one with whom are the issues of life and death! And so it is with the proud and mighty gencro.lly. (1) A Pharaoh despises Jehovah, and asks," Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go" (Exod. v. 2); but in a little time the same Pharaoh has to rise up in the dee.d of the night, and to call for Jehovah's servants, Moses and Aaron, and to entreat them to go forth from among his people, both they and the children of Israel, and go, serve Jehovah, as they had said; also to take their flocks and their herds, as they had said, and to be gone; and to "bless him also" (Exod. xii. 31, 32). (2) An .Ahab lets lo()SO the dogs of persecution against the people of God, destroys the prophets of Jehovah, and sells himself to work evil in the sight of the Lord; but, when boldly rebuked and threatened with calamity, all his pride forsakes him, and he rends his clothes, and puts sackcloth upon hie flesh, and fasts, and lies in sackcloth, and goes softly (1 Kings xxi. 27). (3) A Manasseh turns from God to worship Baal, anrl does after all the abominations of the heathen, and builds again the high places, and rears up altars for Baal, and uses witchcraft, and sets up a carved image in the house of God, and sheds innocent blood very much till he fills Jerusalem from one end to another (eh. xxi. 16), and does worse than the heathen whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel, even causing Isaiah (according to the tradition) to be sawn asunder; but calamity smites him, the captains of the host of the King of Assyria take him, and put hooks in his mouth, and chains upon his limbs, and carry him captive to Babylon to the King of Assyria-then all his pride falls away from him like a cast-off garment, and in his affliction he beseeches the Lord his God, and humbles himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prays to him, and makes supplication, and is forgiven, and thenceforth serves Jehovah (2 Chron. xxxiii. 11-16). The pastor who has under his charge proud, tyrannical, oppressive persons, who scorn rebuke, and think to ride roughshod over their fellow-men, may wait with a good hope for the hour of sickness or calamity, which sooner or later, unless in the case of sudden death, comes to alL He will find the Benhadad of the sick-room a very different person from the Benhade.d of the camp, or of the court, or of the mart, and one much more open to admonition. Hardness, stubbornness, self-reliance, can scarcely survive, when the weakness of decay and the helplessness of acute sickness have supervened. He need not despair, howevet· cruel, oppressive, and injurious to others the man's earlier life may have been. If a Benhade.d could humble himself, if an Ahab could repent and" go softly," if a Manasseh could turn to God e.nd obtain pardon, there must be a possibility of repentance even for the most hardened sinners.
Vers. 10-15.-Hazael and Elisha. The contrast is striking bP.tween the two characters here brought for the first and last time into contact. Jn Haza.et we have- L THE ORAFTY SOHEMER, cunning and treacherous, who sees in his master's calamity his own opportunity; who feels no gratitude for past favours, no pity for present weakness and suffering, no compunction at playing a double part; who has no horror of crime, no dread of the enduring infamy which attaches to the assassin and the traitor. Hazael is wise in a certain sense-he is clever, audacious, skilful in devisin~ mrans to ends, secret, determined, unscrupulous. He contrives a mode of death which will leave no trace of violence, and may appear accidental, if suspicion arises that it has not happened in the ordinary course of nature. II. 'l'HE MAN OF BLOOD. Hazael is altogether cruel and unsparing. He reaches the throne through blood. As king, he deluges Israel in blood, "cutting the nation short, and smiting them in all their coasts " (eh. x. 32); "destroying them, and making the!I' like the dust by threshing" ( eh. :xiii. 7). We must view him as a born soldier, never so happy as when engaged in a campai~, now resisting the attacks of Assyria on hi~ northern border (' Ancient Mouarchies,' vol. ii. p. 364), now attacking the Philistines (eh. xii. 17), almost constantly warring with his immediate neighbours the kings of Israel, once even threatening Judah, and" setting his fe.ce to go up to Jerusalem" (eh. xii. 17) in the hope of taking it. III, Tim BUCOESSFUL WARRIOR. Hazael succeeded in repulsing the Assyrians, and maintaining his independence, notwit.hstanding all their efforts to conquer him. He reduced Israel to a species of semi-subjection ( eh. xiii. 7). He compelled even J udrea to purchase peace at his hands (eh. xii. 18). He was, en the whole, the most warlike THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. [CH, VIII, 1-29,