Yers. 3, 4.-Natum,l affection gone. I. NOTE AN UNFAVOURARLJI: CONTRAST WITH THE LOWER CREATION. Everything is to he estimated according to its nature. It matters little what the sea-monster here stands for. It is sufficient to know that some fierce de,;tructivc creature is thought of. Truly there is a vast diJfel'ence between the brutes whose very nature it is to destroy in order th\\t they may live, and man who never looks more worthy of his position in the scale of being than when he is doing his very best to preserve life, risking even his own life for this end. And yet even in the most savage brntes there is natural affection. To stoop to a very common sight, what is more su;cgestive of some of the deep mysteries of existence than to see e. cat one lhoment patiently suckling its own young, and the next moment stealthily and silently making its way to spring on some defenceless bird? If, then, it is put into the nature of these fierce creatures thus to care for their young, what care is it not right to expect from man, the highest creature whom we know? There is hardly any limit to what he can do for his offspring in the way of guarding its weall;ness and developing its power; and yet how negligent he ca.n become! The lower creation puts him to shame. Jeremiah here speaks of cruelty, but we do well to remember that there is e. thoughtlessness, e.n indolence, and e. selfishness which a.re productive of e.s bad effects e.s any cruelty can produce. More evil, it has been truly said, is wrought from want of thought than from want of heart. II. WHAT IT JS THAT PilODUCES THIS CO?,"TRADICTION TO NATURE? Generally 5tated, it is the stress of circumstances that does it. "The daughter of my people" would not have become cruel if her life had gone on in its ordinary way. But e.11 at once the supplies that have been so regular become uncertain, and e.t last virtually stop. The cruelty, if in such circumstances it may be truly ea.lied so, is e.n involuntary one. And yet it is not involuntary in this sense, that the state of things was altogether unpreventable. The famine ea.me from disobedience to God. We a.re not left to make a superstitious inference 38 to this connection. It is stated on authority, It were presuming far too much to trace e. connection between particular suffering and particular wrong-doing, but where the connection between particular wrong-doing and particular suffering is me.de perfectly plain, we shall be very foolish if we do not take heed to it. Whatever wrong thing we do will have some evil consequences, and we know J?,Ot how soon they may come, how widely they may spread, and how much suffermg and difficulty they may bring to the innocent.-Y.
Ver. 5.-Social revilution. I. AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN MOIETY. We may com.ider it either as the instability of wealth or the instability of rank. It shows how no class of the community is able to say that, whatever happens ia the way of stress or destitution, it will keep right. Men build up societies in which rank comes from the accumulation of wealth or the exercise of power that is in a man by nature. But these human societies thus built up cannot reckon on perme.nencu. Greed is excited on the part of others, and the higher a man has risen the lower he may fall. IL THE ILLUSTRATION HEBE SHOll'LD )[AKE us CONSIDERATE OF THOSE IN moR POSITION. The high are of necessity the few. Their position is seen from the outside and from a distance. What we do see is very likely to mislead us, for our eye lights on outward splendour and the appearance of much leisure and the ability to do very urnch what one likes. But the many journals and memoirs that have been published revealing the inner life of courts and titled circles show that human beings may be uone the less miserable becaUBe the misery ie gilded over. Our pity may be needed at OB, IV, 1-22.] THE LAMENTATIONS OF ,JETIEJ\,TfAH. 77
Rny moment for the mRn of rank and privilege. Whatever the outward rlifferences may be, tho inwnrd heart is the sarno, and that must have its sorrows, its disappoint- ments, and its perils. III, WE ARE TAUGHT THE NEED OF OAUTION IN GT.,ORIFYING HUMAN CIVTT,T7,ATiflN. What many people reckon to be the highest civilization needs rnateria.l wealth in great profusion to keep it up. '£here must be classes to paint pictures, carve statuary, and give long periods of time to the elaboration of artistic conceptions, whatever they may be. And what a satire on all this it is to recollect how fragile and fading some of these art treasures have proved I 'l'he ignorant and narrow-minded under-value these things, but then it is also possible to over-value them, to get so occupied with them as to forget the deepest things of humanity, the things that endure. The civilized, refined, natural man may be good, but how much better is the spiritual man, even thot,gh he be rude in speech anrl full of error in his tastes I 'l'ruly we may say, he that is least among spiritual men is greater than the highest of attainments among natural men.-Yr