BOYS OF THE BIBLE. 223

against the priests thereof, and against the people of
the land. And they shall fight against thee; but they shall
not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord,
to deliver thee.”

Was ever such a message given to a boy of fifteen?
But then, you see, when God stands beside a boy, a boy may
become wonderfully powerful. God can make a boy—nay,
even a child—as strong as a defenced city, as firm as an
jron pillar, as safe as walls of brass! Anything, everything,
if he but puts his trust in God.

And so this boy Jeremiah became one of God’s greatest
prophets. He lived to see Jerusalem besieged and laid low.
He saw the temple in ruins, he saw his fellow-countrymen
carried away captive by Assyrian foemen. He saw God's
chosen city a desolation. And as he stood amid the awful
ruin, the Assyrian mocked his grief and_ said, “Where is
now thy God?”

With bowed head and uplifted hand, leaning upon the
top of his staff, the prophet makes answer:

“Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold and
sce, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is
done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day
of his fierce anger!”

God had called Jeremiah to a large task. The work
before him was not the easy occupation of a summer’s day.
The times were “out of joint,” and to set them right, and to
remould and renew his age, was the great mission of his
life. In the discharge of these solemn duties, he had to bear
many a cross and fight many a battle. [Ie knew the bit-
terness of imprisonment, and more than once death stared
him in the face.. But Jeremiah was true to the solemn trust
God had imposed on him. His later years are full of interest