thee, nor see thee."*

Such is the power of one

devoted servant of the Almighty! ten such men as "just Lot," would have saved the cities of the plain; one holy Jehoshaphat rescued from destruction the hosts of Israel and Judah. Who

among ourselves shall say, that we or our families may not have been spared to be here before God to-day, by the residence among us of one true and sincere worshipper, one converted and holy heart?

It was the presence of the wheat alone which preserved the tares that grew in the same field with it, and occasioned the merciful sentence, "Let both grow together until the harvest."

"Were it not for the presence of Jehoshaphat, I would not look toward thee nor see thee." Happy for us sinners, when endeavouring to approach a throne of grace, that we are permitted, nay enjoined, to venture thither only with the presence of the Beloved, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Take him with you in every petition there, and you may find "access with * 2 Kings iii. 14.

boldness" to our heavenly Father. He who could not "look toward thee, nor see thee," while drawing near to Him in your own righteousness, will see you and delight to see you in Christ Jesus, His merits for your deficiencies, His worthiness for your guilt, His perfect obedience unto death, for all the unnumbered transgressions and short-comings of your lives.

Thus the presence of Jehoshaphat insured the services of the prophet; by the command of God, water was miraculously supplied, and the hosts of Israel and Judah were preserved.

Elisha departed with the armies of Israel into his own land. No sooner had he returned thither, than we find him engaged in a work of mercy, probably much more in accordance with his own feelings, than the scenes in which he had lately been employed.

"Now there cried," says the inspired historian, at the commencement of the fourth chapter, "a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy

servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is

come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen."* It is not easy to conceive a case of greater affliction; a poor woman, just deprived of him who had been the guide and the joy of her life, and owing to inevitable misfortune, left in a state of absolute insolvency and destitution; widowhood and poverty coming, as alas! they too often do, even to a child of God, hand in hand. In the first agonising hours of her bereavement, her hopes are naturally fixed upon her two sons, as the stay and solace of her declining years; but the relentless creditor seizes even these, in strict accordance with the law of the land; "He is come," she says, "to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.”* Her last earthly hope, therefore, is gone, her last earthly prop has given way, and in this hour of nature's extremity, she betakes herself to the Lord, and falls at the feet of his servant, and without presuming to prescribe, or even to ask a remedy, simply states her case of utter desolation, and leaves a blank

* 2 Kings iv. 1.

in the hands of her God, to be filled up as His mercy and love shall dictate. "And Elisha," apparently for a moment almost perplexed by such an accumulation of aggravated woes, “said unto her, What shall I do for thee?" how can I help thee? "tell me." The sufferer is silent; she knows the extent of her calamity, but she does not know the extent of God's love; and she is wisely silent, for in suggesting a remedy, she would probably only have abridged her mercies. The child of God can never be so safe as in his father's hands. 66 Exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think,"* is the only measure by which even an apostle could describe the bounties of our God. The prophet, not noticing her silence, thus continues, "What hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house," so entirely had her creditors stripped her of the little which her husband had left behind him, "save a pot of oil." "Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; bor* Ephesians iii. 20.

row not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her, and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Then she came and told the man of God: and he said,

Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest."* First, pay thy debts; though the creditor be heartless, be not thou unjust; the conduct of others to us, makes no alteration in the nature of our duties to them. Enough would still remain to preserve herself and her children from perishing with want.

Most strikingly illustrative is this affecting little incident of that consolatory declaration of the Psalmist, "I have been young and now am old, yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his * 2 Kings iv. 3-—7.