will again remember His chosen with favour. And how well he pleads! What skill, what pathos, if we may so speak, mark this portion of the prayer! He points out that as Moses condemns them, or God by Moses, the same authority yet bids them anticipate deliverance and restoration as a penitent people. 'Remember, I beseech Thee, the word that Thou commandedst Thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations; but if ye turn unto Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the utmost part of heaven, I will gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set My name there. Now these are Thy servants and Thy people, whom Thou hast redeemed by Thy great power and by Thy strong hand.' And if the Jews had thus ground for hope-if a door of escape was open to them shall penitent sinners now despair, bought as they are with a price, even the precious blood of Christ'? Again Nehemiah entreats God to hearken to his supplications, and closes his prayer by the intimation of a purpose he had formed, with reference to which he wisely and piously sought the divine blessing. 'O Lord, I beseech Thee, let now Thine ear be attentive to the prayer of Thy servant, and to the prayer of Thy servants, who desire to fear Thy name; and prosper, I pray Thee, Thy servant this day, and

grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

was the king's cupbearer.'

For I

There are some undertakings on which men dare not ask the blessing of God, and if they did it would be withheld. There are some undertakings, too, respecting which men forget to ask the blessing of Heaven, or think it superfluous to do so. The matter contemplated by Nehemiah was not of this character, nor was it so regarded by him.

The lessons this turn in the prayer teaches us should not be overlooked. Let us learn that the province of prayer is not restricted to things spiritual. It embraces the affairs of everyday life, and all lawful undertakings great and small.

Have we a favour to ask of man? Copying Nehemiah's example, we shall do well to bring it first before God. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.'

And here, for the time being, we part from Nehemiah. Tears are on his cheeks, and penitential sorrow is in his heart. He casts himself in the dust before God, and while prostrate there, a great thought occurs to him, and a noble purpose shapes itself in his soul. These find a place in his prayer; and in the attitude of a sorrowing, yet not despairing suppliant we now leave him.

II.

The Praying Patriot.

'Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.'-NEHEMIAH ii. 4.

WE left Nehemiah in the attitude of prayer. The text also presents him as a suppliant, with this distinction, that while God is still invoked, it is rather a short and silent uplifting of the soul to Him, than an audible or prolonged pleading.

The first chapter of the book before us records Nehemiah's appeal to God. This second chapter records his petitions to man. It opens, like the former, with an account of an interesting conversation, in which Nehemiah again takes part, but not 'Hanani and certain men of Judah.' It is a conversation between his royal master and himself. Some four months have passed away since the interview with Hanani was held. Winter has given place to spring; but, alas! no corresponding change, no gladsome springtime, has visited the heart of the king's cupbearer.

Up to the present, however, he had deemed it prudent to conceal his grief from the king. Now,

at length, the hour had come for manifesting it, and his troubled looks soon attract his master's attention. 'And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him; and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence. Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid. The word 'sad' might be rendered 'evil,' and 'sorrow of heart' 'wickedness of heart'; hence some have supposed that the king, by the special notice he took of his cupbearer's demeanour, 'suspected him of entertaining some bad design, or that he was overwhelmed by a sudden fit of remorse.' The words, as here rendered, do not well accord with the state of perturbation into which Nehemiah was thrown when the king addressed him. Why need he be very sore afraid' if Artaxerxes simply wished to know what ailed him? or if his inquiry were but the expression of a kindly sympathy? To be suspected or accused by one who had trusted and honoured him so much, and whose power to punish treachery was as great as his will would probably be, might easily cause dread, even to an innocent person.

Fortunately for Nehemiah, his conscience was clear as to any such design, and he was soon able

to set the king's suspicions, if he had them, at rest.

He proceeded to lay before him the occasion of his distress. 'Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire?'

The case is well put, put with tact, put in a touching manner. The king's interest is awakened, and his sympathy aroused. May Nehemiah now venture to tell him of the project he has dared to form? May he ask his aid in carrying it out? He may, or at all events the opportunity of doing so is given him. 'Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.'

Let us consider:

1. The pious bearing of Nehemiah at a crisis in his life.

2. That further portion of his history which the chapter before us records.

I. Let us notice the pious bearing of Nehemiah at a crisis in his life. For what dost thou make request?' were the king's words to him. Now, while you may be sure there would be no unseemly delay in replying to the king, Nehemiah first of all makes supplication to another and mightier Potentate the King eternal, immortal, invisible.' 'So I prayed to the God of heaven.' There and then