that is to happen to-morrow, or the day after, or the next week, or the next month or year, or thousands and millions of years to come. He knows just as well what is yet to happen, as what has already happened.

All this, that I have told you about the knowledge of God, can be put into one word-omniscience. Instead of saying, God knows all things that have been, that now are, or that will ever be, it means exactly the same thing, to say, that GOD IS OMNIS

CIENT.

If God is omniscient, and knows every thing that is to happen, long before it happens; then he can tell any person, if he chooses to do so, what will happen at any future time. He can cause such a person to hear a voice from the sky, telling him what is to happen. Or he can cause the person to see what is to happen, just as we see things often in a dream. Or he can cause the person to think what is to happen, and to know certainly that it will happen. Or he can do all this in some other way which we cannot understand; just as God does a great many wonderful things, which we cannot understand. For the wisest men do not understand how it is that God makes the corn grow out of some few little kernels that are put into the ground; or how the food that you eat is turned into flesh, and blood, and hard bone, and helps you to live, and to grow up, to be men and women.

Now, if God in some way should tell, or show a person something which is to happen, and how it is

to happen, and when it is to happen; or cause him to think about it, and know about it, certainly, so as not to be mistaken in the least; that person would foreknow the thing which is to happen, or he would have the foreknowledge of it. And if this person should tell other people that the thing would certainly happen, in such a way, and at such a time, he would be a prophet. He would foretell, or prophesy, the thing which was to happen. And when it did happen exactly as he had prophesied, the people would say that he was a true prophet.

There are no such prophets now. God does not think it best that there should be. But, a great many years ago there were such prophets among the Jews; and God made known to them things that were to happen, which they told the people long before they did happen. When you grow older, you will understand more about this; and you will read the prophecies in the Bible, and wonder to see how exactly the prophets foretold what afterward came to pass.

The exact coming to pass, or, what means the same thing, the fulfillment of these prophecies, shows us that the Bible is true, and that God really told good men how to write it. For if God had not given them the foreknowledge of what was to happen, how could they have foretold, or prophesied it. The prophecies which they wrote have come to pass; and therefore we know that these prophecies came from God himself; and so we believe that the Bible, which contains these prophecies, came from God

himself, and that he told good men how to write it. The prophets among the Jews were, also, teachers of the people, and explained to them what God wished them to be taught about himself, and what he wished them to believe. and to do. They were like the clergymen, or ministers, who now preach to the people; only those who preach now, learn from the Bible alone, what God wishes them to say to the people; but the prophets were often taught by God himself what he wished to be told to the Jews. And the Jews were bound to believe and obey the things told them by the prophets, just as much as if they had heard God himself speaking to them from heaven.

The prophets among the Jews had great influence. The kings often used to ask them what it was best to do, and followed their advice. Nathan the prophet went to king David, and was not afraid to reprove him very severely for his wickedness. They were poor men, and often worked very hard. Their dress was quite plain. Elijah, one of the prophets, was clothed with skins, and wore a leathern girdle round his body. Their food, too, was plain. The presents which the people gave them, were only bread, fruits and honey. When Elisha, another of the prophets, was about to prepare food for a number of young men whom he taught, and some of whom were to be prophets, he sent a man out into the field to gather herbs to boil. The man found some gourds on a wild vine, and brought them, and put them into the pot; and, with some meal, a kind of soup was made, of which they all ate. And when Elijah was about to go on a long

journey, an angel gave him only bread and water to strengthen him. Thus you see, these good men were › temperate in all things; and if we act wisely, we shall be temperate also.

Among the Jews, there were schools of the prophets, where young men were taught about God and his laws. They were also taught to sing psalms, and to play on musical instruments; for the prophets sometimes prophesied, playing on harps and other kinds of musical instruments.

The governor and teacher of each of these schools was an aged and wise prophet, who was called the father, and the young men were called the sons of the prophets; and they lived together in one house, and ate together at the same table.

From among these sons of the prophets, God chose some, after they had been at the schools long enough, to become prophets themselves; to tell the kings, and the people, what God wished to have them do, and to foretell things that were to come to pass.

Fathers and mothers among the Jews, who loved and obeyed God, were very glad to have their sons go to these schools, where they could receive such excellent instruction and advice from the old prophets. And many of these young men must have felt that it was good for them to be there.

Think, my dear children, how good God is, in providing schools for you, and especially the Sabbath schools; in which you can be taught about God and his Son Jesus Christ, and the Bible; and what you must believe, and feel, and do, that you may grow up

to do good, and, be useful in this world-and to be perfectly good and happy, in heaven, for ever.

CHAPTER II.

Birth-place of Jonah. His call to go to Nineveh. Description of the city. Its great wickedness.

THE reason why I have said so much about the prophets among the Jews, is, that my young readers may understand the better who Jonah was, whose history I am going to tell them. For Jonah was a prophet, and probably, when a young man, lived for some time at one of the schools of the prophets which I have described.

The name of Jonah's father was Amittai. We do not know any thing about him or his family, only that they lived at Gath-hepher, a small town in Galilee. Galilee was that part of Palestine in which Jesus Christ lived while he was growing up; and Nazareth, the town where he lived with his mother Mary and her husband Joseph, was but a few miles from Gath-hepher, the birth-place of Jonah.

You must get some one to show you these places on a map of Palestine, and then you will understand better where they were.

The first place in the Bible in which we read about Jonah, is in the fourteenth chapter of the second book of Kings, at the twenty-fifth verse. There we find that God had spoken to the Israelites by his prophet Jonah, and told them that they should drive