water of the beauty, in the Pride a great enemy to reason.-Pride is the greatest enemy midst of the blue to reason, and discretion the greatest opposite to pride; for while Mediterranean, wisdom makes art the ape of nature, pride makes nature the ape gives force to of art. The wise man shapes his apparel to his body; the proud the expression." man shapes his body by his apparel. 'Tis no marvel, then, if he -Spk. Com. know not himself, when he is not to-day like him he was yesterday; and less marvel if good men will not know him, when he forgets himself and all goodness. I should fear, while I thus See Dr. E. Ap-change my shape, lest my Maker should change His opinion, and, finding me not like him He made me, reject me as none of His making. I would any day put off the old cause of my apparel, but not every day put on new-fashioned apparel. I see great reason to be ashamed of my pride, but no reason to be proud of my shame.d c Da. i. 17, vi. 3. thorp, ii. 240. d A. Warwick. a "Thou shalt die by such a remarkable judgment God usually inflicts as 6-10. (6) Lord God, note that, in the use of this full name is given the assertion that Jehovah is the only God. (7) strangers, even the Babylonian army, made up of people from unknown regions. (8) the pit, or bottom of the sea. The upon notorious fig. of this v. is taken from a sea-fight. (9) a man, only a man, and so entirely in the power of the foe. You shall show no Divine powers in the time of trouble, so as to be able to deliver yourself. (10) uncircumcised, heathen idolaters as opposed to the covenant people." offenders."- Lowth. "In ways of this that greatness think on slippery all ambition is."-Herrick. "Towns turned to ashes, fanes involved in fire! These deeds the guilt of rash am bition tell." Fawkes. b Tupper. a Gesenius. Depth of pride. Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride mineth deeper; If thou expose it in thy motives, and track it in thy springs of Complacent in its own detection, it will seem indignant virtue ; 11-15. (11, 12) sealest .. sum, or completest the perfect pattern. "Thou art the sealer of a perfect structure."" "Thou art the (13) in Eden, ironically describing the king of Tyre as an consummation of Adam, a first of creation. sardius, etc., comp. Ex. xxviii. the model of 17-20, xxxix. 8, foll. tabrets, or drums. pipes, hollow perfection. The king of Tyre, tubes; the accompaniments of festive seasons. (14) anointed who was the head cherub," or "cherub of unction." covereth, as the cherub in the Tyrian the holy of holies overshadoweth the mercy-seat. The cherub completed and was a symbol of perfection. stones of fire, i.e. bright jewels, crowned its or- such as named v. 13. (15) perfect, to all appearance, and in ganisation, was thine own estimation. like a seal which gave perfection to it."-Wordsworth. of community, and Success of satire. Of all the ways that wisest men could find This great work must be more exactly made, And sharpest thoughts in smoothest words conveyed : As if their only business was to rail; But human frailty nicely to unfold, Rage you must hide, and prejudice lay down :- 16–19. (16) filled. . violence, swift prosperity often leads to violence, cheating, and extortion. In haste to be rich, virtue and charity are often put aside. as profane, no longer to be regarded as sacred. (17) brightness, or splendour, alluding to the luxuries wh. wealth encourages. lay.. kings, as an example of the end of presumptuous pride. (18) iniquity.. traffic, wh. had become dishonest and overreaching. (19) astonished, at thy ruin." Profanity. The crew of a vessel being at port after a very fatiguing day of labour, went on shore to get some refreshment. They were all sitting in one box, talking boisterously, when the eldest of them, remarking to one of the crew that he became worse in his habit of swearing, proposed a fine of one penny on every person who should be guilty of the same crime. This was received with approbation by them all, except the individual who had been reproved, and whose conduct led to the measure. He, however, said if they would excuse him that night, he would willingly join them on the morrow. He declared to his companions, that he would "have this evening's liberty." But God set the seal of death upon him. Shortly after this assertion he left his companions, and by them was seen no more in life. The crew having seen nothing of him the evening he had parted from them, nor the next day and night, they suspected that he must have fallen overboard when returning to the ship. A search was made for him, and in little more than a quarter of an hour his lifeless body was found. 20-23. (20, 21) Zidon," the neighbouring, but older Phoenician city. It was famous for its fishery, and increased in wealth after Tyre was humbled. (22) against thee, bec. of the idolatries wherewith the Zidonians had corrupted Israel. (23) pestilence, another agent used in executing the Divine vengeance on nations. Plague at Malta.