2Chronicles 18:7

AHAB king of Israel is the speaker, and the speech was made to Jehoshaphat king of Judah. The name of the hated man was Micaiah. Four hundred men had told the king of Israel to go up to Ramoth-gilead, but somehow Jehoshaphat felt that he would like additional testimony. That was indeed a strange thing on the part of the king of Judah. When four hundred prophets have said, Go, why should there be any desire to hear what any other man may have to say? Are not four hundred witnesses enough? Are they not even more than enough, when, instead of being merely witnesses, they are also prophets, men who have an official standing in their country, and who may be supposed to have a large reputation to lose? One would imagine there could be but one answer to this inquiry; yet we know the contrary by our own experience. Though we may have heard many voices, yet we feel that we have not heard the truth: there has been a great noise, but no music; we have been dinned by much clatter, but no word has got hold of our judgment nor prevailed intelligently and honestly over our conscience. Jehoshaphat said in effect—There is a hollow sound in these voices; I miss the clear honest ring of simplicity and truth; the men themselves do not seem to believe their own message,—is there another man somewhere who will speak to us in a sober and earnest way? Consider what it is in the consciousness of man which enables him to throw doubt upon the testimony of four hundred witnesses. It may serve some of the looser purposes of frivolous controversy to sneer at what has been called the "verifying faculty" in man, but after all does not consciousness testify to the fact that there is within us a power, faculty, function, ministry,—call it by what name we please,—which does know the truth when it hears it, and which responds to it intelligently, if not always, alas, sympathetically and obediently? Great boast is made of unanimity, but Jehoshaphat came upon a unanimity which he felt to be hollow and worthless. The voice of the people is not always the voice of God; but in such cases it may be doubted whether it is really the voice of the people, whether it is not an assumed voice, a piece of pious or impious affectation, created for the purpose of meeting the necessities of a particular set of circumstances. When the people really do speak out of their hearts, it is not too much to say that to a large extent they substantially represent a higher mind and will than their own.

In the whole picture presented by the text there is a wonderfully vivid outline of the very life which is round about us to-day: the accidents are different but the substantial truth is the same. For example, what an appalling illustration is here of the fact that men love to be flattered and encouraged even at the expense of everything holy and true. Ahab was satisfied so long as the prophet ran along the current of his own will. When men agree with us we think they are inspired; when they sanction our plans we look upon them as messengers sent from heaven to comfort us with special revelations: so we cannot get away from the self centre; we judge everything by our own feeling and relation to it; we have not denied ourselves, crucified ourselves, obliterated ourselves; our self-vanity is full of vitality, and is open to every impression that may be made upon it of a flattering and encouraging nature. It is almost impossible for a man to stand really outside of himself under great crises, and to judge of his own position as he would judge of the position of another man. It is this impossibility which invests spiritual communion with God with its highest importance, and elevates prayer to its loftiest usefulness. "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so:"—(corruption has thus seized the very fountains of life,—the prophets and the priests have gone down like a common horde, and there is none left to stand up as a living witness and an immovable monument in relation to the truth:)—" which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us." Is there any deeper depth in depravity? The peculiarity of this depravity is that men actually tell lies to themselves: they know that what they are encouraging is direct and absolute falsehood, yet so thoroughly are they under the tyranny of evil that they prefer to have lies told rather than truth, and to live upon lies rather than to ask for the bread of reality. All this might appear to us to be romantic history; we should say that the state of things herein declared is simply impossible, but here our own experience would contradict us: if we search into the depth of our motive, and put our innermost selves to a crucial test, we cannot refrain from admitting that we do delight to hear smooth things, although we may have great questioning of heart with regard to their certainty and truthfulness. The immediate pleasure predominates over every other sensation. Our vanity is so gratified that our moral criticism remains unawakened, or if awakened is completely disarmed and is indeed made a party to the treachery by which we ourselves are overthrown. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." We require to be watched at the very fountain of our being, because as the priest and the prophet were overthrown so may the priest and the prophet in our own nature be deposed. By "the priest and the prophet" understand our highest affections, our noblest understandings, our divinest instincts and yearnings; even all these may be betrayed, seduced, and led away into utter ruin. We are not to think of priest and prophet as men or officers standing in a certain transient relation to the Church or to human life; we are rather to think of them as typifying the highest and noblest faculties of our own being, and then to accept the warning that even these may tell us lies and delight in our complete collapse and shame.

