Holy Bible

How is the gold become dim! Lamentations 4:1-12 The spoiling of humanity G. W. Conder. What is the most precious thing in the world? "Why, gold, of course, says the multitude; not, indeed, with its lips, but with its heart. For this, men will leave father and mother, and wife, and houses, and lands; for this, what will men not forsake or give? What is the real cause of half the lawsuits and the prosecutions that arise; is it not gold? And what will not men do for gold? They will cheat, rob, embezzle, lie, forge, perjure themselves, — nay, they will do murder itself, for gold. Must we rest content, then, with this answer to our question, "What is the most precious thing in the world?" Impossible! for, notwithstanding the force and unanimity with which the world cries out, "Gold!" there are voices, not a few, which instantly and disdainfully reject the insulting reply. "Perish gold, where honour is at stake!" cry a hundred men at once; and they are right. Though honour be but an abstraction, that cannot be exchanged for bread, or pearls, it is more precious than gold. "Part with my political, my religious principle for a bribe, to keep a house over my head, or my farm in my hands?" say scores of men, "no! not for the world!" And they are right; though principles can neither be taken to market nor put out at interest, they are more precious than gold. "What! must I empty my heart of love to fill it with gold; marry a money bag instead of a soul; let the home fires die out of my heart in my eager pursuit of the gold? No, no! perish the dross, and let me keep my love, and a whole and sound heart," say scores more. And they are right, for love is more precious than gold. Ay, and the philosopher would tell us that all the worth of the gold lies in the man. Now, if this be so, again, what answer must we have to our question, "What is the most precious thing in the world?" What answer but this, that MAN is the true gold, the priceless gem of the world, in comparison with whom all other things are vile? That, then, is the gold of which I am going to speak. Man, humanity, manhood — that is gold; the most fine gold, the precious stones of the sanctuary, over whose dimming, and changing, and desecration, I am going to ask you to lament with me. And I must first ask you to consider with me a little further the preciousness of manhood. For the mere secular and mundane purposes, there is no denying the power and the worth of gold. "Money can do anything," say its devotees; and they are right, of course, within limit; but the limits are very wide ones. Gold can buy up the world, and the world's laws resolve themselves into questions of money. And what is true thus of the literal gold, is true also, and in greater degree, of that more precious thing, of which we make that the figure just now. Oh! what splendour and glory of capacity is there not bound up within that little sphere, the body of a man! Six feet of earth can hold him comfortably, and yet the world cannot hold him — he holds the world. He is lord of all he sees; tenant for life of God's grandest freehold, the universe; at the annual rent of the love of his whole soul. And, oh! what capacity of service for the world lies wrapped within that little germ. You have watched your garden in the blooming time, when every spur upon the branch holds promise of a cluster of the fruit; did you ever watch the blooming time of manhood? Did you note the quick impetuosity, the keen susceptibility, the noble emotions, the tender sympathy, the fine candour, the metallic ring of conscience, the play of high principle? Oh! what power was there to bless the world, if all this blossom had set in fruit, and all that manifold being had developed, in harmonious proportion, to its true stature; what a rich power, to hundreds and to thousands, had that one man been; what light he would have shot into the dark places of the universe; what a lever of help would his strong sympathy have become; what a power against wrong; what a haven of healthy sentiment and opinion; what a moral power; how his goodness would have radiated round him, as far as his world stretched. And, best of all, had that promise been fulfilled, had all those buds of hope and aspiration been set in fruit, he might have been how true, and good, and grand a saint; devout, and yet withal as cheery as a tenant of this sunny world should be; tender and gentle as a little unspoiled child, and yet as manly as the strongest hero in the world. A worshipper in all his life, with God in all his thoughts; God in his heart; his life a happy, conscious, willing service of his God; and yet the freest child of man and user of the world; a presence, and a power of righteousness, wherever he was. "What then!" do you ask me? "Is it within the power of every man that is born into the world to be saint, hero, statesman, poet, painter, genius, philosopher, philanthropist, every highest style of man — and all to perfection?" Of course I can't mean any such thing! God's gifts are all disparted. "One star differeth from another star in glory." Few men are great in more than one thing. So that I do not expect that it will be possible, in any millennium, ever, for every man to be in everything a man. And yet, though this be true, it is also true that every bit of humanity is fine gold! What I mean to assert is this, that by far the greater part of humanity is spoiled; that a large proportion of the men and women you meet every day might have been a great deal nobler, and better, and greater, and more capable every way than they are, and would have been so had they not been spoiled. "The gold has become dim, the most fine gold has become changed; the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the streets." In respect of this world merely, and of the things men have to do in this world — the handing of its material, the reading its books, the fulfilling of its relations — the masses of men are spoiled; dwarfed in their capacity, crippled in their mental and moral power, stunted in their development, warped from their uprightness, shorn of their beauty. There is a bight in the natural world that kills off the buds of every spring; there are untimely frosts; there are devouring insects, little, but potent; there are worms at the root, and maggots at the core; there are wind and tempest; over-sun, and over-rain; and so, not half the world's blossom comes to perfection. And as it is with the physical, so it is with the moral world. There is a human blight, deadly and fatal, that comes invisibly in a night, and makes our petals fall; there are chilly frosts, in the circumstances of our youth, that nip our buds; there are moral insects, of passion and temper, that come and gnaw at our heart; and there are germs of evil in the world around us that lay their eggs in our life. "How is the fine gold become dim!" Let me convert the exclamation of the text into an inquiry. How? First, there is weakness, inherent and innate — the legacy of one's ancestry, more lasting than their gold; weakness, working through generations, and culminating in us, through ignorance or wilful neglect of great physical laws; the natural robustness of humanity diluted out of us by evil treatment, and want of knowledge and care; and so, when the wings of the full-fledged soul begin to try their unused plumes, we find ourselves incapable of sustaining our lofty flight, and come to grovel on the earth again. Secondly, there are the defective or positively evil influences that surround our youth, and play on the formation of our character. How can one expect anything good to come from such gems, and out of such homes as thousands of these human germs are born and bred in? With sordid fathers, and silly mothers, ungoverned and untaught; mindless of their children, save to prevent them being a burden or a trouble — what wonder, that the fine gold becomes dim! With sweets and finery as the rewards of life, and "God" never used, but as a whip or bugbear, how can any good come? With no painstaking culture of morals and of tempers in such a world as this, how can it be but that the fine gold should be spoiled? ( G. W. Conder. ) The lustre of humanity dimmed W. Tucker. I. THE PROPHETS REPRESENTATION OF MAN. "Gold." "Fine Gold." 1. A thing becomes valuable in proportion as it is so regarded. Gold in itself is useless; it is but as the dust which clings to our feet. But men have come to attach an importance to it, and hence it has become valuable. So man will be valuable or otherwise, just in proportion to our idea of him. God regards man as possessed of an interminable life; as worthy of minute providential inspection; as worth the great redemptive scheme; as fit for a home in heaven. 2. A thing is valuable in proportion to what it can accomplish. Gold can do much. It can make railways all over the world; tunnel the mightiest mountain; fix telegraphy to the most distant countries. What has man done? Measured the mightiest mountain; analysed the floating atmosphere; sounded the deep sea. What has man done? Let Bacon answer as he reveals the laws and operations of the human mind; Luther as he dispels mediaeval ignorance; Clarkson as he pleads for the slave. What has man done? Let Elijah speak as he mounts up to God; Paul as he hears things which human speech cannot reveal; John as he sees celestial visions on Patmos; the humanity of Christ as it pleads in heaven. How great is man! He can partake of God's nature; assist in God's work; share God's glory. II. THE STATE WHICH THE PROPHET LAMENTS. The gold has become dim. Humanity has lost its lustre. This manifested in — 1. A cruel neglect of parental duty (vers. 3, 4). Physical neglect is treated as a crime. Our moral sense loathes the man who withholds from his child its proper education. But spiritual neglect is far more criminal than either physical or intellectual. Parents, won't you spread your wings of faith and prayer, and bear your children up to God? 2. A sad prevalence of spiritual poverty. Those who once fed on dainties are desolate and perishing, But why this spiritual want? Is there no bread? Jesus gives the answer, "I am the bread of life." Listen! "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." 