more tenderness than is herein. Watchful to note the first appearance of disunion between the brothers-the first look of jealous sadness, ere it grew to sin. "Why art thou wrath? and why is thy countenance fallen ?" So gentle, so persuasive to appease the anger and prevent the crime. "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" Is not the offering at thy very door, that won for Abel the preference which offends thee? Recover thy birthright by obedience, and thy brother shall be subjected to thee still: And thou shalt rule over him." We should not take these for words of hatred in an earthly father's mouth. And when the deed was done, and the blood of the brother-the righteous, unoffending brother, cried for vengeance from the ground; death, without mercy and without reprieve, was the just punishment of the transgression, and would by every human law have been inflicted. But not so. A Roman father has been admired for inflicting the relentless sentence of the law upon the sons he might have interposed his power to save. Heathenish admiration of a heathenish virtue, not learned of divine example. The heavenly Father was not in so much haste. "Now art thou cursed," he does not say of me-the sin had cursed him-and the ground that opened to receive his brother's blood: the law of nature, of moral necessity, of universal justice, cursed the murderer and claimed the full infliction of the punishment. All that the Father did, or did He not? was to yield to the first entreaty for compassion; to protect the fugitive to set a mark upon him: a mark of vengeance was it? the seven-fold vengeance was for them that slew him, lest any finding this lost son should slay him. Cain had a long season for repentance: the despised sin-offering lay yet, perhaps, at his door-abund

ance of earthly blessings were allowed him-his punishment was not "greater than he could bear," and how much less than he deserved or rigid justice would promptly have administered, had pity not followed the discarded prodigal. If Cain be, as he surely is, the first living type of them that perish without redemption, his fate is the true and perfect image of God's dealings with the impenitent, before they pass away into perdition. When driven by sin, as Cain was, from his righteous presence: there is not a sinner of the lost family of man still out of hell, to whom the same forbearing gentleness and pity is not shown: temporal blessings granted and protection yielded or the evil one, finding them, had long since slain them.

The end of all flesh was come, and truly it was time, for now the wickedness of man was great, and every imagination of his heart was evil: "it repented the Father that he had brought forth children, and it grieved Him." "Grieved Him! what a word of wrath is that! It need not have grieved Him, if He had not loved them. Less than those forty days and forty nights might have ridden Him of them all-" man,” "beast," and "creeping thing," and "fowl"- -as he threatened, if He had been so minded: but He was not. So slow was His anger-so unwilling was his work— it took the Creator 1600 years to come to the resolve: and then He "waited "-why think we He did' this? Avengeful feelings are not apt to wait-a hundred years-more-"When once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing," and did not keep his angry word at last, for not one species perished. "Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his son's wives with him: every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl: what

soever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds went forth out of the ark."

We turn our Bible leaves, and turn again, and know not where to go, or where to stop. It is all one story of paternal rule: our difficulty is only in the selection. I have rather avoided the records of the circumcised : because as the typical election, they may be considered under a special government. We have enough without them. Behold the proud the impenitent Babylonian, profane history's magnificent victorious king. He was no Hebrew-no separated one of Jehovah-no wor‐ shipper of the God of Abraham,-No. That tree, so great in pride-so strong in earthliness-so fruitful in idolatry-why did not the watchers wholly cut it down, if He who raised it had no feeling for it? Nebuchadnezzar had seen enough before and yet another dream-another warning of approaching judgment; a time for repentance still before it came and when it came, pardon and promise of excellent majesty to repentance still. I think it is a beautiful example of the method of God's ordinary judgments. There needs no Babylon to make the sinner proud—no golden image to move us to idolatry-no crouching world to make our mouth kiss our hands. Nay, and no furnace fires subdued, or dreams interpreted-or forfeited thrones to proclaim our Maker's power, and teach us that His ways are judgment, and His works are truth. Each separate destiny, if we knew it all, would repeat Nebuchadnezzar's story-the impressive warnings-the slow unwilling judgments; lessons reiterated-notice given-time allowed to the very last; conditions offered and a promise left, and for all the penitent excellent majesty too. And if another one, who "knew all this," yet humbled not his heart, was warned by visions and yet repented

not, prospered and perished in his guilty mirth: if thousands, Belshazzar-like, behold God's judgments and mercies outpouring upon others, and take no warning from them for themselves, and ask no counsel till it comes too late is it because their Maker has no kindness for them, and He that rules no pity? Children of prosperity and mirth! compassed with evils that you do not share-witnesses of suffering that you do not feel-forewarned by prophets whom you will not hear-with you is the complaint against your father's government, that you live in peace and perish in impenitence?

"Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it for their wickedness is come up before me." Why shouldest thou spare it then, Most Merciful? No Salem this, of thine own choice and blessing. Why forty days more, for them who through forty years, perhaps four-score, perhaps four hundred, have transgressed against thee? This penitence, which like thine emblematic gourd, has sprung up in a night, and will most likely die away as soon-this sackcloth and these ashes-can they so hastily appease thy vengeance, and turn thy wrath away? "Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" We need make no more than the angry prophet's comment-“ I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil." We talk forecastingly of national judgments; our angry prophets are sometimes hasty also to invoke them. At times they seem to be immediately over-hanging, and are justly apprehended under peculiar provocation. Still His great kindness and slow

anger stays them-generation after generation, till human righteousness grows almost impatient of the fond delays of too unwilling justice. But when at last the righteous judgments come, all is forgotten: history takes no account of the delay. Amid the horrors of national devastation, details of desolation and distress, marking the footsteps of an angry providence; there is no record found of bygone love, when he that said it, repented and did it not-and he that predicted it, wept that he must do it. It is written for our learning. Nineveh, Jerusalem, are gone-the city that knew-the city that knew Him not-the place where He set His name the place where He set it not-the story of these two may cover all. Our Ninevehs and Jerusalems will fall, history will paint the agonizing tale, and poetry sing their dirges: and still the prophet's comment will be true, "Gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness."