said the King of Terrors ; "the hour of thy departure ie come.'' " How is this? " exclaimed the youth ; " thou art false to thy word I Thou didst promise to send me messengers, and I have seen none." "Silence I'' sternly answered the Destroyer. " I have sent thee messenger after messenger. What was the fever? What was the apoplexy? What was each sickness that befel thee ? Each was my herald; each was my messenger." Yes, the first use of ~ickness is to remind men of death. And how much they need that reminder we may learn from the case of David. He had long been familiar with death. He was no stranger to "th' imminent deadly breach," had known many "hairbreadth 'scapes," ana. often there had been" but a step between his soul and death." Nay, he bad once seen the Destroyer himself, seen him standing with his drawn sword ready io smite. And yet the man who had faced death, who had long carried his life in his band, receives a final warning ere its close. That sickness, perhaps, first brought home to him hie mortality, first cried to him, " Thus saith the LORD Goo, Remove the diadem and take off the crown'' (Ezek. xxi. 26). But II. SICKNESS IS Goo's WAY OF WEANING MEN FROM THE WORLD. It ie natural to cling to life; but it ie necessary we should be made willing to leave it. The wrench ie felt the less when some of the ties which bind us to earth have been sundered: when life loses its attractions. It is the office of pain and sickness to make life valueless, to make men anxious to depart. How often it happens that men who at -the beginning of illness will not hear of death are presently found praying for their release. Such are the "uses of adversity.'' An old writer compares affliction to the bitter unguent which nursing mothers who would wean their offspring sometimes put upon their breast. A few weeks on the couch of pain, and we soon cry out that life is not worth the living. III. SICKNESS IS Goo's DISCIPLINE FOR PARADISE, True it ie that all "earthly care is a heavenly discipline." All the ills that flesh ie heir to are designed to be the instruments of our perfection. Like the Captain of our salvation, we are "made perfect through sufferings.'' For us, as for Him, " the cross is the ladder to heaven." Those are two suggestive words, which only differ by one letter-,ra0i,µarn, µa0qµara, "afflictions, instructions.'' But while all affliction is a school, the last illness should be the finishing school. At the last assay the furnace must bo heated more than it has been wont to be. "I have learnt more," said Mr. Cecil, " within these curtains in six weeks than I have learnt in all my life before." The chamber of sickness ie an enforced Retreat. There, ears "that the preacher could not school" are compelled to listen. There, "lips eay 'God be pitiful' which ne'er eaitl 'God be praised.' There, many have learnt for the first time to know them- selves. And how necessary ie this last discipline David's sick-chamber may teach us; for he had already had his share of troubles. Hie life had been largely spent in the school of adversity. '' In journeyings often, in peril of robbers," &c. (2 Cor. xi. 25, 26), these words aptly describe his early career. Aad even since be ascended the throne, how often has the sword gone through his soul. Amnon, Absalom, Tamar, Abner, Amasa, what tragedies are connected with these names. Few men have experienced such a long and bitter discipline as he; and it would ~eem, too, to have accomplished ite worlt If we may judge by some of his later Psalms, full of contrition, of humility, of devout breathings after God, that sweet and sanctified goul had "learned obedience by the things which he suffered.'' But he ie not spared the final chastening. The sweet singer of lSI·ael, the man after God's own heart, must go awhile into the gloom and the silence of the sick-room, there to be made fully "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." Men often pray to be spared a long sickness, often commiserate those who experience one. But we have learned that it has its uses. We see that it is a last chance given to men : a last solemn warning, a final chastening to prepare them for the beatifio vision. The Neapolitans call one of the wards of their hospital L'Antecamera della Mo-rte-the ante-chamber of death. It is thus that we should regard every" chamber of sickness."
Ver. 5 sqq. with eh. ii. 13 sqq.-Adonijah's history and its lessons. I. HE WAS A SPOILT CBILD.-"His father had not displeased him at any time.'' 14 THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS. [OH. I, 1-58,'