laws can be set aside, and the judge of the land bestow pardon where yet the law requires punishment. But if God set aside His holy and just laws like that, He would not be a just God. Justice and mercy are met together in Christ. He by His obedience, His sufferings, His death, and His resurrection, does satisfy the justice of God for every believing sinner, so that mercy can flow freely, and fully, and everlastingly down to that sinner.

Is this the foundation on which rest our hopes of pardon and life? Are we thus through faith in this Mediator reconciled, and living in friendship with God? Does our heart as well as our head reply to this? Are we loving Him who thus first loved us? Are we hating and shunning the sins which required this sacrifice? Oh! let us remember, "they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and the lusts." It is the love of Christ which breaks the bands of sin. And the love of Christ is seen in all He has done, is doing, and promises to do for the sinner, that has cast himself upon Him.

ELISHA

AND THE SHUNAMMITE.

"So she went, and came unto the man of God to mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite:

Run now,

I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well.-2 KINGS IV. 25, 26.

THIS chapter contains an account of two women who obtained help in time of trouble from Elisha, the servant and prophet of God.

The first is the case of a widow of one of the sons of the prophets. Her husband had died and left her in debt. The prophets were not rich people, probably only just gaining a livelihood from day to day. They were chiefly engaged in spiritual labours. And though that would not justify any one running into debt, it may in this case have been no great fault on his part, and but for his death, would not have happened. However that may be, we know it is wrong to incur debts we have no good reason to expect shortly to pay, and we cannot be

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surprised if it bring ourselves or others into trouble.

But the widow was not to suffer. She took her case to the man of God, knowing he had power to help; which was all one with taking it to God. The bank Elisha drew upon for help was inexhaustible, for it was the Almighty Power of God. He cared not therefore what means were at hand. All things were possible to him, because all was possible to the God he trusted in. He at once took up the poor woman's cause. She came and said, "Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen." Her distress was great. She had lost a good husband. Cruel death, no respecter of persons, had claimed him. And now creditors, as cruelly, were ready to take her two sons.

But the Lord is a present help in trouble. He, who having redeemed her husband's soul, had only let death take his body to see corruption for a while, would now redeem her sons from the hand of the creditors.

"Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not

anything in the house, save a pot of oil." She is hereupon told to borrow all the empty vessels she can of her neighbours. She then was to pour into all those vessels from the one she had oil in. She did this, and it filled all the vessels she had got together. And it would have filled more. "She said to her son, Bring me yet a vessel, and he said unto her, There is not a vessel more, and the oil stayed." Thus showing that God did not put a limit to the supply, the limit was in her means to receive it. The oil was sold and her debts were paid, and her sons were safe, and she had wherewithal to live on besides.

An instance this is of the way God can and will help His people, who cry unto Him in their distress. He has as many ways of sending help now as then. His help is as abundant as ever. We are not straitened in Him, but in ourselves. We

shall grow weary of praying, and seeking, and trusting, sooner than He will of supplying our wants. Whether troubles come then from our own faults, or otherwise, let us ever feel we have one greater than Elisha, who is both able and willing to help us in His own time and His own way, even Jesus, our Redeemer. He is greater than

Elisha. All power in heaven and earth is in His hands. Nothing is too hard for Him.

But, next, we have the case of the Shunammite woman. She is described as "a great woman." A woman of quality and substance perhaps. She was also probably a woman great in a better sense, fearing God and loving His people and His ways. She was one of those of whom David speaks, "He maketh much of them that fear the Lord." She and her husband made much of Elisha. They thought it an honour to have him at their house. "She constrained him to eat bread. And so it was as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread." Elisha could not be long or oft at their table without their discovering what sort of a man he was, and what was his real character. "She said to her husband, Behold now, I perceive this is an holy man of God which passeth by continually." True grace will always make itself known, as the lighted candle will give light to those in the room. If a man's aim be to glorify God, if a man's affection be really set on Christ, so that he desires to make Him known to others, and if a man's words be seasoned with grace, all this must in a little while proclaim to the company he is with, Whose he is and Whom