to be alone with God, and prayed unto the Lord: "Moreover," we are told in short how earnestly he prayed-" Moreover, he wept sore."

Nor did he pray in vain. No earnest heartfelt prayer is ever in vain. God lent a willing ear to Hezekiah. The same Messenger, Isaiah, who had warned him to prepare for death, is now sent with a message of comfort-" I have seen thy tears, I have heard thy prayer: behold I will add unto thy days fifteen years.

At the same time, God gave Hezekiah a miraculous sign that the promise should be kept: He brought back the shadow of the sun ten degrees backward on the dial erected by King Ahab.

Thus assured of his recovery, King Hezekiah gave utterance to his feelings in a song of praise and thanksgiving-"the Writing," as it is called, "of Hezekiah, King of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered of his sickness." In a strain of deep tenderness he speaks of his condition: when he lay upon his bed expecting to die. "I said, in the cutting off of my days I shall go to the gates of the grave: I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see the Lord again in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. Mine age is departed from me as a shepherd's tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: He will cut me off with pining

sickness from day even to night wilt Thou make an end of me. O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me." And then the strain changes and we have a burst of joyous acknowledgment-"What shall I say ? He hath both spoken unto me, and Himself hath done it: I shall go softly all my years." He feels that for such mercies public thanksgiving is due. And this he will pay. He will go into the Courts of the Lord's House: and there in the presence of His people, he will render praise unto the God of His life. "The Lord"-these are the concluding words of his song-" The Lord was ready to save me, therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the House of the Lord."

And here let me pause, and notice the lessons there are for us in the conduct of good King Hezekiah, lessons for those of us especially who may have had a dangerous illness, and have been recovered from it. The first of these is-to have recourse to God, in all times of our sickness, "to turn our face (as Hezekiah did) to the wall, and pray."

And the second is, "To give God thanks on our recovery" to think of Him as our Deliverer, our Healer. The God of our life, in whom we live and move and have our being, Who has added to our life a longer share of days. To think why He has added them: why He has prolonged our days on

earth, even for this end, that we may serve Him more faithfully, walk before Him, with a more perfect, less divided heart.

These are surely very needful lessons, and, alas! but little regarded. For which of us prays to God to heal him in the day of sickness? We send to the doctor, or we take advice from friends, and do many things of our own mind, which we hope will help to our recovery: but which of us turns to God in prayer? which of us pours out his heart before the Lord? prays with that fervent, hearty, trustful prayer, which alone has any avail with God.

And if we might learn a lesson on this point from Hezekiah, a lesson to pray, and that instantly, to the God of our help, when overtaken by sickness, how surely might we also learn from him a lesson of gratitude after we have been recovered from illness. He did not forget the Hand that raised him up. Nor should we. When after sickness God has made us sound, there is a debt due that ought not to be left unpaid. "I will pay Thee my vows, which I made when I was in trouble." I will go to the altar of God: I will give Him praise for His goodness: I will cleave more stedfastly to Him: I will be a better man than I was before I was laid low. That bad habit in which I indulge I will now lay aside : that good practice which I delayed I will now take in hand. Such ought to be our sentiments, such

our behaviour, when God has restored us to health or that great boon of restored health will have been bestowed upon us in vain. If a man is not the better after illness, dangerous illness: if a man is not stricter, more religious, more full of faith, fear, and love of God, it is to be feared that he will be the For sickness is God's warning. It is His message to us-Set thine house in order -Get ready. For thou shalt die, and not live.

worse.

And when sickness does not prove fatal; when, beyond a man's expectation, he is raised up to health, that also is of God. Mercies unacknowledged lead to the hardening of the heart. The goodness of God, as seen in our preservation, ought in every case to lead unto repentance, repentance whereby we forsake sin.

These are obvious lessons which Hezekiah's conduct under sickness, and on his recovery, teaches us. There is yet one other, and that a lesson which is also taught us emphatically-the value of life-the value as giving us the greater opportunity for serving God.

"The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day."

Death, you must remember, (for he lived before the day of Christ), death was to Hezekiah a far darker, far drearier state than it is to us who are

Christians, us to whom Jesus Christ hath brought immortality of life. If he had any hope of a life beyond the grave, it does not appear in his words. He probably, as did all the men of his time, Jews and Gentiles alike, regarded death, not as we do, as the gate to an endless life, but as the entrance into a land dark and silent, where all things are forgotten,

But it is this very view of death, as the end all and be all of man's brief existence, which enhances to Hezekiah the value of life. Because life offered, as he thought, the single field for serving God, he grudged to have it shortened. Every hour saved from that dark silence was precious to him. "The living! the living !"-what earnestness is there in the repetition, what a sense of the joy to be alive— "The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day."

Now, brethren, we who possess the Gospel, need not, and ought not to think thus gloomily of death. The question put so touchingly, so doubtingly, by the Psalmist, "Dost Thou show wonders among the dead?" has been answered for us by the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. "He by His death hath destroyed death: and He by His rising to life again, hath restored to us everlasting life."

Still, again, in that darker view of death which Hezekiah held, there is a lesson for our learning. Though death be not now the end of life: it is the