moved? Why is not the cure already complete and the bandage dismissed?The sense of these figures is plain; there is a remedy, there has certainly been a time for applying a sovereign remedy to all these ills of my people. Why has it not been provided? Why have not this people returned early to their God and sought his forgiveness with all their hearts ? In a moral point of view, it was of the utmost consequence that this great idea of timely repentance as the alternative of remediless ruin should be kept in the focal blaze of light before their eyes. They ought to know that the last sands of mercy's hours are fast running out!

CHAPTER IX.

The connection of thought continues through this chapter unbroken. Hence, we can have no doubt as to its date and occasion. It is part of the same message as the two preceding chapters.

1. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

2. Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacher

ous men.

This beautiful and touching utterance of grief has been justly admired by all who know how to appreciate the sensibilities of a benevolent heart. To estimate its fitness and force, we need to consider carefully the circumstances that called it forth. Think what he has been saying, and also what he goes on to say. His prophetic eye sees his own beloved country laid desolate; a fierce and bloody foe comes in upon the land from the north; the neighing of his horses is heard from Dan; they sweep over the land, leaving it a waste of ruin-as if troops of serpents and vipers were let loose upon them, whom no magic skill could charm. He hears the wail of Zion's sons and daughters coming up from their desolate wanderings in a strange land. They would fain ask, Why are we thus spoiled? Why does not Jehovah take care of his own city and temple? The answer comes: Why have they provoked me unto such judgments with their idols and their incorrigible wickedness? Alas! he hears them bewailing their wasted opportunities, and mourning that their day of hope and mercy is past forever!- These are the things that oppress his heart so heavily. The fearful crisis is not yet past. These calamities have not already fallen (save only in

small part) upon the nation, but they are close at hand, and sure to come unless the people can be aroused to see their guilt, to turn from their sins, and to cry for mercy.-Ah, who can measure the interests at stake and pending on the question whether this nation shall be saved or lost? With what agonizing solicitude the prophet thinks of it! How does his heart palpitate and every nerve quiver with sensibility! O, if the people would only hear and believe and repent! But will they? What are the prospects?Mark how his mind turns to the moral state of the people as we proceed with this chapter. They are so deeply and so horribly corrupt, so adulterous, so treacherous, so utterly false and untruthful, so surely moving on from evil to evil, from awful sin to more awful sinning! Where is a man who can be trusted? Where is a friend or a brother who will not deceive and betray his best friend?And now, is it strange that a godly man, of tender, loving heart, should cry out, "O that I could weep! O for the relief of tears! O for something to assuage the anguish of my heart! No wonder he should feel that here is cause for tears-cause not for a single tear or two-not for one transient gush, but for a perpetual stream-for tears that will forever flow! If his head were only waters and his eyes a living fountain, never more to become dry, how would he then weep day and night over the ruin of the daughter of his people! Alas, that with such a salvation possible, the people have no heart to meet its only and just conditions! Alas, that their corruption is too deep, their wicked heart too hard to care for their sins-too proud to think of confession, repentance, and pleading for mercy!

The presence of so much horrible sin is sickening, and his eye unconsciously turns for relief to flight. If he only had-far out on the dreary desert-a lodging-place for travelers, that he might leave his people and find rest in the depths of such a solitude, for how can he endure these sights and sounds of sin? How can he bear this perpetual strain upon the sensibilities of his torn and bleeding heart?- -Observe, Jeremiah does not give way to misanthropy. He does not say, Let me hate these mean, detestable men, and let it be my joy to curse them! Nor does he harden his heart against sorrow, saying, Why should I vex myself over evils which I have toiled in vain to cure?

