OUR young people are no longer satisfied with healthful and innocent amusements, but often spend their evenings at the dance, the skating rink, or the card-table. They say that dancing is healthful; they see no harm in it; they never go to low dances. Possibly it was a healthful exercise when young people danced in the daytime and in the open air; but unsuitable clothing, overheated rooms, and late hours and suppers, are enough to make any one pale and languid. In what is commonly called select companies there are often those who are not fit associates for pure girls and boys, and etiquette requires that they join in the dance. Then there is a freedom and a throwing-off of restraint in the dance, which would not be tolerated out of it. And let me ask you, Is a girl ever purer and better on returning from a dance? Is she better prepared to go back to her home, and take up her duties there? Is she ever ready to kneel down and ask God's blessing on her after an evening thus spent? On the contrary, the excitement of the evening is followed by a depression of spirits which is very apt to result in crossness and fretfulness.
How often is the wine cup passed around at the dancing party, and one who perhaps never sees liquor at home, is coaxed into tasting it! And the first glass taken, how easily the habit is formed! How many innocent young girls are led to ruin through the dance! Do we think, when we let our girls go from us, that perhaps they may never come back to us as pure and happy as they once were? Can we see so many girls going down to ruin, and not watch more carefully our own? Careless association with any one and every one too often leads to intemperance and ruin. When the papers are full of accounts of accidents, broken limbs, and seriously injured health; and, worse than physical injuries, of bad habits formed and characters ruined at the rink—can we longer doubt that the rink is a peril and a curse?
Card-playing has become so popular of late that it is even admitted to our churches. Shame on us! Do we realize the force of the weapon we are placing in the enemy's hand? For years Christian people have fought against the evils of the dance. When the skating rink began to be popular, they thought that they had found an amusement which was innocent and healthful. But the craze, and the evils which have arisen from it, have proved the fallacy of that idea. And now that both these amusements have won a bad repute, the great tempter of mankind stands ready with "progressive euchre," a game which has become so popular that Christian people play it even in the church parlors. Euchre is a game of cards, and the natural tendency of cards is downward. We never hear of a man or woman going from the card-table to a prayer-meeting, but we do hear of cards leading to drinking and gambling.
It seems to me that anything that is acknowledged to be a means of leading girls and boys astray should be abolished from our homes and our churches. The boy who learns to play cards at home is just so much the more easily influenced to play them away from home. And the transition from a neighbor's parlor to a fashionable billiard saloon is easy. Once there, it is hard to refuse the friendly glass of wine. O mothers, can we wonder that our children are not what they should be, when from childhood we allow them to become familiar with temptation and to associate with evil? Can we place the child's hand in the fire, and not expect it to be burned? Let us guard our treasures more carefully, and when anything is leading them farther from home and Heaven, let us try to lead them from it to simpler and purer amusements, and save our children from sin and death.—Mrs. C. W. Nelson, in Cal. Christian Advocate.
Fear God and Give Him Glory
"FEAR God, and give glory to him."
What to Do Next
It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to concern ourselves about,—what to do next. No man can do the second thing; but he can do the first.—David Elginbrod.
The Froth Is Always on Top
HE who always speaks what is uppermost in his mind should remember that the froth is always on the top.
The Relation of England's Opium Policy to Christian Missions in China.
By James Brand
PROFESSOR LEGGE of Oxford reports, in his "Religions of China," the following conversation between himself and the Chinese ambassador at London in 1877: "'You know,' said the Chinaman, 'both England and China. Which country do you say is the better of the two?' I replied, 'England.' He was disappointed, and added, 'I mean, looking at them from a moral standpoint; looked at from the standpoint of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, which country do you say is the better?' After some demur and fencing I again replied, 'England.' I never saw a man more surprised. He pushed his chair back, got on his feet, took a turn across the room, cried out, 'You say that, looked at from the moral standpoint, England is better than China! Then how is it that England insists on our taking her opium?'"
