hea!t,h, or_ wealth, or influence, or opportunities of doing or getting good, we must all one day g1'"c an exact account. V. ComUIPTION OOMPLETED. A tree may lose it.a lee.ves, but a following spring will restore them; it may lose some of its branches in the proceea of pruning, but this will not prevent it growing agiiin. Yea, "there is hope of a tree, if lt be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cense. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring fo1th boughs like a plant." So long as the root retains life, there is hope of the tree ; but once the root is dried up and dead, ruin is ine~ita.ble. Thus Ephraim WJS smitten; thus many are smitten in just judgrnent from the Almighty. When the root is thus dried up, there can be no hope of fruit. If men will bea.r fruit to the world, or sin, or self, and not unto God, it is only just they should be left fruitless. If men will not bring up their children for God, training them in the nurture a.nd admonition of the Lord, is it strange they should be left childless? • VI. CASTAWAYS AMONG THE NATIONS. This is the condition in which Israel remains till the present day. They cast a.way the truth of God, and now they are cast away. They rejected the Son; for he came to his own realms, and his subjects received him not; now they are outcast. Note the cause: "Because they did not hearken unto him.• This was regarded by Luther as a. notable statement, and worthy to be written on all our walls. How often we find men hearkening to the counsels of the wicked, or to the suggestions of worldly policy, or to the temptations of the evil one, or to their O'\'l'.n lusts a.nd passions, bnt not to God I Let men beware of refusing to give audience to God. Let them beware of acting as if they did not hear with the ea.r, nor understand with the heart. Every Jew one meets is a warning of the danger of not hearkening to God. While every Jew is a living monument to the truth of Scripture, be is at the same time a proof of the calamity incurred by not hearkening to <Jod. 3. It la here predicted that they should be wanderers among the nations. 'l'he fulfilment of the prediction may be expressed in the sadly truthful words of the Hebrew melody- " Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, How shall ye flee away a.nd be at rest I The wild dove ha.th her nest, the fox his oave,-, Mankind their country ; Israel but the grave 1•
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-9.-The .Assyrian ooptivity. Israel bad courted the favour of Assyria; but the result would be her absorption and destruction as a nation. In this and. the suc- ceedinJ? chapter, notwithstanding acknowledged difficulties of interpretation, the distresses of the Exile are depicted with telling effect. L THE PROPHET'S INTERDICT AGAINST ISRAEL. (Ver. 1.) Hosea., as it were, appears suddenly among the people when they are preparing to hold some joyous festival, and sternly forbids it in Jehovah's Name. ' He is constrained by the burden of the Lord to act the unwelcome part of "the skeleton of the feast." He tells Israel that, in view of the dread realities of her position as a nation, this was no time for gladness. To ignore the facts would not obliterate them. 'l'o rejoice exultingly just now, merely because she had obtained a. plentiful harvest, or secured some temporary relief from her political troubles was to a.et with the folly of the ostrich, which thrusts her head into the sand, and tbi;ks that all is well because she does not see her pursuers. If it is "better" for all men "to go to the house of mourning than to go to_ ~be house of feasting," it would be especially advantageous at present for the Israehttsh people to do so. For tho condition of the nation was extremely insecure. The prosperity in which they were rejoicinu was l,ollow1 and it would be evanescent. II. 'IBE GROUND 0F THE INTERDICT. 'l'his is unfolded in the body of the passage. It is twofold. 1. Israel's extreme sinfulness. (Vere. !, 7, 9.) "Other people," i.e. heathen nations, might more readily be excused for holding festivals of rapturoutf joy; for, not havin"' the knowlerlge of God, they could not perceive how far they had trans- gressed LiH La;,, But Israel had sinned against abnndaut light, and in spite of continual Oil, IX, 1-17.] THE BOOK OF HOSEA. 285