and his wife a widow." There are few Bible difficulties more perplexing than that which is created by the fact, that a. man's punishments a.re reco,,nized as righteously affecting, not himself only, bnt also his children, and those de~ndent on him. We nnturally resist this, and say," Every man ought to bear his own bnrden," and a man's punishment.should be limited to himself. It is not so; it never has been so; it never can be so, because men are so closely bound together, and related, that if" one member suffers, a.ll the members suffer with it." While this bas a trying side, involving a sad extension of suffering, we should never forget that it has also a bright side, involving e. most glorious extension of our privileges and pleasures. The vicarious feature in life is the sweet secret of three parts of its blessedness. L VICABIOUB BUFFERING IS THE UNIVERSAL FACT OP LIFE. Diseased parents Involve their children in disease. Sinful parents convey evil tendencies to their children, Unthrifty parents bring their children into misery. Unfortunate parents lead all belonging to them into misfortune. So unworthy kings bring woe on all their people. The consequences of wrong-doing never can be circumscribed. Every man that lives is the victim of some vicarious disability. However we may explain it, we must take the principle into account. II. VICARIOUS BUFFERING IS TAKEN UP, AND USED, BY RELIGION. It is recognized in the Divine punishment of the first act of self-will; and in the first act of murder. Cain's posterity suffer for Cain's sin. It is declared as a. principle in connection with the Decalogue (Exod. xx. 5). It is illustrated in the judgments on Korab and Dathan and Achan; and also in the family of King Saul. It is seen on its brighter side in the Christian baptism of a man and his household; as see Acts xvi. 31-33. III. VICARIOUS BUFFERING 18 PLACED UNDER STRICT CHRISTIAN LIMITATIONS. It is seen to concern only physical and temporal disabilities. And the Christian rule of life ever tends to limit the conveyance of bodily evils.-R. T. Ver. 17.-Suffering that which we make otl1ers suffer. "As he loved cursing, so let- it come to him." We have a popular sentence which illustrates. When a man suffers what he planned to make others suffer, he is said to be "hoist with his own petard; " and human nature, in every age, is specially pleased with cases of retributive justice, such as that of Haman, who was hanged on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai. "The psalmist felt that he was praying in accordance with the Divine will, when he prayed that the ungodly might fall into their own nets together, while he ever eEcaped them. So again with his prayer that the mischief of their own lipa might fa.II upon the heads of them that compassed him about. For it was a matte, at once of faith and of experience with the psalmist, that the evil-deviser and evil-doer, travailing with mischief, conceiving sorrow, and bringing forth ungodliness, who had graven snd digged up a pit, was apt to fall himself into the destruction he made for other. 'For his travail shall come upon his own head, nnd his wickedness shnll fall on his own pate.'" I. A MAN'S PUNISHMENT DOE!! OFTEN COME: IN THIS WAY. See the punishment d those who arran~ed the den of lions for Daniel. "Owen Feltham delights to r(!~..o.11, from the stores of ancient and mediruval story, how Bngoas, a Persinn nomlem\\n, b.wing poisoned Artaxerxes and Artamenes, was detected by Darius, and forced to drink poison himself; how Diomedes, for the beasts he had fed on human fle11.\i, was by Hercules made food; and how Pope Alexander VI., having designed the 1,oisoning of hi8 friend Cardinal Adrian, by his cup-bearer's mistake of the bottle, took the llranght himself, nnd so died by the same engine which he himself had appointed to kiU another." Many other illustrations may be found. II. STRONG IMPRESSIONS OF A MAN'!! BIN AUE MADE BY THIS F0ilM OF PUNISH- MENT. There is something striking and arresting in it; it takes public attention. 'l'here is often the element of humour in such judgments. But a sin which would otherwise hnve been passed over, is shown up in all its baseness when the wrong-doer suffers his own designed wrong. He fecb the wrong; and others see it.-R. T.
Vers. 30, 31.-~e power of prayer to change our moods. There is clearly o. different tone in the closing portion of this psalm. It may not be so evi<lent ns we should likt1 it to have been, but it is there. 'l'hc storm of o.n~ry foeling dies down, and we only 28 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. (i.Js. ex. 1-'f,