the battle-axe wherewith the hand of God
struck it, it would have learned that from God alone could come healing
and health. The unrest which betrays the presence in our souls of a
deep-seated sin, is a divine messenger. We terribly misinterpret the
true source of all that disturbs us when we attribute it only to the
occasions which bring it about; for the one purpose of all our
restlessness is to drive us nearer to God, and to wrench us away from
our Assyria. The true issue of Ephraim's sickness would have been the
penitent cry, 'Come, let us return to the Lord our God, for He hath
smitten, and He will bind us up.' It is in the consciousness of loving
nearness to Him that all our unrest is soothed, and the heaving ocean in
our hearts becomes as a summer's sea and 'birds of peace sit brooding on
the charmed waves.' It is in that same consciousness that conscience
ceases to condemn, and loses its sting. The prophet from whom our text
is taken ends his wonderful ministry, that had been full of fiery
denunciations and dark prophecies, with words that are only surpassed in
their tenderness and the outpouring of the heart of God, by the fuller
revelation in Jesus Christ: 'O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God.
Take with you words, and return unto the Lord, and say unto Him: Assyria
shall not save us, for in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy.' The divine
answer which he was commissioned to bring to the penitent Israel--'I
will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; if Mine anger is
turned away from Me'--is, in all its wealth of forgiving love but an
imperfect prophecy of the great Physician, from the hem of whose garment
flowed out power to one who 'had spent all her living on physicians and
could not be healed of any,' and who confirmed to her the power which
she had thought to steal from Him unawares by the gracious words which
bound her to Him for ever--'Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go
in peace.'

'FRUIT WHICH IS DEATH'

'Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself:
according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the
altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly
images. 2. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty:
He shall break down their altars, He shall spoil their images. 3.
For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the
Lord; what then should a king do to us? 4. They have