3. A fearful prostitution of powers and privileges. Minds which might have rivalled angels sunk below the brute. Hearts which might have throbbed with love to God cherishing hatred. III. THE CAUSES LEADING TO THIS DIMNESS. 1. Inward listlessness. We are easily moved along by the crowd of evil tendencies within. 2. Influence of example. The liar helps somebody to tell lies; the drunkard helps others on to ruin; the dishonest man leads some one else to cheat. 3. The force of habit. He who once yields to temptation finds it more difficult to withstand the next attack. ( W. Tucker. ) Spiritual declension J. B. Owen, M. A. I. THE OUTWARD SIGNS OF SPIRITUAL DECLENSION. 1. Love to Christ growing cold. We are all, more or less, amenable to the sympathy of numbers, the force of association; and where the majority are carnal, it is more difficult for the few to continue spiritual. The same danger reaches the Church by another route, namely, when there is an extensive profession of godliness, whether in its forms or phrases. 2. A growing inattention to ordinances. The sentiment of a heavenly-minded man is, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honour dwelleth." There is a love of places, as well as of persons and performances, because of their Divine associations. 3. Niggard and abridged seasons of personal devotion. 4. An easy satisfaction with present attainments. Increase is the condition of success; there is no stagnation in the waters that Christ shall give us; they are either "springing up," or else "the light that is in us is becoming darkness" 5. Religious gossiping. By this is meant a proneness to converse about the accidents, rather than the essence of Christianity. Not that other subjects than religion are excluded from their turn of necessary attention, but when every subject but that wakes an echo of interest, and challenges a general interchange of sentiment and experience, can they be loyal Christians who have nothing to say for Christ? 6. Decreasing sensitiveness of conscience. When men allow themselves in habits of conformity to the world from which they once shrunk, it is not that the world is better, but they worse. 7. Diminished zeal for the glory of God. II. SOME INWARD SIGNS OF WHICH THE INDIVIDUAL ALONE IS CONSCIOUS. 1. The cessation of secret prayer. The habit has perhaps not wholly ceased, but it is carelessly, cursorily dealt with. There is a shrinking from personal details in communion with God. 2. The neglect of the Bible as a devotional book. If our Bibles cease to be necessary, nay, delightsome to us, there is an internal evidence of decaying grace, which must be looked to, or the devotional neglect of the Book will proceed to the neglect of its Author. Other religious influences will begin to fail, the gold will become too dim to reflect a solitary star of heaven on the shipwreck of our faith, and the fine gold so changed as to be no longer recognised for a precious metal 3. The spirit in which ordinances are entered upon. If the sanctuary be entered without previous prayer, and we should leave it as we entered, we asked nothing, and at least we have what we asked for. If we visit God's house without a settled purpose to honour Him, and only to patronise His minister, as some imagine, we cannot expect to meet Him; for that blessing is limited to them who meet together in His name, not in their own, or some other name. 4. What St. Paul calls "the root of bitterness springing up, whereby many are defiled." The root is concealed under the soil, and its existence is betrayed only by the sucker and the sprout starting from beneath, and indicative of a bad energy at work. Such a sucker robs the sap from the tree, bears no fruit itself, and detracts from the fruitfulness of the other branches. But the image is stronger than this: its metaphor indicates a man bad in doctrine and morals infecting by his evil influence the community of which he is a member. 5. Self-interest, — a tendency to look at what is supposed to become our station, rather than what "becometh saints," as the elect of God. ( J. B. Owen, M. A. ) Dimming of the gold J. Parker, D. D. We might so far alter the obvious meaning of the text as to lay great stress upon the meaning of the word "How" — as if it involved a mystery rather than declared the fact. How is it possible? It is gold, but it is dim; it is fine gold, but it is changed — how has it been done? Marvellous is the history of deterioration. 1. Archbishop Trench in his book upon "Words" has shown this in a very vivid manner in the matter of certain expressions and phrases which have gradually but completely, changed their meaning in English speech and intercourse. He quotes the word "innocent." A word of gold, yea, of fine gold, indicating beauty of character, simplicity of spirit, incapability of double-mindedness or ambiguity of thought and intent; all so plain, so pure, so straight forward. How is the word now employed in many cases? To indicate people who have lost mental strength, or people who never had mental strength; weak-minded people; even those who are little short of imbeciles are described as "innocent" — those having no longer any responsibility; having outlived the usual obligations of life or never having come under them; persons from whom nothing may be expected. "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!" A change of that kind does not take place on the surface; changes of that sort have history underneath them as their cause and explanation; the soul has got wrong in order to allow a word like that to be perverted from its original beauteousness. This is not a trick in merely vocal transition; underneath this is a sad moral history. Even words may indicate the moral course which a nation has taken. 2. What is true of words is true also of merely social manners. How different you are now in some of your social relations from what you used to be! Every man will supply his own illustration. How civil we used to be; how courteous; how prompt in attention; how critical in our behaviour; how studious not to wound! "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!" How rough we are, and brusque! How blunt — and we call our bluntness frankness! How positive, stubborn, self-willed, resolute, careless of the interests of others! What off-handed speeches we make! What curt answers we return! "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!" What if that dimness should so deepen and extend as to lead some persons to question the reality of the gold? In these matters we must as Christian men be careful, thoughtful, watchful, critical. There is nothing little that concerns the integrity and the fulness of Christian character. 3. What is true of words and of manner is also true of the high ideals with which we began life. Let us be thankful for ideals. We cannot always live up to the ideal, but we can still look at it and cherish it; and from our uplifted ideal we may sometimes draw healing when we have been bitten by some flying fiery serpent whose bite has flung us in agony upon the ground for a while, like worsted and mortally wounded things. We cannot have ideals too lofty, too pure, too heavenly. We cannot strike the star. but the arrow goes the higher for the point it was aimed at. What ideals we used to have! Who dares bring back to memory all the ideals with which he started life? Where are they? "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed!" Let me add to the criticism the Gospel which says, We may every one begin again. What say you to that Gospel opportunity and Gospel challenge? Let each say, "I will arise and go to my Father"; let each one say, "I will arise and go to my Ideal, and say, I have wounded Thee, dishonoured Thee, fallen infinitely short of Thee in every particular. I am no more worthy that Thou shouldst be associated with my poor name." ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Gold become dim J. W. Earnshaw. In describing and deploring the sad condition of the favoured and once holy and famous city of Jerusalem, the prophet employs a familiar symbol. We all know what gold is, and only by precision of statement does the dictionary help us with its information that "Gold is a precious metal, remarkable on account of its unique and beautiful yellow colour, lustre, high specific gravity, and freedom from liability to rust or tarnish when exposed to the air." — Century Dictionary. Men have been talking and thinking about gold as they never have before in the history of our country, possibly as never before in the history of the world. And men are coming to understand and appreciate as perhaps never before the importance of this most valuable of the precious metals to the commercial interest of the world, the distribution of commodities, the remuneration of labour, the stability of institutions, the progress of civilisation, and the weal of humanity; aye, and to recognise and admire the Divine wisdom and goodness in providing this important agent, giving it just the qualities it has, supplying it in just such quantity, and making it just so acquirable, and just so difficult of acquisition, that there has ever been enough and never too much for the world's use, and its value has been more sure and stable than that of any other material thing that man uses. Gold is valuable for many uses. It is exceedingly serviceable in the arts, particularly