the slopes of Vesuvius, and who build them, and plant them, over and over again after each destructive eruption.  The tragedy of Israel is repeated in many of our lives; and the summing up of the abortive efforts of one of its kings to recover power by following the gods that had betrayed him, might be the epitaph of the infatuated men who see their sickness and seek to heal it by renewed devotion to the idols who occasioned it:  ’They were the ruin of him and of all Israel.’  The experience of the woman who had ’spent all her living on physicians, and was nothing the better, but rather the worse,’ sums up the sad story of many a life.

But again the sense of sin sometimes seeks to conceal itself by repetition of sin.  When the dormant snake begins to stir, it is lulled to sleep again by absorption of occupations, or by an obstinate refusal to look inwards, and often by plunging once more into the sin which has brought about the sickness.  To seek thus for ease from the stings of conscience, is like trying to silence a buzzing in the head by standing beside Niagara thundering in our ears.  They used to beat the drums when a martyr died, in order to drown his testimony; and so foolish men seek to silence the voice of conscience by letting passions shout their loudest.  It needs no words to demonstrate the incurable folly of such conduct; but alas, it takes many words far stronger than mine to press home the folly upon men.  The condition of such a half-awakened conscience is very critical if it is soothed by any means by which it is weakened and its possessor worsened.  In the sickness of the soul homoeopathic treatment is a delusion.  Ephraim may go to Assyria, but there is no healing of him there.

III.  God’s way of giving true healing.

Ephraim thought that, because the wounds were inflicted by Assyria, it was the source to which to apply for bandages and balm.  If it had realised that Assyria was but the battle-axe wherewith the hand of God struck it, it would have learned that from God alone could come healing and health.  The unrest which betrays the presence in our souls of a deep-seated sin, is a divine messenger.  We terribly misinterpret the true source of all that disturbs us when we attribute it only to the occasions which bring it about; for the one purpose of all our restlessness is to drive us nearer to God, and to wrench us away from our Assyria.  The true issue of Ephraim’s sickness would have been the penitent cry, ’Come, let us return to the Lord our God, for He hath smitten, and He will bind us up.’  It is in the consciousness of loving nearness to Him that all our unrest is soothed, and the heaving ocean in our hearts becomes as a summer’s sea and ’birds of peace sit brooding on the charmed waves.’  It is in that same consciousness that conscience ceases to condemn, and loses its sting.  The prophet from whom our text is taken ends his wonderful ministry, that had been full of fiery denunciations