What a vivid illustration we have here of the sublime function of an incorruptible truth-teller. This is not Micaiah's first appearance before the king. He had established a reputation as a God-fearing and truth-speaking man, and therefore Ahab's denunciation was in reality Micaiah's highest praise. Ahab knew that there was yet one man by whom inquiry might be made of the Lord. It is always the four-hundred-and-first prophet that we fear: the great multitude of prophecies within us will probably consent to sustain the plea of our vanity and the purpose of our ambition; but there is one prophet that we are afraid to consult. Let us say that the name of that prophet is Conscience, and then how true it is that there remains yet one more prophet whom we may consult; but we fear that prophet because of his fearlessness, we bow before him because of his moral dignity, we are burned by his presence because he looks at us like a fire of judgment. Ahab had had much experience of Micaiah, and he knew that nothing would turn him away from what he believed to be the truth. "I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil." Micaiah was consistent in his veracity and courage. Every temptation lay in the other direction: Ahab was rich, Micaiah was poor; Ahab was the king, and Micaiah was but a subject, or a stranger, or a wayfarer; Ahab would have accounted no gift too great that would have pacified Micaiah or hired him in his service. Where the temptation is so great there must be a wonderfully strong counterbalancing force. What was it that outweighed all the considerations of vanity, promotion and ease and wealth on the part of Micaiah? It was his incorruptible love of truth. He was possessed by a greater passion. He was under the dominion of God. He had seen truth in such visions of majesty and loveliness as to blind him to all other attractions. Micaiah, therefore, was right at the heart of things; he knew nothing about compromises and concessions; he knew nothing of finding the common ground on which controversial parties could meet, and at least feign reconciliation and unanimity. Unless truth bulks so largely and gloriously in our estimation as to make all other things contemptible we should be continually subject to overpowering temptations. When we see the sun at mid-day we have no need, nor have we any inclination, to light candles of our own; the glory of the sun is sufficient, and we feel that to attempt any rivalry is to subject ourselves to self-contempt. It is even so with the lustrous sun of truth; it fills all heaven; it falls blessedly upon every point and into every corner and valley of human life, and to tempt us under such feeling with untruth is really to ask us to dishonour ourselves, to take off the crown and throw it in the mire, and to sell ourselves into the most contemptible and abominable slavery. If we speak from the point of calculation we should inevitably be overthrown. We must only speak from the point of absolute truth, and then our speech should be with emphasis and decision, and the finality of its tone should be such that the enemy will hardly dare to attempt any more to lure us from the paths of rectitude and honour. It was a solemn moment for the king when he said to Micaiah, "Shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear?" When Micaiah answered, Ahab knew that there was mockery in his tone. The words of Micaiah were words that suited the king's vanity, but the tone showed that he was only trying the king's temper and not really revealing the kingdom of heaven. The king, therefore, said to him again, "How many times shall I adjure thee that thou say nothing but the truth to me in the name of the Lord?" A fine stroke of ostentatious hypocrisy; it would seem as if Ahab were suddenly seized with a desire to hear the truth and speak the truth, and for the moment he appeared to triumph over Micaiah; but in his heart of hearts he knew that in asking for the truth he really desired a lie. Micaiah had been warned that all the other prophets had spoken to the king according to the royal pleasure, and they besought Micaiah that his word should be like one of theirs, and that he should speak good. The interview ended disastrously for Micaiah, so far as worldly circumstances were concerned. The king said, "Take ye Micaiah, and carry him back to Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son; and say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace." Even this message, uttered in the hearing of Micaiah, did not quell the prophet's courage, for he added as he turned away, "If thou certainly return in peace, then hath not the Lord spoken by me"; and then turning to the people he said, "Hearken, all ye people." Who was the true king on that occasion? Is kingliness a question of pomp and circumstance? or is it a question of character, moral ability, and high spiritual ambition and determination? Men saw the crown on Ahab's head, but angels saw the crown on the head of Micaiah. He is most a king who is most like God. All other kings will be deposed, but they who reign with Christ shall reign for ever and ever, because his kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness and his dominion is ordered in equity.