-All the other miseries of mankind have no parallel to the calamities of the plague. The sympathy which relatives feel for the wounded and the dying in battle is but the shadow of that heartrending affliction inspired by the ravages of pestilence. Conceive in the same house the beholder, the sickening, and dying. To help is death! To refuse assistance is inhuman! It is like the shipwrecked mariner striving to rescue his drowning companion, and sinking with him into the same oblivious grave. In 1813, such was the virulence with which the plague raged at Malta, such the certain destruction which attended the slightest contact with the infected, that at last every better feeling of the heart was extinguished in a desire of self-preservation; and nobody could be procured to perform the melancholy offices which make up the funeral train of sickness and death. In this woeful emergency a band v. 31. J. C. Dieteric, Ant. 675. been, had the prosecutors been certain their lives would have been spared. I believe every thief will confess that he has been more than once seized and dismissed; and that he has tured upon capital crimes, because he knew he injured would rather connive at his escape than with the horrors sometimes ven that those whom cloud their minds of his death."Johnson. c Percy Anec. a "This transition from the enemies to the people of God is made to close the portion of the prophecies against the heathen, which concerns the nations in the of daring and ferocious Greeks came over to the island, and, "Free from plague, in danger's dread employ, 24-26. (24) pricking brier, "first ensnaring the Israelites to sin, and then being made the instrument of punishing them." See Nu. xxxiii. 55. (25) gathered.. scattered, here the Lord's mercy to Israel is set in contrast with His dealings with the surrounding nations." (26) build houses, Is. lxv. 21. The record of our lives.-With every turn of the turnstile on Waterloo Bridge a record is made against the gatekeeper, and he cannot recall or obliterate it. Every movement of the wind immediate vici- over Greenwich observatory, steady or capricious, fast or slow, is nity of the self-registered, with pencil and paper, by an apparatus communiIsraelites, 'them cating to a room below, in which blank paper is presented to that despise the pencil by clockwork, and these autobiographical memoirs about them, are carefully preserved. So constant and unerring is the record before passing to kept in the book of God's remembrance concerning all our actions, and even "every idle word that men shall speak (Matt. xii. 36). them round the more distant Egypt."-Spk. Com. a "The most Psammeticus, CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH. 1-7. (1) tenth year, i.e. of the captivity. Jerusalem had, powerful king of at this time, been besieged, but not taken. (2) Pharaoh, the Egypt next to common name of the Eg. kings. This was Hophra, or Apries, whose great in the Greek." (3) great dragon, Heb. tannim, prob. the grandson he was. crocodile, the chief creature of the Nile made a symbol of the He besieged and captured Gaza king. midst.. rivers, the royal city, Sais, was situated in the (Jer. xlvii. 1), Delta, among the many branches or streams of the Nile. river and attacked.. myself, the expression of Hophra's boastful pride. (4) Sidon, and enhooks, Job xli. 2. fish.. rivers, a fig. for the allies of Egypt. countered the king of Tyre in stick.. scales, a fig. for the fate of Hophra, whose subjects engagement revolted, and strangled him. (5) thrown, etc., this was the by sea, and re- fate of Hophra's army. (6) staff of reed, Is. xxxvi. 6. (7) the influence wh. break, and so utterly fail the Jews in the hour of their need. Eg. had lost since Plain preaching.-In the town of Goslar, in the Hartz Mounits defeat at Car-tains, there is in the principal square a fountain, evidently of buchadnezzar, in mediæval date, but the peculiarity of its construction is that no the fourth year one can reach the water so as to fill a bucket or even get a drink an covered much of chemish by Ne to quench his thirst. Both the jets, and the basin into which they fall, are above the reach of any man of ordinary stature; yet the fountain was intended to supply the public with water, and it fulfils its design by a method which we never saw in use before every person brings a spout or trough with him long enough to reach the top of the fountain and bring the water down into his pitcher. We are afraid that all our reverence for antiquity did not prevent the full exercise of our risible faculties ; sixpennyworth of mason's work with a chisel would have made the crystal stream available to all; but no, every one must bring a trough, or go away unsupplied. When preachers of the Gospel talk in so lofty a style that each hearer needs to bring a dictionary, they remind us of the absurd fountain of Goslar. The use of sixsyllabled jaw-breaking words is simply a most ludicrous vanity. A little labour on the part of such pedants would save a world of profitless toil to their hearers, and enable those uneducated persons who have no means of reaching the preacher's altitude to derive some measure of instruction from his ministry." The 8-12. (8) a sword, fig. for invasion of Chaldæan army.a (9) because, etc., i.e. it must be distinctly understood that the judgment will come upon him for his impiety and his insolence. (10) tower of Syene,' or modern Assouan, near to which are the First Cataracts. (11) forty years, an ideal number. terms of this verse indicate a period of national degradation, and should not be too literally pressed. (12) scatter, etc., "the scattering was to be mainly the dissipation of their power." The precision of prophetic language.