tables were laid for members of his Imperial Majesty's suite, according to their official dignity. The rule was broken through on the occasion Castle,and dining a Comp. Ac. x. 14. b"Look one upon another as per sons under astonishment for the greatness of your calamities, and pining away or dying a lingering death through famine and other hardships."-Lowth. first to set a gloss "Ceremony was but devised at on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, recanting good ness, sorrow ere 'tis shown; but where there is true friendship, there needs none." Shakespeare. c Rosenmüller. that it was appointed to the Prophet Ezekiel as a part of his hard fare. But Rauwolf seems to have been of a different mind, or not so difficult to please; of this grain, says he, they bake very well-tasted bread and cakes, and some of them are rolled very thin, and laid together after the manner of a letter; they are about four inches broad, six long, and two thick, and of an ashen colour. The grain, however, is greatly inferior to wheat or barley, and by consequence must form a very inferior species of bread. 13-17. (13) defiled bread, i.e. unclean according to Levitical rules. (14) polluted, by infringement of the laws concerning the clean and the unclean. (15) cow's dung, which was commonly used: camel's dung makes the clearest fires. (16) break the staff, Le. xxvi. 26. (17) astonied, comp. ch. iii. 15. Fuel.-In consequence of the want of wood, camel's dung is used in the East for fuel. Shaw, in the preface to his Travels, where he gives a detailed description of the mode of travelling in the East, says that in consequence of the scarcity of wood, when they wanted to bake or boil anything, the camel's dung which had been left by a preceding caravan was their usual fuel, which, after having been exposed to the sun during three days, easily catches fire, and burns like charcoal. The following quotation from D'Arvieux serves still better to illustrate the text in which the Prophet is commanded to bake bread, or rather thin cakes of bread, upon cow-dung. "The second sort of bread is baked under ashes, or between two lumps of dried and lighted cowdung. This produces a slow fire, by which the dough is baked by degrees; this bread is as thick as our cakes. The crumb is good if eaten the same day, but the crust is black and burnt, and has a smoky taste from the fire in which the bread is baked. A person must be accustomed to the mode of life of the Bedouins. and very hungry, who can have any relish for it." We will also add what Niebuhr says in his description of Arabia. "The Arabs of the desert make use of an iron plate to bake their bread-cakes; or they lay a round lump of dough in hot coals of wood or camel's dung, and cover them entirely with it, till the bread in their opinion is quite done, when they take the ashes from it, and eat it warm." a Je. xlii. 18, xliv. 11-15. "Look, who comes here; a grave unto a soul, holding the eternal spirit, CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 1-4. (1) knife, or sword, symbol of the destruction of the inhab. of Jerus. by the sword of the Chaldæans. barber's razor, or a sword to use like a barber uses his razor. balances, to signify the exactness of Divine justice. (2) burn, to indicate the destruction of this proportion of the inhab. by famine and pestilence. smite.. knife, as a symbol of this proportion killed by the sword. scatter.. wind, to represent the captivity of the last third. (3) few, to represent those left in the land, Je. xl. breath. Shake-5, 6. skirts, or wings. (4) cast.. fire, to signify the calamity of even the few that were spared for a time.a against her will, in the vile prison of afflicted speare. "Memory, bane of the the The Scriptures a record of human sorrow.-The Bible, from the third of Genesis, is the history of a sorrowful race. This wicked, the home fact should teach us- -I. That sorrow is mightily present of the past, the in our world. Here is a book-1. The product of many lands and ages, expressing their sorrows; 2. Intended for all lands and times. This reflection should-(1) Stir our thought; (2) Cultivate our soberness; (3) Quicken our sympathies. II. Sorrow is present in this world because of sin. The Scriptures, as the record of human sorrow, teach-1. That sorrow is here because of sin; 2. As the penalty of sin; 3. As one means of purification from sin. mind's magnetic a La. iv. 6; Da. Israel, so there was to be a petion of God's wrath against culiar manifesta 5-9. (5) in the midst, with the intention that she should nected Himself hold forth My truth and claims before the nations. Notice the pecularly with locally central position of Palestine: esp. as between Egypt, Phoenicia, and Assyria. (6) change my judgments, into calamities. God's judgments are injunctions, but disobeyed they become woes. (7) multiplied, better, “raged tumultuously," in your self-will and rebellion. (8) execute judgments, comp. the commands God gives with the judgments He executes. (9) not done, comp. Mat. xxiv. 21.a Providence: the murderer and his singular wound.