PRAYER.

ALMIGHTY GOD, we are part of thy purpose in the creation of the world. We know not why we are here. We are here by no will of our own: the times are hard, the temptations are a million in number, the chances are that we may be lost. We cannot tell what all this means. Thou didst not ask us to be here. We are often full of pain and sore distress, hardly knowing the right hand from the left; mocked in our prayers; disappointed, not only in our ambitions, but in our rational hopes; borne down by a great weight, threatened by an immeasurable cloud, full of blackness, charged with thunder. What we love we lose: we grow flowers only to see them wither, and rear children that they may break our hearts, and pet the household lamb that it may be stolen. This is a great mystery. We knew not any of its meaning in ourselves. We bless thee for a book which interprets the riddle. We hear in that Gospel-book music from heaven, voices from beyond, assurances that the darkness is but for a moment, and that a great light has already started from the eternal throne and will be here presently. We have read the story of thy Son, and we know it to be true: this Man receiveth sinners; this Man talks to the broken heart, and holds up pictures of the kingdom long enough for us to see them through our tears. He loved us: he preached in our towns and villages; he gave us bread when we were hungry; he cured the sick man whom the physicians had abandoned; he allowed us to approach him by night when we dared not go by day: he saved others,-himself he did not save; he forgave his enemies dying, and he sent gospels to them living; and now he is exalted, a King, a Prince, a Saviour, to give repentance unto Israel and remission of sins; and he carries the little earth in his heart like a thing loved with all heaven's love. We know Jesus Christ. We love him. His name is wrought into the very texture of our life: to take it away is to take away our breath. He was our visitor when none else would come near the house; he lighted the lamp when the chamber was all darkness; he came out into the wilderness to seek and to save that which was lost. We cannot forget his cross: if we forget that cross, may our right hand forget its cunning; if we cease to remember that death, may our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth. Lead us to see that all other deliverances point to the one redemption. As we move along the line of Biblical story, may we feel that One greater is yet to come than any deliverer who has appeared. May we find our way through providence to redemption, through history to revelation, and through the altars built by men to the cross set up from before the foundation of the world; thus will our reading be profitable, full of spiritual nutriment, and our souls shall grow in the school of God, and

around them shall be wrought the mystery of grace, as we spend our nights and days with Jesus. We put our hands into thine. The way is too long for us, and too rough; who made the road we cannot tell, but our feet are weary, and our eyes are distressed by the vast monotony. But in thy society there is no weariness; in thine inspiration, O Holy Spirit of the living God, heaven begins. Feed us; lead us; keep us;-may no wanderer be lost! Amen.

WE

Judges x.

AFTER ABIMELECH.

E have had much excitement in many of the pages through which we have inquiringly passed. We now come to a period of extreme quietness. For five and forty years nothing occurred in Israel worth naming in detail. Tola and Jair, though judges in Israel, lived and died in the utmost quietness. They occupy about four lines each in the history of their people. Quietness has no history. Events are recorded; stories, anecdotes, incidents,-these claim the attention of the historical pen; but peace, quietness, industry, patience, inoffensiveness, these have no historian: a line or two will do for them,-the war must have chapter after chapter. The popular proverb is, "Blessed are the people who have no annals." Within a narrow sense that is true; the sense is very narrow.

Read verses 1, 2 :

"And after Abimelech [who is not counted among the judges] there arose to defend [or save, equal to deliver] Israel Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, a man of Issachar [probably the only judge furnished by this indolent tribe]; and he dwelt in Shamir in mount Ephraim. And he judged Israel twenty and three years, and died, and was buried in Shamir."

Is that dull reading? Of what tribe was the man? "Issachar." Has Issachar any fame? Let us bethink ourselves: who can remember anything said in the Bible about Issachar? The solution of the mystery may be in that direction. The individual man may have no great repute, but he may belong to a tribe quite renowned for some virtue. Mark these words: "The children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do." Then Tola the son of Puah, the son of Dodo, belonged to a tribe of statesmen. It was nothing to them to propound great schemes, work out great reforms, propose wholesome ameliorations: great things came

naturally in their way. If a little tribe had attempted any one of the reforms proposed and executed by Issachar he would have become famous. A very short pedestal would make a giant of a dwarf. But the men of Issachar were accustomed to statesmanship; they were famed for their sagacity; they had the piercing eyes that could see through all surfaces, veilings, sophisms,-that could read the necessity of the age, the temper and desire of the heart of Israel. So we must not pass by these negative characters as if they were really nothing. A touch of their hand might be equal to the stroke of a powerful instrument. One word spoken by a man of the tribe of Issachar might have in it a volume of wisdom. We must not measure men by the lines which the historian spends upon them. There is family history, household training, sagacity that makes no noise, farsightedness that disappoints the immediate ambition, but that prepares for the discipline and schooling and perfecting of a lifetime. Let those who spend their lives in the shadow think of these things: they may have a fame distinctively their own, not noisy, tempestuous, tumultuous, but profound, healthful, lasting,-blessed are they who have the renown of wisdom, the fame of understanding: that will endure when many a vaporous reputation has been exhaled, forgotten. The men of Issachar were wise men,—men of solid head, clear brain, comprehensive vision; men who put things together, and deduced from them inferences which amounted to philosophies; they had understanding of the times: they were not fretted and chafed by the incidents of the passing day; they saw the meaning that underlaid the event, and they knew what Israel ought to do. Bless God for good leadership-in the state, in business, in the family, everywhere; the greater it is the more silent it may sometimes be.

