which if carried to its utmost consequences would end in death. There is no element of life in it. Tested by its results, it passes away with the occasion, "as the morning cloud and as the early dew," and leaves the soul as before in its relation to God. Not so "godly sorrow." It also is sorrow; but it is godly. It worketh repentance, but such as needs not to be regretted, nor again repented of. Such repentance is life, and to salvation." Have our sorrows been lasting and spiritual in their results; have they been unto eternal life and peace?

King Joram had speedily taken his resolution. "God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha, the son of Shaphat, shall stand on him this day." Joram, in sackcloth, calls down the curse of God, and proclaims a murderous purpose against His prophet! Surely a more striking lesson and louder warning could not be found of the insufficiency of merely outward humiliation. Yet such inconsistency, as sinfulness of conduct combined with outward religiousness, is by no means uncommon. All the more anxious and earnest should we be to have the springs of our inner life influenced by the grace of God. In such outbursts of passion as those of Joram, the real nature of a man involuntarily comes to light. His language was the same as that used by his mother Jezebel in reference to Elijah. The house of Ahab had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Yet, at the time she so spake, Jezebel was a worshipper of Baal, while Joram wore sackcloth upon his flesh. But where was the real difference between them, and what practical good had his mourning effected in Joram? These are considerations which all should lay to heart, who, while wearing the outward mark of those who mourn in Zion, or outwardly religious, have not experienced an inward change through the influence of the Holy Spirit. Although wearing sackcloth,

Joram spake and acted like Jezebel. A man may be not far from the Kingdom of God;" he may even be very near it, and yet not till he is within its boundaries is he safe.

The sentence of the king was to be executed-"to-day!" In their pride men may imagine they have it in their own power. Indeed, the messenger of Joram was immediately despatched upon his bloody errand. But it was easy for the Hand that had bound the eyes of the Syrians to stay the arm of a Joram. But how terrible for Israel, as well as sinful, if the king had been allowed to execute his purpose. The only hope of Samaria lay in the presence of Elisha. Thus the sin of men is ever also their folly. They destroy themselves while they rebel against God. May we have grace to act differently! In His mercy God is long-suffering. We may often have slighted His loving Presence, and delayed to answer His call. Yet He waiteth to be gracious. His purpose is really of love. He would bring us to Himself; He would make us His own. He would have us pass from desolateness to assured peace; from ruin to happiness; He would bring us to our gracious Redeemer; and whether He speak to us by His Word or in His Providence, we still hear in all the voice of our Blessed Lord, saying, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and. I will give you rest."

"But Elisha sat in his house, and the elders sat with him; and the king sent a man from before him; but ere the messenger came to him, he said to the elders, See ye how this son of a murderer hath sent to take away mine head? look, when the messenger cometh, shut the door, and hold him fast at the door: is not the sound of his master's feet behind him? And while he yet talked with them, behold, the messenger came down unto him: and he said, Behold, this evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer? Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord, To-morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.”— 2 KINGS vi. 32, 33; vii. 1, 2.

WITHIN the besieged city was the temporary home of Elisha. For wherever there was danger or duty, there also was the prophet of God to be found. It was his mission to "endure hardship," to "bear contradiction," to be "in deaths often," if so he might serve his Master, and recall Israel to their God. Quiet resting-places like Shunem there were few in the life of a soldier whose lot was cast in times of war and confusion. The husbandman of Abel-Meholah must repress all softer feelings; he must forget the happy, peaceful retirement of his youth; he has put his hand to a plough that draws deeper furrows than those when he followed that yoke of oxen in the day that Elijah's mantle had been flung over his shoulders. And from that plough he must not look back, if he would cast in the precious seed, and see the golden harvest, and hear the Welcome Home of his Master in heaven. The house of Elisha in Samaria (saving perhaps

in its lowliness) differed from the others around in no other respect than this, that it was a house of peace and calm, instead of the habitation of despondency and unrest. As Scripture so often, and sometimes so graphically, puts it to us -any home, however humble, any provision, however coarse, only let God's blessed peace by day gladden us with its sunshine, and by night rock us into quiet sleep. And angels guard such a dwelling; no real evil can come near it. We are not afraid of evil tidings; there are not evil tidings, only "good tidings of great joy," that God has loved us with an everlasting love, and with loving-kindness draws us unto Himself. A truly Christian home is the only happy home, where happiness ceases not with time, but grows into eternal joy; where even affliction worketh its peaceable fruits; where the Saviour's entrance has brought its "peace be with thee," a peace which has not turned back from us, nor will turn away from ours.

That quiet home in Samaria presented a strange contrast to the terrible scene just enacted on the city-wall, and its occupations to the resolution at which the king of Israel had just arrived. Here was Elisha, and with him were "the elders," no doubt entreating the Lord to stay His judgments, and to return in mercy to His land and people. A firmer stay and better defence this unarmed company than the soldiers who guarded the city; more hope and encouragement from their meeting than from the visit of King Joram to the city-wall. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name."

It was a blessed injunction laid upon the Hebrew exiles, to seek the peace of the places and of the people where they were scattered. And it is a blessed command to

pray for kings and rulers, and for all who are in authority, to seek their good even when they compass our evil, to bless even when they curse. In some respects, indeed, we must share the evil which comes on the wicked around us; most assuredly our good comes upon them. And so we work on and pray on, well assured that the victory is ours, and that on the morrow light shall break through, and chase the darkness. Only in the chronicle unread on earth is it recorded, how and how often calamity has been averted from doomed cities and homes, and what untold blessings have been brought down by these humble assemblies of praying, believing men. Never let us despise such gatherings; never let us lightly esteem, nor seek to criticise or to calculate their results; but reverently put off our shoes, for the place of prayer is the place where God is, and is a holy place. It was in such assemblies, and no doubt to the lowliest in Jerusalem, that Anna first spake of the Saviour Who had been born in the city of David; it was in such an assembly that Elisha first announced the deliverance that was to be brought to Samaria.

Of a sudden the peaceful occupations of the hour were interrupted. The interruption came from Elisha himself. In vision he had seen King Joram despatching the messenger, and had heard the bloody commission given him. More than this, he had also seen how, so soon as the king's anger had exhausted itself in the proposed act of vengeance, it had given place to fear of the consequences, and how the vacillating Joram had quickly turned his steps to arrest the execution of his own sentence. Obstinacy and weakness, cruelty and cowardice, are generally conjoined. It is well, that those who would do evil so often lack the strength to see it executed. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion." Not that the wicked are