Micaiah should represent to us the function of the truth-speaker in every age. Were there a Micaiah in every pulpit, no wicked man would be quite easy in the sanctuary; he would feel that the prophet's eye was upon him, and that the criticism of the prophet was passing over the whole line of his life with a searching glance, and that his whole conscience, nature, purpose, and service were being brought under the candle of the Lord. It could not have been a personally pleasant thing to Micaiah to beard the king of Israel. Nor is it a pleasant thing for any minister of truth to stand up and tell wicked men of their wickedness, and tear off the mask from the face of hypocrisy and expose the ghastliness of concealed features. We are not called to an easy ministry. What is true of the public ministry is true also of all private companionship, criticism, and oversight. We are not gentle to our friends when we conceal our judgment of their wrong-doing: we are most truly friendly when we are most truly austere in demanding that the highest moral standard should be attained, and that only words of truth should be spoken and acts of piety be done. "Am I therefore become your enemy," said Paul, "because I tell you the truth?" He is an enemy who tells us that all is safe when he knows that the foundations are insecure; he is the basest of foes who lulls us into slumber when he knows that the flames are leaping upon all that we hold valuable. The truth-speaker will always create great opposition, but he is the safety of society. What a hard life he lives! How he is always misunderstood! How others are promoted over his head, and he is regarded as rough, rude, vulgar, blatant! It was so with the Son of God: he died at the hand of his murderers because he told them the truth. It is the destiny of the truth to be sacrificed, to be crucified, in every corrupt age. How much then do we need divine inspiration, daily and continual encouragement from heaven, to hold on in a course which invites the arrows of the enemy, and to abide faithful to policies and lines of conduct which lead to temporary impoverishment, misunderstanding, and even severe penalty!

What a striking instance is this of the Lord giving up a man to the devices of his own wicked heart, and letting him take his own ruinous way! We read of people to whom the Lord gave the desire of their heart, but at the same time he sent leanness into their soul. The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to Ramoth-gilead. Four hundred men had said, Go up; and one man had said, Refrain from going up. The king of Israel, true to his character, was fertile in invention and suggestion and cunning device; said he unto Jehoshaphat, "I will disguise myself, and will go to the battle; but put thou on thy robes." For a time the ruse succeeded. When the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, "It is the king of Israel. Therefore they compassed about him to fight; but Jehoshaphat cried out:" he could be no party to the lie. For a time he accepted it as a military device, but the moment came when he must speak the truth, either through the pressure of conscience or through the weakness of cowardice. Then the Lord helped him, and God moved the captains of the chariots to depart from Jehoshaphat. Then there came the man who "drew a bow at a venture"—that inevitable man—that inevitable bow—that uncalculated force, or accident, or venture, which no man can define—the thing that is alway occurring in life; and the result was that he "smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness." "And the battle increased that day." "The king of Israel stayed himself up in his chariot against the Syrians until the even." Even Ahab was not without military bravery and personal courage. He stayed himself up as bravely as he could until the time of the shadows, "and about the time of the sun going down he died." Thus the truth is always vindicated. The war was begun with great pomp and ostentation; probably Ahab never looked more radiant than when he went forth with Jehoshaphat to battle against the Syrians; everything seemed to be in favour of the four hundred prophets, and Micaiah the truth-speaker was hurried off to prison to eat the bread of affliction, and drink the water of affliction. But truth stands evermore. Micaiah said that Ahab would not return in peace, and Ahab never returned. How mocking a thing it is to have our own way for a little time, and then to be brought into desolation as in a moment! How we can be flattered by outward circumstances! If we take an inventory of our life at some given moment we could make out a very rich record: we could say, Look at the property: houses, and land, and cattle, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and gardens, and orchards; look at the troops of friends; listen to the deafening applause: does not all this show that the prophecy which foretold our ruin was a delusion or a lie? But the inventory is taken too soon. We must call no man happy until he is dead; not until the sum-total of things has been completed do we see events in their reality. "Be sure your sin will find you out." "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." The word of the Lord shall be accomplished in all its terribleness, although ten thousand may arise to attempt its prevention, and all men combine to say that they will build out the judgments of heaven. The great lesson is that nothing is real that is not according to the divine nature; nothing is true but truth; nothing is everlasting but that which is righteous. Oh that men were wise, that they would consider these things! Better have temporary poverty and final wealth, than have temporary wealth and everlasting poverty. We can accept life in one of two ways: we can begin by seizing all chances, accepting all flatteries, availing ourselves of all assistance, and thus mounting up the pride; or we can begin by prizing understanding above rubies, and truth above all precious stones; by digging for wisdom as for silver, and by searching for holiness as for the great prize of heaven,—according to this second way we shall meet wolves and lions, and ravenous beasts of every name; we shall set the whole world in cruel hostility against us, but the word of the Lord stands, that they who love truth and righteousness shall be brought into everlasting security and heavenly blessedness.

