your hands are full of blood." And the prophet, for himself, says (!ix. 2), "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins hn.vo hid his face from you, that be will not bear." And a psalmist expresses the true feeling when be writes, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hoar me." "Anury against the prayer" expresses quite a human kind of feeling. When men refuse ~nr request, our first thought is that they must be angry with us. 'l'his, then, represents man's thought. and frar concerning God; but it does not precisely represent the actual fact. God is angry, ns anxious, loving pRrents are angry. He refuses prayer for the sake of the offerer. And parents know that it is often much hnrder to refuse a request than to gmnt it.. The refusal is love, not anger. '1.'he exiles ask the question of the text in an impulsive spirit, half complainingly. We may ask quietly nnd calmly their question. Ho"· long will God hold aloof from men's prayers? I. GoD KEVER RKFUSES PRAYER IN .. MERE SOVEREIGNTY." Caprice or jealous feeling must never be associated in our minds with God. "We speak of the Divine sovereignty_; but sovereignty is not an arbitrary, capricious thing; it is a righteous and holy thrng; and God must ever act in conformity with the unalterable principles of his character." "There is no mystery in those temporary desertions with which God sometimes visits his own people. The reason of them is to be found in themselves -in their sinfulness, in their unsteadfastness, in their unfaithfulness," All Divine withdrawals and temporary refusals mean discipline. II. GoD MAY HOLD ALOOF UNTIL JUDGMENT RAS DONE ITS WORK, Note that this involves uncertainty as to time of restoration. Judgment acting on different moral natures is prolonged according to the response different natures make to it. It would be no kindness to resume gracious relations before the disciplinary work was complete. III. GoD MAY HOLD ALOOF UKTIL HUMILITY 'l'ONES THE PRAYER. Take humility as representini( the state of mind when self-will and self-pleasing are mastered. Humility is holding our will in submission to God's will. IV. GoD MA y HOLD ALOOF UNTIL MAN IS tn."ITED IN HIS PRAYER. Part of a. man may pray for, and pa.rt of him may pray against. Will may pray for, heart may pray against. Duty may pray for, feeling may pray against. Illustrate by the figure in Hos. ii. 21, 22. V. GoD MAY HOLD ALOOF UNTIL ms ANSWER 0AN BE THE ;FULLEST BLESSING. Oftentimes to give too soon would but be to give a part. God waits till we are empty of self, and can be filled with himsdj.-R. T.
Ver. 5.-" Tears to drink:" the mission of troublous e:i;periences. "Givest them tears to drink in great measure." Reference must be to the dreariness and hopelessness and misery of the captives in Babylon. There was no other time in the national history when the expression was so suitable. The misery is forcibly pictured in Ps. cxxxvii. When the eyes of the exiles were full of tears, it was bitterness indeed to be asked to sing "one of the songs of Zion." " How could they sing the Lord's song in a. strange land?" Eastern people a.re very expressive in their grief, and shed tears very freely; but the expression here is poetical. Men are thought of as having so much trouble in their lot that they seemed to feed upon their tears. Stanley says, "The psalms of the time answer to tbe groans of Ezekiel, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, as deep to deep. No human sorrow has ever found so loud, so plaintive, so long-protracted a wail. We see them in the places of their final settlement, often lodged in dungeons with insufficient food, loaded with contumely, their faceR spat upon, their hair torn off, their backs torn with the lash. There were the insults of the oppressors, there were the bitter tears which dropped into their daily beverage, the ashes which mingled with their daily bread." This subject may be profitably treated by recalling the fact that our Lord Jesus is recorded to have wept tears on three occasionij, and these occasions may be regarded as representative. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus; Jesus wept in sight of unreceptive Jerusalem; Jesus wept in the garden of Gethsemane. L THE lUSSION OF THE TEAllB OF BEREA VElllENT. 'l'ears seem specially sacred to auch times. They are, indeed, nature's relief. We feel anxious when our bereaved friends cannot weep. Tears are brain relief as well as emotional relief; but they aro the sign of the broken heart, the unavailing regret, the love that has become only a memory. But see the mission of such tears. 1. 'fhey call out sympathy. 2. 'l'hey rs. LXXX. 1-10.J THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 165