arrived, he used to the full. A few short years more and Jehu was at the gate of Jezreel with all the power and fury of a whirlwind.

When Jehu was at Ramoth Gilead, engaged there in keeping armed possession of the city,— when there, seated in company with his brother officers, there comes a man of God from the prophet Elisha, in a wild and hurried manner, and takes him to an inner room and anoints him King, with these words of Divine commission-" Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I have anointed thee King over the people of the Lord, even over Israel; and thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish." The whole of the proceedings in this great matter are most interesting, and very striking. Jehu's conspiracy appears to be effected in a moment, but if we study attentively the character of Jehu, we may very reasonably believe that it was only a rapid and masterly execution of a long-conceived desire, if not of a preconceived conspiracy on Jehu's part; the execution of which had only been delayed until this time by the hand of the Lord Himself. But, be this as it may, the hour of vengeance has arrived at last for the house of Ahab. Ahab has already been slain, most ignominiously, in battle:

afraid to appear as a King, he is slain a cowardly subject in disguise. Joram, the present King, and Ahaziah his brother, fell before Jehu. Seventy of Ahab's children are afterwards slain, at Jehu's command, and their heads exposed in baskets at the gates of Jezreel; and forty-two are slain at the shearing house of Samaria.

And now Jehu stands in Jezreel, within the gates of the palace. There, at an open lattice-window, bent the figure of the insolent and haughty Jezebel, with tired brow and painted face—that woman who once made both Ahab, and the elders, and the nobles, and all the people of Israel, lick the dust beneath her;-there stood the heathen Queen, the Zidonian Princess, proud, haughty, imperious, and insolent as ever. But her day of power and sin were gone. Neither crown, nor paint, nor power, will serve her now. "Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?" she exclaims; but the power and authority of her word are gone, like the power of all iniquitous dominion when the day of retribution has arrived. It is the word of Jehu, the messenger of wrath, which now holds sway. "Throw her down," said Jehu, and "they threw her down."

We will not enter upon all the dreadful details of the death of Jezebel. Let me only say a few words, brethren, in conclusion, in order to point the moral of the story. Beware how you give way

to the natural desires of human nature without in the first place considering whether such desires are under God's approval. No matter what the nature of those desires is, beware how you give way to them. The more you give way to them, the more they will master and enslave you; and perhaps as Ahab found in the waywardness and ungodliness of his desires in early life, you too may find that the fulfilment of your desires has been the means and the nearest road to your total ruin afterwards. To those who will not strive to bridle their passions and desires-to those who will not first consider whether the thing which they desire is really lawful and right or not; who will make no efforts to restrain their passions and desires, but care only to have what they want-to such persons the career of Ahab is a most fearful example. They may behold in Ahab their own likeness, the ruin which will be most likely to overtake them, and the way in which that ruin will be effectedby reason I mean of giving way to their passions. This is one of the most common and invariable laws of God's moral government of usviz., that if we would escape ruin both here and hereafter, we must in some degree, at least, first learn to command and control our desires, and to regulate them according to God's will. It is better far to be the servant or rather the child of God than it is to be the slave of our own passions—the

slave of Satan, who tempts us and governs us by our passions. Hence it is that the Lord of our salvation has so emphatically declared, "Whosoever will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."

SERMON VI.

"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof."-Psalm xcvii., 1.

THERE is, perhaps, no fundamental doctrine of religion so awfully important as that which is revealed to us in the text, viz., that "the Lord reigneth."

To all unrighteous men who hold the truth in unrighteousness it must bring terror and humiliation; for it tells them that wayward, wicked, and abominable as they may be, however much they may disregard the truth, however much they may laugh and scoff, however much they may rebel against the truth-I say, it proclaims to them, in most awful silence, that in spite of all their wickedness, in spite of all their affected independence, they are but servants and subjects of the Lord who reigneth in heaven, and who will one day surely reward them according to all they do.

On the other hand, to the earnest believer it speaks with accents of a different tone; it speaks words of encouragement, consolation, and joy. It assures them, in their deepest woe, that nothing in this world takes place accidentally and by chance,