the arts of adornment, not only from its beautiful, brilliant, and permanent colour, but also from its extreme malleability, ductility, elasticity, and tenacity. It is easily shaped by hammer, graving tool, mould, or die. It will receive the most delicate impression, and embody the effects of the most exquisite skill. It is the appropriate setting for the most costly gems, and the suitable material for crowns and sceptres and signets, and all the insignia of eminent and sacred office. It seems designed to express the splendour and glory of goodliest things. But its most important use is as a universal and unvarying medium of commercial exchange and standard of material values, representing and converting all the varied and countless products of human labour. All this is in a measure true of the other precious metal, silver, but in a less degree. Indeed, the old notion that gold was related to the sun, and silver to the moon corresponds well with their actual importance. It has not been left for us at this late day to discover the value and use of gold. These have been understood from the earliest ages. "I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich"; but allusions to gold are frequent in the earliest as well as the latest books. Gold has a prominent place in Biblical symbolism and metaphor. The ark of the covenant was overlaid with pure gold. The furnishings of the ark, the cherubim upon its cover, the altar of incense before it, the sacred candlestick, the high priest's breastplate in which the twelve jewels were set, and the plate in "his tiara bearing the inscription, Holiness unto the Lord," were all of gold. Everywhere it is the symbol of what is sacred, and of highest special excellence and value. As the prophet here uses the symbol he may have had in mind gold as money; or, if his thought were more general, that will serve to help us realise the imagery. 1. A gold coin fresh from the mint is an object of beauty as well as of value. It has, in the first place, an actual and intrinsic value, the same, or about the same, as its nominal value as money. Real, as distinguished from representative money, must have this quality, that its actual and intrinsic value is equal to its nominal or representative value, so that it can pass freely from hand to hand throughout the community in final discharge of debts and in full payment for commodities, and be accepted without a reference to the character or credit of the person who offers it. It is this that makes gold so preeminently adapted for use as money, that in it this element of value obtains without too great bulk, and with the stability which is necessary in the commercial interchanges of civilised peoples. That which is of comparatively low value, so that great bulk and weight are involved, or that is of fluctuating value, so that it cannot meet the requirement of stability, does not, and cannot, so well serve this important use. Besides its intrinsic value, gold coin has impressed upon it some design and legend, authoritatively attesting its value; this minting being now, among civilised nations, an exclusively governmental function. But, along with these characteristics, it has also great beauty. The metal, with its rich colour, is capable of beautiful effects; and the process of minting develops the capability, bringing out the rich and brilliant hue, and the image and superscription which it receives being impressed with artistic skill and the most perfect mechanical aids. Such the prophet's figure of Jerusalem in its better days. It was an embodiment of eminent civic excellence. It owned the sway, and bore the image and superscription of the King of kings. There the Temple stood in its stately splendour. There the worship of God was celebrated with devout and elaborate pomp. There the Law of God was recognised and honoured, and the ideal of the holy city, the city of God, the earthly dwelling place of the Most High, was sustained by a befitting government and order, and had effect in a peaceful and happy prosperity. Hence the admiring and rejoicing eulogies of Hebrew poets: "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion: the city of the great King." But we are in a world where even fine gold becomes dim. This is true literally. Notwithstanding its freedom from liability to rust or tarnish, and its resistance to the agents which produce these effects, even gold win lose its pristine lustre. An old gold coin does not have the sheen and splendour of a newly minted one. It becomes dulled and dimmed by circulation. Also, there is an abrasion as it passes to and fro in the uses of the world. Its edges become worn; the design and legend upon it grow indistinct; and its very quantity is reduced, so that in the course of about twenty years, on an average, gold coin needs to be reminted. And there are even yet more serious processes of deterioration conducted with fraudulent design in the various forms of counterfeiting and coin debasement. This is even yet more true of those embodiments of moral excellence of which gold is the symbol. It would seem that this ought not to be, but that moral goodness, excellence, and worth should be the most stable and persistent qualities in the world; that they would be stronger than the opposite qualities and the forces arrayed against them, and that they would resist and subdue them; and also that their good effects would be so apparent and approved that the world would be friendly and favourable to them, and that individuals and communities would cherish and foster them; and so that every virtuous attainment would be a happy and lasting gain. Thus we should expect that truthfulness would become ever more truthful, and more manifestly excellent and beautiful with the wear of use; and that the friction of the world would not dim its lustre, wear down its fine precision, and render its Divine impress less distinct, but give its sheen and splendour and intrinsic worth more superb and glorious effect. We should expect a corresponding history of honesty, fidelity, courage, honour, purity, patriotism, philanthropy, and generosity. This is what ought to be, as every moral intuition affirms. It is what might be, as every revelation and provision, precept and promise, guiding law and gracious succour, assures us. But it is not what actually and uniformly is. Virtue is militant, and maintains itself only by victorious warfare. There is the possibility of deterioration in every nature that is capable of virtue, and innumerable occasions, influences, and agents press to develop the possibility into actual fact. Of nothing perhaps did men ever feel more sure than Jewish patriots did of the stability of Jerusalem, both in its sacred and civil glory. Yet Jerusalem declined into an indescribable corruption and depravity, and the devastation and desolation resulting from Nebuchadnezzar's siege were but the sequel of its moral decadence. How many other institutions and societies have had a similar history! How to nations, churches, and other social federations and organisations there have been what are fitly named "Golden Ages!" And how these have been followed by ages of decline. And by what recastings and renovations the progress of humanity has been realised! This further is to be noted, and it is the great lesson of history, that material decadence has been the sequel of moral deterioration. History teems with illustrations of this truth. But we are more interested in applications and illustrations lying nearer to common life. One of the most beautiful and precious things our human life can know is friendship — I mean real friendship — the alliance for good, and fellowship in good, of congenial souls, and not mere modish or faddish attachments. What help and solace these companioned souls afford each other! What interest and worth they find in each other! In success the joy is insipid until the other shares it. In misfortune the pang is softened by the other's sympathy. And each life is unfolded and enriched by its interest in the other. How sad to see such gold become dim, such fine gold change! And yet how common the instance! So with other relations growing out of our social aptitudes and needs. And yet how poor, and base, even, in actual fact they become! 2. But the most impressive correspondence to this imagery is in the sphere of character and the processes of individual life. With what interest, admiration, and hope we contemplate the splendid possibilities and goodly promise of a fair opening life! Childhood has passed under favourable conditions and good influences, youth has unfolded under judicious nurture and with only the faults incident to youth, and manhood has been attained with no dark stain upon the character and no vitiating habit in the life. Grand equipment for life's work has been won by the processes of general and special education. "Here," we say, "is fine gold. This one will make his mark. This life will count for something, and be among the grander facts and forces in the life of the world." The hope, thank God, is often realised. Notwithstanding debasing influences grand lives are being lived. But it is not always so. In some instances the following years do not fulfil the promises of life's splendid opening. The character, subjected to the hard wear of the world, loses the lustre of its glorious prime. The high ideals, the noble and generous aims, the principled integrity, the delicacy of conscience, and the fine sense of honour, fade under the rough impact of coarser lives. Thus the gold that shone with such noble brilliancy becomes dim. So it is sometimes with a life that has come under the influence of religion, and connected itself with, and set itself to, the highest and best. Sometimes even such a life shows deterioration. The faith, the love, the zeal, the devotion which marked its opening, and made it bright with Divine lustre, decline. By some truancy to duty, some neglect of spiritual culture, or some looseness of living, the heaven-born soul loses the fine quality of its life, the Divine image and superscription upon it are defaced. When gold coin has ceased to be what it ought, by loss of weight, or defacement of its impression, it must be reminted. By that process what is deficient is made up, and what is defaced is restored. This is what deteriorated characters, deteriorated souls, deteriorated lives, need; and this is precisely what Christianity provides for. This is the distinctive feature of Christianity, that it is a converting, transforming, renewing religion. It restores in man the faded image and superscription of God, and it makes the debased nature worthy of the impress. ( J. W. Earnshaw. ) The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers! Lamentations 4:2-12 The heavenly and the earthly estimates of good men Homilist. I. THE HEAVENLY ESTIMATE OF GOOD MEN. Good men have a golden value in the estimation of heaven. 