living; new bodies have been consigned to the silent tomb; new sets of mourners have gone about the streets. And now, of the entire multitude that at some one point of time occupied the earth, not one remains; all, all are gone. Various were their pursuits, their toils, their interests, their joys, their griefs -various their eventful histories; but one common sentence will serve as the epitaph of all—" Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation."

And another generation now fills the stage-a generation that, in all its vast circle of families, can produce not one individual to link it with the buried race on whose ashes it is treading. Make for yourselves, in imagination, the abrupt transition the historian here makes in his narrative-the sudden leap across an interval of years, during which the gradual process of death and birth has been going on, ever emptying, but ever replenishing, the earth, and keeping it ever full. Make that interval, as he does, an absolute blank, a dreary void,-a great gulf. Let the sleep or oblivion of a century come in between; and as you awake out of a trance, let it be amid a throng as eager and as busy as that which you left, but a throng in which you see "not the face of one old friend rise visaged to your view." It is the same scene as before; but ah! how changed!

On a smaller scale, you have experienced something of what we now describe. In the sad season of bereavement, how have you felt your pain embittered by the contrast between death reigning in your heart and home, and busy life going on all around! Oh! to step out from the darkened chamber of sickness, or the house of solitary woe, and

stand all at once in the glare and amid the tumult of the broad and busy day,-to see the sun shine as brightly, and the green earth smile as gladly, and all nature rejoice as gloriously as ever, while all to you is a blank, to hear the concord of sweet voices mocking your desolation, to mix with dreary heart in the unsympathizing crowd,—it is enough often to turn distress into distraction, and make you loathe the light and life that so offend your sadness! In the prospect, too, of your own departure, does not this thought form an element of the dreariness of death, that when you are gone, and laid in the silent tomb, others will arise that knew not you?-your removal will scarce occasion even a momentary interruption in the onward course and incessant hurry of affairs, and your loss will be but as that of a drop of water from the tide that rolls on in its career as mighty and as majestical as ever.

But here, it is a whole generation, with all its families, that is engulfed in one unmeasured tomb! And, lo! the earth is still all astir with the same activities, all gay with the same pomps and pageantries, all engrossed with the same vanities and follies, and, alas! the same sins also, that have been beguiling and disappointing the successive races of its inhabitants since the world began!

Is there no moral in the shadow which this summary and gigantic burial of a whole generation in one single brief text casts upon all these things-on the joys and sorrows, the cares, the toils, the pleasures of time,—as the gates of eternity open to shut in from our view, with a single sweep, the millions that once used them, as we are using them now?

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What are they all, with the tears or smiles they caused, to these millions to whom but now they seemed to be every thing? What will they all be to us, when of each one of us, as of Joseph, the simple record shall be, that he died, and all his brethren, and all that generation?

This burial of a whole generation!—the individual, the family, and the entire mass of life, mingled in one common tomb!-surely it is a solemn thought. It appeals to our natural sensibility: does it not appeal also to our spiritual apprehension? For natural sensibility is but little trustworthy. Easily moved by such musings, it is as easily composed-violent emotion and frivolous apathy being the extremes between which it vacillates and vibrates. To carry and command its sympathies for the moment is an insignificant and unworthy triumph. But faith finds matter of deeper and more lasting impression here. Death is the great divider. It severs families and cuts friendships asunder, breaking closest ties, and causing the most compact associations to fall in pieces. Coming as it does upon the race of men one by one-singling out individually, one after another, its successive preyit resolves each hill or mountain into its constituent grains, taking separate account of every one of them, as separately it draws them into its own insatiable jaws. But death is the great uniter too. Separating for a time, it brings all together at last. The churchyard opens its graves to part dearest brethren and friends; but soon it opens them again, to mix their kindred ashes in one common dust.

Is the union, however, that death occasions real, substantial, enduring?

"Joseph died, and all his brethren, and that generation." Death passed upon them all, for they all had sinned. It is the common lot-the general history-the universal characteristic.

And there is another common lot-another general history-another universal characteristic: "After death, the judgment." Joseph rises again, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And they all stand before the judgment-seat. There is union then. The small and the great are there; the servant and his master-all are brought together. But for what? And for how long? "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.”

What a solemn contrast have we here! Death unites after separation: the judgment unites in order to separation. Death, closing the drama of time, lets the ample curtain fall upon its whole scenery and all its actors. The judgment, opening the drama of eternity, discloses scenery and actors once more entire. All die; all are judged the two events happen alike to all.

And both are near; for the time is short,-the Lord is at hand.

But before death, before the judgment, is the gospel freely preached to all; and a voice is heard, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man open unto me, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me." Let this feast of love be begun in heart after heart, as one by one sinners die with Christ unto sin and live with him unto God. And when individuals, families, generations, are separated-and united-to be separated again-may it be our privilege to meet at the marriage-supper of the Lamb, beyond which there is no parting any more for ever.

II.

THE LONG-SUFFERING OF GOD.

EXAMPLE IN THE CASE OF AN IMPENITENT SINNER-CHARACTER

OF AHAB.

1 KINGS Xxii.

THE narrative in this chapter brings prominently out two very different characters-that of Ahab, king of Israel, and that of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. We begin with the consideration of Ahab's character, as it is illustrated in the closing scene of his life.

This Ahab had been all along in his life, as he continued to be in his death, a signal monument and example of the long-suffering patience of God. In the very beginning of his reign he had provoked the Lord by a new crime. He did evil, it is said, in the sight of the Lord, above all that were before him; and, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jereboam, he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal and worshipped him.-(1 Kings xvi. 30.)

The sin of Jeroboam was not so much idolatry as schism-not the worship of false gods, but the worship of the true God in a false, unauthorised, and divisive course. After the revolt of the ten tribes, he saw that their political separation from Judah would be of short duration if they still went up to Jerusalem to worship; whereupon, taking council (1 Kings xii. 28), he set up in Dan and Bethel two