sin, all tell how true a
saint he was in the depth of his soul. Sorrow and chastisement turn up
the subsoil. If a man has any good in him, it generally comes to the top
when he is afflicted and looks death in the face. If there is nothing
but gravel beneath, it too will be brought up by the plough. There may
be much selfish unfaithfulness overlying a real devoted heart.

Jonah represented Israel here too, both in that the consequence of the
national unfaithfulness and greedy, exclusive grasp of their privileges
would lead to their being cast into the roaring waves of the sea of
nations, amid the tumult of the peoples, and in that, for them as for
him, the calamity would bring about a better mind, the confession of
their faith, and acknowledgment of their sin. The history of Israel was
typified in this history, and the lessons it teaches are lessons for all
churches, and for all God's children for all time. If we shirk our duty
of witnessing for Him, or any other of His plain commands,
unfaithfulness will be our ruin. The storm is sure to break where His
Jonahs try to hide, and their only hope lies in bowing to the
chastisement and consenting to be punished, and avowing whose they are
and whom they serve. If we own Him while the storm whistles round us,
the worst of it is past, and though we have to struggle amid its waves,
He will take care of us, and anything is possible rather than that we
should be lost in them.

The miracle of rescue is the last point. Jonah's repentance saved his
life. Tossed overboard impenitent he would have been drowned. So Israel
was taught that the break-up of their national life would not be their
destruction if they turned to the Lord in their calamity. The wider
lesson of the means of making chastisement into blessing, and securing a
way of escape--namely, by owning the justice of the stroke, and
returning to duty--is meant for us all. He who sends the storm watches
its effect on us, and will not let His repentant servants be utterly
overwhelmed. That is a better use to make of the story than to discuss
whether any kind of known Mediterranean fish could swallow a man. If we
believe in miracles, the question need not trouble us. And miracle there
must be, not only in the coincidence of the fish and the Prophet being
in the same bit of sea at the same moment, but in his living for so long
in his strange 'ark of safety.'

The ever-present providence of God, the possible safety of the nation