1. Their principles are intrinsically valuable. They are men of truth, justice, benevolence, worship. 2. Their influence is socially valuable. They are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. 3. Their privileges are infinitely valuable. All things are theirs. Angels are their servants; Christ is their Redeemer; the Lord is their portion. II. THE WORLDLY ESTIMATE OF GOOD MEN. "How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers?" 1. This estimate has ever been lamentably common. 2. This estimate indicates great moral degeneracy. The human soul is constituted to value the true, to admire the excellent, to worship Divine virtues wherever they exist. 3. This estimate entails fearful spiritual evils. The virtues of the good are the world's uplifting powers. Where they are ignored their salutary influence is not felt. ( Homilist. ) The character, excellence, and estimate of the pious Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons. I. THE CHARACTERS DESCRIBED. "The precious sons of Zion." 1. Zion is their spiritual birthplace. Being "begotten again," they have received the spirit of sons ( Galatians 4:6 ), and now aspire after the "better country" to which the sons of Zion are entitled ( Isaiah 35:10 ; Hebrews 11:16 ). 2. They acknowledge their great and growing obligations to Zion. 3. They are devoted to the interests of Zion. Gratitude, piety, benevolence, prompt them to promote the prosperity of the Church, by persuasion, etc.; and by their example and their prayers ( Psalm 122:6-9 ; Isaiah 62:1 ; Matthew 5:14-16 ; Romans 12:1 ). 4. They are entitled to all the privileges and immunities of Zion. They are "free" ( Galatians 4:31 ); "are fellow citizens with the saints," etc. ( Ephesians 2:19 ). And the unfailing word of Zion's King secures to her protection ( Isaiah 26:1 ); provision ( Psalm 132:15 ); support ( Isaiah 35:3, 4 ); comfort ( Psalm 132:16 ); and eternal glory ( Isaiah 60:14-20 ). II. THE EXCELLENCE OF THE SONS OF ZION. 1. In respect of its purity. "Comparable to fine gol

Benson Commentary Lamentations 4:1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. Lamentations 4:1-2 . How is the gold become dim — “How is the glory of the temple obscured! The sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold, ( 2 Chronicles 3:8 ,) now lies in ruins; and the stones of it are not distinguished from common rubbish. It is probable that the prophet, in these words, alluded to the priests, princes, and chief persons of the country, who, though they might have been compared to the pillars, or corner-stones of that sacred building, yet were now involved in the same common destruction with the meanest of the people. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold — Those that in honour and worth exceeded others as much as fine gold doth other metals, are now disgraced and set at naught. Lamentations 4:2 The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! Lamentations 4:3 Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. Lamentations 4:3-5 . Even the sea-monsters draw out the breast — The very dragons have drawn out the breast: so Blaney. Even these fierce and destructive animals are not so unnatural as to neglect the care of their young ones; whereas the women of Jerusalem have been reduced to that miserable necessity as to disregard their children, as the ostrich does her eggs. The tongue of the sucking child, &c. — Such was the scarcity of food, that the women had not nourishment sufficient to produce milk to enable them to give suck to their infants, and when the children begged for bread the parents had none to give them. They that did feed delicately embrace dunghills — Lie down on dunghills, and seek about them in hopes to pick up something to eat. Lamentations 4:4 The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. Lamentations 4:5 They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills. Lamentations 4:6 For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. Lamentations 4:6 . For the punishment, &c., is greater than the punishment of Sodom — The fate of Sodom was less deplorable than that of Jerusalem; for Sodom was destroyed in an instant; but Jerusalem endured a long siege, and suffered all the miseries of famine, sickness, and hostile arms. In Sodom all were destroyed together, and none left to mourn in bitterness of soul the sad loss of their dearest friends; in Jerusalem many survived to mourn the deplorable fate of their friends and country, and to suffer the ignominy and miseries of captivity. The original of the last clause, ???? ?? ??? ?? , is rendered by the LXX., ??? ??? ???????? ?? ???? ?????? , they did not cause hands to labour, or be weary, in her: and by Blaney, nor were hands weakened in her. Lamentations 4:7 Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: Lamentations 4:7-9 . Her Nazarites were purer than snow — It seems the word, ?????? , ought not to be translated here Nazarites, or those who were separated by a vow to God; but princes, or chief men: so Waterland understands the word, as also Blaney, who renders it, her nobles. We find the same term applied to Joseph, as one separated, or distinguished in eminence and dignity above his brethren, Genesis 49:26 . By being purer than snow, and whiter than milk, seems to be intended the whiteness of their skin, or the fairness of their complexion; and by their being more ruddy in body than rubies, or brighter than pearls, as ???? ??????? , may be rendered, their high state of health may be meant. Their visage is blacker than a coal — The famine, and other hardships which they have endured, have altered their complexion, and made them look dry and withered. They that be slain with the sword are better, &c. — That is, their case is preferable to that of those slain with hunger; for these pine away, &c. — That is, they waste away and perish by slow degrees, and, before they quite expire, suffer great misery. Stricken through for want of the fruits of the field — Pierced with far more exquisite pain through want of sustenance, than if they had been run through with the sword. Lamentations 4:8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. Lamentations 4:9 They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. Lamentations 4:10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people. Lamentations 4:10-11 . The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children — The affection of a mother toward her children is the strongest of all natural affections, and yet the famine hath forced that tender sex to divest themselves of it, and to boil and eat their own children. Thus was the prophecy of Moses, Deuteronomy 28:53 ; Deuteronomy 28:57 , most awfully fulfilled; where see the notes, and on chap. Lamentations 2:20 . The Lord hath accomplished his fury, &c. — God’s anger hath effected an entire destruction, so as not to leave one stone upon another. Lamentations 4:11 The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof. Lamentations 4:12 The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem. Lamentations 4:12 . The kings of the earth, &c., would not have believed — “The city was so well fortified, and had been so often miraculously preserved by God from the attempts of its enemies, that it seemed incredible that it should at last fall into their hands.” — Lowth. Lamentations 4:13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her, Lamentations 4:13 . For the sins of her prophets, &c. — That is, of the false prophets, to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem chiefly hearkened; and the iniquities of her priests — Who bore rule by their means, Jeremiah 5:31 ; and instead of discountenancing and reproving sin in the people, as was their indispensable duty, were themselves guilty of many flagrant acts of injustice, oppression, and violence; insomuch that, as is here attested, they even shed the blood of the just in the midst of Jerusalem, the holy city; that is, the blood of God’s prophets, and of those that adhered to them. The priests and false prophets were then the ringleaders in persecution, as in Christ’s time the chief priests and scribes were the men that incensed the people against him, who otherwise would have persisted in their hosannas. This was the sin which the Lord would not pardon, ( 2 Kings 24:4 ,) and which, above all others, brought utter destruction upon that city. Not that the people were innocent; no, while the prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests abused the power which their own office and the doctrine of these prophets gave them, the people loved to have it so, and it was, partly at least, to please many of them that the prophets and priests acted as