Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me,-said David.-Ps. xxiii. 4.

-That rod of power which could do-and had done-all, and the staff of support. It is like the two hands in the Canticles:

His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.-CANT. ii. 6.

Hear David again :

I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.-Ps. cxix. 75, 76.

-What word?

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.-JOHN xiv. 18.

-And though just that gracious promise had not then been spoken, yet some equivalent, the same thing in another way, had been received and lived upon from age to age.

I, even I, am he that comforteth you.-ISA. li. 12.

-That was, that is, a part of the Lord's work on earth. Do you think he has gone away and forgotten?

I know their sorrows.-Ex. iii. 7.

-Or do you imagine, perhaps, that he does not know how? He,

The God of all comfort.-2 Cor. i. 3.

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.-ISA. lxvi. 13.

Sometimes with gentle soothing:

I will be as the dew unto Israel.-Hos. xiv. 5.

He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass.-Ps. lxxii. 6.

-Or with the hushing of his perfect will :

What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.JOHN xiii. 7.

"The supreme and absolute Former of all things giveth not an account of any of his matters; the good Husbandman may pluck his roses, and gather his lilies at midsummer, and for aught I dare say, in the beginning of the first summer month; and he may transplant young trees out of the lower ground to the higher, where they may have more of the sun, and a more free air, at any season of the year.'1 -With reminders of that,-or of this:

Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.—JER. xxxi. 3.

-Past, present, and future; deep, tender, and strong. Therefore,

In all their afflictions he was afflicted.-ISA. lxiii. 9.

-And when a sense of that wonderful mit-leiden steals into our hearts, the waves fall, and there is a great calm.

I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning,— Jacob said; but a better hope lay before him, and before us, would we but lay hold upon it. For

Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.-1 THESS. iv. 14.

1 Rutherford.

-And we

Shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.-1 THESS. iv. 17.

-Our Lord, who has carried us through.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words.-1 THESS. iv. 18.

-And yet

Thus his father wept for him.-GEN. xxxvii. 35.

-Hopeless, and for the time faithless.

All these things are against me.-GEN. xlii. 36.

And this thing' was

-So he phrased it afterwards. working out the Lord's plan of blessing for Jacob and his whole tribe.

Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.-GEN. xxxvii. 33.

And all the while Joseph was on the high road to the fulfilment of all his dreams. I know, the fulfilment may be in heaven instead of on earth. And the blessing may be that of an enriched inner life, while the outward is all dwindled and shorn. But even so let it be.

Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.-MATT. xi. 26.

'When they brought my son in,' said one suddenly bereaved, the Lord Jesus came in with him, and stood by us as we laid him down, saying:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.'-JOHN xiv. 27.

-And another, who had won his son back from long months of illness, only to lose him by a railway collision, -he the one man killed,-what was his thought?

"The Lord has done it. I have not a word to say.'

IX.

The Pit in the Field.

We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we

saw the

anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear.-GEN. xlii. 21.

Generation passeth away,-said the Preacher, and generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. - ECCLES. i. 4.

THAT earth which is alway 'filled with violence through them' that dwell in it.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. -ECCLES. i. 9.

-Till the Lord come. So that it is no unheard-of story we take up to-day. I wish it were. For it is the record of a desperate wrong, done ruthlessly, and of innocent pleadings spoken to the wind, and of anguish of soul' that cannot even be measured.

Like many another dark story, it has a fair, bright setting. Summer-time reigns in the land of promise, and Jacob's camp is in the vale of Hebron, and the dwellers there are at peace. The ten stalwart elder sons are away with the roving flocks; and Jacob and Joseph and little Benjamin are at the tents together. Joseph