can but hope that this second trial, with its wondrous teachings, succeeded better. The narrative leaves him, under his withered gourd, as a listener to the gentle reproofs of his gracious God, and we may hope a learner also.

Jeremiah appears to considerable advantage alongside of Jonah. True, he speaks of "bitterness and misery, wormwood and gall;" still he murmured not, he did not faint. He took the cordial provided for him, and was revived. "This I recall to my mind (or make to return to my heart), therefore I have hope." Then comes a meditation on God's tender mercies and rich compassions, which has refreshed thousands of weary hearts, and been as the breath of heaven to fainting souls. Comforts might fail, friends might die, health might fade as a leaf; still "the Lord is my portion, saith my soul: therefore will I hope in Him" (Lam. iii. 21-26). Thus with firm steps he walks the narrow path, alternately singing of his infinite treasure, and counselling all tried ones to quietly bear God's yoke and patiently wait for His salvation.

Elijah seems to be a very different person from either Jonah or Jeremiah. What intrepidity he displayed

on

Carmel; what power he had over man; what power with God! Yet are we called to view him fainting, and requesting to die. Truly he was "a man of like passions with ourselves," and did not perfectly keep the narrow path.

One in after days, who was gentle as a nurse cherisheth her child, was more consistent in his walk than the Tishbite. What a catalogue of trials and sorrows Paul gives in 2 Cor. xi. 24-33! and his history proves that he did not exaggerate them, nor magnify his endurance. "We faint not," he twice exclaims in another place (2 Cor. iv. 1, 16); and he tells us the reason why. He deeply realized his responsibility as having received a ministry from God; he rejoiced in having obtained mercy; he rose upward and soared forward, looking, that is aiming, at the things not seen. Such communings with the unseen and the eternal kept him from

fainting, and nerved his soul for all suffering and service.

Look at an opposite case. Lot, "just Lot" as he is called, was a wanderer from the narrow road. God chastened him by permitting him to be taken captive and carried away with all he had. In mercy God sent His servant Abraham to recover him; but Lot seems to have gone from the deliverance -gone even from the companionship of Abraham and the presence of Melchizedek-back to Sodom. Then came heavier woes, mixed with a heavenly deliverance, succeeded also by a dark closing page. Dark indeed would his whole life appear, but for the bright gleam which the New Testament throws over it (2 Pet. ii. 7, 8). As it is, he reads all chastened ones a solemn lesson upon the danger of going back to a scene of temptation, after God has wisely corrected and kindly delivered.

"Ye have heard of the patience of Job," how that, when bereaved of all, when sorely smitten in his body, when tempted by the wife of his bosom, he calmly trod the narrow path-mourning, yet not murmuring. How doth the music of his plaintive sighs float down the sorrow-laden centuries, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord." True, he faltered, he reasoned, he complained afterward. But let us look now where God points us, admire such wondrous patience, and admire still more that wisdom, power, and love that brought all his sufferings to such a blessed and beneficial end.

Asa, honoured of God and helped by God, presents a very different case from that of Job. Amid all his kingly glory, he is chastened of God by the reproofs of a faithful friend. To rightly receive and truly profit by deserved reproof is a difficult path to tread, and Asa attained not thereto. "He was angry with the seer, and put him in prison." But "he who breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." Asa despised the Lord's gentle strokes; he broke through the hedge, and is stricken by an invisible hand; he returned not to Him that smote him. "He sought not to the Lord, but to the

physicians;" means he might have used, but earnest believing prayer should have preceded and accompanied all. This he neglected; and after a few months of heavy affliction he who despised the Lord's chastening passed away from view.

Very different was the case of David. "Thou art the man!" was the solemn charge of his true-hearted friend.

"I

have sinned" was the response. Then, along with heavy chastenings, came the spirit of prayer, the balm of mercy, and the grateful song. In the midst of the deepest gloom he submits.

"If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me again, and show me both it and His habitation. But

if He thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let Him do to me as seemeth good unto Him" (2 Sam. xv. 25, 26). Few chastened ones have trodden the narrow path so well as this; and it led David into the "shadow of the Almighty," up to the mount of deliverance, and then on to a happy, honourable, and useful old age.

One other contrast must be noticed. If we look at the whole company of God's tried people in all ages, we shall find that all failed more or less while treading the path of trial. "Few go down into the Valley of Humiliation without making some slips." Faith, patience, courage have all more or less failed. Only one Sufferer has walked the narrow path without failing or faltering. Let us consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest we be weary and faint in

our minds. Our infinite Saviour is our one perfect Pattern and conquering Leader. He who redeemed us from sin will help us through sorrow, and teach us how to honour God while bearing His paternal rod. We should study His history in the light of His own thoughts and feelings, as recorded in prophecy. "For the Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded therefore have I set My face as a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed" (Isa. 1. 7). "I have set the Lord always before Me: because He is at My right hand, I shall not be moved" (Ps. xvi. 8).