-A gentleman, who was very ill, sending for Dr. Lake, told him that he found he must die, and gave him the following account of his death. He had, about a fortnight before, been riding over Hounslow Heath, where several boys were playing at cricket. One of them, striking the ball, hit him just on the toe with it, looked him in the face, and ran away. His toe pained him extremely. As soon as he came to Brentford, he sent for a surgeon, who was for cutting it off. But unwilling to suffer that, he went on to London. When he arrived there, he immediately called another surgeon to examine it, who told him his foot must be cut off. But neither would he hear of this; and so, before the next day, the mortification seized his leg, and in a day or two more struck up into his body. Dr. Lake asked him whether he knew the boy that struck the ball. He answered, "About ten years ago, I was riding over Hounslow Heath, where an old man ran by my horse's side, begged me to relieve him, and said he was almost famished. I bade him begone. He kept up with me still, upon which I threatened to beat him. Finding that he took no notice of this, I drew my sword, and with one blow killed him. A boy about four years old, who was with him, screamed out his father was killed. His face I perfectly remember. That boy it was who struck the ball against me which is the cause of my death." sin in their case." -Fairbairn. "All the routes -both by land and water-wh. connected the three parts of the ancient world passed through The commerce bet. Palestine. Asia on the one, and Europe and Africa on the other hand, had cia and Philistra. its centre in the great mercantile cities of Phoeni Towards the S. the Arabah led to the Gulf of Elah, and the of Hero. Opolis, while towards the E. the ordiroad led to the neighbouring Euphrates, to the thence to the important countries Shephelah to that nary caravan Persian Gulf, and of Southern Asia. Even the highways wh. connected Asia and Palestine."-Biblical Things. b Cheever. Africa touched 10-13. (10) eat.. thee, Le. xxvi. 29; De. xxviii. 53; La. ii. 20, iv. 10. remnant.. scatter, fulfilled in the present condition of the remnant of the Jews; they are found in every land. (11) defiled, etc., 2 Chr. xxvi. 14. detestable things, i.e. idols. (12) third part, as in the symbol, v. 2. (13) fury to rest, or cease, when its purpose of punishment is completed. my zeal, or just regard for My honour and authority." Human wrecks.-Can anything be more sad than the wreck of a man? We mourn over the destruction of many noble things that have existed in the world. Men, when they hear of the old Phidian Jupiter, that sat forty feet high, carved of ivory and gold, and that was so magnificent, so transcendent, that all the ancient world counted him unhappy that died without having of ideas in this seen this most memorable statue that ever existed in the world, passage is a senoften mourn to think that its exceeding value led to its destruc-sible representa a "This is only a tion of the personality of God, in His actions." in His being and -Schroeder. O gentlemen, the time of life is short; to spend that shortness basely, were too long, if life did rile upon a dial's point, still ending at the arrival of an hour."Shakespeare. "He had learnt a most useful principle of life, which was, to lay which he could not help, and how great soever disappointments had fell out (if possible), to think of them no more, but to work on nothing to heart upon other affairs, and some, if not all, would be better natured."-Sir Dudley North. b Beecher. a Ex. xxiii. 29; De. xxxii. 24; 2 Ki. xvii. 25. "When the cholera rages, no one will go out while the sun is at its zenith, because it is believed that the demon of the pestilence is then actively engaged. The hot exhala tions of noonday are the chariots tion, and that it perished. It was a great loss to art that such a thing should perish. Can any man look upon the Acropolisshattered with balls, crumbled by the various influences of the elements, and utterly destroyed, and not mourn to think that such a stately temple, a temple so unparalleled in its exquisite symmetry and beauty, should be desolate and scattered? Can there be anything more melancholy than the destruction, not only of such temples as the Acropolis and the Parthenon, but of a whole city of temples and statues? More melancholy than the destruction of a statue, or a temple, or a city, or a nation, in its physical aspects, is the destruction of a man, the wreck of the understanding, the ruin of the moral feelings, the scattering all abroad of those elements of power that, united together, make man fitly the noblest creature that walks on the earth. Thousands and thousands of men make foreign pilgrimages to visit and mourn over fallen and destroyed cities of former grandeur and beauty; and yet, all round about every one of us, in every street, and in almost every neighbourhood, there are ruins more stupendous, more pitiful, and more heart-touching than that of any city. And how strange would be the wonder if, as men wandered in the Orient, there should come some one that should call from the mounds all the scattered ruins of Babylon, or build again Tadmor of the desert! How strange it would be to see a city, that at night was a waste heap, so restored that in the morning the light of the sun should flash from pinnacle, and tower, and wall, and roof! How marvellous would be that creative miracle! But more marvellous, ten thousand times, is that Divine touch by which a man, broken down and shattered, is raised up in his right mind, and made to sit, clothed, at the feet of Jesus." 