It is easy for the Christian reader to spring to the conclusion that this is only another instance of the conceit and ignorance of the Chinese people. But if we distinguish between the English people and the English Government, and remember that the Chinaman has known England chiefly as a great commercial power, a different conclusion is at least possible. At any rate, the Chinaman's opinion starts some questions which cannot be settled by simply saying that he is a heathen. A moral evil affecting the destiny of millions of men, and sustained by the Government of one of the most powerful empires of Christendom, would seem to be always a timely theme. But there are two or three special reasons why it should be discussed anew at this time. The fact that, in the providence of God, China has become one of the chief mission fields of the world, brings that country into special prominence.
Again, the remarkable awakening of the Christian conscience of the English people themselves on this subject is stimulating thought and interest in other lands. Earnest Christian men in England have fought the opium policy from the beginning. But in recent years the agitation of the subject has become general and intense. The "Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade," with the Earl of Shaftesbury at its head, is pushing the defenders of the traffic to the wall, and this society is supported by almost the entire Christian sentiment of England. Hitherto, American missionaries in China have wisely left their English brethren there to fight the battle with their own Government. But now it would seem to be the duty of all Christians to extend their sympathy and aid to English reformers in this anti-opium struggle, both in the interest of China and of England herself.
Moreover, Americans have a peculiar interest in this theme. To them it has become a personal one. The opium curse forced upon China so many years ago is now, through Chinese immigration, introduced here, and, like the liquor traffic, stands directly athwart the path of Christian progress in America as well as China. The last ten or twelve years have witnessed an enormous growth of this vice in all parts of our country. Of the 105,000 Chinese in this country, more than 20,000 are victims of opium. The amount of opium consumed for smoking purposes, in 1880, was then increasing at the rate of 17,000 pounds per year. Opium dens were multiplying in every city.
According to the recent statement of Dr. F. N. Hammond, made to the Medical Society of New York, "only about 20,000 pounds of opium were used in the United States in 1840. In 1880 the amount had risen to 533,450 pounds. In 1868 there were about 70,000 opium eaters in this country; now there are more than 500,000. Women are addicted to the use of the drug even more than men." If these statements are reliable, the opium vice is fast becoming a national evil of America as of China. And this is an ever-strengthening reason why the subject should be kept before the American public.
No intelligent discussion of the opium question can be had without at least a brief sketch of the historical facts involved, sufficient to put the salient points of the case before the reader's mind.
England's opium policy began in 1773. Eight years later, Warren Hastings sent 1,600 chests of opium to China. In 1795 the East India Company became the "sole cultivators and sellers of opium in British India." The opium revenue of India at once rose to 200,000 pounds a year. Here began the great temptation to the Chinese people, and here began also the desperate but ineffectual struggle of the Chinese Government against that evil which is now undermining the most venerable empire of earth. In 1799 the emperor issued a decree against the importation of opium, and threatened transportation, and afterward death by strangling, to opium smokers. This was followed by heavy penalties against smuggling, which had become the prevailing crime. Notwithstanding these radical measures, the business was pushed by the company till the profits at Calcutta rose to more than 1,000,000 pounds sterling a year.
The charter of the East India Company expired in 1834, and the British Government itself became the sole manager of the China trade. From this point onward Parliament is alone responsible. The trade was henceforth no longer a mere matter of smuggling. There was no duty on opium to be avoided at the Chinese ports. Its sale in any form was a crime. The trade was simply a violation of law, carried on by brute force. The only right was might; the only motive, revenue. Armed gunboats laden with opium entered the Chinese waters and landed their cargoes in "sheer defiance of the Government."
And now poor China, in her desperation and helplessness, becomes divided as to what it is best to do. Some, in despair of suppressing the trade, advise its legalization, and vainly hope thereby (as some do with our own liquor traffic) to diminish the evil. Others beg the emperor to take still more stringent measures to stamp it out. The latter course overwhelmingly prevailed. Accordingly Lin reached Canton in 1839, seized 20,000 chests of opium, threw them into the Canton River, and declared all trade with England at an end.
