riving there. He must have been very much startled and surprised, as he awoke, on hearing the master of the ship crying out, with a loud voice, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.'

The mariners had all been praying to the gods in whom they believed, and the captain thought, that Jonah ought to pray to his God also. He might have thought, that this God of Jonah, if Jonah prayed to Him, would be more able to save them, than the gods to whom they had been praying, and of whose assistance he now began quite to despair.

We do not read in the Bible what Jonah said

to the master of the ship. It is very probable, that he was greatly alarmed, and that he began to fear, that he was about to be punished for his wickedness in disobeying the command of God, to go to Nineveh. It is not probable, that he prayed for forgiveness and deliverance. If he had, I think the Bible would have told us so. When people do as Jonah did, and go on sinning against God, and forget their duty, and think they are safe, if sudden danger overtakes them, they feel both ashamed and afraid to pray. They ought to pray, to pray immediately,-to confess their wickedness to God, to beseech Him to forgive them, and to deliver them from the evil which they fear. But it is very seldom that they do so. For there is an old saying, which is a very true one, and which, I hope you will always remember: praying will make people leave off sinning, or sinning will make them leave off praying. When you find, my dear children, that you do not wish to pray to God daily, and that you put off doing it, because it is disagreeable to you, you may be sure, that there is something wrong about it. You are taking pleasure in some kiad of sin; you love something a great deal more than you love God :—and that is the reason, that you do not pray to Him. You are disobeying some of his commands, as Jonah did; and while con

tinuing to do this, and knowing all the while that you are doing it, you will find, either that you are unwilling to pray at all, or that if you attempt to do it, you do not pray from the heart. The surest way to prevent this is to avoid all kinds of wickedness, and to pray earnestly to God, to deliver you from it, and to enable you to love and obey Him. If Jonah had done this, he would not have disobeyed the command of God, nor have been overtaken by so dreadful a storm.

Praying to their gods, and casting their goods overboard, seemed to be of no use. The storm still raged violently, and the poor mariners thought that it could not be long, unless there was some change for the better, before their vessel would be shipwrecked, and themselves lost in the depths of the sea.

They began to think, that there must be some particular reason for such a terrible storm, and that some one of their gods, or perhaps, the God of Jonah, was angry with them, on account of the wickedness of some one on board. They talked so among themselves, and each one said, he wished they could find out for whose cause the evil had come upon them. Each one ought to have thought of his own wickedness, and that it was itself a sufficient cause for the evil. But every one was willing to excuse himself, and to think

that somebody else was a great deal more wicked than he was; and so much more wicked than himself and all the others were, as to call down the vengeance of his god upon them.

When children see that their parents look displeased, and do not treat them as they do when they are good children, they begin to think, that it is because they have done something wrong; and, if they know that they have been wicked and disobedient, they fear the still greater displeasure of their parents, and that some severe punishment is near at hand. And in the same way, wicked men are often in some trouble overtakes them.

great fear, when

It sets them to

thinking on their wickedness, and to consider how much it deserves the displeasure of God, and they fear that He will inflict some dreadful punishment upon them. This is what is called remorse. It is a most unhappy feeling, and is often more distressing than any other pain which we can endure. I dare say you have felt it sometimes, my dear children. If you are wicked, you will feel it again, and if you grow more and more wicked, this remorse will grow more and more distressing; unless you should become so very, very wicked, and so hardened in sin, as not to feel it at all. How dreadful that would be! But it would not last long. For, after the

souls of wicked persons who do not repent, and trust in Christ, and love and obey God,-go into the other world, they remember all their past wickedness; and remorse wakes up again, and they feel it in all its bitterness. They will feel it forever, and it will be the principal cause of their wretchedness, to think how very sinful and foolish they have been, and how justly they deserve to be cast out from heaven, and to suffer the terrible displeasure of God.

Oh! my dear children, if you wish to avoid this remorse, both in this world and the next, fear to sin against God, and beseech Him to keep you from all sin.

In order to find out, if possible, who the very wicked person was, that was the cause of the great evil which had befallen them, the mariners on board of the ship, proposed to cast lots, and see upon whom the lot would fall.

Persons sometimes draw lots, by putting several strips of paper, of different lengths, into a book, and seeing who will draw the longest one; and the person drawing it, is to have, or to do, a certain thing.

This casting of lots was more common in former times than it is now. The old Greeks and Romans used often to do it, and the Jews also. God sometimes commanded the Jews to do it.