them by a dexterous management ; and it is certainly a man's wisdom to make the best of a bad condition, there being a certain kind of pious and prudential husbandry by which a man may so improve a calamHy as to make the endurance of it the per- formance of a duty, and by his behaviour under it t.o procure a release from it. W c should, with Isaac, take the wood upon our shoulders, though we ourselves are designed for the sacrifice; and who knows but, as in his case, so in ours also, a patient resig- nation of ourselves to the knife may be the sure and direct way to res~ue us from it ? " (South). " He al ways wine who sides with thee: 'l'o him no chance is lost; Thy will is sweetest to him when It triumphs at his cost. "Ill that thou blessest turns to good, Aud uublest good to ill; And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be thy sweet will." 5. For its accepwbleness to God. The Lord Jesus Christ was the "my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," because of it; because his meat and his drink was ever to do the will of the Father who sent him. "Blessed are the meek." "Humble your,elves therefore tmder the mighty hand of God, that," etc. IV. NoT EASY, BUT NEVERTHELESS FULLY POSSIBLE, OF ATTAINMENT. Not easy, because all our instincts under the smart of pain and loss (cf. supra) protest against it. Because also the maxims of the world are directly contrary to it. But attainable by practice. "Let him train himself whilst young to lesser self-denials and mortifications ; let him learn to put up with and pass by a slight undervaluing word, and in time he shall find himself strong enough to conquer and digest an injurious action ; let him learn to overlook his neighbour's incivility, and in time he shall be able.with patience and firmness of mind to endure his insolence and cruelty, and that without being dis- composed by any instigations to revenge; and let him accustom himself to do thls often, and at length he shall be able to do it al ways" (South). And yet more by communion and intercourse with the Lord ;Jesus Christ. We catch the tones and habits and thoughts of those with whom we most associate. Live in close companion- ship with Christ, and the spirit of him who "when he· was reviled, reviled not again," shall be formed in us, and more and more shall we know how "blessed are the meek," and how surely God" will exalt us in due time" (cf. Phil. ii. 5-11).-C.
Vera. 20, 21.-The ruin wrougl,t by the prayerless pastor. I. CONSIDER THE SCENE PORTRAYED DY THE PROPHET. Consider it both before and after that dread invasion of which he was ever warning his countrymen. 1. Before that invasion, whilst Judah was at peace, there might often have been witnessed over the wide downs and pasture-lands of Palestine the shepher<ls' encampment; for Palestine was an eminently pastoral country, ns the psalms of David and the teachings of our Lord plainly show. And hence up and down the land might have been seen the shepherds' tents, whole camps of them, doUing the plains or valleys with their slender poles, their broad curtains and strong cords holding them erect and securing them firmly to the ground on which they stood. The swarthy children would be running in and out, and at even-time the greater portion of the whole inhabitants of these tabernacles would be gathered around or within them. And in the immediate neighbourhood, carefully watched by their shepherds, would be the flocks quietly grazing, in which consisted their whole wealth. It was a pastoral scene the peacefulness and beauty of which were as manifest as tho commonness of it in the happier days of Palestine and her people. 2. But after the inva- sion, in the unhappy days which, when Jeremiah spoke, were drawing so terribly near, when the land should be overrun by the armies of Babylon, there would be as often seen the actual circumstances portrayed in our text. The tent thrown down, its cord~ cut, its curtains a shapeless heap upon the ground, left to decay aud rot by those who had wrought its ruin. And all would be silent and still; no merry prattle of children heard, or the coming and going of the men and women who once had made that tent their home. A few blackened ashes alone telling where the camp-fire had been. '.l'ho 284 THE DOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREM.lAH. [cll1. x. 1-'.?IS,