This was too much. England was not to be despoiled of her revenue. The laws of China were "heathenish." The British flag had been insulted. Retribution must follow; and hence the first "opium war," the defeat of China, and the treaty of Nankin in 1842. This gave four ports to British trade; Hongkong became a British possession; $21,000,000 was paid by China to reimburse England for the expenses of the war, and $6,000,000 more to pay for the opium which Lin had destroyed, and which was really contraband by law. But even in this forced treaty, no point was yielded by the Chinese as to the legalization of the opium traffic. The amount of opium sent from India to China, however, now that the right of might was established, rose from 25,000 to 70,000 chests.
In 1856, a boat named The Arrow, owned and manned by the Chinese, but commanded by an Englishman, and thus flying the British flag, was boarded by the Chinese commissioner Yeh. The English governor of Hong Kong demanded apology and reparation. China refused, and the second opium war was the result. After two years of unequal strife, China was of course hopelessly defeated, humiliated, and compelled, in 1858, to submit to the treaty of Tientsin. By that treaty the Yang-tze River and five more seaports were opened to English trade; an ambassador was established at Pekin; Canton was fined $4,000,000; the legalization of the opium trade was extorted, and English ex-territoriality established.
It should be noticed, however, that although the Chinese Government was practically compelled to legalize the opium traffic, it did not cease to implore the British Government to give it up. In 1869 the Chinese minister addressed to Sir Rutherford Alcock a petition urging the abandonment of the trade on the grounds of justice and humanity. The only result of this petition was, that in order to soothe the feelings of China, a promise was made that the Imperial Government should be allowed to raise the import duty from thirty to fifty taels per chest. Even that promise, however, owing to the opposition of the English chambers of commerce, was never kept.
To conclude this mortifying history, the English Government in India in 1875 sent out an exploring party through Burmah, to discover, if possible, routes of inland trade with the southwest provinces of China. Passports were obtained for these visitors. An English officer was dispatched through China to meet them. He reached them in safety, but was afterward savagely murdered by the Chinese near the Burmese border, and the exploring party was driven back.
For this cruel outrage on the part of the Chinese, reparation was demanded of the Government at Pekin, and this led to the famous Chefoo convention between Sir Thomas Wade and Li Hung Chang, which resulted in several further concessions on the part of the Chinese. They were to make reparation for the Yunnan outrage; they were to open several new ports to British trade; they were to permit English exploring parties to pass through the provinces; they were to publish through the empire a proclamation protecting foreign travelers, and, of course (a sine qua non in every case), they were to pay 200,000 ounces of silver to Great Britain.
The case is put thus by an English writer: "By the tariff of the treaty of Tientsin, we compel China to admit Indian opium into her treaty ports at a low duty which we refuse to allow her to increase, and at the same time prevent her from extinguishing smuggling." It seems that after nine or ten years of refusal on the part of the English Government to ratify the Chefoo convention, China has at last been induced to accept an additional article, which will operate wholly in the interest of a still more extensive sale of Indian opium in China; as will be seen from the following statement in the New York Independent for June 4, 1885: "The new opium treaty between England and China is almost settled. This new convention assumes the form of an additional article to the Chefoo treaty, and abolishes all the barriers heretofore existing against the free diffusion of opium throughout the Chinese Empire inland."—James Brand, D. D., in Bibliotheca Sacra.
(To be continued.)
Making Allowances.
By Christian Intelligencer
THAT is a very lovely disposition which excuses the faults of others, albeit severe with its own, on the plea that there is some reason, unseen and unsuspected, which, were it revealed, would go far to modify a harsh judgment. We are told of, or we observe in some fellow-creature, actions which our tastes or our principles condemn; or we are pained by something which a friend says or does. Let us not only have patience, but let us be tolerant also, since we cannot know all the difficulties with which another must contend; nor can we estimate the weights with which another is handicapped in the race of life.—Christian Intelligencer.
