there. The mention of these two great historic names lifts Jeremiah in the esteem of God to something like a level with them.-Y. Ver. 10.-The man who felt he had been bO'l'n to strife and rontention. 'l.'hese wor<ls of the prophet are not, of course, to be taken too literally. They are the language of excited feeling and of poetry, and would not be permissible as a prosaic statement to which the -man who makes it may be expected deliberately to adhere. 'l'he proper way of regarding the words is to take them as vividly indicating a position which no words could sufficiently describe. Jeremiah sometimes felt himself so hated and so isolated that there seemed but one way of accounting for his experience, and that was that he had been born to it. We know, indeed, that the truth was far otherwise (see eh. i. 5). There we.see how Jehovah himself reckoned Jeremiah to have come into this earthly existence, not for suffering, but for a career of noble and useful action, which, rightly considered, was a high privilege. Bot a man who is constantly suffering from the sin of his fellow-men in all its shapes and all its degrees, cannot be always looking at the bright side and speaking in harmony with such a view. I. A SERVANT OF Goo HAY RAVE TO LIVE A LIFE OF INCESSANT CONFLICT. Jercmiah's case appears to have been an extreme one, and yet the history of the Church shows that a company by no means few might be reckoned as companions in his peculiar tribulation. It is not for us ;to say how far our lives shall be marked by external con- flict. We must not seek conflict; but we must be ready for it if it comes. God gives to every one who is willing to be his servant a way in which to walk, a way which docs not infringe on a single real right of a single human being. From beginning to en,l that way may be trodden, not only without injury to others, but with positive benefit to them. At the same time, nothing is more possible than that treading in such a way may expose him who striveJ to walk in it to all the various forms which, according to circumstances or opportunity, opposition may take. And therefore, when we are begin- ning to feel our way to the carrying out of God's will, we must lay our account with opposition. How much of it may come, how far it may go, how long it may last, we cannot tell ; and as we must not provoke it through mere exuberance of energy, so neither must we avoid it for the sake of a temporary peace which is really no peace. If opposition comes-even intense opposition-to the truth faithfully proclaimed, this only shows that the trut.h has proved itself an arrow, striking home and making its wound, 'whatevPr the ultimate consequence of that wound may be. II. THE MESSAGE OF Goo IS NOT THE ONLY CAUSE OF STRIFE A.ND CONTENTIO::<r. Jeremiah was reckoned as a troubler of Israel, and so in one seuse he was; but Israel could only have been troubled by him because, first of all, it was in a condition which admitted of commotion. The wind troubles the waters and raises the waves into destructive fury; but this is just because they are in a condition easily acted on. 'l'he prophet, however, has another answer, an answer which served to show how much ho marvelled 'at the universality and intensity of the opposition with which ho was met. He is far from being the only troubler of Israel. Suppose he becolllcs silent; strife allll contention would not therefore cease. When he comes in with his reproofs, wamings, nnd thrcatenings, it is not upon a scene hithrirto tranquil and hrmnonious that ho enters. He finds abundance of quarrelling alreatly, and one fertile source of the quarrelling lies in the relations between borrower and lender. They may coase their strife, and join their forces for a little while against the prophet ,vho is thoir common enemy; but their mutua\ exasperation is not forgotten, their quarrel is by no mean~ composed. They will return to it with as much bitterness as ever. The prophet, it will be noticed, speaks as if the hostility to him was a marvel. God has son t him to these men for their good; ho has come to turn their stops from the way leading to destruction; and yet, because he tells them Lhe truth, ho has become their enemy. \V c sec that his faith in human nature, as ensily knowing its own best interests, is hard to shake. He docs not at all wonder that the borrower should hate the rapacious lender :rnd the lender hate the defaulting borrower; but there is a deep mystery when the man who comes to warn of danger is hated for his message, and hated all the more ju~t as he becomes more earnest and persistent in the utterance of it. llf. WE BEE THE PROPIIET'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE PUnITY 01' ms OWN MOTIVES. Ho Is s:iro that in him thcro is no rcaseu for host iii ty. lie hall dci'raudcd nouc; lie luttl THE BOOK OF 'l'HE l'ROPHE'l' JEREMIAH. [cl!. xv. l~'.!L
oppressed none. With all his complainings here, it was well that he hud no cause for self-reproach. Difficulties we must ever expect from that action of others which we cannot control; but let them not be increased needlessly by our own selfishness, obsti- nacy, and arrogance.-Y.