the plague-stricken people,'' says n. modern author, "is shocking, but it is not more than what actually occurs" (see Defoe's 'Plague of London '). Kingsley says," What so terrible as war? I will tell you what is ten times and ten thousand times more terrible than war, and that is outraged nature. Natnre, insidious, inexpensive, silent, sends no roar of cannon, no glitter of arms, to do her work; she gives no warning note of preparation. . . . Man has his conrtesies of war and his chivalries of war; he does not strike the unarmed man; he spares the woman and the child. But Nature . . . spares neither woman nor child . . . silently she strikes the sleeping child with as tittle remorse RB she would strike the strong man with the musket or the pick-axe in his hand." One could scarcely i::nagine a more revolting condition of humanity than is here presented-a' living ~keleton, nearly all the flesh gone, the eyes all but blotted out, the tongue withered. Physical disease has ever been one of the instruments by which God has punished men in this world-pestilences, plagues, epidemics, and so on. But it is not merely a plague amongst the people, but also amongst the cattle, as we see in ver. 15. "And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in these tents, as this plague." These words remind us of Byron's description of the destruction of Sennacherib's host. "And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating sun." II. MUTUAL ANIMOSITY. "Aud it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour." The idea is, perhaps, that God would permit such circum- stances to spring up amongst them as would generate in their minds mutual misunder- standings, malignities, quarrellings, and battlings. "They shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour." "Every man's sword shall be against his brother." All the jealousies, envyings, contentions, that are rife in society may be regarded as the means by which sin is punished. Sin punishes sin, bad passions not only work misery, but are in themselves miseries. III. TEMPORAL LOSSES. "And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem." Not against Jerusalem. "And the wealth of all the heathen round about shall be gathered together, gold, a!lli silver, and apparel, in abundance." Earthly property men in their unrenewed state have always valued as the highest good. To att.ain it they devote all their powers with an unquenchable enthusiasm, and to hold it they are ever on the alert, and their grasp is unrelaxable and firm. To have it snatched from them L among their greatest calamities; and how often this occurs in society I By what we call accidents, by a commercial panic, legal flaws, chicaneries, and frauds, rich men frequently are deprived of their wealth, men who are born in palaces often die in a pauper's hovel. "Riches take to themselves wings, and fly away." This is another way in which Heaven punishes sin. UoNoLUSION. See those elements of retribution working everywhere around us. They have worked through all history. Because they are common we do not note them as we ought. We connect them not with the Justice that reigns over the universe. Albeit they are penal forces.-D. 'l'.
Vers. 16-19.-The public worship of Jehovah. "And it shall come to pass," etc. Two remarks are suggested here concerning the public worship of Jehovah. I. IT IS A DUTY BINDING ON ALL PEOPLE. "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and t-0 keep the Feast of Taber- nacles." "Keil thinks the Feast of Tabernacles is mentioned because it was a feast of thanksgiving for the gracious protection of Israel, in its wanderings through the desert, and its introduction into the land flowing with milk and honey, whereby it foreshadows the blessedness to be enjoyed in the kingdom of God. But in rejecting Koehler's observation that there is a reference to the feast as a harvest thanksgiving, he over- looks the fact that, if this harvest reference is not recognized, the punishment threoteneu in the next verse, the absence of rain, loses its appropriateness. The Feast of Tobernacl~s 172 THE BOOK OF ZECHARIAH. [oH. xtv. 1-21,