The Pulpit Commentary — Lamentations — Section 77

hoar testimony to the imperfection of earth, to the transitoriness of what once seemerl. perfect, and to the need of e. future life wherein the severed threads may be reunited and the Divine idea. of the family realized. Ill. ORPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD ARE UNDER THE ESPECIAL CARE OF Goo. He is thfl "Father of the fatherless and the Judge or the widow" (Ps. lxviii. 5). If God send8 exceptional trouble, he also feels exceptional compassion and gives exceptional aid. Helplessness is the greatest claim on the Divine pity. The heavier the need of any sufferers the more likely is it that God will come to their deliverance. It is trne that he may not restore lost comforts. A shadow, long and dark, may long lie across the path of orphans and widows. But unseen hands will be tending them, if not for their wealth and pleasure, yet for their peace and blessedness. Gou sometimes helps by raising up friends. He may also aid by rousing the faculties of the sufferers. Under the pressure of necessity a widow, left with the care of a family, may develop capacities that slumbered in neglect so long as they were not called for. JV. ORPHANAGE AND WIDOWHOOD HAVE A FIRf!T CLAIM ON CHRISTIAN CHARITY. Where God's compassion is strongest ours should be also. lf the trouble is great and the sufferers have not brought it upon themselves by their own folly or fault, the syrr.- pathy should be particularly large and active. The care of widows and orphans was one of the first characteristics of the Church, distinguishing it from the selfish indif- ference of paganism. With all our desire for the spiritual welfare of men, and all our zeal in preaching the gospel, this elementary duty of Christianity must have a first place in our energies if we would not be justly accounted hypocrites. Ver. 7.-(Jhildren suffering for the sins of their parents. I. IT IS A FACT TH.l.T CHILDREN DO SUFFER FOR THE BINS OF THEm PARENTS. It was apparent in the times of the Captivity; for owing to Josiah's reformation the moral condition or the nation then was better than it had been a generation or so before ; yet the blow, which was caused bv the greater guilt of the fathers, fell upon the children. It may often be observed in history that the greatest catastrophes do not fall on the most guilty, but on their successors, who are often better men. Thus James II. was a better man than Charles II., though the Stuart dynasty ended in the younger brother ; and Louis XVI. was com- paratively innocent, and yet he had to suffer for the vices of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. In private life, poverty, disease, and disgrace are inherited by children from their parents. Now, it is a sign of the robust truthfulness of the Bible that this dark fact is distinctly recognized. There is no attempt to shun it because it is mysterious. We have in the Bible an honest, brave confronting of the evils of life, and not a system which is only beautiful to contemplate in idea and which cannot be squared with facts. II. THIS FACT IS A WARNING TO PARENTS. The selfishness that incurs disastrous consequences on a man's family is too often ignored if those consequences are not immediately apparent. But it should be exposed and reprobated. Thus the intem- perate man is sometimes regarded as a kind and good-natured man because he displays no malice of temper. Surely his cruelty io impoverishing his household and risking the health of his children should be considered a gross sin. If a man will not hold hi,; hand for his own soul's sake, let hini. consider how he will wreck his family and ruin innocent sons and daughters before he yields to temptation. III. THIS FACT SHOULD NOT SHAKE OUR FAITH IN Goo. 1. Men in all ages have faced it clearly and yet have retained their trust in Providence, e.g. the writers C'f the Bible. 2. The very idea of faith implies that we must confide and wait in the darknes::- where we cannot understand. 3. The necessary greatness of the scheme of the govern- ment of a world should lead us to expect mysteries in it. JV. THIS FACT SHOULD HELP US TO UNDERSTA..'ID PART OF TIJE DIVINE IDEA OF LIFE. It is a sorrowful sight-innocent little children plunged into poverty and distress through no fault of their own, solely on account of the sins of those who should be their great-Ost benefactors! But it sho'Ns us that God does not treat us as isolated units. He takes notice of families as such. There is a "solidarity" of mankind. Everywhere we see the iunocent suffering with the guilty. Social and domestic life are under providential care. And it may bo best for the world as a whole that the severnl societies aud collective bodies of which it consists should be governed with blcs~in<.:?; o.ud discipline than that each individual should receive only his own private br.1cu anJ  84 'l'IIE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH, [CH, V, 1-22,