Nor does he devoutly dissociate himself from his people, and turning his whole view toward heaven, exult in the blessedness reserved for the holy there, and say, Let it be enough for me that heaven and glory are mine, though my bleeding country perish and the Zion of my God goes down to ruin. No; none of these modes of thought and feeling could he permit; but in the spirit of him who wept over Jerusalem in her next great and similar hour of perilous crisis, he would not spare his tears. It was his luxury to weep! It often happens that faithful ministers of Christ, set to watch for souls, are brought into circumstances very similar to those of Jeremiah. They have under their eye sinners, just on the verge of eternal ruin, whose last hours of hope may

be passing forever away, but whose hearts are hard and proud and apparently proof against every sort of appeal looking toward repentance unto salvation. There are some godly pastors who lay such cases deeply upon their heart, and weep in secret places over those whom their best endeavors fail to reclaim; but how many such are to be found? How many come up to the standard of benevolent sympathy which is before us here in the example of this faithful prophet?

3. And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.

4. Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders.

5. And they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

This description of popular sin is truly appalling. As the warrior treads his bow, bending it with foot as well as hand to fit it for a shot, so they bend their tongue as a bow to shoot lies. They are not mighty for the truth in the land. No man can trust his dearest friend, so utterly lost is their sense of honor and fidelity. To "walk with slanders" means to go about tale-bearing falsely.

Weary themselves" is to exhaust their strength in devising and in executing schemes of wickedness. This is their business, their profession; and they drive it even to weariness.

6. Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.

The Lord addresses his prophet: "It is thy mission to dwell in the midst of this deceit." It is through the intrinsic deceitfulness of their hearts, their love of it and passion for it, that they refuse to know me. That they live, not knowing God, is by no means their misfortune or their fate; it is truly and simply their fault and their crime. They choose to have it so. They might know the Lord, but they will not.

7. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

To "melt and try"-figures taken from the refining of metals by fire-look toward the stern discipline of calamity. "How else could I do for the daughter of my people?" Their case baffles

and sets at naught all the milder modes of treatment. Nothing can save them but this terrible process of refining by the fires of affliction.

8. Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit one speaketh peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.

"An arrow shot out" is, in the Hebrew, a murderous arrowdeath-bearing. This is most consummate treachery-to talk as if in peace and friendship, while in his heart he plots only ruin.

9. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

These words have occurred above (5: 9, 29). They are the outburst of that holy indignation which God must feel against such horrible sinning. It was every way befitting that the people should hear these words, and become aware of the indignation that burned against them in the bosom of their God for their great sins.

10. For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.

Obviously this verse is interposed by the prophet-perhaps we might say, interrupting the divine speaker at least it is interjected here between words spoken by the Lord both before and after.The prophet's mind is full of this matter of mourning and bewailing the sin and ruin of his people. So utter was this desolation that even the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field were all gone. What a solitude that must have left!

11. And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.

The Lord speaks again: "I will even make Jerusalem (though it has been the place of my temple) heaps of desolation," `etc.

12. Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?

Again the minds of the people are turned to the moral causes of this great ruin. A call is made for wise men, sufficiently intelligent in the ways of God toward men to give the reasons why; or for some prophet to whom the Lord has revealed it, and who will proclaim it to the people, that they may know why the land is so utterly ruined that no traveler will pass through it; not merely that no man will reside there, but that no solitary traveler will make his way through it.

13. And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;

14. But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:

The Lord himself answers again, to meet this point with reiterated testimony. It is wholly and only because of their great sin in discarding the authority of God, in refusing to give heed to his commands, in scorning and setting at naught his law and going in the way of their own rebellious heart, and after Baalim, as taught them by their wicked fathers.

15. Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

16. I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.

(See 8: 14.) God will give them a thoroughly bitter portiona lot intensely afflictive and loathsome. This is tersely indicated by the bitterest things known, upon which they were to be fed, and which they must drink. Some of them were to be taken captives to a land before unknown; others must fall by the sword. Precisely these judgments had been threatened long before for these sins. (See Lev. 26: 33, and Deut. 28: 64.) Another prediction of this captivity, yet more full, may be seen Jer. 25: 9-11.

17. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come:

18. And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

"The mourning women' were a professional class in the East, including Judea. They were paid for their attendance on occasions of public mourning to sing funeral dirges and play on a spe