re?' of our text is widely asked in the present day as an
expression of utter bewilderment at the miseries of humanity, both in
the wide area of this disordered world and in the narrower field of
individual lives. There are whole schools of so-called political and
social thinkers who have yet to learn that the one thing which the world
and the individual need is not a change of conditions or environment,
but redemption from sin. Man's sorrows are but a symptom of his disease,
and he is no more to be healed by tinkering with these than a
fever-stricken patient can be restored to health by treating the
blotches on his skin which tell of the disease that courses through his
veins.

But sometimes the question is more than an expression of bewilderment;
it conceals an arraignment of God's justice, or even a denial that there
is a God at all. There are men among us who hesitate not to avow that
the miseries of the world have rooted out of their minds a belief in
Him; and who point to all the ills under which humanity staggers as
conclusive against the ancient faith of a God of love. They, too, forget
that that love is righteousness, and that if there be sin in the world
and God above it, He must necessarily war against it and hate it.

Our right response to God's merciful threatenings is to ask this
question in the right spirit. We are not wise if we turn a deaf ear to
His warnings, or go on in a headlong course which He by His providences
declared to be dangerous and fatal. We use them as wise men should, only
if our 'Wherefore?' is asked in order to learn our evil, and having
learned it, to purge our bosoms of the perilous stuff by confession and
to seek pardon and victory in Christ. Then we shall 'know the secret of
the Lord' which is 'with them that fear Him'; and the mysteries that
still hang over our own histories and the world's destiny will have
shining down upon them the steadfast light of that love which seeks to
make men blessed by making them good.

THE LAST WORD OF PROPHECY

'Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way
before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His
temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in:
behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts. 2. But who may
abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth?
for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: 3. And He
shall sit as