King Jehoram was lying sick at Jezreel of the wounds he had received in battle from the Syrians. Ahaziah King of Judah had come down to visit him, and, as they conversed together, the watchman upon the city wall brought tidings of an armed company approaching. Jehu, at the head of them, was by-and-by recognized by his furious driving. He had already been proclaimed king in Ramoth-Gilead, but Jehoram knew nothing of this. He suspected some ill news, however, and he and Ahaziah drove out with their two chariots to meet Jehu. And where was it that they met? Jehu had good reason to know the place. So had Jehoram. About twenty years before, another memorable meeting had taken place there. Jehoram's father, Ahab, had coveted Naboth's vineyard. Jehoram's mother, Jezebel, had brought about Naboth's death by a process of false swearing against him. Naboth was dead, and Ahab, accompanied by his two captains, Jehu and Bidkar, rode out to take possession of that vineyard whose owner the queen had murdered. But his sin had found him out. Elijah, the messenger of God, met him there. And there, in that vineyard which he had procured through covetousness, envy, treachery, and bloodshed, Ahab was compelled to listen to his doom. Terrible words they were indeed for a king to hear. "Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even throe. And Jezebel, the instigator of the crime, was not forgotten. The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel." And now, in that very place, stained with the blood of Naboth, Jehu meets Jehoram, the son of Ahab the murderer and the king. The blood of Naboth cries to Heaven for vengeance. Jehoram was little better than his father. He too "cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." He forsook the true God and served other gods. No doubt his conscience smote him and his spirit failed him, as he asked of Jehu, "Is it peace?" But there was not much time left him to prepare to die. Jehu's words were few, and his actions quick as thought. With his full strength he drew his bow and sent his arrow straight to Jehoram's heart. It was then that the words of Elijah, spoken twenty years before in that very place, flashed back upon his mind, and he caused the lifeless body of Jehoram to be cast into the field of Naboth the Jezreelite. But Jehu's work of vengeance is not yet done. Jezebel's long career of wickedness had hardened her heart and blinded her to her danger. As Jehu rode into the city, she sat at her window in her best attire, as if to defy him, and greeted him with the sneering question, "Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?' But Jehu is not a man to be trifled with. He finds willing helpers in her own servants. At his command they threw her down into the street, and she - the adulteress and the murderess, the woman whose name has become proverbial as a symbol of everything that is bad - is trampled under the horses' feet, and once more the doom of Heaven is fulfilled: "In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel." We learn from this narrative some important lessons.

I. SIN, NOT REPENTED OF, MUST BE PUNISHED. This is a law of nature. It is a fact of history. It is the very essence of morality. It is the very essence of justice. It is at the basis of social order in a nation. It is at the basis of the moral government of the universe. Those who transgress the law of nations, those who transgress the laws of honesty or of morality, those who take away the life, or the property, or the character of others, must be made to suffer for it. This is necessary, that justice may be vindicated. It is necessary, in order that property and person and character may be safe. It is necessary, in order that other evil-doers may be deterred from crime. Even under our own national law, we feel that there is something wrong when an evil-doer escapes. We feel that it has a bad effect upon the community when crime goes unpunished. Now, what is sin in the Bible sense? Sin is the transgression of the Law. It is a transgression of a far higher law than the law of nations, of that law on which the well-being of all nations depends - the eternal Law of God. The Law of God is at the foundation of all true well-being and happiness in every nation and in every age. "This do, and thou shalt live." "The commandment is holy, and just, and good." It is, therefore, in the interests of every nation, it is in the interests, not of one generation of men merely, but of those who shall come after them, that those who transgress the Divine Law should suffer for it. Every violation of a Divine law must be followed by its corresponding punishment. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Look at your own lives in the light of this great truth. Are there any sins in your lives unrepented of? Then be assured that the punishment, if it has not yet come, awaits you. Sins against God, against God's Law, against God's sabbath; sins against our fellow-man - sins of unfair dealing, sins of evil-speaking, or other and grosser sins; every one of these, if not repented of, is sure to bring its corresponding punishment. "Be sure your sin will find you out."

