II.

THE JUDGMENT AT BETH-EL.

"THEY compass me about like bees"-is the Lord's com. plaint in the twelfth verse of the hundred and eighteenth psalm. We are well aware what and who he means. His eyes rest upon Calvary. His executioners, his murderers, are the bees, and are properly so termed; for they have formed honey in Judah's lion. If the Divine treasury in Christ had not been opened to us by the spear and the nails; if his blood had not been shed-what would Christ be to us? It is CHRIST CRUCIFIED, to whom we are indebted for everything.

They compass me about like bees.” say so even to this day. The whole world,

Yes, he may

and every individual Church hangs full of wasps' nests. Every thing goes on smoothly, as long as the man with the crown of thorns is kept behind the scene.

But to bring him upon

Swarms immediately

the stage, is like boring into nests. put themselves in motion, whet their stings, and there is no end to the humming and the buzzing. It is Christ whom they sting, and those who side with him.

"They compass me about like bees." This had reference also in a better sense to believers.

Christ is the

"Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the valley." The believers are the bees that swarm about the rose, sighing, rejoicing, hungering, and enjoying; fluttering arouud it, either with the wings of prayer or the pinions of delight; and there is no end to the humming about this flower, both

day and night, in the true Church. From it we derive our honey every day-forgiveness, peace, courage, and strength; and its fulness is inexhaustible. Many Christians are indeed only working bees; day after day they swarm and flutter about the rose, and never properly attain to rest. But how great is their folly!

Observe on a summer's evening, how other bees act, and then go and do likewise. Wearied by the heat and labour of the day, they slumber peacefully in the calix of flowers. The latter enclose them with their tender leaves, and the gentle whispers of the evening zephyr, rock the reposing and well-secured insect on its balmy couch. How sweet the rest! So do thou also slumber in the calix of the Rose of Sharon. Forget thyself in thinking of Jesus. Be he thy all, and his promises and merits the covering over thee, and the pillow beneath thy head. O then, what does it matter if the tempest howls without and croaking nightbirds flutter around thee! Soft is thy couch, and the banner over thee is love.

2 KINGS II. 23-25.

"And he went up from thence unto Beth-el: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou hald head.

"And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

"And he went from thence to Mount Carmel, and from thence he returned to Samaria."

A surprising scene this, my friends. It would have been less so, had it occurred to us in the life, of the Tish

bite. In the history of Elisha it appears to us as a harsh dissonance; for where, in this event, is seen the evangelical banner of peace, as the bearer of which we had described the son of Shaphat? The expression of deadly revenge against a petulent troop of boys; a horrible execration pronounced upon them in the name of God! How much in the character of the Old Testament! How completely opposed to all that we have said of the peculiar character and vocation of Elisha, as a messenger of the loving-kindness of Jehovah! Yet notwithstanding, summer continues to be summer, even though a November storm should roar through it to expel the vapours, and to procure the all-fructifying sun a more unlimited influence upon the earth. By a storm, with whatever awful accompaniments it may discharge itself, whilst it bursts the icy fetters which held the meadows bound, and penetrates into the softening soil-the predominance of the genial spring upon which it breaks in, is not interrupted. In the same manner, I believe, that the single thunder-clap, which we on this occasion behold suddenly and awfully interrupting the harmony of Elisha's life, which is otherwise so gentle and peaceful, by no means detracts from what we have asserted of the friendly object of the mission of this prophet. If that thunder-clap be a discord, it is only apparently so; or if it be a dissonance, we shall find that it does not disturb the harmony of the whole, but only exalt it, and that it will solve itself in the most satisfactory

manner.

Let us now approach the narrative. The mocking of Elisha is the subject of our consideration. We direct our attention, First, to THE SOURCE OF THIS MOCKERY; Secondly, to THE FACT ITSELF; and Lastly, to ITS CONSE

QUENCES.

I.

We are again at Jericho, but only to bid farewell to that city for a period. Elisha has received marching orders, and we will now prepare to accompany him on his first prophetic journey. He has ceased to be his own master. The whisperings of a voice now hover o'er his head, which imperatively point out his path to him, and whose directions entirely divest him at least of anxiety with respect to his future prophetic proceedings. It may be more pleasant to the flesh, as long as its walk and conduct is left to itself; but it is infinitely more safe and blissful to pass even through the Red Sea, when we have received a command from the clouds, and are travelling with a passport, which has been signed and sealed in the cabinet of heaven. The name of the Lord is a strong and wonder-working staff; foaming billows are divided before it, and mountains become valleys. Elisha left Jericho without a companion, but he was not therefore alone. He took with him many a heart full of gratitude and love. Thousands of wellmeant blessings formed his friendly escort. The sons of the prophets had spent memorable and happy days in the warm sunshine of his peaceful society. blessed the man of God as a deliverer;

The whole city

for what they Elisha had left

owed him was more than gold and silver. behind him a glorious memento at Jericho, in the hearts of the people, as well as in the country itself-a memento, however, erected not so much to himself, as to him whose interpreter and agent he was, and who says, "My glory I will not give to another."

Elisha took his way from Jericho to Beth-el, which lay only a few leagues distant from it. This city, with which you are already acquainted from the history of the patriarchs, no longer responded to its beautiful name.

The

"Be.

fiery zeal of the prophets called it Beth-aven-the house of vanity; for, together with Dan, it was the seat of that political worship, which Jeroboam, to complete the separation of the kingdom of Israel from Judah, had introduced, according to the suggestions of a mean and God-forgetting policy. He there built what was termed a sanctuary, in order to appease the longing of the people for the temple at Jerusalem. Two golden calves were set up as the representatives of the cherubim above the ark of the covenant, or even as symbols of Jehovah himself; for, hold," said the king to the people, "these are thy gods, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!" A priesthood arbitrarily instituted, occupied the place of the house of Aaron, and a multitude of unmeaning usages, borrowed from Paganism, mimicked the beautiful and significant worship of the ancient tabernacle, and only served gradually to expel from the minds of the deluded people, not only the hope of a Messiah, but also the last idea of the true adoration of God. Horrible impiety, not only to enlist that which is the most sacred to mankind into the service of a carnal policy, but even with a daring hand to model it according to its interests! Israel is not the only instance of such an execrable transaction. Similar things have often taken place in the world; but such daring im piety has never escaped the most awful recompense, Think of the enlightened terrorists of the period of the French Revolution; of the laurel-crowned hero of modern history. You know how they, with the policy of a Jeroboam, not ouly changed times and seasons, but also insti tuted Beth-el worship, and thereby endeavoured to expel the ancient faith as well as the ancient worship of God. But what became of these daring moderns? The thunders of Divine vengeance have crushed them. Their bodies lie