14-17. (14) waste, etc., De. xxviii. 37. (15) instruction, they shall learn of God and His claims from such an example of judgment. (16) arrows, De. xxxii. 23. staff of bread, ch. iv. 16. (17) evil beasts, wh. soon multiply in a desolate and uninhabited country." Figurative use of the word "arrow."-The arrow, in this passage, means the pestilence. The Arabs thus denote it: "I desired to remove to a less contagious air. I received from Solyman, the emperor, this message: that the emperor wondered what I meant, in desiring to remove my habitation. Is not the pestilence God's arrow, which will always hit His mark. If God would visit me herewith, how could I avoid it? 'Is not the of the fiends. plague,' said he, in my own palace; and yet I do not think of The demons of removing.'" We find the same opinion expressed in Smith's remarks on the Turks. "What," say they, "is not the plague the dart of Almighty God, and can we escape the blow He levels at us? Is not His hand steady to hit the persons He aims at? Can we run out of His sight, and beyond His power?" So Herbert, speaking of Curroon, says, "That year his empire was so wounded with God's arrows of plague, pestilence, and famine, as this (thousand years before was never so terrible." darkness are said to have the most power at midnight."-Roberts. b Busbequius. c Burder. CHAPTER THE SIXTH. a Mentioned as the favourite seat of idol rites, just 1-4. (1) set thy face, as if directing thy message. (3) mountains, etc., Palestine was a hilly, though it can hardly be called a mountainous country. rivers, or ravines." as hill-tops were. (4) images, or sun-images, Le. xxvi. 30. slain.. idols, to show the manifest connection between idolatry and calamity, to put the idol-trusting to shame. and Preachers to be acquainted with human nature.-Michael Angelo, when painting an altar-piece in the conventual church, in Florence, in order that the figures might be as death-like as possible, obtained permission of the prior to have the coffins of the newly-buried opened and placed beside him during the night; an appalling expedient, but successful in enabling him to reproduce with terrible effect, not the mortal pallor only, but the very anatomy of death. If we would preach well to the souls of men, we must acquaint ourselves with their ruined state, must have their case always on our hearts both by night and day, must know the terrors of the Lord and the value of the soul, and feel a sacred sympathy with perishing sinners. There is no masterly, prevailing preaching without this." b 2 Chr. xxxiv. 4; Is. xvii. 8. We get life, as we lost it; both other independently of ourselves. "As in Adam all die, SO in the one and the even Christ shall all be made alive." c Spurgeon. xxiii. 14, 16. b "Importing that the judg ments God intended to bring upon the Jews, would make the most hardened and stupid sin ners sensible that this was God's hand."-Lowth. c Dr. H. Bonar. 5-7. (5) dead carcases, of those killed by famine and the a Comp. 2 Ki. sword. bones, said to intimate that no decent burial should be given to the dead bodies." (6) works, i.e. your idols, which are not gods, but the mere work of men's hands. (7) I.. Lord, by the display of My glory as the "All-powerful punisher of sin." False religion and its doom (v. 5).-Man says he wants sincerity and earnestness. What God asks is truth, the one religion which He has revealed. I. False religion: there is such a thing; it may be earnest and zealous, yet false. II. Its uselessness: it profits nobody, either here or hereafter; is not acceptable to God. III. Its hatefulness: God abhors it; it is outward. untrue, against His revelation; dishonouring, self-exalting. IV. Its doom: its condemnation is-1. Certain; 2. Utter; 3. Visible; 4. Expressive; 5. Contemptuous; 6. Everlasting. Apply :-(1) See that With love, the your religion is true; (2) Your worship real. The end is come fair and fertile (r. 5).-I. The end of the year. It should be a season-1. Of garden, with sunthanksgiving; 2. Of self-examination; 3. Of confession; 4. Of shine and warm devout contemplation. II. The end of life. It is the end of-ing sweet odours; hues, and exhal1. Our abode on earth; 2. Of our present enjoyments; 3. Our but without it, it present employments; 4. Our present sorrows: 5. Our present is a bleak desert connections; 6. Our present privileges. III. The end of the world. 