The work of the prophet is clear and definite, He does not declare his own speculations, nor the conclusions of his own judgment. He can specify the day and the hour in which God makes known to him his supreme will. Nor is the work so pleasant to the flesh as to induce men to adopt it of their own accord. The true prophet has to set himself against wickedness everywhere, of every sort and kind. He has to forego all human friendships, if he will publish God's Word.

I. THE WORLDLY KING IS SELF-DEGRADED. He is likened here to a crocodile. This is a fitting emblem for the King of Egypt. As the crocodile flourishes in the rivers of tropical lands, so the prosperity of Egypt depended wholly on the Nile. Without the Nile, Egypt would be a desert. So, instead of rising to the dignity of a true king, a representative of God, he sank into a condition of self-indulgence, i.e. to the level of an animal. To grovel in the mire, to find satisfaction in earthly possessions, to gratify the lower nature, - this was the supreme aim of Pharaoh. This is animalism; this is self-degradation.

II. THE WORLDLY KING IS VAINGLORIOUS. "My river is mine own: I have made it for myself." Self-degradation leads to ignorance, ignorance to pride, pride to empty boastfulness. A man must divest himself of his intelligence and his reason before he can say, "I have made this river for myself." This is an abuse of intellect, a prostitution of conscience. Not even a crocodile has said this. To depart from God is to wander into darkness, folly, madness. Such a state of mind is practical atheism. It is a direct challenge to God to display his judicial might and to vindicate his rule. Such a vain-glorious temper of mind is profane, insolent, little short of the Satanic mind.

III. THE WORLDLY KING IS A DANGEROUS ALLY. "They have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel." As a man maimed or invalided rests his weight, when walking, upon some mechanical support, and suffers grievous injury if his support breaks, so was it when Israel foolishly leant upon Egypt for support. The prospect of succor was specious and plausible. Egypt promised friendly aid, but when the hour of trial came the support collapsed, and both Israel and Egypt were injured. It is perilous to trust in any godless power. We are often decoyed into a fatal ambush by appearances. Friendship, if not a real advantage, is a bane. It is an injury to us personally, if the one on whom we trusted fails; it is a hundredfold more injurious to an empire. Test your allies before you trust them.

IV. THE WORLDLY KING IS EASILY VULNERABLE. Carnal security is weakness incarnate. It is a rampart of cobwebs. The King of Egypt trusted wholly in his river with its seven branches; yet nothing was easier than for God to dry up the sources of that stream, and leave the crocodile on the dry land, with dead fish sticking to his scales. This is a graphic picture of defeat, a sudden collapse of brag. The river having failed, the prophecy would speedily be verified, "I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven." Achilles was said to have been vulnerable only in the heel, but every world-power is vulnerable in a thousand points. God's favor is the only known shield that is impregnable.

V. THE DEFEAT OF THE WORLD-POWER WILL BE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GOD'S KINGDOM. "All the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord." This is a difficult lesson for men to learn, and the task is long. Yet God is not impatient. He calmly waits his time. Slowly, yet surely, the foundations of his empire are being laid. The idols of Egypt have been completely overthrown, and gradually God is being acknowledged. "He must reign." It is a grand necessity. - D.

The tendency is to measure all things by a money standard. The business that cannot be ruled by Christianity is wrong. What this does for a land, if it grows unchecked, is to make men sell the best things. Phoenicia did, and the spirit of her people died. Her inhabitants became the ministers of vice in every Eastern city. And the man eaten up by love of gain is preparing for himself and all he influences a like fate. Men object that business is a sort of neutral world in which the maxims of New Testament morality cannot come into play. But if this is true, either Christianity cannot be a faith for the whole of a man's life, or the business that cannot be ruled by it is wrong. It is to rule my eating and drinking, my clothing and housing of myself and mine, my buying and selling, my work am! play. Whatsoever ye do, "buying or booking," do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. But men object today that the severity of the competition by which they are pressed makes some moral laxity in the conduct of business most difficult to avoid. They have to contend with others who are not hampered by scrupulosity in the methods by which they obtain orders or make profits. Some time ago, the Rev. Mr. Carter, the Secretary of the Christian Social Union, informs us, the Oxford branch of that society sent out a number of queries to practical men on the subject of commercial morality. In answer to the question: "Do you find it difficult to apply the principles of Christian truth and justice to the conduct of business?" two employers write: "Business is based on the gladiatorial theory of existence. If Christian truth and justice is not consistent with this, business is in a bad case." A commercial traveller writes: "Not only difficult, but impossible, for a man is not master of himself. If one would live, and avoid the bankruptcy court, one must do business on the same lines as others do, without troubling whether, the methods are in harmony with the principles of Christian truth and justice or not. A draper's assistant answers: "Extremely so. The tendency to misrepresent, deceive, or take unfair advantage under circumstances that daily offer the opportunity of so doing is generally too strong to resist where self-interest is the motive power of action, the conventional morality the only check. To me they appear to be opposing principles — the first of self-sacrifice, the second of self-interest." Another says: "If it were possible to do away with competition, the excuse and justification for a large proportion of commercial immorality would be gone." As it is, it is quite plain that honourable trade has to meet with and fight what is unjust. As Arthur Hugh Clough says in one of his poems "Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition."

(G. T. Forbes, M. A.).