expectant Father, who is grieved concerning him, and who earnestly remembers him stilL (3) The object of his redeeming and self-sacrificing loue. "He loved me, and gave himself for me," we can all say, after the apostle. (4) The object of his discipliw,ry dealing. "Whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son," etc. (5) The object of his desire that we should share his WO'l'k and his glO'l'y. To each of his disciples he says, "Follow thou me;" "Go [thou], and work in my vineyard."-C. Vere. 27, 28.-The impiety of impatience. God rebukes Israel for its impatience under trial. It ought to have "remembered the years of the right hand of the Most. High; nit ought to have considered that its Divine Sovereign was one whose faithfulne55 did not depend on a few passing years, that the action or the inaction of " the ever- lasting God" was not open to the criticism which condemns the short-lived policy of frail and dying men. The rebuke is full of practical truth applicable to ourselves. I. OuB DISPOSITION TO DOUBT THE FAITHFULNESS OF Gon. Whatever our creed may be, and however unexceptionable our views as to the attributes and actions of God, we find ourselves strongly tempted to indulge the fretful, distrustful spirit shown by the children of Israel; we are apt to think that God has " forgotten to be gracious " to us, that he has" passed us by," that our wrongs and sufferings are disregarded by him just as if they were actually hidden from his eyes. This, whether we are suffering from, (1) continued persecution, inflicted by a political power ot by individual men; or (2) protracted difficulties, social, or domestic, or financial, from which we have been anxiously striving to escape, but from which there seems no way of extrication; or (3) unrelieved illness-pain, weakness, disease, decay, unrelieved either by recovery or wished-for death; or (4) unsuccesiful seeking after God, after the peace and joy of his salvation, after the blessedness of conscious friendship with Jesus Christ; or (5) unprofitable labour in the field of Christian work. 11. THE IMPIETY OF SUOH COMPLAINT. It arises, not from a pardonable ignorance, but from a culpable forgetfulness, an inexcusable disregard of the nature of the God whom we serve. vVe ought to remember: 1. That God docs not measure time by our chronornetry; with the "everlasting God" one day is as a thousand years, etc. He is not slack as we count slackness; length and shortness of time are not the same thing to him that they are to us. 2. That it is impossible for him to be unmindful of our necessities or our sorrows. He "faints not, neither is weary." What might possibly prove troublesome to men will not be wearisome to God. He docs not withdraw his notice of his children's needs for one small moment. 3. That we c:mnot enter into bis reasons for delay or his methods of interposition. "There is no searching of his under- standing." For anything we know, an earlier interposition even by a gingle <lay would be a precipitancy that would do us harm; and for anything we can tell, God may have already started means of deliverance whose ultimate outworking will realize our hearts' desire. Wherefore let us banish dissatisfaction and distrust as ungodly, and cultivate a devout trust in the Lord, who will make good the kindest word "on which he bas caused us to hope."-O.
Vers. 29-31.-The ne_ed and the gift of spiritual power. What Ismel wanted in captivity the Church of Christ now needs in its present situation, surrounded by an unsympathizing or even hostile world. It lacks power to do that which it was cre11te.l to accomplish. Potentially, it has within itself all that is required to complete the great work of regeneration which its Divine Master began; in simple fact and in sad reality, it has failed to discharge its function. Every Church should bo a great power for good in the country, in the neighbourhood in which it is planted; every Christian man should be a real power for piety and virtue in the circle in which he moves. We ought to have power to "witness a good profession for Jesus Christ," power to live an elevating, influential life, power to execute a useful and abiding work for our Lord. Can we say that this is tho caso with our Churches, with ourselves? Must we nut re!!fetfully admit that it is not so? We not&-- L THE PREVALENCE OF IlUMAN WEAKNESS. Probably the "faint, and those who had no might," o.mong the exiled Israelites were the dispirited, the dissatisfied, the despair- ina-those who had lost hope in God and had no expectation of ever seeiug again the la~d of their fathers. So with the Israel of God ; the faint aud the weak iucludo: THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [en. xt. 1-31.