How does He who was the Man of sorrows cheer His tried people on! If they would neither turn to the right hand nor to the left by despising or fainting, let them listen to His words of counsel and comfort: "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His Servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God" (Isa. 1. 10). And again: "These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John xvi. 33).

Yes, we must use His words, even as He used His Father's words, as food for meditation, as helps in prayer, and as weapons against the enemy. So shall we, while mourning over many faintings and failings, have to testify, "He restoreth my soul, and leadeth me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake."

L. THE THREE PHYSICIANS. THREE merchants were wounded as they journeyed through a foreign land. The robbers set upon them, and spoiled them of their goods, leaving them bruised and sore. One was almost blinded, and another suffered from a broken arm; but the third, who was the least injured, got them conveyed to a

neighbouring town, and had them safely lodged at the principal hotel.

Who is the best physician in the town?" he inquired of the landlord. "That's rather a difficult question to answer," replied the host. "There are three; and some people prefer one, and some another."

Before long one of the medical men arrived at the inn, and offered his ser

e heard of your misforto the merchant," and , hoping to be of assist

your name?" inquired ho scarcely liked the gay acquaintance.

wn by several names," sician. "Some call me 11, and others Dr. Prince

at the merchant stepped ing his host asked his

new comer. Dig

ling to do any harm to he replied; "but many 1 his fair speeches and he only makes his panding up their wounds s ointments, and preadly drugs that numbers vered from their effects." ugh. The merchant dehis companions to the hly Skill.

his a grave and learnedassed along the street. be a physician, to judge so the merchant stepped and asked him whether s his profession. In a replied that it was, and ure of the injuries which interrogator's friends. fallen among robbers,' nt; "and one is nearly he other has a broken

no case for me," said "I am named Dr. Law, Es is confined to telling

do to remain well, not m bones and giving sight

As he said this, the gravely passed down the

strangest physician I thought the merchant Out as time passes the = imminent: this delay

I must find a doctor

appened that near one tricts of the town lived al man about whom the

women too, and of everybody they know -jewels, raiment, and valuables, to take these borrowed goods with them when they go, and thus to spoil (or despoil) the Egyptians. This is by ignorant persons at once taken as a Divine command to obtain goods under false pretences, and to make off with the plunder.

These texts too are a noted field for infantile Hebraists and juvenile critics. Thus a very elaborate article on this matter in the Danville Review owns with charming simplicity, "We have not the requisite facilities for tracing out and ascertaining the meaning of our term borrow, at the time when our present translation was made." But, as if this were of no consequence whatever, the writer proceeds,-“The rendering itself is incapable of being sustained by any view which it seems possible to take of the facts in the case. Of course, before the article is finished the whole fifty-four translators are annihilated.

But what is the real meaning of the English word? It seems to have been originally a noun, signifying a pledge given or taken, a thing left in pledge, a pawn. "Then Melibee

re

ceived their obligations, and their bond by their oath upon their pledges and borrows" (Chaucer).

"Nay, quoth the clerk, have here my faith to borrow." - Chaucer.

"And thus they be departed till the morrow, When each of them had laid his faith to borrow." -Chaucer.

Being thus used as a pledge or pawn, it next became a verb, meaning to take by purchase, that is by giving at once the pledge value; but with this step the idea of take began to come in prominently.

"This cursed man hath taken in his hand
This poison in a box, and quick he ran
Into the nearest street, unto a man,
And borrowed of him large bottles three,
And in the two the poison poured he;
The third he kept all clean, for his own
drink."
-Chaucer.

Here it is plainly a purchase of the bottles which is called borrowing them; for the man had been supplied with money for bottles and wine, and intended to leave the neighbourhood without stopping to return anything.

The word being then to take what belongs by purchase to the taker, it is next to take up that which before belonged to him. And thus, in the next quotation, a man in love is made to borrow his own holiday russets, his Own Sunday clothes. And now, be it noted, we are getting very near an intelligible sense for these texts.

"He borrowed, on the working days,
His holy russets oft."

Not merely this, but it is to take permanent possession of one's own, to take a thing finally. Still nearer the required sense is this passage in an Elizabethan writer:

"We'll borrow place of him."

If necessary, this taking may be by force; as in this case, which is the rescue of a comrade from custody:

"Now go we hence, said these brave yeomen; Tarry we no longer here;

We shall him borrow by God His grace,
Though we buy it full dear."

And, having got thus far, we have fulfilled the idea of the English text. The Israelites simply claimed and took the valuables to which their services had created a title: those things were taken in permanence, without any idea of restitution; and force instead of persuasion, wherewith to take them, is not excluded, though not necessarily implied.

COULD you have peeped into the large, cool sitting-room of farmer Gilbert's house at the close of a pleasant day last summer, you might have seen little

Amy sitting at her mother's feet. She was very quiet, and her little black and white kitten, which lay drowsily winking in her lap, was very quiet too. Kitty