watches in faith and patience, beside the sickbed of a beloved husband, or a dying child, is it nothing to know, and to experience, that there is always present, One who is "touched with a feeling of our infirmities," who has declared, "In all their affliction, I am afflicted," and who will not, and who cannot leave you, who will watch with you, through those hours of lonely darkness, and give you strength for the most arduous duties, and peace under the most afflictive and trying visitations? And, at last, when the days of personal trial shall come, as come they must, to the youngest, the healthiest, the strongest among us, "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, and the spirit returns unto God who gave it,”* who can tell how great and blessed will be the consolation which this high truth and attribute of our God shall bestow? At such an hour, perhaps the memory of many an infirmity and sin, of which we now enjoy every hope that it is pardoned, will be forced back upon the conscience, * Eccl. xii. 6.

You

by the great accuser of the brethren, who is then almost invariably present, striving to torment, where he cannot destroy. How comforting will the feeling be, that He also is with us, who has set His foot, as conqueror, upon the serpent's head, and who has said, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud thy sins," "there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." may be, for many are at such an hour, unable to join together two words of connected prayer, or to give utterance to one holy aspiration: then again, how blessed is the fact, that He is present, even Jesus the Mediator, "who ever liveth to make intercession for you," and will pray for you, when you cannot utter one syllable of prayer for yourself. And when all is over, and the fainting heart and the closing eye too plainly tell that the last struggle is ending, the last victory to be won, words cannot, for words have never yet described, the blessedness, at such a time, of an ever-present Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, who has said, My rod

and my staff shall comfort thee, and when thy heart and thy flesh faileth, I am the strength of thy heart, and thy portion for ever. Brethren, be assured that the Christian's highest solace here, will also be his highest joy throughout the ages of eternity, the abiding presence of his God, for it is this, which alone can constitute heaven. "I go to prepare a place for you; that WHERE I AM, there ye may be also."

130

LECTURE VI.

2 KINGS Vi. 17.

"And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."

In the last incident that formed a portion of the history we are reviewing, we were led, by the astonishing power vouchsafed to Elisha, to dwell upon that most wonderful attribute of the Almighty which it so strikingly illustratedthe omnipresence of God. The narrative which is this day to occupy our attention, will convey to our minds an equally convincing evidence of another attribute of the great Jehovah, in which we are, as individuals, as deeply and feelingly

interested-the omniscience of the Almighty. May the conviction of this great truth take full possession of our minds, that remembering that "all things are naked, and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do,"* we may learn to live and speak, and think, as continually within the ken of His all-seeing eye, and the hearing of His all-hearing ear.

Commencing with the eighth verse of the sixth chapter, we read, "Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once or twice. Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?

* Heb. iv. 13.