prayers were heard and answered. Have your resolutions been kept? Have you offered up the sacrifices of thanksgiving in the way which I have explained to you, by loving God and your fellow-men, and endeavoring to do his will by doing good to all around you?

Think of these things, and if you have not done as you ought, in times that are past, pray to God to enable you to do better in future. Pray that you may be enabled to imitate the example of Jonah, af ter he was delivered from the great danger in which he was.

For Jonah, then, did as he ought, and showed, by his conduct, that his late repentance was indeed sincere. "So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord."

He had no more hesitation. His obedience was cheerful and prompt. He did just as God directed him to do. How far he had to travel before he reached Nineveh, we do not know. Perhaps it was a long journey. But he hastened as fast as he could, and at length found himself there.

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Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city, of three days journey." You recollect I told thing of its size and magnificence-that it was fifty or sixty miles (which might be called a journey of three days for a man on foot) round the city; that it was surrounded with walls one hundred feet high; and that it probably contained five hundred thousand people.

There stood Jonah, the prophet of the Lord, at

the gate of this great city. It was a very rich and powerful city. Its king had a large army and great wealth, and lived in a costly palace, in much splendor. There were many other persons who also were very rich, and had magnificent houses, and ate the choicest food, and drank abundantly of wine, and were clothed in the richest dress, and had all that their hearts could wish. These, and the thousand poorer people, were all alike wicked, very wicked indeed-murderers, liars, robbers, idolaters. They had long delighted in this wickedness. It had become habitual to them. They encouraged each other in it. The people followed the example of their king. Children imitated their parents. No one thought of reproving the rest, or of expressing any fear lest their terrible wickedness should meet with some dreadful punishment.

Jonah had to encounter all these wicked people. What would the king and his powerful soldiers, and his great men, and all the men, women, and youth, say, when they heard a stranger preaching against them; reproving them openly for their sins; telling them that their idols were lying vanities; teaching them about the only true and living God; and denouncing against them the displeasure of this Almighty Being, and his terrible indignation for their wickedness! How would they feel, and what would they do, when they should hear this unknown individual, calling himself a prophet of the Lord, crying aloud, up and down their streets, and threat

ening them with the complete destruction of their whole city!

There stood Jonah at the gate, and we may well suppose that the danger which he anticipated rose up before him in all its terror and vastness; and that, in the trembling anxiety of the moment, he offered up an earnest prayer to God for support, and strength, and fidelity, in the discharge of his duty.

CHAPTER XIII.

Jonah threatens the destruction of Nineveh in forty days. The Ninevites have some hope of being spared, if they repent. Explanation of what is meant, when the Bible speaks of God's repenting. We should go to the Bible to get our knowledge of God, and be satisfied with what it teaches us.

JONAH entered the city in the discharge of his difficult, and as he thought, dangerous duty. We read in the Bible, that he "entered into it a day's jour ney; and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown."

He lost no time in doing what God had commanded him to do. He did not wait a little while, to see in what way he might begin to preach to the people with the most safety to himself. He boldly began his work, and walked about Nineveh, in its different roads and streets, the distance of twenty miles, or one day's journey; crying aloud, and telling the wicked inhabitants, that in forty days their city should be all destroyed.

He, doubtless, told them that he was sent by the true God to deliver this message, and who the true God was. It is most probable, too, that he explained to them the reason why God had thus threatened them with so dreadful a calamity, and that it was on account of their great wickedness. He showed them the various ways in which they had been so wicked, notwithstanding they knew how to conduct better; for there are no people, however ignorant, but what know that it is very wrong to lie, to murder, and to rob.

It is not unlikely, also, that he pointed out to them the folly and the sin of idolatry, and told them how holy, and just, and good-how wise and powerful the true God is the God whom he and his people worshipped-the God who made all things, and whom they were bound to love and obey.

This God was almighty, and could in an instant, by a terrible earthquake, or by fire sent down from heaven, utterly destroy them and their splendid city, and all that it contained. But he would not immediately bring on them this destruction. He threatened it, however, at the end of forty days; and in the mean while they must do as they thought they ought to do, placed in so alarming and trying a situation.

They were led, no doubt, to hope that by a deep and speedy repentance, they might be spared. It is true, Jonah had not told them so; but they had some good reason to think that God might have mercy upon them. For, by putting off the destruction of their city forty days, it seemed as if he was willing to wait and see whether they would not humble themselves before him; confess their great wickedness; resolve to forsake it, and implore his forgiveness.

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God does thus often spare sinners, if they will be truly sorry for their sins, and begin to love and obey him, although he has threatened the most dreadful judgments against them. He himself tells us, in the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah, the seventh and eighth verses; At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it ;-if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them."

This shows how full God is of compassion toward the guilty, if they will but become penitent, and turn from their wickedness. He will repent of the