they did. But the blame is chiefly laid upon them who should have taught the people better, should have reproved and admonished them, and told them what would be the end of such conduct: of the hands, therefore, of those watchmen who did not give them warning was their blood required. Indeed, the ecclesiastical men were the chief cause of both the first and last destruction of Jerusalem. And so they are of the destruction of most other places that come to ruin through their neglect of their duty, or their encouraging others in their wicked courses; which shows us both how great a blessing to a people a godly, conscientious ministry is, and how great an evil a ministry is which is otherwise. Lamentations 4:14 They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments. Lamentations 4:14-16 . They have wandered as blind men in the streets — They strayed from the paths of righteousness, and were blind to every thing that was good, but to do evil they were quick-sighted; they have polluted themselves with blood — The blood of the saints and servants of the Lord; so that men could not touch their garments — But they would be legally polluted; and there were so many of them, that a man could not walk in the streets but he must touch some of them. They cried unto them, Depart ye: it is unclean — Or, ye polluted, depart, &c. “When they fled to save their lives, they could find no safe retreat, but every body shunned and avoided them as polluted; and used the same words to express their abhorrence of this defilement of such persons, whose office it was to cleanse and purify others, as the lepers were by the law obliged to pronounce upon themselves, and cry, Unclean, unclean: see Leviticus 13:45 . The bloody garments of the priests called to remembrance the innocent blood which had been shed by their means, ( Lamentations 4:13 ,) when people saw their sin thus retaliated upon them.” — Lowth. They said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there — Even the heathen themselves looked upon them as polluted persons, unworthy of living in Judea, or attending on the worship of God in his temple. And they concluded that such impious wretches would never be restored to their native country, but would continue always vagabonds. The anger of the Lord hath divided them — “God, in his just displeasure, hath scattered and dispersed them into foreign countries, where no respect will be given to their characters.” This seems to be the language of their enemies, triumphing over them, as discerning that their God was provoked with them, and would have no more regard to them. And therefore these heathen no more respected the persons of their priests or elders, but considered them as peculiarly guilty, and deserving of their abhorrence and execration. Lamentations 4:15 They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there . Lamentations 4:16 The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders. Lamentations 4:17 As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us . Lamentations 4:17 . As for us, &c. — The prophet, after having digressed in the last five verses to make observation on the wickedness of those who had been the principal cause of the national ruin, here returns again to the lamentable description of the particulars. Our eyes as yet failed for our vain help — The help of the Egyptians, which they had expected in vain. In our watching we have watched — We have long waited with eager desire and expectation; for a nation that could not save us — For succours from a people who at last have wofully disappointed us. Lamentations 4:18 They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come. Lamentations 4:18-20 . They hunt our steps that we cannot go in our streets — The Chaldeans, employed in the siege, are so close upon us, that we cannot stir a foot, nor look out at our doors, nor walk safely in the streets. Our end is near — The end of our church and state; we are just at the brink of the ruin of both. Nay, our days are fulfilled, our end is come — We are utterly undone; a fatal, final period is put to all our comforts; the days of our prosperity are fulfilled, they are numbered and finished. Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles — God has brought upon us that judgment which he threatened by Moses, of bringing a nation against us as swift as the eagle flieth, Deuteronomy 28:49 . Such were the horsemen of the Chaldean army. We could nowhere escape them, neither by fleeing to the mountains, nor by hiding ourselves in the valleys. The wilderness is in other places put for the lower, or pasture grounds. The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, &c. — Our king, who was the very life of us; was taken in their pits — In those toils his enemies had laid for him. Some have supposed that the prophet speaks this of Josiah, but it seems more probable that Zedekiah is meant, and his being taken prisoner and led into captivity is here alluded to. Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen — As long as he was safe, we had some hopes of being protected, and of preserving some face of government, although we were carried away into a foreign country. The protection a king affords his subjects is often, in Scripture, compared to the shelter of a great tree, which is a covert against storms and tempests: see Ezekiel 17:23 ; Ezekiel 31:6 ; Daniel 4:12 . Lamentations 4:19 Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness. Lamentations 4:20 The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. Lamentations 4:21 Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked. Lamentations 4:21-22 . Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom — A sarcastical expression, as if the prophet had said, Rejoice while thou mayest, O Edom, over the calamities of the Jews; but thy joy shall not last long, for in a little time it shall come to thy turn to feel God’s afflicting hand; the cup of affliction shall pass unto thee: see Jeremiah 49:7 , &c. The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion, &c. — It was usual for the prophets, when they denounced God’s judgments against any heathen nation, at the same time to give gracious promises to Israel; thereby importing that God would never cast off the Jewish people utterly, as he did other nations, but would in due time extend his mercy toward them. He — Namely, God; will no more carry thee away — Or, rather, suffer thee to be carried; into captivity — “These and such like expressions, if they be understood in a strict, literal sense, must relate to the final restoration of the Jews.” — Lowth. He will discover thy sins — He will manifest how great thine iniquities have been, by the remarkable judgments wherewith he will punish thee. Lamentations 4:22 The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Lamentations 4:1 How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. CONTRASTS Lamentations 4:1-12 IN form the fourth elegy is slightly different from each of its predecessors. Following the characteristic plan of the Book of Lamentations, it is an acrostic of twenty-two verses arranged in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. In it we meet with the same curious transposition of two letters that is found in the second and third elegies; it has also the peculiar metre of Hebrew elegaic poetry-the very lengthy line, broken into two unequal parts. But, like the first and second, it differs from the third elegy, which repeats the acrostic letters in three successive lines, in only using each acrostic once at the beginning of a fresh verse; and it differs from all the three first elegies, which are arranged in triplets, in having only two lines in each verse. This poem is very artistically constructed in the balancing of its ideas and phrases. The opening section of it, from the beginning to the twelfth verse, consists of a pair of duplicate passages-the first from verse one to verse six, the second from verse seven to verse eleven, the twelfth verse bringing this part of the poem to a close by adding a reflection on the common subject of the twin passages. Thus the parallelism which we usually meet with in individual verses is here extended to two series of verses, we might perhaps say, two stanzas, except that there is no such formal division. In each of these elaborately-wrought sections the elegist brings out a rich array of similes to enforce the tremendous contrast between the original condition of the people of Jerusalem and their subsequent wretchedness. The details of the two descriptions follow closely parallel lines, with sufficient diversity, both in idea and in illustration, to avoid tautology and to serve to heighten the general effect by mutual comparisons. Both passages open with images of beautiful and costly natural objects to which the elite of Jerusalem are compared. Next comes the violent contrast of their state after the overthrow of the city. Then turning aside to more distant scenes, each of which is more or less repellent-the lair of wild beasts in the first case, in the second the battle-field-the poet describes the much more degraded and miserable condition of his people. Both passages direct especial attention to the fate of children-the first to their starvation, the second to a perfectly ghastly scene. At this point in each part the previous daintiness of the upbringing of the more refined classes is contrasted with the condition of degradation worse than that of savages to which they have been reduced. Each passage concludes with a reference to those deeper facts of the case which make it a sign of the wrath of heaven against exceptionally guilty sinners. The elegist begins with an evident allusion to the consequences of the burning of the temple, which we learn from the history was effected by the Babylonian general