Gentleness and Heroic Strength
By Stuckenberg
The Christian is to be the gentlest of men; but he is at the same time to be the strongest and the most heroic. He must be able to forbear and forgive; but he must also be able to censure and spurn. John, the apostle of love, is also a son of thunder.—Stuckenberg.
IN a previous lesson we have had mention of the little horn of Daniel 8, and we there took occasion to state that this little horn must not be confounded with that of Daniel 7. The latter, as we have seen, refers to the papacy only, to Rome during only a part of its career; the former refers to the whole duration of Rome, both in its pagan and papal forms, and covers the same ground as the fourth beast and all of its horns. The truth of this may be verified by an examination of the prophecy.
VERSES 20, 21 of chapter 8, plainly tell us that the ram and the goat, the two powers that preceded the little horn, represented Medo-Persia and Grecia. But these two empires were the second and third in a series of four universal empires which cover the entire history of the world from about 625 B. C., beginning with Babylon. The prophecies of Daniel 2 and 7 show that there were to be but four kingdoms. Then since there was but one to come after Grecia, whatever universal empire we find after that empire must be the one. From Luke 2:1 we have seen that Rome filled the specifications as a universal empire; and therefore it must be represented by the little horn, for that was to be greater than any of its predecessors.
WE will now notice a few of the characteristics of this little horn, and show their fulfillment in the Roman power. Verses 23 and 24 describe it thus: "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people." Compare this with Deut. 28:49, 50: "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young." Note the similar expressions in the two passages. Fierceness of countenance may well be applied to a power that in Dan. 7:7 is represented by a beast, "dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly;" and its destructive propensities, as brought out in the two passages, correspond to the statement in Dan. 7:7. "Understanding dark sentences," said the angel to Daniel; "whose tongue thou shalt not understand," said Moses. This also applies to the Romans, whose language, the Latin, was entirely different from the Hebrew. With the languages of the neighboring countries, Assyria, Babylon, etc., the Hebrew tongue was closely related, but it had no connection with the Latin.
READ carefully the whole of Deut. 28:49-57, which, as has been shown above, refers to the power mentioned in Dan. 8:23, 24, and then compare with it the following from the account by Josephus of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans:—
"Now, of those that perished by famine in the city, the number was prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable; for if so much as the shadow of any kind of food did anywhere appear, a war was commenced presently; and the dearest friends fell a-fighting one with another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports of life. Nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food; for the robbers would search them when they were expiring, lest any one should have concealed food in their bosoms, and counterfeited dying; nay, these robbers gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and staggering along like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of the houses like drunken men; they would also, in the great distress they were in, rush into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day. Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it obliged them to chew everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to their shields they pulled off and gnawed; the very wisps of old hay became food to some; and some gathered up fibers, and sold a very small weight of them for four Attic (drachmae). But why do I describe the shameless impudence that the famine brought on men in their eating inanimate things while I am going to relate a matter of fact, the like to which no history relates, either among the Greeks or barbarians!—it is so horrible to speak of it, and incredible when heard! I had indeed willingly omitted this calamity of ours, that I might not seem to deliver what is so portentous to posterity, but that I have innumerable witnesses to it in my own age; and besides, my country would have had little reason to thank me for suppressing the miseries that she underwent at this time.
