people with the great and solid truths of religion, and to urge them to thorough self-searching and to radical repentance of all sins of the heart as well as of the life. In this line of effort, we shall see that the messages sent of the Lord by Jeremiah during this period were admirably well adapted for effect, and if duly heeded, would have been most wholesome in their influence.After the death of Josiah, our prophet soon began to have new experiences. Previously he had been amply protected in his person and powerfully sustained by the king and his court. Subsequently, there came a new order of things. Four kings fill the period between Josiah's death (B. C. 611) and the fall of the kingdom (B. C. 588). Three of them were sons of Josiah, and one, his grandson; but not one of them bears any other record than that of "doing evil in the sight of the Lord.”- -Of the four sons of Josiah, the eldest, Johanan, probably died either before or with his father. He does not appear later. His third son, Jehoahaz, was put on the throne first, and by the people, probably because he stood higher in their esteem than Jehoiakim, the second in age. He represented the Chaldean party, following the policy of his father, who fell in an attempt to withstand the Egyptian king then on his march against the Chaldeans. Pharaoh Necho, returning from his northern expedition, deposed the young king of Judah after a reign of but three months, and took him captive to Egypt, where he died. Necho placed his elder brother Jehoiakim on the throne, where he reigned eleven years-one of the meanest and wickedest kings that ever disgraced that throne. A very considerable portion of Jeremiah's prophecies fall within this reign-many of them about his fourth year, when the first serious invasion by the Chaldean forces occurred and the first large deportation of captives. Jehoiakim represented the Egyptian party; was always averse to Jeremiah's exhortations from the Lord to yield to the Chaldean power, and hence stood opposed to the prophet on political as well as religious grounds. Consequently he permitted and even instigated a rancorous persecution against Jeremiah, from which the latter more than once barely escaped with his life. This was the prophet's time of sternest trial.- -After a reign of eleven years, Jehoiakim was taken in chains to Babylon, and his son Jehoiachin (otherwise called Jeconiah and Coniah) was enthroned in his stead. Three months of wicked misrule and of treachery against the Chaldean

king ended his reign, and he went a prisoner to Babylon, where he was imprisoned at least thirty-seven years, i. e., till the death of Nebuchadnezzar, and till his son and successor, Evil-merodach, under a new policy, brought him forth from prison and kept him at his own table the rest of his life. (See Jer. 52: 31-34.) This captivity became a somewhat prominent fact in Jewish history. Ezekiel, a fellow captive, makes it an epoch for the date of his prophecies. The Jews seem to have long cherished the hope of his return to their throne. The notices of him in the apocrypha, and through the channel of Jewish tradition, encourage the hope that he became a better man for his life-long affliction. But his record as it appears in Jeremiah, during his three months' reign, is only that of a mean and intensely wicked king.- -After him came Zedekiah, yet another and the youngest son of the good Josiah, but doing only evil against the Lord throughout his reign of eleven years. He was weak as well as wicked, and perhaps the less wicked in the sight of God for his weakness. He would have protected Jeremiah more if he had dared, or if he had been manly enough to assert his rights as king. He lived to see the great city seized by the Chaldeans, the nation ruined, and his sons slain. His own eyes were then put out and himself taken in chains to Babylon, to die dishonored there. Jeremiah delivered to him many messages from the Lord; suffered severe persecution during his reign; made earnest but unavailing efforts to withstand the growing corruption of both court and people, and to induce repentance toward God, or at least quiet submission to the inevitable and divinely-ordained supremacy of the Chaldeans, but was baffled in every endeavor.Such is the disheartening story of Jeremiah's labors and protests during these twenty-three years from the death of Josiah to the utter overthrow of the city and kingdom. Within his public life fall the dates of Zephaniah and Habakkuk; the former within the reign of Josiah; the latter apparently in the first years of Jehoiakim, shortly before the first invasion from the fierce and terrible Chaldeans. How much personal acquaintance existed between them does not appear, nor is it apparent whether these two prophets shared in the persecution which fell so heavily on Jeremiah. There is no evidence that they did.- -The record of Jeremiah notes the case of one Urijah (26: 20-23) who prophesied like Jeremiah against the holy city; was sought for to be put to death; fled for safety to Egypt; was

pursued vindictively by Jehoiakim, brought back and put to a martyr's death. His case testifies to the rancor of the king and his chieftains against the Lord's faithful prophets, shows what Jeremiah had to face and to fear, and that nothing short of God's special providence preserved his life. It suggests also that no other faithful prophets (such as Zephaniah and Habakkuk) were testifying for the Lord against the sins of the people during the latter years of Jehoiakim and the reign of Zedekiah. Jeremiah survived the fall of the city and kingdom. His sympathies went with the better part of the people into their exile in Babylon, but he neither accompanied nor followed them in person. Twice he wrote them in a very encouraging and friendly strain, but either through his own convictions of duty, or through the special direction of the Lord, he cast in his lot with the poor remnant who remained a short time in the land, and ultimately, against his earnest protest, went to Egypt to perish there. Nebuchadnezzar befriended him in a most decided manner, and if he had gone to Babylon, his lot would apparently have been as pleasant as that of a captive with his captive brethren well could be, but Jeremiah manifestly sought not his own but the things of his great Master. Hence, in the footsteps of the greater "Man of sorrows," he followed the remnant who had no shepherd and no heart to heed one, and filled out his remaining days among an ungrateful, disobedient, and unappreciative people. Beyond this exile to Egypt and these thankless labors to call back to God the lowest, weakest, and wickedest portion of the Jewish people, we hear of him no more. Did he die in peace, or under the unceasing vengeance of persecution in Egypt, or elsewhere, no record lives to witness. Perhaps, in the spirit of his own admonition to his faithful Baruch, "Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not," he put his seal on the lips of his friends and suffered them to bear no testimony to his death. He had given his patient, suffering, weeping life for God, and then looked trustfully to him alone for his reward.

