all things (H. Stowell).

EBENEZER.

Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.-1 SAM. vii. 12.

IT has long been customary in all nations to keep in mind important events by erecting pillars or monuments. It was a constant custom among the Hebrew people.

All the faculties of our minds are to be employed for great moral purposes. Memory is specially so, for without it we should have no power of comparing, judging, or therefore acting morally at all. In the passage before us we have a recollection of God's help and assistance in difficulty. Every thoughtful man must have many such in his own history.

1. Let us look at what the aged Christian's feelings will be in looking back on his worldly circumstances; how sometimes in early life, at an important time, friends were raised up for such and such a purpose, and how he was helped on and forwarded, and how "God made him to prosper"; for God it is who makes them prosper, and oftentimes because they are His children. 2. What will be his retrospect in relation to his domestic circumstances? The good man looks back on all this, and is thankful for God's help. 3. Let us narrow the sphere of observation, and see how he will feel in relation to his own Christian course and inward life. He will have to bless God for early impressions. The good man will feel that through God's help only has he persevered, and still goes on in the right way. 4. In relation to those particular portions of time which to-day, for instance, would lead him to review the year that is now closing over us. In this way our aged friends may meditate, and they will find it a blessed and profitable thing so to do.

Others may gain good from a meditation like this, besides those more immediately interested in it. 1. An aged man, in looking back thus, will not only be reminded of God's help, but of self-help also. 2. Let all remember that if they would have a green and peaceful old age, they must conscientiously fulfil the duties of each preceding stage of life; it must be the result of a youth passed in the

fear of God, a manhood of active piety. 3. It is very sad to, remember that there are very many aged men who cannot look back thus on God's help at all. Some might say, "God I have never had anything to do with all my life." 4. There may be some of you who, in looking back, can see marvellous and striking interpositions of God on your behalf, and yet you have never erected your Ebenezer in acknowledgment of such help. — REV. T. BINNEY, in "The Evangelical Magazine."

CHRIST THE FRIEND OF THE POOR.

Because He hath anointed Me to preach the the gospel to the poor.-LUKE iv. 18. THE Gospel of Jesus Christ addresses itself to man as man. It is no class religion. All alike are the objects of its grace and power. But the whole includes its parts.

The poor have a lot which is, in many ways, hard and unenviable. They are subjected to incessant toil and frequent weariness. Many

of them suffer from scanty food and insufficient clothing. They are, in consequence, exposed to peculiar temptations. Their work and the common associations of their life beget coarseness of feeling. There is a common impression among the lowest of the poor, who think of the matter at all, that the Gospel is designed for the rich and respectable.

But Christ is emphatically the helper of the poor, able to understand their position and its needs. He loves and cares for them. He enables them to rise above their poverty, if not by actually getting rid of it (this He often does), yet by enabling them bravely to endure its limitations and hardships, and to turn them to good account.

I. That CHRIST IS THE FRIEND OF THE POOR is proved by the fact that - 1. He voluntarily became a poor man Himself (2 Cor. viii. 9). 2. His chosen companions and closest friends were poor. 3. He inculcated unwearied benevolence, and made its exercise the test of acceptance at the last judgment (Matt. xxv. 31-46). He is with us in the persons of the poor. Service to them is service to Him.

II. What is HIS MESSAGE TO THE POOR? and how does he help them? 1. He does

not represent poverty or riches as being in themselves either an evil or a good; nor does He represent them as vitally connected with the great end of life. 2. Christ bids men aim at the renewal of their character rather than at the amelioration of their condition. 3. Christ inspires in men those dispositions and trains them to those habits which conquer poverty or keep them from its worst evils. 4. He encourages the poor with the hope of a better life-makes them even on earth citizens of heaven, so that their true home is there. REV. J. STUART, in "The Baptist Magazine."

IN this fervent and touching prayer there are two things which seem to me to have been our Lord's main anxiety and desire: that His disciples might be kept faithful and loyal, and that they might continue united to each other in heart and mind.

Although this fallen world of ours is full of war and jealousies, of conflicting interests and strife; yet there is everywhere a certain craving after union, a certain willingness to believe that the world would be better, and that men would be happier, if man and man would brothers be all the wide world over. It seems like a lingering relic of our lost estate. It is like one remaining flower in a garden given over to unloveliness and weeds, or like the broken pillar, carved and suggestive among the grass-grown ruins of a temple in decay. Right along the ages, re-union has been the conqueror's notion, the statesman's phantom, the philosopher's conceit, and the poet's dream. Some have sought to establish universal empire and unite the nations in bonds political. Such were Alexander, the Cæsars, Napoleon; and, failing the power of conquest, alliances, treaties, confederacies, and national combinations have had their day and ceased to be. Some have sought to accomplish the same end by the use of bonds ecclesiastical. Such was the wild dream of Mahomet; such has been the aim of the Papacy, and in some measure is to-day. Some have sought to aid the desired end by putting an end to ranks and classes, and binding humanity in bonds Socialistic. Such were Plato, Prudhomme, the French Revolutionists, Robert Owen, and such are the Communists and Socialists of to

day. And then, again, it has been eloquently urged that the advantages of progressive civilization, the spread of scientific knowledge and its appliances, and especially the expansive growth of trade, and production would bind mankind together in bonds commercial; and that the million sails of our commercial navies were the white wings of the dove that should carry far and wide the true olive branch of peace. Nothing short of a joining of hearts can establish lasting union. Love is the only bond that can embrace all men, the only clasp that can defy every change and resist every strain.

But truth and love are embodied in Jesus Christ. Truth and love are the vital elements of His rule; the essence and marrow of the Gospel law; and the Christianity of the New Testament is the only possible, but the allsufficient basis and foundation on which union, world-wide, all inclusive union can be built, and built hereon-neither the foundation nor the fabric shall ever fail.

In Christianity as set forth in the New Testament nothing is more clear than that the matters of belief essential to salvation are few and simple, are of universal application, and that they are thoroughly sufficient, honestly held and diligently acted upon, to bring man and man together in the truest and closest brotherhood, and to unite all men with one infinite bond of truth and love to the one great Father, Saviour and Renewer of the human race.

No wonder that Jesus prays, that they may all be one; "that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me." No possible witness could be more convincing. No proof of their Divine relationship could be so winsome and complete. Such union, such brotherhood, such a holy and unbroken oneness, would silence every infidel, and at once strike every sceptic dumb. This distracted and disordered earth would be filled with the knowledge and embued with the Spirit of Christ. Then would all the walks of civil, social, and domestic life be peopled by regenerated beings.-REV. J. J. WRAY, in "Good Company."

WHAT THE MAN CAN BE. And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, &c.-Isa. xxxii. 2.

WHAT a revelation is here of the wants of men! The very supply indicates the depths and urgency of the need which craves for satis