"There was a certain woman that dwelt beyond Jordan, her name was Mary; her father was Eleazar, of the village Bethezob, which signifies The House of Hyssop. She was eminent for her family and her wealth, and had fled away to Jerusalem with the rest of the multitude, and was with them besieged therein at this time. The other effects of this woman had been already seized upon; such I mean as she had brought with her out of Perea, and removed to the city. What she had treasured up besides, as also what food she had contrived to save, had been also carried off by the rapacious guards, who came every day running into her house for that purpose. This put the poor woman into a very great passion, and by the frequent reproaches and imprecations she cast at these rapacious villains, she had provoked them to anger against her; but none of them, either out of the indignation she had raised against herself, or out of commiseration of her case, would take away her life; and if she found any food, she perceived her labors were for others, and not for herself; and it was now become impossible for her any way to find any more food, while the famine pierced through her very bowels and marrow, when also her passion was fired to a degree beyond the famine itself; nor did she consult with anything but with her passion and the necessity she was in. She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and, snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, 'O thou miserable infant! for whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves! This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us; yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews.'
"And soon as she had said this she slew her son; and then roasted him, and ate the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed. Upon this the seditious came in presently, and smelling the horrid scent of this food, they threatened her that they would cut her throat immediately if she did not show them what food she had gotten ready. She replied that she had saved a very fine portion of it for them; and withal uncovered what was left of her son. Hereupon they were seized with a horror and amazement of mind, and stood astonished at the sight; when she said to them,
'This is mine own son; and what hath been done was mine own doing! Come, eat of this food; for I have eaten of it myself! Do not you pretend to be either more tender than a woman, or more compassionate than a mother; but if you be so scrupulous, and do abominate this my sacrifice, as I have eaten the one half, let the rest be preserved for me also.' After which, those men went out trembling, being never so much affrighted at anything as they were at this, and with some difficulty they left the rest of that meat to the mother. Upon which the whole city was full of this horrid action immediately; and while every body laid this miserable case before their own eyes, they trembled, as if this unheard-of action had been done by themselves. So those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die; and those already dead were esteemed happy, because they had not lived long enough either to hear or to see such miseries."—Wars of the Jews, Book 6, chap. 3.
ONLY one more point can be noted concerning this little horn, and that is to show the change from pagan to papal Rome, for that is expressly noted. We quote: "Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host [evidently referring to Christ, see verse 25, last clause], and by him the daily was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered." Dan. 8:11, 12. In this quotation we have purposely omitted the word sacrifice, because it is superfluous. There is nothing in the original that gives even the slightest hint of such a word. From verse 13 we learn what should be understood after "daily." "How long shall be the vision concerning the daily and the transgression of desolation?" The daily what? Why, the daily desolation, of course. So then we have in this chapter a mighty desolating power brought to view under two phases,—the daily desolation, and the transgression of desolation. These two expressions can refer to nothing else but the two great phases of Rome, paganism and papacy.
"By him the daily was taken away." The change from pagan to papal Rome was effected by Rome itself, and not as a measure forced upon her by an outside power. It was the Roman emperors themselves, who, influenced by the bishops, decreed that Christianity should be the religion of the empire.
"AND an host was given him against the daily." Although the change from paganism to papacy was begun and consummated within Rome itself, it was not without help. The hordes of barbarous tribes that came from the North and overran the Roman Empire, became identified with it, accepted its religion, and were active agents in converting (by force of arms) others to that religion. Says D'Aubigne:—
"But already the forests of the North had poured forth the most effectual promoters of papal power. The barbarians who had invaded the West, and settled themselves therein,—but recently converted to Christianity,—ignorant of the spiritual character of the church, and feeling the want of an external pomp of religion, prostrated themselves in a half savage and half heathen state of mind at the feet of the chief priest of Rome. At the same time the people of the West also submitted to him. First the Vandals, then the Ostrogoths, a short time after the Burgundians and the Alains, then the Visigoths, and at last the Lombards and the Anglo-Saxons came bowing the knee to the Roman pontiff. It was the sturdy shoulders of the idolatrous children of the North, which elevated to the supreme throne of Christendom a pastor of the banks of the Tiber."—Hist. Ref., Book 1, chap. 1, par. 31.
