A noble figure crosses the canvas for a moment. It is Jehu, the son of Hanani, shining like a star in the night. No age has been without its prophets; no life, however abandoned, has been without some remonstrating voice; no soul goes over the cataract without a warning cry. And these messages, answering to the voice of conscience within, reveal the pitying love of the Father, not willing that any should perish, Ezek. 18:23. Hanani, Jehu’s father, had been a prophet, 2 Chron. 16:7, and Jehu held the same office for a long period, 2 Chron. 19: 2; 20: 34.

Baasha died in peace and was buried in state. But such an end is not the end, and points forward to another life, since God is God, Psa. 17:14. Elah and the remainder of the royal house were cut off by Zimri, and the extermination was so complete that none of his avengers were left. But Zimri, after a reign of seven’ days, was similarly treated, 2 Kings 9:31. Seven days are long enough to test a man, and in that brief space Zimri found time to walk in the way of Jeroboam and his sin, vs. 15, 19. Such is the course of this world. Happy are they who, amid political convulsion, live the life of the quiet in the land, 1 Thess. 4:11, and receive the kingdom that cannot be moved, Heb. 12: 27.

1 Kings 16: 15-28, These chapters afford a dreary record of apostasy and revolution, of idolatry and national disaster. Perhaps the great mass of the peoplethe peasantry—were not greatly affected by these dynastic changes, though severe judgments of famine and drought were soon to make the nation realize what an

evil and bitter thing it is to desert the Fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that ean hold no water, Jer. 2:13. Four times in this chapter we meet the phrase, ‘‘ provoke to anger,’’ vs. 7, 13, 26, 33. To idolatry was added intemperance, v. 9, and the fruit was suicide, anarchy, and civil war, vs. 18, 21, 22. But great as these evils were, they were to be surpassed, v. 30.

The one sufficient bulwark against universal anarchy is the maintenance of true religion. People talk with glib tongues against the Puritan conscience and demand the secularization of the Lord’s day, but they are surely imperiling the stability and order of the commonwealth. More than is ordinarily realized are the relations between man and man affected by the relation between the nation and God. The writings of Voltaire helped to bring on the French Revolution; while the religious revivals of the eighteenth century, both in England and in America, contributed greatly to solid national progress.