Nebuzar-adan. { 2 Kings 25:9 } The costly splendour with which this temple at Jerusalem was decorated allowed of a rare glitter of gold, such as Josephus describes when writing of the later temple; gold not like that of the domes of St. Mark’s, mellowed by the climate of Venice to a sober depth of hue, but all ablaze with dazzling radiance. The first effect of the smoke of a great conflagration would be to cloud and soil this somewhat raw magnificence, so that the choice gold became dull. That the precious stones stolen from the temple treasury would be flung carelessly about the streets, as our Authorised Version would seem to suggest, is not to be supposed in the case of the sack of a city by a civilised army, whatever might happen if a Vandal host swept through it. "The stones of the sanctuary," { Lamentations 4:1 } however, might be the stones with which the building had been constructed. Still, even with this interpretation the statement seems very improbable that the invaders would take the trouble to cart these huge blocks about the city in order to distribute them in heaps at all the street corners. We are driven to the conclusion that the poet is speaking metaphorically, that he is meaning the Jews themselves, or perhaps the more favoured classes, "the noble sons of Zion" of whom he writes openly in the next verse. { Lamentations 4:2 } This interpretation is confirmed when we consider the comparison with the parallel passage, which starts at once with a reference to the "princes." { Lamentations 4:7 } It seems likely then that the gold that has been so sullied also represents the choicer part of the people. The writer deplores the destruction of his beloved sanctuary; and the image of that calamity is in his mind at the present time; and yet it is not this that he is most deeply lamenting. He is more concerned with the fate of his people. The patriot loves the very soil of his native land, the loyal citizen the very streets and stones of his city. But if such a man is more than a dreamer or a sentimentalist, flesh and blood must mean infinitely more to him than earth and stones. The ruin of a city is something else than the destruction of its buildings; an earthquake or a fire may effect this, and yet, like Chicago, the city may rise again in greater splendour. The ruin that is most deplorable is the ruin of human lives. This somewhat aristocratic poet, the mouthpiece of an aristocratic age, compares the sons of the Jewish nobility to purest gold. Yet he tells us that they are treated as common earthen vessels, perhaps meaning in contrast to the vessels of precious metal used in the palaces of the great. They are regarded as of no more value than potter’s work, though formerly they had been prized as the dainty art of a goldsmith. This first statement only treats of insult and humiliation. But the evil is worse. The jackals that he knows must be prowling about the deserted ruins of Jerusalem even while he writes suggest a strange, wild image to the poet’s mind. { Lamentations 4:3 } These fierce creatures suckle their young, though not in the tame manner of domestic animals. It is singular that the nurture of princes amid the refinements of wealth and luxury should be compared to the feeding of their cubs by. scavengers of the wilderness. But our thoughts are thus directed to the wide extent, the universal exercise of maternal instincts throughout the animal world, even among the most savage and homeless creatures. Startling indeed is it to think that such instincts should ever fail among men, or even that circumstances should ever hinder the natural performance of the functions to which they point with imperious urgency. Although the second passage tells of the violent reversal of the natural feelings of maternity under the maddening influence of famine, here we read how starvation has simply stopped the tender ministry which mothers render to their infants, with a vague hint at some cruelty on the part of the Jewish mothers. A comparison with the supposed conduct of ostriches in leaving their eggs suggests that this is negative cruelty; their hearts being frozen with agony, the wretched mothers lose all interest in their children. But then there is not food for them. The calamities of the times have staunched the mother’s milk; and there is no bread for the older children. { Lamentations 4:4 } It is the extreme reversal of their fortunes that makes the misery of the children of princely homes most acute; even those who do not suffer the pangs of hunger are flung down to the lowest depths of wretchedness. The members of the aristocracy have been accustomed to live luxuriously; now they wander about the streets devouring whatever they can pick up. In the old days of luxury they used to recline on scarlet couches; now they have no better bed than the filthy dunghill. { Lamentations 4:5 } The passage concludes with a reflection on the general character of this dreadful condition of Israel. { Lamentations 4:6 } It must be closely connected with the sins of the people. The drift of the context would lead us to judge that the poet does not mean to compare the guilt of Jerusalem with that of Sodom, but rather the fate of the two cities. The punishment of Israel is greater than that of Sodom. But this is punishment; and the odious comparison would not be made unless the sin had been of the blackest dye. Thus in this elegy the calamities of Jerusalem are again traced back to the ill-doings of her people. The awful fate of the cities of the plain stands out in the ancient narrative as the exceptional punishment of exceptional wickedness. But now in the race for a first place in the history of doom Jerusalem has broken the record. Even Sodom has been eclipsed in the headlong course by the city once most favoured by heaven. It seems well-nigh impossible. What could be worse than total destruction by fire from heaven? The elegist considers that there are two points in the fate of Jerusalem that confer a gloomy pre-eminence in misery. The doom of Sodom was sudden, and man had no hand in it; but Jerusalem fell into the hands of man-a calamity which David judged to be worse than falling into the hands of God; and she had to endure a long, lingering agony. Passing on to the consideration of the parallel section, we see that the author follows the same lines, though with considerable freshness of treatment. Still directing especial attention to the tremendous change in the fortunes of the aristocracy, he begins again by describing the splendour of their earlier state. This had been advertised to all eyes by the very complexion of their countenances. Unlike the toilers who were necessarily bronzed by working under a southern sun, these delicately nurtured persons had been able to preserve fair skins in the shady seclusion of their cool palaces, so that in the hyperbole of the poem they could be described as "purer than snow" and "whiter than milk." { Lamentations 4:7 } Yet they had no sickly pallor. Their health had been well attended to; so that they were also ruddy as "corals," while their dark hair glistened "like sapphires," But now see them! Their faces are "darker than blackness." { Lamentations 4:8 } We need not enquire after a literal explanation of an expression which is in harmony with the extravagance of Oriental language, although doubtless exposure to the weather, and the grime and smoke of the scenes these children of luxury had passed through, must have had a considerable effect on their effeminate countenances. The language here is evidently figurative. So it is throughout the passage. The whole aspect of the lives and fortunes of these delicately nurtured lordlings has been reversed. They tell their story by the gloom of their countenances and by the shrivelled appearance of their bodies. They can no longer be recognised in the streets, so piteous a change have their misfortunes wrought in them. Withered and wizen, they are reduced to skin and bone by sheer famine. Sufferers from such continuous calamities as these fallen princes are passing through are treated to a worse fate than that which overtook their brethren who fell in the war. The sword is better than hunger. The victims of war, stricken down in the heat of battle but in the midst of plenty, so that they leave the fruits of the field behind them untouched because no longer needed, are to be counted happy in being taken from the evil to come. The gruesome horror of the next scene is beyond description. { Lamentations 4:10 } More than once history has had to record the absolute extinction, nay, we must say the insane reversal, of maternal instincts under the influence of hunger. We could not believe it possible if we did not know that it had occurred. It is a degradation of what we hold to be most sacred in human nature; perhaps it is only possible where human nature has been degraded already, for we must not forget that in the present case the women who are driven below the level of she-wolves are not children of nature, but the daughters of an effete civilisation who have been nursed in the lap of luxury. This is the climax. Imagination itself could scarcely go further. And yet according to his custom throughout, the elegist attributes these calamities of his people to the anger of God. Such things seem to indicate a very "fury" of Divine wrath; the anger must be fierce indeed to kindle such "a fire in Zion." { Lamentations 4:11 } But now the very foundations of the city are destroyed even that terrible thirst for retribution must be satisfied. These are thoughts which we as Christians do not care to entertain; and yet it is in the New Testament that we read that "our God is a consuming fire"; { Hebrews 12:29 } and it is of our Lord that John the Baptist declares: "He will throughly purge His threshing-floor." { Matthew 