together. It is difficult sometimes to read circumstances. We do not wonder that the contemporaries of Jesus Christ found it difficult to understand the signs of the times, and very much easier to read the signs of the sky. We are making precisely the same blunders to-day. We set up a foregone conclusion in the mind; we say, "We will do so and so." And having made up our mind to pursue that course, everything round about us takes hue and attitude from the determination of our own mind, and thus we come to have a kind of sovereignty in the region of detail, so that we can turn things pretty much as we please, and then say, "Now, look there." When a man has got wrong at the centre, it is no wonder that he sets up a kind of supernatural wisdom of his own in the inferior region, that he may justify himself to himself; for, unless he be upon good terms with himself, if he consent to his own judgment, there is schism in his life, and no storm you can create outside him makes such a tumult in his soul as his own dissidence from his own soul. Wonderful, therefore, is life; perplexing are the hedgings and surroundings and groupings of life. It is very easy for a man to put circumstances before his own mind in such a light as to mislead him, to gratify his vanity, and to actually constitute a kind of pedestal on which he may stand, that he may the more readily blaspheme his God. And Jonah paid his fare. How particular some of us are about these little pedantries of morality! We think, when we have defied the Almighty, and run away from his presence, we can go up to the counter like honest men and put down the fare. Many of us are making up by pedantries what we are wanting in the principles of our life. We have good points without having a good soul; we have beautiful characteristics, without having a solid and undoubted character. Jonah has paid his fare? Yes, but he has forsaken God! Can a man like that do anything right? No. You cannot have any rights if you have cut the bond that unites you with the throne of God, with the law of right. When men come to understand these things we shall have less pedantry in our feelings, and we shall not look at one another through the medium of little things and details and petty momentary associations. The question will be, "Art thou right with God?" Yes! Then you cannot be wrong with man. A man can do nothing right if he is wrong with God. What he does that is so-called right, is right relatively only, secondarily only; it has but a limited sphere; it is not set down to the sum total of the worth of his character. "But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken" (ver. 4). From the beginning the sea has been the pavement of God, over which he has walked as if on a basement of solid gold. What agents he has! He said to the wind, "Catch them!” They were miles away. No matter. When the wind gets hold of a ship it is very difficult to unloose its fists. Oh, it does get hold! It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! The sea is his, for he made it. Before chart of man was ever written, he made a chart for himself. You cannot escape God. All things do his will. Storm, fire, vapour, frost and morsels of ice, bitter winds, lightning in the air, trouble in the winds, earthquakes, sea storms, they are all servants in his household, and he appoints each its own work. You cannot get away from God. Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I go up into heaven, it is the very centre of thy dwelling; and if I make my bed in hell thy shadow is over me, to say that my hiding-place has been discovered. "Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them" (ver. 5). Here is a man causing a The bad man never suffers alone. loss of property. He paid his fare! money! His fare was taken out again. They cast the wares into the sea; they said, "She is too heavy; she must be disburdened; we must throw away whatever we have-away it all must go!" The bad man cannot suffer alone; the bad man is the tormentor of society; wickedness is the cause of social loss. It is madness for any man to rise up and say, "In doing an evil deed, I am injuring no one but myself. You are injuring everybody. You are causing loss to the universe itself. Yet all the while it appears that Jonah was asleep. There is an innocence that is too innocent. There are some signs of blamelessness which are rather too significant. There is an innocence that excites suspicion; there is a harmlessness that is so very harmless that it brings upon itself keen and just criticism. "Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep" (ver. 5). What a So wickedness may have some alleviation. A man may have such control over himself that he may actually be able to take some of the blessings that do not belong to him. If he commit theft in heaven, what if he commit some lower theft elsewhere? It is no consequence. The second criminality is lost in the stupendous act of felony which he first committed. tumult there was! Every man cried out unto his god. So the ship's master came to Jonah and said, "What meanest thou, oh sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God." What a crying out for gods there is in the time of trouble! How self-controlled we are when there is no sorrow at our hearts, and how instinctively a man cries out after the invisible, the divine, the supernatural, when he is in any great agony ! The men knew that Jonah had fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so. All the while they had been looking in the wrong direction for an explanation. That is precisely the mistake we are all making. When anything goes wrong, we say, "The ship must be too heavily laden with goods"; and set to work, tear out all the baggage and throw