This portion of Ezekiel's writings evinces a very remarkable acquaintance with the geography and the economics of the then known world. Perhaps the prophet, living in the heart of a great Oriental monarchy, and in intercourse not only with his countrymen, but with men of various nationalities, may have acquired something more of a cosmopolitan habit of mind than was common among the Jews. Certain it is that the commercial relations of Tyre are described with singular care and minute accuracy. It is evident that, in the view of Ezekiel, every society and community of men was in some way connected with the reign of God upon earth; that whilst in a special sense Jehovah was accounted the Sovereign of the Hebrews, there was a very important sense in which all peoples were subject to Divine authority, and were the objects of Divine regard and interest. The sympathies of Ezekiel, though patriotic, were far from being narrow and provincial. He was able, by the force of historical imagination, to consider Tyre as, for a time and for a purpose, the center of the life and activity of the world. Though inspired to foretell Tyre's destruction, the prophet was by no means insensible to Tyre's beauty and splendor, to the magnificent range of the city's commerce and interests, to the importance of the city to the work and well-being of the nations. There may have been something of rhetorical art in thus dilating upon Tyre's glory in the very moment of foretelling Tyre's fall. But the religions motive was the strongest. Ezekiel wished to show that, however indispensable a city or a state may be in the view of men, God does not regard it as indispensable, and may even fulfill his purposes by bringing about its dissolution and destruction. In this brilliant sketch of the position of Tyre among the nations of the earth, we may recognize -

I. THE STATELINESS OF THE CITY'S BEAUTY.

II. THE SPLENDOUR OF THE CITY'S FLEETS.

III. THE SKILL OF THE CITY'S MARINERS.

IV. THE VALOR OF THE CITY'S ARMIES.

V. THE VASTNESS OF THE CITY'S TRADE. It is in this connection that Ezekiel introduces neighboring and even distant states, showing in detail in what manner each was connected with Tyre, what were the natural productions or manufactures which they brought to the world's great emporium. It was as a commercial port that Tyre was celebrated, and by its ships and its fearless, adventurous navigators distant lands were brought within the range of civilization.

VI. THE ABUNDANCE OF THE CITY'S WEALTH.

VII. THE GLORY OF THE CITY'S RENOWN.

VIII. THE HOLLOWNESS OF THE CITY'S PROSPERITY. NO wonder that Tyre was the envied of the nations; no wonder that men looked upon the city as secure of a long lease of opulence, of ease and luxury, of splendor, of power, and of fame. Yet beneath all this there was wanting the basis upon which alone can be surely reared the edifice of true prosperity. There was boasting and arrogance; but there was no humility, no subjection to the righteous sway of the Eternal King, no recognition of the sacred responsibilities which accompany the possession of advantages and acquisitions such as those of Tyre. Thus it was that in the time of trial the city was found incapable of enduring and of profiting by Divine discipline. It was founded, not upon the rock of righteousness and piety, but upon the shifting quick sands of worldly prosperity and renown. It fell, and great was the fall of it. "Every plant," said Jesus, "which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be plucked up." - T.

I. WHAT WERE THE GROUNDS OF HER JUDGMENT. She was judged for her sins.

1. She abused the privilege of civilisation. Tyre was the most cultivated state of antiquity, invented letters, weights and measures, money, arithmetic, the art of keeping accounts. She made her painting and sculpture and architecture and music and letters, all her skill and learning and refinement, instruments of corruption.

2. Tyre abused also the privilege of commerce. The Tyrians were a nation of merchants. But there are two classes of merchants. There are those who aim to develop new countries, to introduce new crops and arts and industries, to elevate races, to make commerce the servant of God. There are others who make everything bend to gain. A prince or an entire people may thus abuse the privilege of commerce. So Tyre abused her privilege.

3. She abused the privilege of her intimate connection with the Jewish people. In the enjoyment of this distinction she stood alone. Tyre was a bulwark of Israel, covering Zion as the wing of the cherub covered the altar. In the unscrupulousness of her lust of empire and gain she broke the "brotherly covenant," and when Jerusalem fell she rejoiced in her overthrow. To her unscrupulousness nothing was too sacred to be turned to profit.

II. THE DELAY OF THE JUDGMENT. The method of God, sometimes, is swift retribution, as with Sodom and Gomorrah, sometimes slow, as with Tyre. She was long in filling her measure of guilt. Over two hundred years before the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, Joel prophesied against her. A few years later Amos took up the prophecy, then Isaiah in , Ezekiel in 590, Zechariah in 487. Yet the judgment delayed. She suffered calamities, but always rose above them. The prophecies were not literally fulfilled. The Christian era came in. Tyre still stood; Shalmaneser had besieged it; Nebuchadnezzar had invested it by sea and land for thirteen years, and conquered it; Alexander the Great, in , after a frightful siege of six months, had stormed, captured, and destroyed it, massacring thousands of its inhabitants, and selling thirty thousand into slavery. But after each disaster it had arisen anew, In the days of , in the fifth century, it was still standing, a city powerful and opulent. It was still flourishing eight hundred years later, in the times of the Crusades. It was the seat of a Christian bishopric. It had stood over twenty-five hundred years. The prophecies against it were nearly two thousand years old. Was the Bible, then, which had proved true in prophecies against Egypt and Nineveh, and Edom and Judah, to be found at fault here?

III. THE LITERAL FULFILMENT OF JUDGMENT. In the year 1291 the Sultan of Egypt laid siege to the strong city of Ptolemais or Acre. Terror spread through the crusaders' kingdom. Tyre shared it. Capture meant massacre and slavery. Ptolemais fell on the very day on which the evil news reached Tyre. At vespers the people in mass forsook their city. In panic and haste they embarked upon their galleys, and went out never to return. The Mahometan came. He overthrew the city. He choked one of the matchless harbours with the ruins. He cast into the sea, statues and columns and the huge stones of warehouses and palaces. He set the last fire to her splendour. He scraped the rock. Standing amid the ruins we may see the dust and ashes of her conflagration, the broken marble columns beneath the sea and scattered upon the shore, the fishers' nets spread upon the rock, and feel, with every traveller who thus stands, that the last prophecy concerning her must also prove true, "That shalt be built no more."

1. The fate of Tyre is a warning to those engaged in traffic. Beware of the iniquity of traffic, of the pride, the luxury, the unscrupulousness, the atheism.

2. The fate of Tyre exalts the Word of God. If we look upon its ruins simply as a record of fulfilled prophecy, they force the conviction, This is the accomplishment of the Word of God, the one thing on earth amid the vast mutations of time, as passes unceasingly the glory of the world, which is unchangeable.

(Sermons by Monday Club.)