high, their resolution runs strong, and they obey their own desires, and resist the advice of others with equal determination. They therefore consider their father's change as a change of bodily constitution, rather than of spirit, and ascribe it to the coldness and irresolution of advancing years, rather than to conviction. They will appeal to his former life both for authority for their misdeeds, and for a rebuke to silence his tongue.

Even had the youth with those around him dissembled, or carelessly acquiesced, Manasseh's trouble would have still continued. The experienced insight of a man, who had known so well and so long all the workings of idolatry upon the heart, could not have failed to discern occasional outbreaks of the unquelled spirit within. Had he entertained any design of depriving this son of his birthright, he durst not execute it, the idolatrous faction was too strong to suffer such an extreme measure; their now scattered forces would immediately find a rallying point. Perhaps they had submitted to his measures only because they had a near prospect of their recall in the reign of this very son. He had therefore before him the miserable prospect of leaving his throne to a son who would pull down all that he had been so laboriously building up, even as he himself had undone all that his father Hezekiah had done. Here was trouble and vexation, indeed, to his soul. former loathed self revived. had died was alive with all its son; and another Manasseh would shortly work another downfall, both of the independence of his country, and of the worship of the true God. Here

In Amon he saw his The body to which he lusts rampant in his

was occasion, indeed, to continue his fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.

But God did not leave his penitent servant comfortless. He granted him life long enough to see his grandson, Josiah, of an age sufficient to receive religious impressions. Here the old man found a well in the desert, and most probably the heartless inattention of the profligate Amon, abandoned the child to the first hands that would take him up for instruction, nor ever cared to inquire into the nature of what he was taught. Perhaps so indifferent was he to all shapes of religion, so long as they did not threaten to thwart his own inclinations, that it troubled him not, even if the child were brought up in the way of the Lord. And he might not be unwilling to gratify his father in a matter which gave himself little concern, and might find it prudent to yield obedience in one point. We may, therefore, reasonably suppose that the Church owed Josiah to the pious care of Manasseh, who unweariedly instilled into his tender mind the fear of the Lord, together with a loathing horror of idolatry. He could enforce his lesson by relating, in a manner well suited to make an indelible impression on the child's mind, the wretchedness of his own captivity. The darkness, the chains, the loneliness, the hunger, of his prison he could tell in that artless but lively manner, that the boy would never forget the dreadful penalty of the crime of idolatry. If his former self was living in Amon, his new self, thus day by day infused, took possession of Josiah, and the same spirit under a different name carried on that reformation which Manasseh's life was too short to establish. Such were the latter days of Manasseh,

who beginning his eventful reign as a headstrong and unprincipled boy of twelve, concluded it as an humble and sincere penitent of sixty-seven.

His example is, beyond that of all others, full of matter for the preacher. It at once gives the highest encouragement, and the strongest dissuasion. On the one hand it shows that, even after a most desperate course of folly and wickedness, a penitence acceptable to God is possible; on the other hand, that it is in a high degree improbable. Painfully fearful is the consideration that this is the only instance of such penitence recorded in Scripture. For we must not confound with this the example of the penitent thief, of the degree of whose previous guilt we are ignorant, whose crime might have been one of momentary surprise: nor can we look to a parallel in those persons who embraced Christianity after the deadly iniquities of Paganism. Manasseh stands in the class of such as have deliberately abandoned and wilfully disobeyed God through a long course of life. It includes many kings and chief persons mentioned in Scripture. But one only, even this one only, is recorded as having returned from his sinful ways. Here is slender encouragement indeed to go on in a course of sin with a prospect of future repentance. That repentance is not in our own power. And the longer it is deferred, the more extraordinary is the agency required to effect it, the more severe the process of its working. But supposing this extraordinary intervention to be certain as God's word, to be a specified point in the covenant of the Gospel, would it not still be the height of folly to put ourselves in the situation of requiring such tremen

dous correction? Let us look to what Manasseh was subjected, and count the cost if we can.

Thus stands Manasseh among the figures in God's Church. It is a solitary figure belonging to no group. Removed from the porchway of repentance into the sanctuary of the saints, it stands a splendid monument of God's ineffable mercy, and of his unerring justice. May the gazer never fail to draw from it the proper lesson. Let him learn not to presume on the former of these attributes to the prejudice of the latter. Let him learn that repentance, inasmuch as it implies not only amendment, but also reparation, is a great work, to which the only end is the end of life. Will he defer it till driven to it as the last resource? Will he think to earn this lifegiving bread with the cold sweat of death upon his brow? Is it a work of no time and of no strength to cast the idols out of our spiritual temple of the heart, to restore the altar of God there, to build up by good example all that we have thrown down by bad? We see but the gross and outward half of the repentance of Manasseh. What must have been the inner, of which this was but the inadequate expression? Let us ponder these things, and whenever we find a fit of carelessness creeping upon us, arouse ourselves, and turn for warning to the repentance of Manasseh.

DANIEL.

B. c. 603.

"THY sons shall be chamberlains in the palace of the king of Babylon," were the words of Isaiah to Hezekiah; and a century had little more than elapsed, when this prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. King, nobles, priests, and people, were carried into captivity, and Nebuchadnezzar gave orders that out of the families of the king and of the nobles should be chosen such children as were best looking, and of the best parts, who should be taught the tongue and learning of the Chaldeans, so that they might be qualified for the office of ministry in his palace. Among these was Daniel, who, in this very outset of his fortune, and under much trial, gave an example of his scrupulous adherence to the service of his God. Vulgar and ignoble minds readily exchange the customs, the institutions, the language, and even religion of their fathers for those of the spot whereever they may be, and however opposite such may be; contrasted as the fens and dykes of Babylonia with the mountains and valleys of Judea, and can even make a boast of their slavish and inglorious versatility. How gladly then would such persons lay hold of the excuse of their removal from the promised land, and utter separation from the Temple,