I. Orphanaqb and widowhood involve overwhelming borrow. The mournful condition of the sufferers is the first thi ng to strike us. Their sorrow is keen because it concerns a nearest and dearest relative, and it ia the more dreadful because it strikes a whole family. Moreover, the trouiUe is not simply one of affection. The bread- winner is lost. The prop and strengtii of the household is cut down. The protector of the helpless is removed. The guide and counsellor of the young is no more.
II. Orphanage and widowhood show us the broken oharactee op human life. There is a oneness iu a true family. All the members together constitute a unit. But when death claims the head the family is broken and its completeness destroyed. Then part is on earth and part in the other world. The widow and her children tiius
OH. V. 1—22.] THE LAMENTATIONS OP JEREMIAH. 83
bear testimony to the imperfection of earth, to the transitoriness of what once seemed perfect, and to the need of a future life wherein the severed threads may be reunited and the Divine idea of the family realized.
m. Obphanage and widowhood abb undeb the especial cabe of Qod. He is the "Father of the fatherless and the Judge of the widow" (Ps. Ixviii. 5). If God sends exceptional trouble, he also feels exceptional compassion and gives exceptional aid. Helplessness is the greatest claim on the Divine pity. The heavier the need of any sufferers the more likely is it that God will come to their deliverance. It is true that he may not restore lost comforts. A shadow, long and dark, may long lie across the path of orphans and widows. But unseen hands will be tending them, if not for their wealth and pleasure, yet for their peace and blessedness. God sometimes helps by raising up friends. He may also aid by rousing the faculties of the sufferers. Under the pressure of necessity a widow, left with the care of a family, may develop capacities that slumbered in neglect so long as they were not called for.
IV. Obphanage and widowhood have a fiest claiu on Chbistian ohabity. Where God's compassion is strongest ours should be also. If the trouble is great and the sufferers have not brought it upon themselves by their own folly or fault, the sym- pathy should be particularly large and active. The care of widows and orphans was one of the first characteristics of the Church, distinguishing it from the selfish indif- ference of paganism. With all our desire for the spiritual welfare of men, and all our zeal in preaching the gospel, this elementary duty of Christianity must have a first place in our energies if we would not be justly accounted hypocrites.
Ver. 7. — Children suffering /or the sins of their parents. I. It is A. vaot that OHTiiDBEN DO BUFFEB FOB THE SINS OF THEiB PABENTS. It was apparent in the times of the Captivity; for owing to Josiah's reformation the moral condition of the nation then was better than it had been a generation or so before ; yet the blow, which was caused by the greater guilt of the fathers, fell upon the children. It may often be observed in history that the greatest catastrophes do not fall on the most guilty, but on their successors, who are often better men. Thus James II. was a better man than Charles II., though the Stuart dynasty ended in the younger brother ; and Louis XVI. was com- paratively innocent, and yet he had to suffer for the vices of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. In private life, poverty, disease, and disgrace are inherited by children from their parents. Now, it is a sign of the robust truthfulness of the Bible that this dark fact is distinctly recognized. There is no attempt to shun it because it is mysterious. We have in the Bible an honest, brave confronting of the evils of life, and not a system which is only beautiful to contemplate in idea and which cannot be squared with facts.
II. Tms FACT IB A WABNINQ TO PABENTS. The sclfishness that incurs disastrous consequences on a man's family is too often ignored if those consequences are not immediately apparent. But it should be exposed and reprobated. Thus the intem- perate man is sometimes regarded as a kind and good-natured man because he displays no malice of temper. Surely his cruelty in impoverishing his household and risking the health of his children should be considered a gross sin. If a man will not hold his hand for his own soul's sake, let him consider how he will wreck his family and ruin innocent sons and daughters before he yields to temptation.
IIL This fact should not shake our faith in G(od. 1. Men in all ages have faced it clearly and yet have retained their trust in Providence, e.g. the writers of the Bible. 2. The very idea of faith implies that we must confide and wait in the darkness where we cannot understand. 3. The necessary greatness of the scheme of the govern- ment of a world should lead us to expect mysteries in it. ~
IV. This fact should help us to understand part of the Divine idea of life. It is a sorrowful sight — innocent little children plunged into poverty and distress through no fault of their own, solely on account of the sins of those who should be their greatest benefactors! But it shows us that God does not treat us as isolated units. He takes notice of families as such. There is a " solidarity " of mankind. Everywhere we see the innocent suffering with the guilty. Social and domestic life are under providential care. And it may be best for the world as a whole that the several societies and collective bodies of which it consists should be governed with blessing and discipline than that each individual should receive only his own private grace and
«4 THE LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH. Coh. v. 1— 22i
judgment. Moreover, if this is the case, inasmuch as the individuals profit by th« corporate life and prosperity, this treatment by families and cities aJ»d nations may turn out in the long run to be the best for the separate persona.
Ver. 19. — Contolation in the supremacy of Ood. The Divine supremacy is oflen regarded as a topic of dread rather than as one of comfort. The awful throne towers •bove poor humanity, sublime and majestic, and men turn from it to seek refuge at the humbler footstool of mercy. But the writer of this elegy finds deep satisfaction in contemplating the supreme and eternal government of God.