3:12 } If God is angry at all His anger cannot be light; for no action of His is feeble or ineffectual. The subsequent restoration of Israel shows that the fires to which the elegist here calls our attention were purgatorial. This fact must profoundly affect our view of their character. Still they are very real, or the Book of Lamentations would not have been written. In view of the whole situation so graphically portrayed by means of the double line of illustrations the poet concludes this part of his elegy with a device that reminds us of the function of the chorus in the Greek drama. We see the kings of all other nations in amazement at the fate of Jerusalem. { Lamentations 4:12 } The mountain city had the reputation of being an impregnable fortress, at least so her fond citizens imagined. But now she has fallen. It is incredible! The news of this wholly unexpected disaster is supposed to send a shock through foreign courts. We are reminded of the blow that stunned St. Jerome when a rumour of the fall of Rome reached the studious monk in his quiet retreat at Bethlehem. Men can tell that a severe storm has been raging out in the Atlantic if they see unusually great rollers breaking on the Cornish crags. How huge a calamity must that be the mere echo of which can produce a startling effect in far countries! But could these kings really be so astonished, seeing that Jerusalem had been captured twice before? The poet’s language rather points to the overweening pride and confidence of the Jews, and it shows how great the shock to them must have been since they could not but regard it as a wonder to the world. Such then is the picture drawn by our poet with the aid of the utmost artistic skill in bringing out its striking effects. Now before we turn away from it let us ask ourselves wherein its true significance may be said to lie. This is a study in black and white. The very language is such; and when we come to consider the lessons that language sets forth with so much sharpness and vigour, we shall see that they too partake of the same character. The force of contrasts-that is the first and most obvious characteristic of the scene. We are very familiar with the heightening of effects by this means, and it is needless to repeat the trite lessons that have been derived from the application of it to life. We know that none suffer so keenly from adversity as those who were once very prosperous. Marius in the Mamertine dungeon, Napoleon at St. Helena, Nebuchadnezzar among the beasts, Dives in Hell, are but notorious illustrations of what we may all see on the smaller canvas of everyday life. Great as are the hardships of the children of the "slums," it is not to them, but to the unhappy victims of a violent change of circumstances, that the burden of poverty is most heavy. We have seen this principle illustrated repeatedly in the Book of Lamentations. But now may we not go behind it, and lay hold of something more than an indubitable psychological law? While looking only at the reversals of fortune which may be witnessed on every hand, we are tempted to hold life to be little better than a gambling bout with high stakes and desperate play. Further consideration, however, should teach us that the stakes are not so high as they appear; that is to say, that the chances of the world do not so profoundly affect our fate as surface views would lead us to suppose. Such things as the pursuit of mere sensation, the life of external aims, the surrender to the excitement of the moment, are doubtless subject to the vicissitudes of contrast; but it is the teaching of our Lord that the higher pursuits are free from these evils. If the treasure is in heaven no thief can steal it, no moth or rust can corrupt it; and therefore, since where the treasure is there will the heart be also, it is possible to keep the heart in peace even among the changes that upset a purely superficial life with earthquake shocks. Sincere as is the lament of the elegist over the fate of his people, a subtle thread of irony seems to run through his language. Possibly it is quite unconscious; but if so it is the more significant, for it is the irony of fact which cannot be excluded by the simplest method of statement. It suggests that the grandeur which could be so easily turned to humiliation must have been somewhat tawdry at best. But unhappily the fall of the pampered youth of Jerusalem was not confined to a reversal of external fortune. The elegist has been careful to point out that the miseries they endured were the punishments of their sins. Then there had been an earlier and much greater collapse. Before any foreign enemy had appeared at her gates the city had succumbed to a fatal foe bred within her own walls. Luxury had undermined the vigour of the wealthy; vice had blackened the beauty of the young. There is a fine gold of character which will be sullied beyond recognition when the foul vapours of the pit are permitted to break out upon it. The magnificence of Solomon’s temple is poor and superficial in comparison with the beauty of young souls endowed with intellectual and moral gifts, like jewels of rarest worth. Man is not treated in the Bible as a paltry creature. Was he not made in the image of God? Jesus would not have us despise our own native worth. Hope and faith come from a lofty view of human nature and its possibilities. Souls are not swine; and therefore by all the measure of their superiority to swine souls are worth saving. The shame and sorrow of sin lie just in this fact, that it is so foul a degradation of so fair a thing as human nature. Here is the contrast that heightens the tragedy of lost souls. But then we may add, in its reversal this same contrast magnifies the glory of redemption-from so deep a pit does Christ bring back His ransomed, to so great a height does He raise them! Lamentations 4:13 For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her, LEPERS Lamentations 4:13-16 PASSING from the fate of the princes to that of the prophets and priests, we come upon a vividly dramatic scene in the streets of Jerusalem amid the terror and confusion that precede the final act of the national tragedy. The doom of the city is attributed to the crimes of her religious leaders, whose true characters are now laid bare. The citizens shrink from the guilty men with the loathing felt for lepers, and shriek to them to depart, calling them unclean, and warning them not to touch any one by the way, because there is blood upon them. Dreading the awful treatment measured out to the victims of lynch-law, they stagger through the streets in a state of bewilderment, and stumble like blind men. Fugitives and vagabonds, with the mark of Cain upon them, driven out at the gates by the impatient mob, they can find no refuge even in foreign lands, for none of the nations will receive them. We do not know whether the poet is here describing actual events, or whether this is an imaginary picture designed to express his own feelings with regard to the persons concerned. The situation is perfectly natural, and what is narrated may very well have happened just as it is described. But if it is not history it is still a revelation of character, a representation of what the writer knows to be the conduct of the moral lepers, and their deserts; and as such it is most suggestive. In the first place there is much significance in the fact that the overthrow of Jerusalem is unhesitatingly charged to the account of the sins of her prophets and priests. These once venerated men are not merely no longer protected by the sanctity of their offices from the accusations that are brought against the laity; they are singled out for a charge of exceptionally heinous wickedness which is regarded as the root cause of all the troubles that have fallen upon the Jews. The second elegy had affirmed the failure of the prophets and the vanity of their visions. { Lamentations 2:9 ; Lamentations 2:14 } This new and stronger accusation reads like a reminiscence of Jeremiah, who repeatedly speaks of the sins of the clerical class and the mischief resulting therefrom. { Jeremiah 6:13 ; Jeremiah 8:10 ; Jeremiah 23:11-14 ; Jeremiah 26:7 ff.} Evidently the terrible truth the prophet dwelt upon so much was felt by a disciple of his school to be of the most serious consequence. The accusation is of the very gravest character. These religious leaders are charged with murder. If the elegist is recording historical occurrences he may be alluding to riots in which the feuds of rival factions had issued in bloodshed; or he may have had information of private acts of assassination. His language points to a condition in Jerusalem similar to that which was found in Rome at the Fifteenth Century, when popes and cardinals were the greatest criminals. The crimes were aggravated by the fact that the victims selected were the "righteous," perhaps men of the Jeremiah party, who had been persecuted by the officials of the State religion. But quite apart from these dark and tragic events, the record of which has not been preserved, if the wicked policy of their clergy had brought down on the heads of the citizens of Jerusalem the mass of calamities that accompanied the siege of the city by the Babylonians, this policy was in itself a cause of great bloodshed. The men who invited the ruin of their city were in reality the murderers of all who perished in that calamity. We know from Jeremiah’s statements on the subject that the false, time-serving, popular prophets were deceivers of the people, who allayed alarm by means of lies, saying "peace, peace; when there was no peace." { Jeremiah 6:14 ; Jeremiah 8:11 } When the deception was discovered their angry dupes would naturally hold them responsible for the results of their wickedness. The sin of these religious