'!'bore ie no third party to the question. And God can save man. He has always been finding out man's extremity, and making it his gracious opportunity; ever saving tribes, saving cities, saving societies, saving families, saving individuals. God, the Redeemer, is the name for God that is blazoned on the history of every age and clime. "God can save man" is the great truth written in the large record of the whole human race. Spared for four thousand years that he might try to save himself, man learned at last to put away the schemes in which he had trusted, and then, when the fulness of the times had como, God sent forth his Son, and called his name Jesus Immanuel, because he was to be in the world, "God himself saviog men from their sins." III. Gon ONLY BAVES MAN DY MAN. One of the most difficult truths for which to get men's acceptan_ce is the truth that man's salvation is a moral miracle, for the accomplishment of which man is made the ageut. God's salvation for moral beings is not a display of augu~t force, as is his correction of disorder in his world of created things; it is the exertion of moral power upon them through moral iofluences and moral agents. The great deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian bondage was mani- festly God's redemption, altogether God's; and yet even in that case God only sa1ved man by man. He found an instrument and agent by whom to carry out his purposes. '£he man Moses is prominent throughout the whole scene, and yet he never stands before God; he is only the agent. Illustrate further by the salvation from Babylon. In that case too a man was found. Cyrus was the Divine agent. The law is working in all the society around us. God is in the midst of men, saving still. ·But he is only saving men through human agencies. Social and moral evils cannot be mastered by merely human forces, since man cannot, of himself, reach those deeper religious evils that lie at the root of the social ones. God is saving men. This is the glory of our pre- sent-day life, with all its seeming failures and oppre8sive burdens and amazing self-1vill. He is saving men, and we are to be his witnesses, co-workers together with him. As we preach Christ to men, we have no power to save men; but as we lift Christ up in sight of men, we become God's agents, and through our words of faith and persuasion God moves and sways careless hearts, and wins sinners unto himself. This is our honour, our trust, our sacred burden. God would save this country, but he will only save it by us-by the Christian people in it. We must provhcsy and preach to these dry bones, and then only will the breath of Heaven give them life. ,ve must spend the strength of our manhood in giving, preaching, visiting, pleadiug, and then only will the ends of the land see the salvation of the Lord.-R. 'l'.
Ver. 19.-.The standard of the Spirit. Cheyne's translation is, "For he shall come like a rushing stream, which the breath of Jehovah driveth." The prophet regards the impending deliverance of the Jews as an act in the great drama of the world-judgmer.t. Henderson translates," The breath of Jehovah shall raise a standard against him;" and he treats the passage as prophetic of the resistance offered to the evil schemes of the enemies of the gospel. Probably the historical figure in the mind of the prophet, which gave the form to his expression, was the check given to Sennacherib, in his schemes against Jerusalem, by the plague-breath of Jehovah, which destroyed his host. Cheyne's translation is supported by the Revised Version, and the person referred to appears to be Cyrus, the deliverer, regarded as urged to his work by Jehovah. These two historical references suggest different ways of applying the figure. I. THE FIGURE OF JEBOVAB's BREATH. The same Hebrew word means "breath," "wind," "spirit." Distinguish between the anthropomorphic figures of the Lord's hand or arm, and the anthropopathic figures of the Lord's "anger" or "repentance." Distinguish between the "arm" or "hand," which indicates God's active working in the sphere of things, and his "breath," as his secret working on the springs of life and motive. Sometime God works openly, and all can see his doings. But even moro frequently he silently works at the heart of things, and only men of faith can trace his doings. II. '£BE FIGURE OF THE BREATH AS A BEBIBTAN0E. Take the allusion to Senna- cherib as illustrntion. Show how in life wo constantly meet with difficulties that seem insoluble, and enemies that cannot be overcome. And yet presently the difficulties go out of the way, and the enemies can proceed no further. There are no evident reasons for these things, in any circumstances that we can observe. All that we can say is, "The 400 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET ISAIAH. [OH, LX, 1-22,