The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 114

feet of Christ we have learnt that one human soul is a. thing of inestimable worth. Hence we have come to prize, as most precious, one human life; a.nd hence we have learnt to shrink from voluntarily taking it a.way. That which God only ca.n give or renew, from which he requires so much, and on which such great a.nd lasting issues hang,- this is something to be reverently treated. And we have been led to regard with a.version, with deep repugnance, that ruthless system, wa.r, which mows down human bodies without remorse, and which counts amongst its triumphs the number of the slain. We gratefully recognize the fact that, under the beneficent reign of the Prince of peace, we are arriving at the conclusion- III. THAT THE WORTHIEST TRIUMPHS WE CAN WIN ABE THOSE WE GAIN IN PEACEFUL CONTESTS. 1. In the struggle we maintain against the enemies within us: the privation we inflict on ourselves in foregoing things which are evil and injurious, the perseverance with which we contend against recurring passions that will not be soon silenced and slain, 2. In the war which we wage against the adversaries of God and man: the hardship ·we suffer (2 Tim. ii. 3), the risk we run (danger sometimes ending in death itself, as many a missionary chronicle will tell), the loyalty we show to our great Captain, the faith we exercise in the overruling mind and the conquering a.rm of our redeeming God.-C. Vers. 20-24.-Divine compensations. We have, in brief, a. story of family life which still ha.sits interest a.nd application to us in our domestic relations. We gather- I. THAT GRIEVOUS AFFLICTION SOMETIMES FALLS ON A HUMAN HOME WITH OVER• WHELMING SUDDEN.NESS. Severa.I sons of one "house" were slain in one day. \Vhich- ever party was the aggressor, and whether the Israelites were guilty or unfortunate, tbe blow fell with terrible effect on the elders of the family. "Ephraim their father mourned many days" (ver. 22). "Misfortunes never come a.lone" is only a hasty a.nd false generalization : they genera.Uy do come a.lone. It is far truer to sa.y, "One by one our sorrows meet us." For usually God tempers our griefs by sending them singly and with more or less of interval as also of preparation. More often than not the evil which awaits us" casts its shadow before it," and we prepare our hearts for the coming trouble. But sometimes it is otherwise. Occasionally, awful, aggravated, multiplied sorrows surge around us, and all the waves and billows of distress go over us without forewarning; from the height of prosperity a.nd joy we go down, in one bitter hour, to the dark depth of loss and woe. No man can tell what tragedy is a.t hand for himself and his house. The holiest, the most beloved of God, may be standing, at any moment, in immediate peril of an almost uneudurable calamity. II. THAT Gon HAS MERCIFUL COMPENSATIONS IN STORE FOB BIB STRICKEN OHILDREN, He wounds that he may heal; and that, as he heals, he may bless and save. It may be that he will send: 1. Human sympathy. Ephraim's "brethren came to comfort him." Though the sympathy of human hearts cannot "do" anything for us, as men of coarse minds say, it can and does introduce into our hearts a soothing balm which is very precious to sensitive and responsive souls, It is seldom wasted; it is generally appre- ciated, and is often most highly esteemed. Or God may provide : 2. That which replaces the loss. 'l'o the bereaved Ephraim he gave a:nother child, whose name, Beriah, wa.s pathetically suggestive of this sad breach, but whose presence in the home must have gone no small way to repair it, And now it often happens that, instead of the child that is taken comes the infant who is sent to fill its parents' hearts as well as its mother's arms; or ins'tea.d of the fortune that is Jost the competency that is gained, Or God may send : 3. Some other compensating gift. From this stricken house he took away some parental love by the death of sons, but he gave a large measure of parental joy by the enterprising spirit of a. daughter (ver. 24). It may b_e well fo~ us that God sho11:ld exchange one source of happiness for another. Long-contmued enJoyment of one satis- faction often begets a false and guilty notion of independence, and even right of possession in the human heart. So God withdraws his gift which is ceasing to be n. blessiuu • but he gives in place of it some other good which will work no evil to the soul. 4. 'Spiritual acquisition. When Ephraim was " mourning many days," his heart was tender, his mind docile, his soul receptive. Then, we may venture to say, he looked up to God with special earnestness, with filial submissiou, with peculiar devotion. Great sorrows, sweeping away earthly satisfactions and revealing our own helplessness, oH, vu. 1-40.] THE FIRST IlOOK OF 'l'HE CHROl\ IGLES. lOj