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courage of Asa had as its root confidence in God, and this is shown more fully in the narrative which appears in the Second Book of Chronicles than in the First Book of Kings. His reforming work--carried out with ruthless vigour--naturally raised up adversaries on every side. In the court itself Maachah and her party were implacable. Outside it the idolatrous priests, and all their hangers-on, whose vested interests were abolished, were plotting and scheming against the king. But Asa was imperturbable, because he had found God to be his refuge and strength. The man who really fears God finds the fear of his fellows thereby cast out. To Jehovah, therefore, the brave king brought all his difficulties. This was beautifully exemplified when he found himself confronted with an overwhelming force of Ethiopians, for then "_Asa cried unto the Lord his God, and said, Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power: help us, O Lord our God; for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude. O Lord, Thou art our God; let not man prevail against Thee_." Prayer was the secret of his strength, and in it we also may find all the help we need in meeting our discouragements--the ignorance which tries our patience, the indifference to God which nothing seems to stir, the vice which holds its victim as an octopus, the sin which is as subtle as it is strong. Against them all we have no power, and may well pray as Asa did. "Lord, help us." Then He will fulfil the promise, "_When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him_." III. After his great deliverance Asa renewed his consecration. The need for its renewal shows that in character and conduct he was far from being all that he ought to have been. He was not "_perfect_" in that sense. His earnestness cooled down. Through his carelessness the "_high places_" were re-erected. He seems to have been content that the "_groves_," with their grosser forms of idolatry, were gone, and that other forms might be tolerated, just as some, who have conquered their vices, are morally ruined by what the world calls little sins. But, in spite of these failings, the judgment of God, who is ever slow to anger and of great mercy, was that Asa's heart was "_perfect_"--sound, whole, and sincere, though not sinless. How happy it is that God judges not as man judges, that He can unerringly read the heart, and graciously accepts even the imperfect and blundering service which we sincerely offer to Him. Jehu accurately executed Jehovah's fiat, whereas Asa's obedience seemed imperfect; yet the latter was commended, and the former condemned, because Asa, unlike Jehu, was right in heart. Therefore we may be encouraged still to do our little part in God's service, in spite of the failures and imperfections of the past, if only we can say, "_Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee_." AHAZIAH BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A. "And the destruction of Ahaziah was of God, by coming to Joram; for, when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab."--2 CHRON. xxii. 7. We rarely read this part of the Bible. And I do not wonder at it. For those particular chapters are undoubtedly dreary and monotonous. They contain the names of a number of incompetent and worthless kings who did nothing that was worth writing about, and who were singularly alike, so that when you have heard the story of one of them you know pretty well the story of all. It is the good lives that furnish attractive reading, because there is so much individuality and variety in them, so many pictorial lights and shadows. A novel in which all the characters are mean, would be read by nobody. The blackness needs to be relieved by something good, for darkness is always monotonous. Bad men show a dreary sameness in their thoughts and doings, their rise and fall. The godly are like nature illumined by the sunlight, manifold and infinite; the wicked are like nature when the darkness covers it, uniform and dismal. Nearly all that is said in the Bible about these bad kings, is that they walked in the ways of Ahab or Jeroboam or some other wicked person, that they closely imitated the doings of their model. The Bible does not waste space in describing them more accurately. One or two specimens do for all. But certain things are said about Ahaziah which afford room for reflection, and may, perhaps, be useful to us if we take them in a right way. And first let me give you a lesson in genealogy. These lessons are often very wearisome. Let two men get on talking about who was the cousin, father, grandfather, great-grandmother, and what not of such a person, and you begin at once to wish that you were out of it, or that you could quietly go to sleep until they settle the question; and yet it is not so unimportant as it seems. When a man writes a biography he deems it his duty to go back three or four generations, and tell you what sort of fathers and mothers and grandmothers and even great-grandsires his hero had. It is very wearisome, but it is very necessary. The story is not complete without that--for breed and ancestry go quite as far with men as with cattle, and often further. Ahaziah's descent was right on one side, but it was very mean on the other. He had David's blood in his veins, and Jehoshaphat's, and mingled with that, the venom of heathenism. His mother was Athaliah, and Athaliah was the daughter of Jezebel, and Jezebel was a licentious heathen princess whom Ahab on an evil day had made his wife. There is nothing in the Bible more tragical and more infamous than the story of this woman Jezebel, and the part which she took in shaping the destiny of the Jewish nation. She was a Syro-Phenician princess, whose father ruled over the powerful and wealthy cities of Tyre and Sidon. Ahab was caught by her beauty, and by the attractive political alliance of which she was the pledge. Some think that the forty-fifth Psalm had reference to her, which speaks of the daughter of Tyre coming with gold of Ophir, splendidly arrayed, and bringing a handsome dowry with her. Ahab thought he was marrying wealth and dignity, and providing for the

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