porspective vision, he obtained of the remarhble interposition of Divine providence for their deliverance." We notice that the comfortable and comforting message is to give assurance of three things. I. WARFARE ENDED. The warfare meant is that struggle to bear and keep heart which had been so trying all through the long years of captivity. Or it may mean God's warfare with their idolatry and iniquity, the Captivity being regarded as God's fighting with the national sins, in order to destroy them and root them out. There can be no comfort, no rest, for us until sin is resisted and mastered. Heaven is only a rest-time, because, then and there, the people are all holy. We must keep the warfare so long as we keep the sin. 'fhe discipline will be ended, the pressure of our military service, only when the victory of righteousness is won. II. Gu1LT PAID OFF, This seems to be the idea of the original, which we have as, "her iniquity is pardoned.n Reference is rather to the penalty of iniquity being effec- tively removed. There can be no comfort while we are compelled to look this way and that, asking, "Where shall iniquity be laid?'' On Israel it lay as a burden of so many years of national humiliation and captivity. To us the mystery of the "Sin-bearer" bas been revealed; and we know that God has "laid on him the iniquity of us all." This knowledge is comfort indeed. III. FAVOUR AT THE DOUBLE, The sentence is variously explained. Some refer it to the sufficiency of the sufferings endured. Others think it suggestR abundance of restored grace and favour. Treated meditatively, we may take the "double" to suggest the temporal restorations under Cyrus and the spiritual restoration under Messiah. When God restores, he does it in such a gracious, full, superabounding way, as to be an infinite consolation and joy to us, The comfort unspeakable is God's restored smile. -R.T. Ver. 3.-Needed preparations for Ohrist. "Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord." The figure used by the prophet is one whose force could only be fully apprehended in that country to which he belonged. Until recent years there were no roads, at least no roads on which vehicles might be drawn; only such paths, often very rough, and steep, and dangerous, as would be made by the passing to and fro of cattle and of men. But a few years ago, when Ibrahim Pasha proposed to visit certain places in Lebanon, the emirs and skeikhs sent forth messengers to all the people on the way the pasha was coming, with a proclamation very similar to this of Isaiah, commanding them that they should gathor out the stones, make straight the crooked places, level the rough places, and so prepare the way for his grand cavalcade to march through. Applying this figure to Messianic times, we note that the world wanted Christ, but it was not, prepared for him when he came; and it is still true of many human hearts- they do really want Obrist, but they are not prepared for him in his spiritual comings. I. THE WORLD WANTED CHRIST, There is no word which so exactly describes the condition of the world when Christ appeared as the term darkness. " Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people." When God created man, or, let us say, set him forth as the Head of bis creation, he put light within him, and was light unto him. But when man sinned by exalting self-will, God took his light away, and left humanity to work out the problem of life in the power of its own self-will. That problem may be stated thus: Man is satisfied with himself, with the light that is in him: then can he find bis own way to God and righleousness? Can he answer for himself this question, "How shall man be just with God?" You cannot understand the history ut Israel, or of the ancient world, save in the light which this representation throws upon them. Each nation took its own way in trying to solve the problem. Egyptians, and Persians, and Syrians, and Grecians, and Romans, all were working at it. But man, by himsolf, has always failed to discover any satisfactory solution. The light he had faded. Twilight passed into night; night grew blacker and darker; the stars were hidden by low overhanging clouds; and it was the gloom of moral midnight over all the earth when Messiah came. But the heathen, in their debasing idolatries, were conscious of bondage, and looked for a Deliverer. 'l'he Jews, though corrupted with formalism, held pnssionately to their hope of Messiah, The sins of tho world wanted Christ. The woes of the world wanted Christ. 'l'he minds and hearts of men wnntcd Christ, though they could not put into she.po of words their innrticulate longings. liumnnity had it.I 90 'i'HE BOOK 01◄' 'l'HE PROPHE'l' ISAIAH. [Oil. XL. 1-31,
watchmen at every point of advantage, and again and again the question was eagerly askecl,_" Watchm~n, wha~ofthe night? watchman, what of the night?" It is interesting to aot1ce th:it, whilst Chnst was a babe, and as yet no shame had gathered about him all lrnmanity offered honiage to him by its representatives, and bade him welcome to 'the world that so greatly needed him. Shepherds, representing the whole Jewish people, followed the angelic sign, and welcomed the Messiah-Child. Eastern Macri star-directed representing the whole heathen world, offered him their gold and f;acltincense and myrrh. And Simeon aud Anna, representing the spiritual, tha relioiou.s 0 classes hailed him with the joy of believing and loving hearts. '