II. PUNISHMENT MAY BE DELAYED, BUT IT IS NONE THE LESS SURE. There is an old Irish proverb, "The vengeance of God is slow, but sure." We have many illustrations of that in history. It was long after Jezebel's great crime before her punishment overtook her. When the Israelites were journeying through the wilderness, the Amalekites treated them with great treachery and cruelty, falling upon them in the rear, and when they were faint and weary. It was not until four hundred years afterwards that the sentence against Amalek was executed but it was executed at last. We may kill our enemies, we may seek to destroy all traces of our crime, but we can never destroy the memory and the guilt of it by any acts of ours. Charles IX. of France was led, by the importunity of another Jezebel, Mary de Medicis, to kill Admiral Coligny, who was the great leader of the French Protestants. For a long time he refused, but at last he consented in the memorable words, "Assassinate Admiral Coligny, but leave not a Huguenot alive in France to reproach me." That was the origin of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Having killed Coligny, he did not want any of his friends to remain to bear witness against him. How anxious men are to destroy all traces of their crime! And yet how vain all such efforts are! There is One whose eye sees every act of human life. We may escape the judgment of men, but we cannot escape the judgment of God. If not here, then certainly hereafter, every sin, not repented of, will receive its due reward. "For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it he good or had."

III. THERE IS OFTEN A RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN THE PLACE AND MANNER OF THE SIN AND THE PLACE AND MANNER OF THE PUNISHMENT.

1. It was at Naboth's vineyard that the great sin of Ahab's house had been committed. There, too, at Naboth's vineyard, Jehoram, Ahab's son, was slain. It was outside the walls of Jezreel that the dogs licked the blood of Naboth. There, too, the dogs licked the blood and ate the flesh of Jezebel his murderess. It would seem as if this was part of the Divine Law of retribution. One reason for it would appear to be that it fixes unmistakably the connection between the sin and its punishment. Robe Spierre, the famous French revolutionist, literally choked the river Seine with the heads of those whom he sent to the guillotine. But the day came when the death-tumbrel containing himself was trundled along the streets of Paris to the selfsame fatal axe, amid the shouts and execrations of the multitude. Cardinal Beaten condemned to death George Wishart, one of the first of the Scottish Reformers, and watched him burning at the stake, while he himself reclined on rich cushions on the walls of his castle at St. Andrew's. Three months afterwards the cardinal himself was put to death, and his dead body was hung by a sheet from the very battlements whence he had looked at the execution of Wishart. There is something more than accident in such things. There is the vivid impression intended to be made on people's minds, that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"

2. The same is true of the resemblance between the manner of the sin and the manner of the punishment. Jezebel's murder of Naboth was treacherous and ignominious. She herself was put to death in a treacherous and ignominious way. "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Jacob cruelly deceived his aged father Isaac when he was blind and feeble. What a pointed retribution it was when he was afterwards cruelly deceived by his own sons in their statements about Joseph! Haman was hanged on the gallows which he had made for Mordecai. One of the most terrible instances of this truth, that as we have treated others we shall be treated ourselves, is the case of Charles IX. of France, referred to above. He consented to the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. He caused the streets of Paris to run with the blood of the Huguenots. He died at the age of twenty-four: and what a death! French historians of the highest order say that he was in such agony of remorse that he literally sweated blood. The blood that oozed from his own body caused him to think of those whose blood he had so freely shed, and he cried out in his last hours about the massacre of the Huguenots. Horrible! Yes; but there is a deep and solemn truth underlying all this. It is a truth that should have practical result upon every life. "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again" If your sin is public, most likely your punishment will be public. Men who commit commercial frauds - that is, sins against public confidence and trust - they ought to suffer, and they do suffer, public exposure. If your sin is secret, your punishment will also most likely be secret. They who sin against the laws of health suffer in an impaired constitution. They who sin by speaking evil about others most likely will have many to speak evil about themselves. Standing there by Naboth's vineyard, and thinking of the envy, covetousness, and murder, of which it reminds us, and their terrible consequences, let us hear the blood of Nabeth and the blood of Naboth's house crying to us from the ground, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Such, then, is the Divine law of retribution. But God, who is just, is also merciful. He willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness, and live. We have looked at the way of his justice. Let us look also at the way of his mercy. It is the way of the cross. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." If you reject God's mercy, there is only the other alternative-God's retributive justice. - C.H.I.

