ing to us. It may well make all of us tremble, but it need make none of us despair. The same scripture which shows us remorseful Judas hanging himself, shows us Peter hopefully repenting and being restored through tears. Judas wanted faith and hope. If he had had these, his history might have been different, for there was, while he lived, time for repentance, and whereas he died by his own hand, he might have been spared (if hope had triumphed over despair) to find pardon and acceptance at the feet of Jesus, and, like St. Peter, by a nobler after-life have atoned for his sin.

IX.

The Plague in the Wilderness.

"He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed."-NUM. xvi. 48.

THE dead here referred to consisted of a fearful multitude. "They that died," says the next verse, "were fourteen thousand and seven hundred." And they all appear to have died instantaneously and in a mass. The plague came upon them as they were gathered together in one immense assembly around the tabernacle in the wilderness; not attacking them one by one and sending them home to sicken and die in their tents, but sweeping them down in a mass where they stood. It was the plague, and its touch was death.

And why this rapid and tremendous judgment? To answer this question, let us look, in the first place, at the origin of this plague; and then, that we may have yet another instance of the divine mercy fixed in our memories, let us pass on to its cessation.

I. To say that this calamity had its origin in sin, would be to say little. All ill to man proceeds from sin. There is not a pang or a sorrow in the universe which has not this vile thing as its source. But then, suffering owes its existence to sin in various ways. Sometimes it is

sent in mercy to prevent sin. St. Paul had a thorn in the flesh "lest he should be exalted," and our blessings are often snatched away from us lest we should turn them into idols. At other times, it comes to discover sin and subdue it in the Christian's heart. "Before I was afflicted" (says David) "I went astray, but now have I kept thy word." More frequently, however, its design is to answer the purposes of God's moral government; to punish sin; to manifest the abhorrence in which the Great Ruler of the universe holds it, and thus to deter His creatures from its commission. And such was its object here. The Israelites had sinned against the Lord: this plague was the punishment of their sin.

And now, perhaps, we are ready to set these men before us as guilty of some enormous crime-as monsters of iniquity; but look to the history. The only offence which we find recorded against them amounted to this, and no more than this-they had murmured; and that not against God, but against Moses and Aaron, men like themselves. But how different, often, is sin really, from what it appears to be at the first glance! Here was a mere trifle, an affront offered to a fellow-creature; but it strikes at the Holy One of Israel. Strip it of its disguise, it comes out disobedience; rebellion against the King of kings.

1. This offence involved in itself, first, an ignoring of God's providence, at all events a refusal to acknowledge it.

"Ye have killed the people of the Lord," said the Israelites to Moses and Aaron. Nothing could be more untrue. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had excited

a rebellion in the camp. Contrary to the divine appointment, one of them had aspired to the priesthood in the Church; the others to supreme sway in the State. God would not bear this contempt of His authority. He wrought, immediately, two miracles, to show His indignation. The earth first opened her mouth and swallowed up Dathan and Abiram with their families; and then "there came out a fire from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense" with Korah. Now, some in our day would have resolved these tremendous judgments into accidents, distressing casualties. They would have talked to us of natural causes; and though no causes at all adequate to effects so fearful could be found, yet something in nature would have been discovered or imagined and then magnified, till God and His avenging arm had disappeared. The Israelites acted not thus; but they acted in a like spirit. "This desolation" (they said) "is the work of Moses and Aaron. It is the outcome of tyranny and priestcraft." They charged their rulers with destroying the people. And then God laid bare His arm. To vindicate His own providence, to force the nation to see that He had been the author of the judgments they had witnessed, He strikes a blow which no mortal man could have inflicted; so rapid, so destructive, so awful, that unbelief itself must be compelled to ascribe it to His omnipotent hand. In a moment fourteen thousand of the people are smitten to death in the wilderness.

We must take heed, brethren, how we push God out of His own world. He really is its Governor. He is as much the source of the natural evils that lay it waste as of the mercies that gladden it. And He is

"I

determined to be seen and acknowledged as such. am the Lord, and there is none else." "I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil." "The Lord is known" (says the Psalmist), His existence, His authority, His providence are known "by the judgments which He executeth." We may go further yet. He will be recognised as the builder of hell itself. "Tophet is ordained of old" (says the prophet); "He hath made it deep and large; the pile thereof is fire and much wood;" and then he adds, "the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." The wrath that burns in eternity is said to be "the wrath of the Lamb." It is described as coming from that Saviour who is enthroned in the heavens in a form of mercy, and Who is the life and light and glory of that world of joy.

When the Egyptians were overwhelmed, it pleased the Israelites. They admired God's vengeance, when it was directed against their enemies. They made the shores of the Red Sea echo with the refrain of their song: The Lord (they said) had triumphed gloriously. But now that God's avenging blow falls on themselves, they cannot see its justice; so we read, "the people murmured."

All this was natural, but it was not right. Let the feelings of the natural man be what they may, "The Lord is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works;" as righteous, holy, and gracious too in these very judgments which desolate our families and wring our souls, as in the mercies which yield us the fullest joy. The Almighty God does not bear the sword in vain. Place a God of love on a throne, and He becomes, He must become, a God of justice; His love