midst of them, are seen then in their comparative unimportance. Let it not be supposed that, after cutting off the right hand, one must of necessity wait for the fulness of life cternn.l to get anything like compensation. The compensation begins in the very act of self-sacrifice. Does not the prophet here say that what had once been so loved had come to put on such a threatening, maleficent aspect that he also had come to hate it? What has had to be relinquished for Christ only leaves so much the more of opportunity ~o grasp and to lli!e the spiritual wealth which is in him.-Y. Ver. 10.-Bhepherds where they ought not to be. The words of this verse suggest a degradation of the vineyard, which may have been accomplished in one of two wa.ys. The prophet may have been indica.ting the miseries of his country bya scene from real life, a literal spoiling of a. vineyard by the literal flocks of careless or unscrupulous shepherds. Either a vineyard becomes neglected by its owner, and so lays itself open to the inroads of a roaming flock, or the shepherd comes, and, regardless of all right, breaks his way in by sheer force. In a land where there were both vineyards and flocks, nothiug was more likely than that the oppression of the weak by the strong should be illus- trated in some such way. And when we pass to the figure, recollecting that Israel was reckoned as a flock and its rulers as shepherds, then we begin to discern how these rulers are once more to be blamed. Neglect is the least thing to be laid at their door; they are chargeable with even more than neglect, even with high-handedness and utter lack of regard for neighbourly rights. These rulers are charged in other places for their want of fidelity in making due provision fur the flock; here, while they make a sort of provision, they do it in a way which indicates how little they think of the real interests of their sheep. 1. There is presented to us here a picture of two occupa- tions, two possessions, both right in themselves. It is not the robber who desolates this vineyard, the man to whom violence is an ordinary element. It is the shepherd, the man whose work is every whit as useful and commendable in its way as that of the vinedresser. God made the surface of his earth for his creatures, animate and inani- mate, and there is an appointed and sufficient place for all. There are pasture-groundd where the sheep may grow and by its wool provide clothing for men, and there are the tillage-grounds whence come the corn, the oil, the wine, which are equally for the sustenance and pleasure of men. 2. The mischief which may be done by a selfish OCC'lt- pation with one's own interests. In one sense the shepherd could not be too careful about his own interest. He had food to search for, his flock to keep together, wanderers to restore, wild beasts to drive a.way. This was all very difficult, but the difficulty should have taught him to look sympathetically at the interests of others. 'l'hc vine- dresser would have in his own way as hard and anxious a life as the shepherd. Thero are difficulties enough in human existence from things which cannot be helped. Why should they be added to by the thoughtlessness of those who can bo thoughtful if only they ea.re to be, unselfish if only they care to be? A shepherd with the heart of a brother in him would be doubly careful when he came near a vineyard. It was easy for his heedless sheep to do a. damage which, once done, no amount of regret coulcl undo. 3. Heedlessness of the interests of others works to our own serious damage in the end. 'fhe position of these kings of Israel and Judah had to be set forth by more than one image. Their people had to be looked at in the aspect of a. flock and of a vineyard, and so indeed each one of us bas to look at his own life in more aspects than one. A narrow, one-sided view is ruinou~; it may have temporary advantages, but they are soon gone, and then the full folly of short•sightednl'SS will appear. These kings lived a self-iudulgent life, and gathered round them a favoured few, whom they enriched and pampered bi like manner. Meanwhile the land was suffering from oppression and injustice, and these great ones advancing to an overthrow, the completeness of which would be intensified by the remembrance of past follies. 'l'hat is the truly prudent man who is always looking beneath the surface and beyond the present. 'l'o find an easy, ready-to-hand way out of present difficulties may be the surest way of making future difficulties altogether unmanngeable.-Y.
Ver. 13.-Sowing wheat and reaping thorns. It is true that" whatsoever I\ m:i.n eoweth that shall he also reap." It is also true that "men cannot gather grnpes uf Lhorns,'or figs of thistles." And at the same time it is emphatically true that meu IDRY S32 THE DOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [err. xn. 1-17.