1. It will be the close of time; 2. The introduction of an unalterable state of rewards and punishments; 3. It will be the epoch of Christ's glorious manifestation.< 8-10. (8) a remnant, Is. iv. 2; Je. xliv. 14. (9) remember me, when under the pressure of calamity, they would. in penitence, turn thought and heart to God. (9) broken, Je. xxiii. 9. The pass. may read, "I have broken their whorish heart," etc. (10) said in vain, i.e. without adequate cause, or full intention and power to execute. Conscience.-The following remarkable instance of the force of conscience occurred, in 1835, in the neighbourhood of London. heart becomes a covered ashes. d G. Brooks. with a Or made contrite. "When they that escape shall, in the land of their exile, remember Me, when they shall lonthethemselves for their sins-then at last their doom has not been in vain. the comforts of shall they know A lady, of about thirty-eight years of age, elegantly dressed, that I am the entered the shop of Mr. a respectable pastrycook, in a state Lord, and that My purpose in of great mental excitement, and inquired if Mr. were still pronouncing alive. On being answered in the affirmative, she, in the most earnest manner, begged to see him. Being engaged in superintending the making of some confectionery, he begged to be excused, and referred her to his daughter, who, he said, would wait upon her. The daughter immediately withdrew with her into the parlour, when, after sitting a few moments in silence, she burst into a flood of tears. When she became more composed, she stated that upwards of twenty years since she was a boarder at a highly respectable boarding school in that neighbourhood, which school Mr. had for nearly forty years supplied with pastry, etc., and while there, she was in the habit of abstracting small articles from his tray, unknown to the person who brought it. She had now been married some years, was the mother of six children, and in the possession of every comfort this world could afford; but still the remembrance of her youthful sin had so haunted her conscience, that she was never happy. Her husband, perceiving her unhappiness, had, after many fruitless endeavours, at last got possession of the cause, when he advised her, for the easement of her conscience, to see if Mr. were alive, and to make him or his family a recompense; and as she was going to leave London on the following day, perhaps for which it conveys ever, she had then come for that purpose. Mr., on being is greater than informed of the object of her visit, told her not to make herself the capacities of mortality can any longer unhappy, as she was not the only young lady who appreciate, had acted in that manner. After begging his forgiveness, mighty and un- which he most readily granted, she insisted on his acceptance of a sum of money, which, she said, she believed was about the value of the articles she had stolen; and after remaining about an hour, she departed, evidently much happier. a parched land; it will give him lively earuests and secret anticipations of approaching joy; it will bid his soul go out of the body undauntedly, and lift up his head with con fidence before saints and angels. The comfort speakable, and not to be under stood as it is felt." -Dr. South. b R. T. S. Eze. xxi. 17. b 11–14. (11) smite.. foot," gestures indicating deep concern Nu. xxiv. 10; at the wickedness of the people." "Call attention by acts of grief and consternation." (12) far off, i.e. out of reach of the perils of the siege. remaineth, in the city. (13) slain.. altars, vv. 4, 5. hill, etc., noted places for idolatrous worship. sweet savour, Heb. savour of rest, Ge. viii. 21. Applied to idol sacrifices in ivory." (14) Diblath, part of the desert to b "In indignation at the abominations of Israel, extend thine hand towards Judæa, as if about to 'strike' and 'stamp,' shaking off the dust with thy foot, in token of how God shall stretch out His hand upon them,' and tread them down."--Fausset. e Je. ii. 20; Ho. iv. 13. d Nu. xxxiii. 46 Je. xlviii. 22. "The name, in the modified form found on the con wards Moab.d 66 Note on v. 14.-"The land shall be utterly spoiled,-I will make the land more desolate than the wilderness." "The temples are thrown down; the palaces demolished; the ports filled up; the towns destroyed; and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, claims the same writer, seems a dreary burying-place." (Volney.) "Good God!" exfrom whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? For what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? Why are so many cities destroyed? Why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated?" "I wandered over the country; I traversed the provinces; I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumæa, of Jerusalem and Samaria. This Syria, said I to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. What are become of so many productions of the hands of man? What are become of those ages of abundance and of life?" etc. Seeking to be wise, men |