leaders of Israel consists essentially in betraying a sacred trust. The priest is in charge of the Torah, -traditional or written; he must have been unfaithful to his law or he could not have led his people astray. If the prophet’s claims are valid this man is the messenger of Jehovah, and therefore he must have falsified his message in order to delude his audience; if, however, he has not himself heard the Divine voice he is no better than a dervish, and in pretending to speak with the authority of an ambassador from heaven he is behaving as a miserable charlatan. In the case now before us the motive for the practice of deceit is very evident. It is thirst for popularity. Truth, right, God’s will-these imperial authorities count for nothing, because the favour of the people is reckoned as everything. No doubt there are times when the temptation to descend to untruthfulness in the discharge of a public function is peculiarly pressing. When party feeling is roused, or when a mad panic has taken possession of a community, it is exceedingly difficult resist the current and maintain what one knows to be right in conflict with the popular movement. But in its more common occurrence this treachery cannot plead any such excuse. That truth should be trampled under foot and souls endangered merely to enable a public speaker to refresh his vanity with the music of applause is about the most despicable exhibition of selfishness imaginable. If a man who has been set in a place of trust prostitutes his privileges simply to win admiration for his oratory, or at most in order to avoid the discomfort of unpopularity or the disappointment of neglect, his sin is unpardonable. The one form of unfaithfulness on the part of these religious leaders of Israel of which we are specially informed is their refusal to warn their reckless fellow-citizens of the approach of danger, or to bring home to their hearers’ consciences the guilt of the sin for which the impending doom was the just punishment. They are the prototypes of those writers and preachers who smooth over the unpleasant facts of life. It is not easy for any one to wear the mantle of Elijah, or echo the stern desert voice of John the Baptist. Men who covet popularity do not care to be reckoned pessimists; and when the gloomy truth is not flattering to their hearers they are sorely tempted to pass on to more congenial topics. This was apparent in the Deistic optimism that almost stifled spiritual life during the Eighteenth Century. Our age is far from being optimistic: and yet the same temptation threatens to smother religion today. In an aristocratic age the sycophant flatters the great; in a democratic age he flatters the people-who are then in fact the great. The peculiar danger of our own day is that the preacher should simply echo popular cries, and voice the demands of the majority irrespective of the question of their justice. Thrust into the position of a social leader with more urgency than his predecessors of any time since the age of the Hebrew prophets, it is expected that he will lead whither the people wish to go, and if he declines to do so he is denounced as retrograde. And yet as the messenger of Heaven he should consider it his supreme duty to reveal the whole counsel of God, to speak for truth and righteousness, and therefore to condemn the sins of the democracy equally with the sins of the aristocracy. Brave labour-leaders have fallen into disfavour for telling working-men that their worst enemies were their own vices such as intemperance. The wickedness of a responsible teacher who treasonably neglects thus to warn his brethren of danger is powerfully expressed by Ezekiel’s clear, antithetical statements concerning the respective guilt of the watchman and his fellow citizen, which show conclusively that the greatest burden of blame must rest on the unfaithful watchman. { Ezekiel 3:16-21 } In the hour of their exposure these wretched prophets and priests lose all sense of dignity, even lose their self-possession, and stumble about like blind men, helpless and bewildered. Their behaviour suggests the idea that they must be drunk with the blood they have shed, or overcome by the intoxication of their thirst for blood; but the explanation is that they cannot lift up their heads to look a neighbour in the face, because all their little devices have been torn to shreds, all their specious lies detected, all their empty promises falsified. This shame of dethroned popularity is the greatest humiliation. The unhappy man who has brought himself to live on the breath of fame cannot hide his fall in oblivion and obscurity as a private person may do. Standing in the full blaze of the world’s observation which he has so eagerly focused on himself, he has no alternative but to exchange the glory of popularity for the ignominy of notoriety. Possibly the confusion consequent on their exposure is all that the poet is thinking of when he depicts the blind staggering of the prophets and priests. But it is not unreasonable to take this picture as an illustration of their moral condition, especially after the references to the faults of the prophets in the second elegy have directed our attention to their spiritual darkness and the vanity of their visions. When the refuge of lies in which they had trusted was swept away they would necessarily find themselves lost and helpless. They had so long worshipped falsehood, it had become so much their god that we might say, in it they had lived, and moved, and had their being. But now they have lost the very atmosphere of their lives. This is the penalty of deceit. The man who begins by using it as his tool becomes in time its victim. At first he lies with his eyes open; but the sure effect of this conduct is that his sight becomes dim and blurred, till, if he persist in the fatal course long enough, he is ultimately reduced to a condition of blindness. By continually mixing truth and falsehood together he loses the power of distinguishing between them. It may be supposed that at an earlier stage of their decline, if the religious leaders of Israel had been honest with regard to their own convictions they must have admitted the possible genuineness of those prophets of ruin whom they had persecuted in deference to popular clamour. But they had rejected all such unwelcome thoughts so persistently that in course of time they had lost the perception of them. Therefore when the truth was flashed upon their unwilling minds by the unquestionable revelation of events they were as helpless as bats and owls suddenly driven out into the daylight by an earthquake that has flung down the crumbling ruins in which they had been sheltering themselves. The discovery of the true character of these men was the signal for a yell of execration on the part of the people by flattering whom they had obtained their livelihood, or at least all that they most valued in life. This too must have been another shock of surprise to them. Had they believed in the essential fickleness of popular favour, they would never have built their hopes upon so precarious a foundation, for they might as well have set up their dwelling on the strand that would be flooded at the next turn of the tide. History is strewn with the wreckage of fallen popular reputations of all degrees of merit, from that of the conscientious martyr who had always looked to higher ends than the applause which once encircled him, to that of the frivolous child of fortune who had known of nothing better than the world’s empty admiration. We see this both in Savonarola martyred at the stake and in Beau Nash starved in a garret. There is no more pathetic scene to be gathered from the story of religion in the present century than that of Edward Irving, once the idol of society, subsequently deserted by fashion, stationing himself at a street corner to proclaim his message to a chance congregation of idlers; and his mistake was that of an honest man who had been misled by a delusion. Incomparably worse is the fate of the fallen favourite who has no honesty of conviction with which to comfort himself when frowned at by the heartless world that had recently fawned upon him. The Jews show their disgust and horror for their former leaders by pelting them with the leper call. According to the law the leper must go with rent clothes and flowing hair, and his face partly covered, crying, "Unclean, unclean." { Leviticus 13:45 } It is evident that the poet has this familiar mournful cry in his mind when he describes the treatment of the prophets and priests. And yet there is a difference. The leper is to utter the humiliating word himself; but in the case now before us it is flung after the outcast leaders by their pitiless fellow citizens. The alteration is not without significance. The miserable victim of bodily disease could not hope to disguise his condition. "White as snow," his well-known complaint was patent to every eye. But it is otherwise with the spiritual leprosy, sin. For a time it may be disguised, a hidden fire in the breast. When it is evident to others, too often the last man to perceive it is the offender himself; and when he himself is inwardly conscious of guilt he is tempted to wear a cloak of denial before the world. More especially is this the case with one who has been accustomed to make a profession of religion, and most of all with a religious leader. While the publican who has no character to sustain will smite his breast with self-reproaches and cry for mercy, the professional saint is blind to his own sins, partly no doubt because to admit their existence would be to shatter his profession. But if the religious leader is slow to confess or even perceive his guilt, the world is keen to detect it and swift to cast it in his teeth. There is nothing that excite