there must be the means of furnishing ample proofa that directions have first been given-plain, earnest, and authoritative. And this is just what we find here. God refers his people back over the long years in which, by divers agencies, he had laid before them his righteous and beneficent will. What he commended was for his glory; for his glory because for his people's good; for his people's good because for his glory. The present state and prospects of the people are very humiliating, but assuredly no part of their humiliation can be la.id to the charge of their God. The cloudy and the fiery piilar was but a symbol of most distinct guidance for the whole Lea rt. The people were not suffered to wander for lack of expostulation and warning. When a lad turns out badly, criticizing speech is often directed against the parents, as if somehow they must be at fault. '!'hey may be at fault indeed, but there is no must in the matter. Ha.sty criticism at such a time, from the very injustice of it, adds a cruel intensity to the pa.in and disappointment already existing. But hasty criticism cannot be silenced by merely deprecating it, and parents at such moments would do well to remember that they stand in relations to their disobedient children not unlike those in which, a.sis represented here, Jehovah stood towards Israel of old. The most loving and watchful and patient of parents never did for his children near so much as Jehovah did for Israel. There was the instruction of their wonderful career, in which God had moved so sublimely among them. There were the ten commandments, formulated so distinctly, and set in such a grand historical frame. There were all the rites and ceremonies filled with instructing power to those who would seek to understand them . .And there was also, accumulating generation after generation, the great mass of prophetic truth. Man is what he is, not for want of ligb t, but for want of disposition to use and obey the light when it appears. There is an indisposition to attend to truth and to fidelity in all duty, until at last the very feeling of what faithfuluess and righteousness are vanishes from the breast. But still the excuse is attempted, and persisted in with shameless impudence, that the word which professes to come from God must have in it something defective, something that effectually prevents it from being received. But it is only from the unrenewed miud that talk of this kind comes. Those who have had their eyes opened to the truth of God soon begin to discern that in that truth there is no lack of guidance, or inspiration, or comfort, or any good thing which can uplift and satisfy the heart. .And we may be sure that God, who bas given this immense and fruitful body of truth, bas brought it nearer to the individual conscience than the individual in his perversity will always acknowledge. Men are indulged too much in the complaint that nobody has spoken to them about their souls. A miserable egotism often lies at the bottom of such complaining. If they know by any means whatever-and it matters not how slight the hint may be-that there is something written for the obedience of all mankind and for their consequent advantage, then these complainers are bound to attelld to it. Men are not so foolish in the quest of worldly gains. 'l'hen they will go upon the slightest hint, and follow it up discreetly and warily. Why, then, should they be so foolish in the matter of spiritual gain? Because "truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth."-Y.
EXPOSI'l'ION. in the valley of Kedron (2 Kings niii. 6). OHAPTER VIII. According to some, the motive of this inva- Vere. 1-8.-Punishmeut will even Ol"er• sio:i of the chambers of tho dead is avarice take the sinners who have long since been (comp. Herod., i. 187, Darius at the tomb of deceased. Nitooris); bnt the context, without excludiug Ver. 1.-They shall bring out the bones. tliis view, rather suggosts malice o.nd con- Not only shall many of tho dead bodies tempt. 'l'hus "the wrath of man" was to remain unburied, but the sepulchres of "pmiso" Jehovah (I's. lxxvi. 10). those who have till now "lain in honour, Ver. 2.-And they shall spread them, etc. each one in his house" (Isa. xiv. 18), shall Not as an act of solemn moclrnry, for the be violated. The inhabitants of Jerusalem agents are idolaters themselves, but Goel so mcaut are evidently those of the upper overrnlcs the passions of his unconscious clnss, for tho others wero buried, with but instruments th1tt no more oITcctivu C<'!'O· liltlo _regard to the security of the corpses, menial could have been deviacu. 'Whom 214 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. [011. vm. 1-22.