HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vere. 1-13, with 22-25.-The reigns of Jehoahaz and Joash, king, of ImM!l. Observe here- I. THE PERPETUITY OF EVIL. How sad it is to read of one, king after another, "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord" ! And then the statement is usually made," He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." A bad man does harm to others besides himself. "None of us liveth to himself." Not merely while we live, but after we are gone, our lives and words and deeds will influence others. We may think ourselves very obscure and insignificant, so insignificant that we may argue it does not matter to others how we live. But who can measure the circle of his influence? In ways that we know not, influence may reach other hearts aud other lives. Oh! how dangerous is one evil influence in a community I It takes a long time to do away with its effects. "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." Let us be careful how we are influencing others. For good or for evil we are exercising some influence, however unconsciously, on those around us. If we would influence men for good, we ourselves must live near to God. II. THE :MER0Y OF Gon. God punished J ehoahaz and his people for their sins. "He delivered them into the hand of Hazael King of Syria, and into the hand of Ben- hade.d the son of Hazael, all their days." When suffering or troubles come, let us see whether the cause of them is not within our own hearts and lives. But Tu, mingled mercy with ;'ttdgment. God is ever on the watch for signs of the prodigal's return. His ear is ever open for the cry of penitence, for the faintest prayer for forgiveness and help, "Jehoahaz besought the Lord, and the Lord hearkened unto him; for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the King of Syria oppressed them" (ver. 4; see also ver. 23). "Come, let us to the Lord our God With oontrite hearts return; Our God is gracious, nor will leave The deeolate to mourn. 270 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. [cH. xrn.1-25,
"His voioo Mmm&nds the ten1pest forth, And stills the stormy wave; And, though his nrm be strong to smite, 'Tis also strong to save." _III. HUMAN INGRATITUDE. Though God delivered them from their difficulty and d1St.ress, and gave them peace from their enemies, yet, when the difficulty was over, they forgot all about God's mercy. They went back to their old sins. " Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, . . . but walked therein" (ver. 6). How prone the human heart is to forsake God I The Books of Judges and Kings a.re foll of illustrations of this painful fact. By forsaking God the Israelites brought themselves into misery aud bondage. Time after time God raised up judges and kings and prophets to be the means of their deliverance. But when these were dead, or when the immediate danger had passed away, once again the people foraook God. It is the same in the history of the individual. How ungrateful we a.re for God's unceasing and unfailing goodness I How forgetful of his command- ments and his promises I "The way of man is not in himself; and it is not in man that wa.lketh to direct his steps." We need all the influence of Divine ·grace to keep us in the way that is right. IV. A. HIDlllLED NATION. To what a low level sin reduces a nation! How shame- fully Israel was humiliated before Syria I The King of Syria only left to Jehoahaz fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; "for the King of Syria had destroyed them, and had ma.de them like the dust by threshing." The fate of Israel, the fate of other mighty nations of the past, are a great national lesson to be remem- bered so long as the world shall last. Ought we not earnestly to pray that this great British empire, which has been built up by God-fearing men, and which God has blessed and honoured so highly, may not forsake God for secularism or gross corrup- tion, and thus fall into the fate of the fallen nations of the past? Knowing how great are the forces of evil, it becomes every true Christian to be more valiant for the truth, t.o be more active in everything that will extend the kingdom of Christ in this and other lands.-C. H. L Vera. 14-19.-A royal wit to a dying prophet. What a peaceful death-bed Elisha's was! He had long since ma.de his choice. He had lived not for time, but for eternity; not under the fear of man, but under the fear of God; not for the favour of kings or their rewards, but &o as to win the approval of his conscience and his Creator. And now, when death came, it brought him no terrors. Not only so, but he was able to give encouragement to others. When Kiag Joash sees the prophet on his death-bed, he feels how great is the loss which Israel is about to sustain. Good men are a nation's strength. And so Joash, bending in tears over the dying prophet's couch, exclaims, " 0 my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereor ! " But Elisha wants to keep up his heart. He wants to teach him that, thou~h the prophet dies, the prophet's God remains. The workmen pass away, but the work of God goes on. So the true Christian will ever look beyond his own death to the glory that a1Vaits him, beyond the present hour of darkness or difficulty or delay to the ultimate triumph of the Church of Christ. It was i.n this spirit that the martyrs died. What a vision of the future lit up their strlfering faces! What a prophetic instinct in such words as those which Bishop Latimer spoke to hie fellow-reformer Ridley, as they stood side by side, waiting for the faggots to be kindled : " Be of good cheer, brother Ridley, and play the maa; we &hall this day light such a candle in England, as by God's grace shall never be put out." And here Elisha on his death-bed gives utterance to prophl'tic words. He told Joash that the arrow which, in obedience to his directions, he had shot forth from the open window, signified the arrow of the Lord's deliverance. But Joa.ah was slow to learn the double lesson of God's unlimited power and the nece~sity for human effort which this simple illUBtration taught; Elisha had already told him that he should smite the Syrians till they were consumed, and then, to teach himfurther- more the necessity for perseverane,e and pat-ience, he commands him to smite upon the ground. Joash, seeing that the prophet bad already revealed to him so much and encouraged him so greatly, might have continued until he was requested to cease. But en. xm. 1-25.] THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 271