-Wonderful precision in the accomplishment of prophecy may be noticed in the cases of Egypt (Ezek. xxix. 10, 15, xxx. 6, 12, 13), of Ethiopia (Nah. iii. 8-10), and other nations of antiquity. Indeed, so exactly does the history of the four great monarchies correspond with the prophecies of Daniel (ii. 39, 40, vii. 17-24, viii. and ix.) that the celebrated infidel Porphyry (A.D. 233-304) could only evade the force of their evidence by declaring, contrary to all evidence, that they were written long after the events, "which is as absurd as if any one should maintain that the works of Virgil were not written under Augustus, but after his time; for the Book of Daniel was as public, as widely dispersed, and as universally received as any book could ever possibly be." 13-16. (13) gather, etc., comp. Je. xlvi. 26. (14) land of Pathros, the Thebaid, or Upper Egypt.a base kingdom, in a depressed or low state: poss. meaning a tributary kingdom. (15) basest of kingdoms, travellers still attest the deplorable and debased state of this country." (16) confidence, etc., referring to the disposition to trust Egypt in the conflict with Nebuchadnezzar. look after, or seek aid from. whole of the country." a Ge. x. 14; Is. xi. 11. Egyptian splendours.-The great temple at Karnak has twelve principal entrances, each of which is composed of several propylae Horne. and colossal gateways, besides other buildings attached to them, in themselves larger than most other temples. One of the propyla is entirely of granite, adorned with the most finished hieroglyphics. On each side of many of them there have been colossal statues of basalt and granite, from twenty to thirty feet in height, some of which are in the attitude of sitting, while others are standing erect. A double range of colossal sphinxes 6" Upon its revolting from the Persians it was finally subdued by Ochus, the Persian emperor, and has been governed by strangers ever since."-Lowth. On the failure of the Persian empire, it be came subject to after them to the Romans, then to the Saracens, melukes, and it is now a province of the Turkish the Macedonians, then to the Ma empire."-Pri deaux. "Accurst ambi extends across the plain from the temple at Luxor (a distance of nearly two miles), which terminates at Karnak in a most magnificent gateway, fifty feet in height, which still remains unimpaired. From this gateway the great temple was approached by an avenue of fifty lofty columns, one of which only now remains, leading to a vast propylon in front of the portico. The interior of this portico presents a coup d'œil, which surpasses any other that is to be found among the remains of Egyptian architecture. Twelve columns, sixty feet high, and of a beautiful order, form an avenue through the centre of the building, like the nave of a Gothic cathedral, and they are flanked on each side by sixty smaller ones, ranged in six rows, which are seen through the intervals in endless perspective. The walls are covered with bas-reliefs of a similar character with those found in the other ancient Egyptian temples. Such is the mass of disjointed fragments collected together in these magnificent relics of ancient art, that more than human power would appear to have caused the overthrow of the strongholds of superstition. Some have imagined that the ruin was caused by the instantaneous concussion of an earthquake. Whether this conjecture be well founded or erroneous, the Divine predictions against Egypt have been literally accomplished. "The land of Egypt" has been made "desolate and waste;" "judgments" have been executed "in No," whose "multitude" has been "cut off ;" and No is rent asunder.c 17-21. (17) seven and twentieth, see v. 1. This is a later prophecy, inserted here to show that Nebuchadnezzar would of the soldiers fulfil the previous threatenings on Egypt. (18) serve, etc., not became bald with merely to carry out a great undertaking, but to fulfil a Divine continual wear-commission against Tyre. It was a long and exhausting siege of ing their helmets, and thirteen years. head.. peeled, figs. to express the hard service skin was worn off of the soldiers." no wages, bec. the inhabitants succeeded in their shoulders removing their treasures to New Tyre, half a mile distant from with carrying the shore. (19) give.. Egypt, compensating Nebuc. with the mounts and forti- spoils of Egypt. (20) his labour, i.c. as the hire for his labour fications against in the siege of Tyre. for me, as agents in fulfilling My purposes. (21) that day, of Egypt's overthrow. horn, Ps. cxxxii. 17.6 opening, etc., i.e. freedom to speak. tion, how dearly have I bought you!"-Dryden. c Horne. a "Till the heads earth the to raise it."-Lowth. b 1 Sa. ii. 1; Job xvi. 15. "When thy pre dictions shall have come to pass, thy words shall be more Jay, ix. 429; d W. Jay. "The Service done for God rewarded (vv. 17-20).-These words furnish us with three reflections. I. The disposal of states and nations is the work of Divine providence. II. That men may serve God really, when they do not serve Him by design. III. We shall never be losers by anything we do for God.d Uncovering the head.-"During the war which happened about eight years ago between the Towara and the Maazy Bedouins, who live in the mountains between Cairo and Cosseir, a party of the former happened to be stationed here with their families. They were surprised one morning by a troop of their enemies, while assembled in the sheikh's tent to drink coffee. Seven or eight of them were cut down the sheikh himself, an old man, eaglewinged pride of seeing escape impossible, sat down by the fire; when the leader sky-aspiring and of the Maazy came up, and cried out to him to throw down his ambitions turban, and his life should be spared. The generous sheikh, thoughts."Shakespeare. rather than do what, according to Bedouin notions, would have stained his reputation ever after, exclaimed, 'I shall not uncover e Burckhardt's my head before my enemies;' and was immediately killed with the thrust of a lance." Travels in Syria. |