Prayer

We have come to the living water. Lord, evermore give us this water, for it alone can quench the thirst of the soul. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. The river of God is full of water. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. We have hewn out unto ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. We ourselves condemn them: we know we ought not to have done this, and having done it, we have but shown our own folly. Now we come to the living well. Every preacher thou hast sent into the world has returned again to thyself, saying of earth and time,—"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Knowing this, we come to our Father's house, where there is bread enough and to spare: and we would eat at his bidding, and be satisfied with his bounty. O that we were always wise!—then we should have no care, no burning, fretful anxiety consuming the life and making us writhe in pain; we should now be in heaven: we should now be reading the deeper things of the revelation of God: we should now be lifted up into that holy unconsciousness that cannot tell whether it is in the body or out of the body, for the whole creation glows like heaven. But we are still upon the earth, and in the earth, building upon the earth, struggling upon the earth. Truly thou didst make man out of the dust of the ground. We know it: we have the testimony in ourselves; we feel how soon we go back to the earth whence we came, how we love it like a nativity, and hasten back to it with the force of gravitation. But surely thou didst breathe into our nostrils the breath of life. We are not all earthly; we have in us some fire of the heavenly, some presence of the divine. May we live in the direction of that higher consciousness, aspiring to the light, growing in grace, struggling towards God; yea, though the struggle be most vehement and sometimes unequal because of the power of the enemy and the weakness of the flesh, yet may our purpose be towards the heavens, and our intention be fixed upon God. We praise thee for as many as have known Christ spiritually, and have been grafted into the true Vine, and have grown up into heaven—gone away from us for a little time, but still in the Vine, and bearing fruit beyond the line of human sight—richer fruit, glowing with a deeper purple, pregnant with a richer wine. May we grow up after them, and, in thine own due time, may the branches intermingle in the heavens,—still in the Vine, still bearing fruit—yea, much fruit, making glad the heart of God. We praise thee for all hints of heaven: we need them every one, for the night is very long, and there is always room for another star in the great cloud. We bless thee for all hints and thoughts and poems and types of heaven; we thank thee for all calls to nobler life, and for all exhortations in the direction of immortality. These things help us: they make us strong; they turn our very weakness into a higher quality of power; we bless thee for them: they are true gifts of heaven. Come to us, thou radiant One, and drive away the last shadow that clings to our life as if it might make a concealment for sin; let the whole temple of our soul be filled with the light of God. Help us in all good purposes, in all intentions that express themselves in the direction of faith and hope and love. Help us to stir up the gift that is within us; may ours be lives of consecrated energy, given to our Father's business, returning to the temple because it is our Father's house. Speak to each as each most needs thy voice. Some are heavy with sleep, and they require the thunder to arouse them; and some are so tired and weary utterly that even a breath of wind might carry them away; thou knowest how to speak to such. Thou givest the tongue of the learned to thy teachers and preachers, that they may speak a word in season to them that are weary. Help the man who is struggling with his worst self; may he throw the foe in the wrestling and stand up in Christ's strength, twice a man. Be with all who are planning new adventures of a right kind—who are thinking of going from home, enlarging their companionships, exchanging vows of soul and love. Be with all who are taken away into the upper chamber, curtained in with shadows, to whom the Sabbath itself is a dull day for want of the public altar, and the common prayer, and the universal psalm; heal and bless and comfort; and, if thou wilt not bring back again to common paths, open a great white gate upon the skies—a gate of light, a portal of glory,—that they who are going upward may hold the earth and time in holy contempt. The Lord hear us and help us to love him more in Christ, to cling to the cross with tender expectation, and to look confidently to him who is dying upon it for the blood which cleanseth from all sin, for the atonement which holds in its reconciling mystery all the sinner needs, and all that justice demands. We say our prayer in the name of him once crucified, now crowned. Amen.

