An urgently demanded meeting.
"Blow the trumpet in Zion," etc. Men are constantly assembling themselves together for one purpose or another—political, commercial, scientific, entertaining. But of all the meetings, none are so urgent as the one indicated in the text.
I. IT IS A MEETING CALLED ON ACCOUNT OF COMMON SIN. All the people of Judah had sinned grievously, and they were now summoned together on that account. No subject is of such urgent importance as this. Sin, this was the root of all the miseries of their country. It behoved them to meet together in order to deliberate how best to tear up this upas, how best to dry up this pestiferous fountain of all their calamities.
II. IT IS A MEETING COMPOSED OF ALL CLASSES. The young and the old were there; the sad and the jubilant; even the bridal pair; the priests and the people. The subject concerned them all; all were vitally interested in it. Sin is no class subject. It concerns the man in imperial purple as well as the man in pauper's rags.
III. IT IS A MEETING FOR HUMILIATION AND PRAYER. "Let the priests and the ministers weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord!" It was not a meeting for debate or discussion, for mere social intercourse and entertainment; but for profound humiliation before God.
CONCLUSION. No meeting in England is more urgently demanded to-day than such a one as this.—D.T.