and straddle over the place every way as his father had tried to do, the people would not have objected. Things were getting worse and worse, and looser and looser, and slacker and slacker; but Jotham was saved, and went right where his father went wrong, because he prepared his ways before the Lord." When the temptation came to him to do what his father had done, and to get off with it, and to justify it, and to make it an instrument in furthering his personal aggrandisement and worldly glory, he took it to his God in prayer. We know that now. The sixth verse tells us that. All through the man's career you have always to carry this lamp with you, and get the picture of a man who lays all his matters before God in prayer, arguing things with God, shaping and planning, and carving and contriving things in prayer before the Lord his God, before he came out of his room. In that time of temptation, when he was just where his father was, high, lifted up, getting on, and feeling the father's pride working in him, you could hardly blame him if he turned out to be his father's son, and if he just went wrong where his father went wrong. Yes, but he prepared his ways before the Lord. He took this thing, and he stood there with the great God in the background, and he got time. He did not allow himself to be driven, as his father had allowed himself to be driven, by pride and popular clamour, it may be, and popular applause. He did not drink himself drunk with

popularity, and vanity, and flattery, but he prepared his ways before the Lord. So, when he was on the pinnacle, he did not fall over and crash himself almost into destruction, as his father did. Even on the pinnacle of success and popularity, his head was cool, and his heart was clear, and his nerves were steady, for he prepared his ways before the Lord his God.

Learn a lesson from this king of Judah and Jerusalem, of long, long ago. Let us prepare our ways before the Lord our God. The Lord first! Get into the secret places. Do not be driven. Do not take surface views. Do not even be guided by your father, or by those before you, no matter how good they were. No matter in how many things they may have left you an example, they cannot have left you an example for all things. There must come places where, if you are to go right in your day and generation, your father will not lead you. He may mislead you. Your mother will not lead you.

The nearest and dearest to
Their light

whom you may look up will not lead you. at some place or another will burn dim, and you need to go in before the Light of lights. Their wisdom will become foolishness. The strongest earthly support will not bear you, but it will crush, like a reed, under, and into your bleeding hand. You will need, like Jotham, to make God your mark and your way, your Alpha and your Omega, and to deal with him nakedly, immediately, at first hand.

Now, you know, this is difficult for a king. It may come trite to us; but think of kings, and how they are surrounded with councillors, every one of whom is apt to have his own ambitions, his own fish to fry, his own game to play. He thinks, "How can the king use me, and how can I use the king?" It is grand to read, away back in that dim, distant time, that Jotham saw and understood it, and made prayer to God to be his sheet-anchor in the difficulties that beset a

successful reign.

Then "he built the high gate of the house of the Lord, and on the wall of Ophel he built much. Moreover, he built cities in the mountains of Judah, and in the forests he built castles and towers." Do you see, the man who prepares his ways before the Lord will set himself to stiff jobs-to build cities in the mountains, for example, and in the forests to build castles and towers. That is tough work. That is work that needs sinew and grit of mind in the man who plans it, as well as sinew and grit of muscle in the actual quarrymen and labourers and builders. Learn the lesson that the man who is spiritual to the core will be the man who, down in the city yonder, will not be a weakling, and will not be easily turned aside. He will not be too pious for this world. He will tackle difficult things, and push, and further them, and prosper, where another man, for want of religion, will not come to the same speed, or climb the same height, or reach the

same success.

It is grand, to me, to see how this disposes

of the idea that to be a praying man and to be a business man do not go together. Oh, that young men would learn this! See how we learn this lesson from this old king. I mean this king of old. See how we learn that his faith in God and his prayer to God help him with stones and mortar, and cutting timber and building, and shaping and arranging successfully all that kind of secular contracting work. The men might wonder, and say, "Well, well, whatever is up? Here he is building castles and fortifying places away in inaccessible regions, and he has notions in his head of fortifying and strengthening Judah' that no other person seems to have had, and he is working them out splendidly." You and I, to-night, know the secret of all these bright ideas and "forward movements," which involved new plans, and would entail a great deal of criticism. The secret of them all was that he was a man who prayed, and therefore he was clear-headed; therefore he was dogged, and dour, and stubborn, if you like; but he said, “There is a castle to be built up on that pinnacle, and it has got to be done. If we build a castle there, overlooking that gorge, it will protect Jerusalem some fine day when the enemy comes down sweeping through it. Therefore that castle is to be." And that man, who might have been misunderstood, and might have been sneered at as a pious ninny and a soft, weak-brained creature, who spent an awful lot of time at his

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JOTHAM, KING AND SAINT.

prayers, was the man who covered the country with fortifications. That was the man who rose from his knees and called out his courtiers, and his contractors, and his heads of departments, and made them look lively, and work for their money. Now, there it is bristling. Do not take the text, and then in a general way begin to discuss, "What is it to prepare our ways before the Lord?" But take the text, and apply it like a key put into the lock of each of these verses of the record of the life of the man "who prepared his ways." And here are his ways-ordinary ways, earthly ways, secular ways, ambitious ways, it may be; but the secret of it all, that saved them from being of the earth, earthy, and that sanctified them, and coloured, and glorified them all, was that they came out of the heart of a humble, praying, believing man. Before God he was no king. At his prayers in the morning he never thought that he was a king. At his prayers in the morning he was like a little child. If you had heard him praying, you would have thought he was not a king at all. You would have heard a man before God, saying, like Solomon of "O God, Thou hast set me in the midst of this Thy so great a people. I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or to come in." And just as God made Solomon wiser than all that went before Him, so He does in measure

old,

learned

to all who learn Solomon's secret, and Jotham had
it. "He prepared his ways before the Lord his God."

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