The man who was spoken of in this contemptuous manner was a prophet of God, sent by another prophet to a fellow-subject, with the present of a kingdom in his hand. Before night (so it appears) that kingdom had been secured; two con. federate kings had been swept out of the way; and a queen-mother, stronger than either, had been literally cast to the dogs. Such was the brief history of this message from heaven. No one called the prophet a madman at the close of that day. Many another true message from heaven has had a similar fate; and all such messages may expect it. They may expect a similar reproach in the first instance; and a similar vindication in the end.

I. CONCERNING THE REPROACH. God hath spoken at "sundry times and in divers manners" to the world; but the messengers by whom He has spoken have seldom been recognised as such at the first. From the days of Noah to those of St. Paul, experience testifies this. Wherever God sends a special message to men, it clearly must be because a special message is required; in other words, because the knowledge and wisdom of man are not sufficient in his then existing circumstances to guide him. God sends him counsel because his own counsel is worthless, or worse. But this is just the thing which man's pride is unwilling to allow. Again, God's counsel, like Himself, is certain to be holy; and man's natural purposes, on the other hand, are sure to be ungodly and sinful. Further yet, God's wisdom is sure to be far-sighted and profound, while the faculties which attempt to scan it are always short-sighted and shallow. On all these grounds, therefore, the message, when it comes, will be something unwelcome and perplexing at the first. Its pretensions will be humiliating to man's pride; its tendency will be offensive to his nature; its contents will be confounding to his mind. "I know you that ye have not the love of God in you." It is an aggravated illustration of the same principle which causes frivolity to despise enthusiasm; selfishness, generosity; the savage, mercy and truth; and the clown, the highest efforts of literature, science, and art. Men hate to believe in anything superior to themselves.

II. CONCERNING THE VINDICATION. "Wisdom is justified of all her children." Where a message is really from God, it compels belief at the last. This may be easily seen in all the cases already referred to. The flood of waters justified Noah; the fire from heaven justified Lot; the Exodus justified Moses; and the victory over the Philistines justified David. Exactly in proportion to the original contempt was the final honour in each case. It was the same with the apparently habitual scorn of all true prophecy in old days; true prophecy has long been fully revenged. Similar justice, also, has long been measured out to the once despised evangelists and apostles, and to that equally despised Master whom they obeyed. In proof of this you have only to consider that no greater praise can now be given to any man, than to say his conduct is truly apostolical, or his character really Christian. It is nothing that, in short, but the old proverb, "Magna est veritas, et praevalebit." A true message from heaven has heavenly resources behind it. It is like a bank with very large liabilities, but with assets much larger still. Consequently, whatever it dares, it can do; whatever the doubts, and surmises, and panic, it can meet them all with a smile. We may apply this as an excellent test of the various religions of the world. There are some that make no pretensions, that do not oppose men's desires, nor perplex their minds, nor offend their prejudices. That is condemnation enough by itself. God would hardly have sent us a message which we could have devised for ourselves. There are other religions which are all pretensions; which go on shouting for centuries that the Diana they worship is very great; and which are perpetually singing in chorus, We are right, and you are wrong, we are saved, and you are lost; but without any real proof of it all. Such religions offer no reason, and so require no reply. They are simply gigantic systems of self-praise; and it is no recommendation to them. These are not the marks of the true message — "If I honour myself, my honour is nothing."

(Homilist.)