Jeremiah 9:16

will scatter them among the heathen.

The events that happened before that generation ended serve to explain the meaning. The city was destroyed, the temple leveled, and the people carried away captive to. far-off and unknown land, among the heathen, beyond the Euphrates, to remain for. period of seventy years before they were permitted to return.

PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

1. Opportunities are given to every one if he will accept them when offered, but if they are slighted they may be withdrawn forever. God, by Jeremiah, still offered Israel. place for repentance. It was rejected and when too late the ruined nation exclaimed, "The summer is past; the harvest ended, and we are not saved." Many centuries later Christ exclaimed: "If thou hadst only known in this thy day of visitation the things that make for thy peace!" So, too, many. shipwrecked life or dying soul mourns over lost opportunities and sighs, "Too late!" Now is the accepted time.

2. The world is full of sickness. Souls are weary with the burden of sin. They are smitten unto death and die. Is there no balm in Gilead, no physician there? There is. The great Physician, the Healer of every sorrow, has come with. balm for every hurt. He says: "Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden." Do you refuse to come to the Physician? There is the Physician and the Gospel balm but many turn away and die because they refuse to be healed.

3. Jeremiah wept over the stubborn sinfulness of his countrymen; Christ wept over Jerusalem; Paul exclaimed: "My heart's desire and prayer for Israel is that it should be saved;" John Knox prayed: "Oh God, give me Scotland, or. die." So, often, the faithful preacher hungers for the salvation of the people. So should the faithful superintendent and teacher long for the salvation of the children under their charge.

4. Judah fell, not because of the power of Nebuchadnezzar, but on account of its sins. No nation perishes until it is weighed in the balances and found wanting. Repentance would have saved Judah, but when. nation is given over to hardness of heart and reprobacy of mind its doom is sealed. Israel, Judah, Babylon, Rome, Poland and every other nation that has gone down, has died because it was unfit to live. "Shall. righteous nation perish?" It never does. Our nation will be preserved as long as it does the work of God.

5. If the word spoken by angels was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received. just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which, at the first, began to be spoken unto us by the Lord, and afterwards was confirmed unto us by them who heard him?

6. Christ the antidote of sin. At. Sunday-school anniversary in Brooklyn some, years since, Dr. Hodge related the following interesting fact: During. visit he made to the Bahama Islands,. shower of rain unexpectedly fell. On this occasion. little colored boy was caught in the shower at. distance from home, and, having no place to go for protection, crept under. bush that was near. Its foliage, however, was not dense enough to keep him from the rain, and he was wet by the water trickling through the leaves. Unfortunately for him the bush was. poison-bush; and the water falling on the leaves caused the poison to strike into his little limbs, so that in. short time he was dead. After the shower he was found, and carried to his home. Dr. Hodge was requested to attend his funeral. The circumstances of his singular death excited his curiosity and he wished to learn something more about the fatal poison-bush. An aged negro told him that it grew abundantly upon the island, but that by its side there always grew another bush, which was its antidote; and that if the little boy had known it, and had rubbed himself with the leaves of the healing bush, the poison would have done him no harm. What an illustration is this of the sad fate of those, who have been poisoned by sin, and know not how to escape from its dreadful consequences! But for this fatal poison there is. sure remedy, provided by the same God who placed the antidote beside the poison-bush. The cross of Christ is the tree of life. Let the suffering and the dying come to that, and they shall be saved; for "its leaves are for the healing of the nations."-- The Christian Weekly.

7. If the world is not healed, it is not because God has not made adequate provision. "Much more" is the Gospel's gracious word. The Gospel has not lost its grip and power. Earthly remedies have changed--physicians change and diseases change. But the Gospel remedy and Physician are forever one. Why then is the world not saved? Because 1. It will not take the remedy through unwillingness, because it does not understand it and because it sees so many who profess to have taken it who do not appear any better; or, 2. Because the Gospel is not sent to men, or is not carried in faith.-- Henson.