Hezekiah should recover. Some suppose that there was an actual disturbance of the earth's course; while others suppose that the shadow only went backward. In each case, the phenomenon is regarded as miraculous, and both would be equally easy to divine power. God only could perform or infallibly predict either.

There has also been a diversity of opinion in regard to the "degrees" mentioned in the narrative. Some suppose they were the graduated scale of a dial; but "there is no word in the text necessarily denoting such an instrument." Others suppose they were the steps of a staircase, so contrived as to point out the hour of the day by the shadow passing from step to step. Modern investigations render it probable that the Babylonians, in the time of Ahaz, made use of some kind of instruments for measuring time, and this prince, who seems to have been fond of introducing foreign novelties into his kingdom, may have borrowed the invention from them. There are various other conjectures of a similar kind in regard to the "degrees;" but none of them affect the main fact, that at the prayer of the prophet the shadow went backwards, through the distance stated in the history, so perceptibly as to be beyond dispute.

The warning of the prophet to Hezekiah on his sick-bed, may be pertinently addressed to every one of my readers, whatever their age and present cir

cumstances of health or disease. You know not the time nor the manner of your death. It may be sudden; no visitation of sickness, no flush of fever, no wasting consumption may admonish you to set your "house in order." Have you, then, let me ask, made all the preparation which is denoted in this phrase? Have you, by "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," which a life of piety has shown to be genuine, set your own soul in order to leave the world and enter on the scenes of a higher existence? You may have passed the years of childhood and youth; perhaps you have a family. Have you instructed them in the things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven as much as you would desire, if you did not expect another opportunity to teach them the way to eternal life? Have you not another prayer to offer for their conversion, and that you may all meet at last, "a happy family in heaven?" Have you nothing more to do for the welfare of your friends, for the social circle in which you move, for the neighborhood in which you reside, for the church with which you may be connected, for the honor of the Saviour whom you profess to regard more than all earthly good?

And if you are in mature life, let me ask, whether you have arranged your temporal concerns as you would wish them to be when you leave the world? Have you made such a disposition of the estate

which God has intrusted to your care as you should? Perhaps some are dependent on your bounty, for whose support you ought to provide, when your own hand can no longer minister to their wants. Have your wishes on this point been so expressed that they shall not fail of accomplishment? Start not back from such an inquiry. Let not a helpless child or a destitute friend suffer for many years through your foolish reluctance to make a will, as if it would shorten your days. If it brings your thoughts into closer companionship with death, it may better fit you for that event. Are your pecuniary affairs, your accounts, your transactions of every kind with your fellow-men, in such a condition that your memory will not suffer from your negligence? How often has suspicion or even blight rested on the character of men after their death, from want of a due adjustment of matters which, when on earth, they might have explained in perfect consistency with uprightness and honorable dealing.

If you are deficient in any of these respects, set your house in order; for it will be too late, should death stealthily hurry you away to that land where there is no work nor device."

CHAPTER XI.

BABYLONISH EMBASSY.

SUDDEN alternations from fear to hope sometimes cause melancholy changes in character, against which even good men need to be on their guard. It is not uncommon for persons who have been laid on sick-beds, and for many weeks been apparently on the borders of the grave, when restored to health, to be more worldly than they were before. They seem to aim at making up, by greater eagerness of pursuit, the time spent under the dominion of disease. Their business has suffered perhaps for want of their attention, and now they must give the more diligence to put it in order; their expenses have been greater than usual, and now they must cut off something from their charities to compensate for the loss; their pleasures have been suspended, and now they indulge in them with new zest; their intellectual employments have been interrupted, and now their minds are absorbed in closer and more prolonged thought to fill up the chasm. In these and various other ways, the soul itself, the calls of humanity, the claims of society, the interests of religion, are losers by that very discipline which God designs should make men more active and devoted in his service.

Twice had Hezekiah, within a short period, been the subject of alternations from fear to hope, which find scarcely a parallel in the annals of the world. To human view, on the point of perishing from the proud array of his enemies, he not only experiences a miraculous deliverance almost unexampled for suddenness and magnitude, but from those very hosts gathers abundance of prey. Again, just stepping into the grave and closing his eyes on all the scenes of earth, he is recalled to the land of the living and assured of a lease of life such as was never a second time given to any of our race. If then, in language which some have ascribed to his pen, he had with bursting heart cried out, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits?" no child of Adam ever had more reason for the inquiry. And when he declares, in the fresh sense of escape from danger, "I shall go softly all my days in the bitterness of my soul," who would expect gratitude and humility ever to desert the bosom of Hezekiah? But to implant these graces, and to preserve them in vigor, is the work of the Holy Spirit; and no circumstances, either of comfort or of wretchedness, of blessing or of chastisement, of hope or of fear, can originate or sustain them in the human soul.

Soon after these events, Hezekiah received an embassy from Merodach-baladan king of Babylon, to congratulate him on his recovery, and make inquiries respecting "the wonder done in the land,"