The Enticement of Ahab

2Chronicles 18:19

HOW singular, how tragical is the experience of life! For example, who could have expected to find in history such an inquiry. Strange words are imputed to the divine Speaker. There is a mystery in every interpretation of these words. Probably the minimum of mystery is to be found in the interpretation which boldly accepts the doctrine that there cannot be evil in the city without the Lord having done it. The mistake is to call it evil, in any final and inclusive sense. If it ended in itself, then the word "evil" might not be too superficial a term to employ in its description: but the evil is but evil momentarily. Do not interrupt the divine literature at a comma or a semicolon; the Lord may need to work not only to-day and tomorrow, he may ask for part of the third day; he has always done so, and not until he has concluded the whole process himself are we entitled to venture to form any judgment of God's purpose and meaning in life. We have no hesitation in accepting the doctrine that God leads men into temptation. All the endeavours that have been made to strike that petition out of the Lord's prayer would seem to be utter failures. Jesus Christ was driven of the Spirit to be tempted of the devil in the wilderness. Here again the admonition stands in all its proper force, namely, that we are not to interrupt the Almighty in his speech or in his action: tomorrow we shall see what is invisible, tomorrow shall bring an adequate light, and when the glory shines upon the mystery it will be found that everything has been conceived in infinite wisdom and sanctified by infinite grace. Your poverty may be from the Lord. The number of graves you have dug in the churchyard is not accidental; it may be but a transcript of what was written before the earth was formed. You must live in the sanctuary of the eternal if you would have calm in storm, if you would have a table spread in the wilderness, if in a frowning, inhospitable rock you would find a home radiant with the presence and affluent with the benediction of God.

"Entice"; not even persuade, certainly not force, or overwhelm, or unduly urge, or violently overcome, but "entice,"—a step at a time, a beckoning of the finger in directions that seem to be lighted up with sweet flowers, and made tuneful by songs of birds; a very little at once, so that familiarity may be produced by a finely graduated process of descent. A man may resent the idea that he is under any process of enticement; because the process is so gradual, so gentle, so utterly wanting in anything that is apparently aggressive and violent: but unless we are under the ministry of God's grace we are being enticed in the other direction; unless we are able to keep up to the rule of discipline we have lost ground; if we are not as far on to-day as we were yesterday we have failed in duty, and we have parted with some of our strength to do the duty that will come upon us tomorrow. We cannot stand still and go forward at the same time. Enticement is the deadly plague of life. The lying spirit has a subtle tongue; he does not proceed with broad dogmatic propositions, he has nothing of a violent nature to suggest or propose; it is, to the end of the line, to the turning of the corner, to the ascent of the hill; it is resting awhile, then walking awhile, or returning, and reascending,—the liar by our side all the while watching the pulsation of the soul that he may know how the enticement is proceeding. Life itself is a temptation: to live is to die. How often have we laid down the doctrine that to be is to be in pain. This is the mystery of life. Life without pain would be life without joy; life without winter would be life without summer; heaven would be a surprise to us of an unwelcome kind if we had not made acquaintance with temptation and sin and sorrow whilst we were upon the earth.