AFTER Hezekiah's punishment, and his confession and submission to Sennacherib, as related in last week's lesson, he fell sick of the malady which forms the subject of this lesson. "In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live." This message is somewhat different from that which would be given in the majority of cases nowadays to as good a man as Hezekiah. Now, the word of comfort would be, in most instances, in substance about this: "You are now to leave this world and go to Heaven. We speak of it as death, but in reality there is no death. 'Death is but the gate to endless joy,' and you will soon be happy in Heaven; and by this you will know what true life is; it is then you will really begin to live," etc., etc.
BUT SUCH is not the message of God to any dying person. "Thou shalt die, and not live," is the word of God. And therefore when a person dies, he does not live. A person cannot be dead and alive at the same time. If he is dead, he is dead, and not alive; and he will not be alive until the resurrection—if righteous, till the resurrection of the just; if unrighteous, till the resurrection of the unjust. And so Hezekiah understood it. He seems to have had no idea that he was going to Heaven when he died; if he had, he certainly showed very little appreciation of the blessedness of it, by weeping, as he did, "with a great weeping." But we have his own word on this subject: "The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness: I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave; I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living. . . . Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove. . . . For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day." Isa. 38 : 9-19.
THUS spake Hezekiah. And it was because, if he should die, he would go to the grave—to a place and condition in which he could neither see nor praise the Lord. It was because of this that he "wept sore." It was because of this that he desired not yet to die. Then came the word of the Lord to him by Isaiah: "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; . . . and I will add unto thy days fifteen years. . . . And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered." 2 Kings 20 : 5-7. It is right to pray for the sick, indeed the Lord has given specific directions to do so; but he has not directed us to disregard appliances. On the contrary, in this place he gives just as specific directions to use appliances as he does in the other place to pray for the sick. Notice, too, that it was after his distinct promise to heal Hezekiah and to add unto his days fifteen years, that he ordered them to take a bunch of figs and lay on the boil; but it was not till after they had applied the figs that he recovered. Prayer and faith and works, or, in other words, common sense, go together in the intelligent service of the Lord; while that kind of faith-cure, that is now becoming too prevalent, that proposes to cure all manner of diseases without either appliances or common sense, is nothing but spiritual quackery, and is strikingly akin to presumption. It certainly is not intelligent faith.
"AND Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken; shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees; nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord; and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." Verses 9-11. It is hard to understand how Hezekiah should think it any more of "a light thing" for the shadow to go down than for it to go back. To us it would seem to be just as easy to do the one as to do the other; for certainly no power but that of God could do either, and it is just as easy for Almighty power to do one thing as it is to do another. Whatever Hezekiah may have thought about this, we can find excuse for him; but we can find literally no excuse for those modern would-be wise "divines" who attempt to tell just how this thing was done. They attempt to explain by natural causes, not only this miracle, but other such recorded events, especially in the Old Testament. If these were the result of what we know as natural causes; if these things were in accordance with what is termed and known as natural law, then there was no miracle about them. And to talk, as some do, of these things as being too "violent interferences with the order of nature," is simply to talk nonsense. What is the order of nature? Who established the order of nature? Is not God above nature? Is not the order of nature simply the ordinances which God established? Assuredly so. Then is he bound, as we are, to act strictly according to these laws? If so, then there is no such thing as a miracle. And every attempt to explain by natural causes any of the miracles recorded in the Bible, is just so much of an effort to reduce them to the level of the natural, and to rob them of their sublime dignity as miracles, and is therefore simply unbelief, however much faith may be professed.