The dates of his several prophecies are usually given; yet, in some cases, the indications of time and circumstance are so dim as to occasion considerable diversity of opinion among critics. But the order of their arrangement in the book is very peculiar. To a considerable extent, it is chronological; and yet there are several entire departures from this principle. By what law this order of

arrangement was determined, it would be quite difficult to say. It is, however, very obvious that Jeremiah's condition and circumstances were altogether unfavorable for the careful and methodical arrangement of his distinct prophecies. It appears that at first, and for some time, his prophecies were merely oral, and not written out. Then (chap. 30: 1-3, and 36: 1-4) the Lord directed him to write them in a book; and Baruch became his amanuensis for this purpose, and wrote down from his lips up to that time all that the Lord wished to preserve. But the first copy passed into the hands of king Jehoiakim, who defiantly cut it up with his penknife, and burnt it in his parlor fire (36: 22, 23). Then, by the Lord's direction, these prophecies were re-written, with the addition of "many like words." This copy seems to have been preserved (36: 32). It is not clear that the order of arrangement in which they have come down to us is specially due to the hand of Jeremiah. Nor is it a matter of special consequence. There is no reason to question their genuineness no doubt that these are precisely the prophecies of Jeremiah, whose standing as a true and faithful prophet of Jehovah lacks no indorsement from our divine Lord and his apostles, nor from Jewish tradition, nor from the incidental corroboration of profane history. Nothing is lacking which can be deemed important to their most abundant sanction.

Criticisms on his style will be of small account. He did not write to say fine things, or for the sake of displaying a classic style, but to announce momentous truths from a burdened heart, in words as plain and solemnly impressive as he could command. There is nothing in his style specially open to critical objections. The narrative portions are eminently lucid. Where his prophecies become descriptive of either great judgments or great mercies, they exhibit the usual qualities of Hebrew poetry. Ordinarily, there is no great difficulty in gaining a satisfactory view of his meaning. His book is valuable to us almost exclusively for its great moral lessons. These are above rubies. The wisdom of God is in them.Preeminently they reveal to us God's hand in his providential and moral government over the nations of the earth as such in this world. Here we see delineated the full administration of this government over not Judah alone, but all the prominent nations of Western Asia. It is a rich and most instructive lesson, and strongly commends itself to the serious regard of all

the nations of the earth to-day and onward through all time.It also reveals God in his relations to his Church and people, especially as seen in their states of apostasy or sore backsliding. How he dealt with them; how he felt toward them; how he made the very tears of his prophet witness to his own tenderness of heart; with what severity he denounced their sins; with what patience he bore with their long-continued abuse; with what holy justice he finally scourged them; and with what ineffable tenderness he sought to draw them to himself: all these qualities of his heart and features in his rule over men stand delineated in the clearest light and in the most impressive forms in this book of prophecies. Then, too, there are portions which are above all price, as revealing God's deep, underlying purpose at length to interpose his mighty arm, retrieve his waning, imperiled cause, and force his way (may we not say ?) to victory for Zion and the Savior's kingdom, despite of the immense barriers which a faithless people interpose. In all these respects, this book commends itself to our earnest regard and to our high appreciation for its lucid and sublime revelations of our ever-blessed God. Let our souls be grateful for the writing and preservation of such a book!Then, moreover, it is invaluable to us for its developments of human character. We have a mournful interest in these revelations of appalling guilt. We can not forget that these daring, morallyhardened sinners are of our bone and flesh. The qualities they exhibited are only those of our own unlovely nature. Perhaps their life may be a mirror to reflect back on us some of the base things of our own hearts. If not, it may at least suggest to us how much we owe to the grace that has made us differ. Be this as it may, there stands out here, in bold relief, the insidious danger of heart-apostasy, and the necessity of unceasing vigilance and watchfulness against the subtle temptations to backsliding from God. This awful wickedness which so cursed the nation was really that of backsliding-apostasy. They and their fathers had seen better days. Josiah called them back to the living God; many of these same men had gone with him into those solemn acts of consecration and re-consecration to the worship and service of the God of their fathers. O, how did they fall back thereafter by a perpetual backsliding and refuse to return!- -Their case, as portrayed here, evinces the certainty and fearfulness of God's retribution for such sin. There is a limit where forbearance