What then is our duty in view of this varied experience? Here we have men shouting with a loud voice, playing upon cornets and trumpets, and uttering themselves in ecstatic enthusiasm because of their love of God; and then we have men turning away from the Lord, and seeking ministries which without him are worse than useless; and then we have that discipline in life which is best described by the word enticement. "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." That power is always at our disposal. We are able to say, No. But we must not say it tremulously, hesitatingly, as if half-surrendering the argument; we must say it with unction, with passion, with a tone that is itself a battle. May not the word enticement be used in a better sense? May not men entice one another to do good? What is the meaning of the word enticement there? It is that there is to be no attempt at force or violence, in any form or in any degree. Church-going is not to be a matter of task and penalty. It should be the joy of the child to go to church. Sweet little children should ask on the Lord's day morning, Is this not the promised day, when we shall hear music, and see the flowers of the kingdom of heaven?—a day when all may feel that this earth is but a door opening upon paradise and rest? We cannot flog men into virtue. We may flog them because of vice; but to go into virtuous courses, to accept the ministry of purity and nobleness, this comes of the consent of the heart. How, then, is this consent to be obtained? Here again we come upon the old evangelical doctrine, and there is none better, that all this ministry is the action of the Holy Ghost upon the life. Why should men trouble themselves by endeavouring to enlarge the sphere of instruction instead of accepting the instruction which is made possible to them? Thus, there are many who insist that the poets are inspired. That is not the question; the immediate question before us, as pupils in God's school, is, What are we to do with the moral injunction and inspiration of the Holy Scripture? There may be more Isaiahs in the world than we have ever heard of, but what are we going to do with the Isaiah we are quite sure about? There may be transcendentalists, spiritualists, noble psychological seers, who can see farther than the Apostle John ever saw; meanwhile, do not let us lose the advantages which the Apostle John contributes to our education and our comfort. There may be a better kind of bread in some parts of the world than we know of: fool is he who would say that and neglect to eat the bread that is provided for him when he is dying of hunger. This is what we mean, therefore, by a dogmatic position; we have certain truths, injunctions, and instructions laid before us, and they are so proportioned to human life, and so adapted to human necessity, that whosoever walks according to their teaching will have strength and rest and hope of a kind which the world can neither give nor take away. Understand that we do not say there is not another Bible in the world; we only say we have not yet found it. Far be it from us to assert that there is not a heart that can love infinitely more than the heart of Christ ever loved; but we have never heard of it, we have never seen it; we are not going to be delighted by conjectures and speculations when there stands before us a Man whose heart is all tenderness, who receives sinners, and who leads all men into the kingdom of heaven. Do not so live in an imaginary gallery of inconceivable dignities as to forget that there standeth One among you, the Son of God, who meanwhile oilers the heart all it can receive of pardon and pureness and liberty.

Prayer

Almighty God, thine eye is upon all men; there is nothing hidden from thy judgment; all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do: this is our supreme joy, and this is our supreme dread; when our hearts are rising towards thee our delight is to know that thou art looking on, and drawing us toward thyself with new love and new power; but when our hearts are going astray from righteousness and truth and light, the onlooking of God is the plague of our life. Work in us so mightily by thy Holy Spirit that we shall be thy children, sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, always desiring to ascend to things heavenly and enjoy communion with our Father; then shall thine onlooking eye make our day, thy presence shall be our defence, and thy comfort shall enlarge and delight our souls. Thou hast stretched out thine hand towards us in offers and welcomes; the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost: we are lost, we need to be sought; Son of God, Shepherd of the Universe, come after us, recover us from our wandering, and bring us home again! We bless thee that the door stands open for returning men; thou dost open the door, it is the door of our Father's house, it is written all over with the welcomes of our Father's love; if we are outside, it is because of our perversity; and if we are within the door, by the grace of God we are where we are. Direct us in all the affairs of our life; when we do wrong, smite us; when we attempt to turn away to conceal the wrong we have done, send thy prophet after us to make our faces burn with shame; and in all things by gain and loss, by health and affliction, by hope and by fear, bring us onward and upward in our life course. Meet us every morning at the cross; every night bring us to the cross; at mid-day may we find shelter within the shadow of the cross; we have no other hope, we have no other joy; other hope and joy we need not; in Christ we have all things, yea we have unsearchable riches. Let thy blessing be with us, then our poverty shall be wealth, our failure in life shall be our truest success, and all our victories shall be purged of vanity and cleansed of all earthliness, and shall be as crowns set upon our head by the Lord of life. Baffle every bad man, turn his counsel to confusion; when he has dug his pit, may he fall into it himself, and when his arm is stretched out to smite weakness may he never be able to take it in again. The Lord be with all good men: make them courageous, fearless, confident, resolute, and zealous, and may their way be prosperous, may every step they take elicit blessings from the hearts of men whom they help and honour and enrich. The Lord hear us in these things, seeing they are bound up in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord, and seeing that they are poured out of our hearts on Calvary, at the foot of the cross, where prayer was never lost. Amen.