appear to have been both specially marked with sins, and specially marked also by intimations of the divine displeasure, which fell on his ears unheeded. The writer of the Second Book of Chronicles (xxxvi. 8) uses very strong language respecting his wickedness, and Jeremiah in his nineteenth chapter, which is with great probability referred to this reign, has limned a fearful picture of the abominations which he either practised or permitted. Among other matters justly reprehended were his selfishness and personal luxury while his subjects were impoverished by exactions, and defrauded of the fruits of their industry (Jer. xxii. 14, 15). Jeremiah and Urijah were two of the principal prophets who dared to remonstrate with the king. A cabal was instantly raised against them. And though some of the more prudent nobles expostulated on the guilt of resisting God's word, and of persecuting His messengers, Urijah was put to death, Jeremiah himself escaping only through the influence of his friends.

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But Jehoiakim's contempt of God's word arrived at its very climax, in the occurrence to which our text refers though this took place only in the second of the three years to which allusion has been made. may be shrewdly guessed from this what he became afterwards. God had been long provoked to give up Judah, but even in this day of rebuke and of blasphemy, we find Him remembering mercy, and vouchsafing another warning: "Take thee a roll of a

book, (He says to the prophet Jeremiah,) and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil that I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin." (Jer. xxxvi. 2, 3.) On this the prophet summons Baruch, and, being himself shut up, probably in concealment from the anger of Jehoiakim, commissions him first to write from his mouth the words which he should dictate, and then to read the roll of the writing, in the ears of the people, in the Lord's house, on the Fasting day. "It may be," (he fondly hopes,)" it may be they will present their supplication before the Lord, and will return every one from his evil way: For great is the anger and the fury that the Lord hath pronounced against this people." We hear further, that Baruch did as he was commanded that, in fact, he twice read the rollon the ordinary fast day in the fourth year,1 and on a special fast in the fifth year 2 of Jehoiakim-but we do not hear that Judah laid what they heard to heart, or turned to their offended God with weeping and fasting and mourning. Some perhaps were

affected for a season-and we are informed that the princes to whom the words of the roll were afterwards rehearsed, 66 were afraid "but this fear, as was soon evident, was for Jeremiah and Baruch's safety, and because they anticipated the wrath of the king, rather than because they felt that God was angry with them for their sins. The history goes on to inform us that the contents of Jeremiah's prophecy were forthwith reported to the king-that he sent for the roll of the book, and desired it to be read in his ears, and in the ears of all the princes that stood beside the king." He was in the winter-house, in the ninth month; and there was a fire on the hearth burning before him." And it came to pass, that when "three or four leaves" had been read to him, he 66 cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth." A bold and daring deed this, one which, we should have thought, would no sooner have been done than it would have been repented of, considering whose message the roll professed to be, and the well ascertained credentials of Jeremiah, through whom it had been communicated. Yet this was not the case here.

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They were not afraid nor rent their garments neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words." Two men, indeed, who evidently feared God more than man, and were thus really braver than their fellows, had made intercession with the king

that he would not burn the roll; but he would not hear them he even attempted to seize Jeremiah and Baruch but the Lord hid them from his vengeance. How different all this from the conduct of his father Josiah, who, when he heard the words of the book of the law, "rent his clothes," and gave evidence of sorrow for the national defection in which he had unwittingly been a partaker-and "because his heart was tender, and because he humbled himself" was delivered from the evil. Jehoiakim's course was different — and different also was his end. He could not reverse his condemnation albeit he had destroyed the record. He had rather enhanced its severity. Jeremiah was commanded to take another roll. Therein were written all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire-and "there were added besides unto them many like words." The result was that though Nebuchadnezzar could not himself come against him, the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it. The meaning of this of course is, that these tribes, now subject to the Babylonish king, were made by him instruments in ravaging the whole country. A great drought, a more manifest interference of God's Providence occurred during these horrors, which must yearly have increased in intensity. At length the contemner of God's word,

after he and his land had suffered for nearly five years, came to a most miserable end. We do not exactly know its details. He was probably slain outside the city, in some sortie which he had made against the marauders-his body remaining in the hands of his slayers. Thus in a marvellous manner certain words pronounced by Jeremiah became unmistakeably true of him. He died unlamented. His corpse was unsepultured. His son Jehoiachin had scarcely the appearance of reigning, for three months found him a captive. And this exactly fulfilled the prophecies. The Lord had said concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; "They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or Ah his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." (Jer. xxii. 18, 19.) "He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not." (Jer. xxxvi. 30, 31.) Thus God had threatened and thus was it in death, and after death with the hinderer and blasphemer of God's wordimmediately after death with his miserable body