bom of the freshness of our experience, the brightness of our newly kindled hope, and our ignorance of the conflict which the Christian life must witness. It is the joy of the ransomed. Illustrate from the freed slave. It is the joy of the delivered. Illustrate by song of hrael on the Red Sea shore. People usually set out on an expedition with much song and hope. II. Joy ON THE WAY IN CHRISTIAN LIVING. This is a calmer joy; found rather in what God's grace proves able to do for us, than in any circumstances through which we pass; for the way itself is often rough and bard-we can seldom sing about it. III. Joy AT THE END WHEN HOME IS WON. Illustrate by Moore's_ • Paradise and the Peri•- " Joy, joy for ever I the work is done, The gate is passed, and heaven is won." True joy, be it remembered, is not a fitful response to circumstances, but an ever- bubbling and upspringing soul-well.-R. T. Ver. 16.-Man, God's agent. "I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand." This statement was most perfectly realized in the ideal Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, who could say, "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in rue, he doeth the works." Possibly the figures in the text are designed to represent the re-establish- ment of Jerusalem as the centre of a restored Jewish nation, and God l:ikens this to the putting up of a fallen tent, and intimates that his faithful ones should be used as his agents, in setting up the poles, driving in the pegs, and straining the cords. I. MAN'S POWERS FITTED FOR Goo's SERVICE. God made him, adapted him, and endowed him, precisely with a view to service. We recognize a design and an aim in everything God bas made. We set before ourselves a distinct purpose in anything we make-it is to serve us. Because man has the trust of what he calls "indepen- dence" and" free-will," he does not cease to be God's servant, God's agent; though, turning his free-will into self-will, he too often spoils his powers, and readers them unfit for God's service. Each one of us ought to find out precisely the powers with which we are endowed; and in the line of them we must look for our spheres and our w.ork. What we can do, that we must do for God. II. MAN'S POWERS OUGHT TO BE AT Goo's DISPOSAL. The call should be heard by us each new morning, "Who is willing to consecrate himself this day unto the Lord?" God should have first choice of our service. It should ever be enough to us that God calls. " As the eyes of a servant . . . to the hand of the master, so our eyes should w11it on God." The practical rule of life should be this-" [ belong to God. My service is for him, my leisure may be for others and myself." III. MAN'S POWERS ARE IN Goo's USE. It is not a question that he may 11S8 us, he does URe UR, we are his voice, his sword, his staff. He is now working out his purposes on earth by human agencies. Nothing alters the fact; but the joy of being willing workers may be ours. An<l our doings are ennobled when we can see them to be God's doings by us. Man realizes his noblest individuality, the design of bis being, only as thus he is willing to be mouthpiece for God, aud to be covered in the shadow of God's hand, as he plants, or digs, or huilds.-R. 'l'. Ver. 22.-God our .Advocate with himself. "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, and thy God who is the Advocate of his reople." He will plead for bis people when none else will plead (comp. eh. !xiii. 5). In this we find a foreshadowing of the idea of Christ as our Advocate with God, which, most deeply, most spiritually apprehended, is God pleading with God-God an Advocate with himself. This may be worked out thus- I. JEsus PLEADS FOR us WITH Gon. "There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus;" "If e.uy man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." II. Bu'l' JEsus IB Goo. "In him dwelleth all the fulaess of the Godhead bodily." "'l'he Word was God." He was God "manifest iu the flesh." "The Brightness of the Father's glory, and express Image of his Person." Ill. THEN Tms JS Goo rLEADINO WITH Gon. It is a way of figuring for our 278 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [oH. Lll. 1-15,
apprehension what seems t.o be the fact, that God holds argument with himself.- R. 'I'. "Ver. 23.-Divine judgment on persectitors. "Thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over." This is a fi.,ure for the last humiliation of an Eastern conquest. Joshua called his captains, and :ven his soldiers, to put their feet upon the necks of the conquered kings (Josh. x. 24). Matthew Arnold's note on this verse is as follows: "A trait of the humiliation of the conquered and the insolence of the conqueror in Eastern kingdoms. So it is related that when Sapor, King of Persia, got on horseback, the Roman Emperor Valerian had to kneel down, and make his back a step for him." Henderson, quoting from Ibn Batuta, says tbat "when the negroes who appeared before the black sultan at Mali, in Nigritia, fell down, they laid bare their backs, and covered their heads with dust, as tokens of the most profound submission." Further illustration may be found in the Eastern custom called the doseh, which is still prevalent, or only very recently extinct. Dervishes lay themselves down side by side on the ground, backs upward, legs extended, and their arms placed together beneath their foreheads. Over these the sheikh oo horse- back rides. The assurance made is that the enemies and persecutors of Israel, and notably Babylon, should be made to drink of the same bitter cup that they had made Israel drink so deeply. A.nd Babylon had to taste the bitterness of captivity. Very striking facts are narrated concerning the Divine retributions which persecutors have suffered, and though some may be but imaginative creations under impressions of what ought to be, there are sufficient cases that are strictly historical to convince us that, in this sphere, "though hand join in hand, the wicked do not go unpunished;" and not infrequently what is known as" poetical justice" is meted out to them even in this life. If the persecutor should escape the retribution, the judgment comes upon his fame. After-generations say worse thiogs of persecutors than of any of the ancestors. They live in the execration of the ages. Yet the persecutor can never permanently harm the Church. Its conquest is well assured, and that conquest in .olves the judgment, humiliation, and degradation of the persecutors, who shall have measured to them what they meted out to others; for" our God is known by the judgments which he executeth.''-R. 'I'.
EXPOSITION.