mountains, and as Carmel by the sea, so shall he come. O thou daughter, dwelling in Egypt, prepare thyself to go into captivity; for Noph shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant. Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction comes; and it comes out of the north. Her hirelings also in her midst are like fatted bullocks; for they also are turned back, and flee together; they do not stand, because the day of their calamity is come upon them, and the time of their visitation. Her voice shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with the army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood. They shall cut down the forest, says the Lord, for is it impassable; because they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable. The daughter of Egypt shall be confounded; she shall be delivered into the hand of the northern people. The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says, Behold, I will punish Amon of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, and their gods and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all those that trust in him; and I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterwards it shall be inhabited as in the days of old, says the Lord. But fear not thou, O My servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will rescue thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear thou not, O Jacob, My servant, says the Lord; for I am with thee; for I will utterly destroy all the nations whither I have driven thee; but I will not utterly destroy thee, but correct thee in justice; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished' (xlvi. 2-28).

Jeremiah's writings present, on the whole, little variety either in matter or expression. The shadow of grief which darkened his existence, is spread over his works.

They are less often than those of Isaiah political órations, but generally utterances of a sorrowful heart. We admire the elder prophet in his soaring eloquence; we acknowledge the loftiness of his ideas and the truth of his doctrines, which are still, as they were in the days of old, powerful to guide, to comfort, and to strengthen. The object of Jeremiah's orations was indeed more immediate, and consequently less universally adapted to all ages; yet as the effects of great deeds are not limited to the time in which they take place, the life of Jeremiah with the noble example it offers is as undying as the immortal words of Isaiah. Among the great men which the Scriptures delineate, the figure of the prophet of Anathoth is, therefore, one of the most conspicuous. The loneliness of his condition surrounds him with a pathos which, at the very outset of his career, attracts our sympathies. He was alone in everything. All were opposed to himthree successive kings, a faithless and unstable priesthood, a refractory and stubborn people. He had to contend with the bitterest sorrow of a patriot, the hatred and distrust of his countrymen. Personal sufferings added their cruel pangs to his melancholy life; he was never free from actual danger or grave apprehension; and he survived all vicissitudes to see his hopes crushed, his country destroyed, his people either pining captives or reckless emigrants.

Such a fate alone were enough to arouse commiseration and interest; but with enhanced sympathy we follow the struggles of the man who met that fate so valiantly. We admire his dauntless fortitude, which adversity could not subdue, which scorned the threats of the powerful, and disregarded the stings of ingratitude; but we admire him doubly when we see his firmness give way in witnessing the sorrows, the misery, and depravity of those who surrounded him. For he could harbour no animosity, and in

return for cruelty and injury, he bestowed forgiveness, help, and comfort.

His whole existence was one great example of the noblest self-denial. He considered himself merely as the mouth-piece of a higher Wisdom-he knew but one law -obedience to God; he expounded but one doctrineunconditional adherence to the Divine rule. To the one unselfish purpose of serving his Master and delivering his people, he devoted the great powers of his mind, the glow of his eloquence, and his long years of misery. None of the prophets reflect all the human struggles and emotions more faithfully than Jeremiah.

EZEKIEL (595 to about 570).

The long line of prophets who were immediately connected with political life, was broken at the death of Jeremiah. Their power and influence had co-existed with the commonwealth of whose history their efforts and labours formed a part. When the nation ceased as such, the voice of the inspired statesman was indeed not silent, but it assumed a different character. No counsel for the arrangement of internal affairs was needed; no foreign wars called forth stirring appeals to patriotism and selfsacrifice. Yet at the same time, when the closing scenes of Jewish history revealed the eventful life, and gave rise to the untiring admonitions of Jeremiah, another messenger of God worked for the welfare of his people in a distant land. We mourn with Jeremiah over the last remnants of Jewish greatness and the final overthrow of national power; while his contemporary gives us the comforting assurance that the seed, though transplanted, had not died, and that the spirit of prophecy, of truth, and of wisdom illuminated the dreariness of the exile.

Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, belonged, like Jeremiah, to the sacerdotal order. He himself was for some time occupied with priestly functions; and many of the similes by which he enriched his later works, are derived from his old pursuits, to which he refers with clearness and familiarity. Many years elapsed in the calm discharge of his sacred duties, years of which his writings contain no record, but which were fraught with events of deep and

fatal importance to his country. Ezekiel had passed the prime of life when Jerusalem succumbed to the conquest of the Babylonians in the reign of Jehoiakim. He shared the general fate, and was taken as a captive to the land of the invader. Here he exchanged the humbler path he had hitherto trodden for a higher and more lasting sphere of usefulness. He spent the rest of his life in the plains of the Chaboras, where a number of his countrymen had congregated together, and formed a small colony. But he did not limit his thoughts to the welfare of his fellowcaptives. His affections, like theirs, were bound up in the fortunes of his native land; his memory clung to the cherished associations of the past; indeed, his interest turned more keenly to those who were still inhabiting the districts of Judea than to the exiles who surrounded him. Jerusalem was the sole theme of his inspirations. Every event which might contribute to the restoration of the kingdom roused his eager sympathy and called forth his fervent eloquence. This change from a comparatively calm and retired existence to a life of toil and difficulties, which was inseparable from the mission of a prophet, was not effected without hesitation. The unpalatable words of reproof which the monitor had incessantly to utter, rendered his task hard and thankless. Isaiah had doubted whether he possessed the moral purity necessary to fulfil the Divine commands; Jeremiah had trembled in the consciousness of his weakness and inexperience; and Ezekiel was apparently overcome by a similar fear and distrust when a new path, 'one beset with thorns and briers,' was opened before him. It was the duty of Ezekiel, as it had been that of each successive prophet, to oppose the multitude. But he received the Divine encouragement in the difficulties he was about to encounter. Again and again he was commanded not to be dismayed; for although the people were hard-hearted and rebellious, he