it into the sea. But the life is leaking out of the heart. What is wrong with you is your heart. This was found out, at last, in the case of Jonah. So they took up the vagabond prophet and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging; with a shudder and a sigh she shrugged back and said, "That will do!" Not till then. Nothing is settled until it is settled right. Understand that in all the relationships of life. You may cobble up a thing, but it is not settled. We are not settled in our character, in the sight of God, until we are settled on the basis of righteousness as it is found in Christ Jesus, the Man of the Cross, the Saviour of the world! The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. No man can be right till he is right with God; and being right with God, everything else will fall into its place,—the sea will be at peace, and there will be no storm in his heart. MICAH. [NOTE.-"Micah calls himself a Morasthite, and was a native of Morasthi, near Gath, or (if the two places be the same) Mareshah, a place of some importance in the south of Judah (i. 1, 15). He seems to have been commissioned not long after Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah had begun their ministry, and reiterates the reproofs and warnings which they had addressed to both Israel and Judah. Greek writers (Epiphanius and others) say he was slain by Jehoram, son of Ahab; but they confound him with Micaiah, the son of Imlah (1 King xxii. 8-28); Micah, moreover, does not appear to have suffered martyrdom, but died in peace in the days of Hezekiah (Jer. xxvi. 18, 19). One of his predictions saved the life of Jeremiah, who would have been put to death for foretelling the destruction of the temple, had it not appeared that Micah had foretold the same thing above a hundred years before. He, himself, wrote his predictions (iii. I, 8), and is referred to as a prophet by Jeremiah, and in the New Testament, Matt. ii. 5; John vii. 42. His language seems also quoted by Zephaniah (iii. 19); Ezekiel (xxii. 27); perhaps by Isaiah (ii. 2-4; xli. 15), and by our Lord (Matt. x. 35, 36). His predictions may be divided into three sections. He first describes the approaching ruin of both kingdoms; particularising several of the towns and villages of Judah in his own neighbourhood (chap. i.). He then rebukes and threatens the princes, prophets, and people, for their prevailing sins; introducing, however, an intimation of mercy (ii. 3). In the second section, he proceeds to unfold the future and better destinies of the people; dwelling at length upon the happiness and glory of the church, under the reign of Christ, in a prophecy which presents a beautiful epitome of the latter parts of Isaiah; and then reverting to the nearer deliverance of the Jews, and the destruction of the Assyrian power (iv. 5). The third division exhibits the reasonableness, purity, and justice of the Divine requirements, in contrast with the ingratitude, injustice, and superstition of the people, which caused their ruin. From the contemplation of this catastrophe, the prophet turns for encouragement to the unchanging truth and mercy of Jehovah, which he sets before the people as the most powerful inducement to hearty repentance (vi. 7).”—Angus's Bible Handbook.] M Micah i., ii. SIN AND JUDGMENT. ICAH was a villager, There are advantages in village life which are not to be found under metropolitan circumstances. It was no dishonour to be a villager in Bible times. We read of One of whom it is said, "He shall be called a Nazarene." Little or nothing is known about Micah, but his prophecy stands out boldly, written in letters of fire, and surrounded by a very lurid and suggestive atmosphere. There is a great deal of gospel in Micah. How is it that flowers always look the lovelier because they are in unexpected places? When we go into a garden and find flowers we express no surprise; when we find them growing in rocky and stony and uncultivated places, we exclaim, we are filled with wonder, and sometimes our wonder touches the point of delight. We find the gospel of God in Micah; in Micah we find Bethlehem; in Micah we find the whole requirement of God. Notice that these prophets seldom, if ever, address the poor, the outcast, and the neglected, as the criminals of society. We have nourished ourselves into the pedantry of supposing that if a man has a bad coat he has of necessity a bad character. The Bible never proceeds along these lines. Micah specifies the objects of his prophecy with great definiteness: "Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel." This is in the tone of Jesus Christ. He did not gather around him the halt, the lame, the blind, the poor, the neglected, the homeless, and say, You are the curse of society; you are the criminal classes. I am not aware that any such incident or observation can be found in the whole narrative of the life of Jesus Christ upon the earth. But Jesus Christ never let the respectability of his age alone; he never gave it one moment's rest. He differs from all modern teachers in that he finds the wickedness of society in its high places. He would almost appear to proceed upon the doctrine that the poor cannot do wickedly as compared with the wickedness that can be done by the rich. What stone can a little child throw as compared with the power of a full-grown man? What wickedness can a little child do as compared with the deep-laid, subtly-elaborated villainy of a man who has had much schooling? It is worth while to dwell upon this point, because it strikes at many a sophism— notably at the sophism which we have often endeavoured to expose that men are made by circumstances; that if men were wealthy they would pray; if men had an abundance they would |