SHORTLY after Hezekiah's recovery, Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon, sent messengers with letters and a present unto Hezekiah, because he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and had recovered; and he also sent these messengers "to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land." 2 Chron. 32 : 31. Merodach-baladan was at first king of a small country at the head of the Persian Gulf; but he spread his authority northward, and took Babylon and began to reign there about 721 B. C.—the same year in which Sargon became king of Assyria. Sargon went down to recover Babylon. He did so; and took Merodach-baladan prisoner, and carried him into Assyria; but he escaped from prison, returned to Babylon, re-established his authority there, and maintained it a few years, until Sennacherib once more recovered Babylon to Assyria. Merodach-baladan then fled to an island in the Persian Gulf, where he died; and Sennacherib, to prevent further revolt of the rebellious city, determined, as he says himself, "to overthrow it even more than was done by the deluge," and so left it a heap of ruins, with the Euphrates running over it.
IT was during Merodach-baladan's second reign in Babylon, and between Sennacherib's first and second invasions of Judea, that this embassy came from Babylon to Hezekiah. We saw in last week's lesson how Hezekiah, by receiving the king of Ekron, had brought Sennacherib upon him; and how that, by his submission and the payment of a large tribute, Sennacherib had turned back. The matter of the second invasion appears to be about as follows: Ambassadors were sent, either by Hezekiah or by an influential faction, to solicit the alliance of Egypt against Assyria. Isa. 30 : 1-7; 31 : 1-5. Sennacherib learned of it (2 Kings 18 : 19-21), and came out to Lachish, and so placed himself between Hezekiah and his forces, and the king of Egypt and his forces. From Lachish he sent Rab-shakeh and Rabsaris and Tartan up to Jerusalem to demand the submission of Hezekiah, upon the condition that he should remain in his own land until Sennacherib got ready to come and carry all away captive. 2 Kings 18 : 31-35. Hezekiah refused to hear him, and forbade any of the people to answer him, and sent a company to Isaiah to ask whether the Lord would not hear the words of Rab-shakeh. 2 Kings 18 : 36, 37; 19 : 1-5.
THEN Rab-shakeh returned to Sennacherib at Libnah, "for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish." Then Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Ethiopia had come out to fight against him. Then he sent messengers with a letter to Hezekiah. Hezekiah took this letter up into the temple and spread it before the Lord, and prayed him to see and hear all the words of Sennacherib. 2 Kings 19 : 6-16. "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand." 2 Kings 19 : 35. So it is a mistake to suppose that Sennacherib's army was encamped against Jerusalem when it was smitten by the angel. And this is exactly what Isaiah had said: "Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it." 2 Kings 19 : 32. Accordingly, we find that the whole narrative goes to show that Sennacherib was away below Libnah, going to fight with Tirhakah, when his army was smitten. And Sennacherib returned "with shame of face" into his own land.
THUS once more Jehovah showed himself to his people and to the heathen as above all gods. And showed himself ready and willing to deliver his people from the oppressor, when they put their trust implicitly in him. He is the same mighty God, the same tender Father, to his people to-day as he was of old. With him is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning;" but men's sins have separated between them and him, and when they shall return, as he in mercy is now calling upon them to do, to faithful obedience to all his law, once more he will show himself valiant in the behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward him. "Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound." Yea, "Blessed is that people whose God is Jehovah." A. T. J.
The Need for Ethical Education
By Rev. Dr. Lorimer
THERE is not much ethical education anywhere. In our public schools there is none to speak of, and in the aristocratic home circle there is not much more. Boys and girls are taught to dance, to sing, and to be graceful, but conscience and heart are allowed to shape themselves. Indeed, matters have come to such a pass that in magazines and in literary circles the question is being asked whether we shall have any morals in the future. So little interest does the church, as such, take in the matter, that great difficulty is experienced in getting teachers for the Sunday-school, and more in obtaining money to defray its current expenses. We lavish millions on worldly accomplishments, and dole out a few thousands for religious training.—Rev. Dr. Lorimer.
Reading as a Defense of Virtue
THE habit of reading until one has made it a necessity of his life, is one of the defenses of virtue. When one's appetite is formed, it takes away from him the necessity of accepting what company he can find, and such excitements as may happen to be in his neighborhood; for a man who is armed with the books he loves, is independent of all other companionships and pleasures.—Sel.