that the ship was like to be broken: then the mariners were afraid, and cried every one unto his god, and cast out all the heavy things that were in the ship to lighten it: but still the storm increased."

E. Ah, mother! I think Jonah must have been very much frightened then, for he must have felt that he had done very wrong, and so he could hardly ask God to take care of him.

M. During a great part of the storm, my son, he was fast asleep below in the ship; but at length one of the sailors came and awoke him, saying, "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon

thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not." This he said, poor man, little thinking, I dare say, how well able the God of Jonah was to deliver them from their danger, for he and his companions were heathens, and trusted themselves in gods that could not save. Yet did not these poor heathen, calling upon their gods in the time of trouble, put to shame the prophet of the Lord, who lay asleep senseless of the danger, without offering up one prayer for himself and his companions? At length the poor mariners could do nothing more for the ship; they had no power at all to manage her in the tempestuous sea which surrounded her on every side, and being like most of the heathen very superstitious, they tried to find out by drawing lots, which among their small crew was the guilty person whose sins had brought upon them such unfortunate weather. For they took it for granted that this violent storm had been sent by their gods as a punishment of some one among

them. You know what I mean by drawing lots; well, the lot which they had fixed upon to mark out the guilty person was drawn by the prophet Jonah, for their simple contrivance had in this instance been directed by the immediate hand of God.

No sooner had Jonah drawn the lot than his conscience began to smite him for his sin, and when his companions said to him, "tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is come upon us? What is thine occupation, and whence comest thou? what is thy country, and of what people art thou?" He told them at once that he was an Hebrew, who feared the God of heaven, who had made the sea and dry land, but that he had disobediently fled from the presence of the Lord, and that it was this sin of his which had brought them into such great trouble and misery. Now when the men heard this, they were exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, "What shall we do unto thee that the sea may be calm unto us?" Then Jonah said unto them, "Take me up and cast me into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you, for I know that for my sake this great tempest is come upon you."

But the poor people pitied Jonah very much, and were pleased with the manner in which he so openly confessed his guilt, and they determined, if possible, to save both him and themselves. So they rowed hard to bring the ship to land, but all their efforts were in vain; the sea was so tempestuous against them. Then the men began to think that the God whom Jonah served must mean that he should be thrown into the sea; so they prayed to him to for

give them if they did wrong, and not to look upon them as the murderers of his servant, as they threw him into the sea at his own request, and as the only way of saving their lives. "So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and immediately the sea ceased from her raging." Then the men feared the Lord God of Jonah exceedingly, and promised to offer up sacrifices to him as soon as they should reach the dry land.

E. Mother, I cannot think how Jonah could beg the people to throw him into the sea.

M. He was, no doubt, Edward, led by the Spirit of God to feel that this was the punishment which the Lord intended for him, and that therefore it was better to submit to it at once, than to endanger the lives of his companions by continuing in the vessel, which, on his account, had been so awfully hindered from pursuing its course.

Here we see that Jonah was, in reality, a true servant of God, who had wandered from him for a little while, but was anxious to return to him again, and to submit to whatever punishment he, in his wisdom, saw fit for him. He was willing even to be cast into the great deep, if such was the will of the Almighty.

Nor did this humble submission to the will of God lose its reward. He was to learn, indeed, in the depths of the sea, with the sea-weed wrapped about his head, that there is no going out of God's sight, nor out of the reach of his hand. But he was not to perish utterly; the Lord had prepared a great whale to swallow him up, and in the body of

that whale he was kept alive for two nights and a day, and on the third day the whale was made to cast him out of her mouth on dry land.

You think this, as well you may, an extraordinary story, and if it were written in any other book but the Bible, we should not be able to believe it. But we have read enough of God's wonderful dealings with the children of men, to convince us that nothing is impossible with him, and therefore we should have no difficulty in believing this story, even if it had never been further explained to us, even if we could see nothing in it but the punishment and deliverance of Jonah. But one greater than Jonah is here. In this extraordinary story we must look beyond the prophet; for our blessed Saviour has expressly applied it to himself. Instructed by him we learn, that the time which Jonah spent in the body of the whale, was meant to be a sign or figure beforehand of the time which he laid in the grave, and that Jonah's deliverance from that terrible prison was to foreshow his own glorious resurrection on the third day from the dead. "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” These were our Saviour's words, and we learn from them at once that this extraordinary miracle, which was wrought upon Jonah, was intended not only for his own good, to teach him to trifle no more with the commands of the Most High, but to be a type or figure to convince mankind of the resurrection to come. And this shows us how important it is that we should

believe in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, of which it pleased God to prepare types beforehand in other instances, but more particularly in this wonderful account of the prophet Jonah, who was to be one of those many persons spoken of in the Bible, whose very history pointed to the Saviour of the world. It is, indeed, most interesting to observe in what happened to the prophet, how close a resemblance we find of what happened afterward to our Lord. The story is, as it were, a mirror or glass, in which, through the wise providence of God, the great event of our Saviour's death for our sins, and of his rising again, are presented to us in a most striking manner, to increase our faith in him, who is alone the Saviour of the world.

Jonah was given over to death to save the rest of the people in the ship from perishing; Christ was put to death, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life; it being good for us that one man should die for the people, and that our whole race should not perish.

Again, when Jonah had been cast into the heart of the sea, he remained there three days and three nights, and was kept from corruption. So our Lord was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, nor did he see corruption; but after three days, as Jonah returned to this world, so did our Lord also return from the grave.

E. What did Jonah do, mother, when he found himself on dry land again?

M. He offered up a song of grateful thanksgivings to the Almighty, who had corrected him only

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