"And after him arose Jair, a Gileadite, and judged Israel twenty and two years. And he had thirty sons [representing an ostentatious polygamy] that rode on thirty ass colts [implying the great wealth of the household], and they had thirty cities which are called Havoth-jair [Havoth, meaning villages] unto this day, which are in the land of Gilead. And Jair died, and was buried in Camon" (vv. 3-5).

That is the great danger of times of quietness. When there is little to excite attention and develop energy the tendency is that men may notice little things and make much of them. There

Mark how

was not much to do in Israel when it could be noted how many sons any man had, and whether they rode on ass colts or otherwise. That danger besets all life. In the absence of great questions, thrilling problems of an imperial or social kind, men betake themselves to little pedantries, frivolous amusements, trifling inquiries: the greater nature sleeps, and little, active, nimble fancy presides over the life, and fritters it away. We want every now and then some great heroic occasion that shall swallow up all our little fancies, whims, and oddities, and make men of us. We need visitations of a providential kind to shake us out of our littleness and frivolity, and make us mighty in prayer, almost sublime in thought, certainly heroic in self-control and patience. Thus God has educated the world. the marvellous history has gone; in what measured undulation: sometimes the mountains have been very high, and have been untouched except by the feet of the eagle, unploughed except by the lightning of God,-far away, lost in the cloud; sometimes the heights have been quite accessible, so green, so velvetlike in their sward, and so rich in new and surprising flora; then we have come further down into great gardens, quiet villages, places sacred to slumber, and whilst we were revelling in the luxury of quietness a great clang tore the air and a trumpet summoned us to sudden war. So the Bible story has proceeded, and as the sun has set upon the day quiet, or the day of strife, we have felt a sense of incompleteness, which has often become quite religious, and has said to itself, This is not all; the punctuation is intermediate, not final; surely all these occurrences mean a greater incarnation than we have ever yet beheld. We need great excitements or solemn occasions in the family, or we should drivel away into the most frivolous existence. Given sound health, abundant prosperity, everything the heart could desire,-what is the issue of it all? Satiety; great difficulty in being pleased; an outworn appetite or desire; taking up with trivial things; a sensitiveness that is easily offended; a pride that would be contemptible if it were not so transparent. How they talk who have much goods laid up for many years! How difficult to please with their books, which they never read, and their pictures which they only buy because others have recommended them! How difficult to please with their friends, their feasts, their entertainments! How

sensitive to cold! How extremely sensitive to draughts! How altogether peculiar! The Lord could not allow this to be going on, or the people would decay, fall away from manhood, and disappoint the very purpose and decree of heaven. So affliction must come, and loss, and the whole house must rock under the wind; then the people will become themselves again; they will think, pray, ask serious questions, and look at the reality and gravity of life. So must it be with the Church and with the nation. We must not have too much quietness. Our quiet periods must be alternated by periods of great stress and difficulty. Watch how God has trained the world. We do not see the method in any one verse or incident. Herein is the peculiarity of the Bible, that it must be read consecutively, page after page in sequence, until we begin to feel we are perusing a great architectural design, or a marvellous plan of war, or a sublime philosophy of education. Men may read the Bible in fragments, and know nothing about it. The Bible must be read continuously and cumulatively, until it prove its inspiration by its unity, and arrest human confidence by manifest proofs of divine dictation. Therefore we cannot stop in the historical books. We are thankful for them so full of life, colour, action; many chapters have been written with the sword, others with rough pens, and others are but living hints of things that cannot be expressed; yet on we must go to the end, until the time when the whole book satisfies itself and satisfies its readers by a grand Amen.

"And the children of Israel did evil again [added to do evil] in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria [see Gen. xxxv. 2, 4,], and the gods of Zidon [1 Kings xi. 5], and the gods of Moab [1 Kings xi. 7], and the gods of the children of Ammon [Lev. xviii. 21], and the gods of the Philistines [observe how the seven idols correspond with the seven retributive oppressions], and forsook the Lord, and served not him" (v. 6).

We are sometimes afraid of religious excitement, but who ever is afraid of irreligious enthusiasm? It is supposed that all the exaggeration and sensationalism must be on one side; hence Christians are often foolishly and unjustly charged with 'religious fanaticism. There are revivals of godlessness; there are revivals of worldliness. What think ye of that? This sixth verse burns with unholy enthusiasm. Hear the list:-Having taken to