A city of merchants.
An apt designation this of Babylon the great, the very centre and emporium of commerce in the East. The deportation of the chief men among the Jews from their own land to Mesopotamia is pictorially described under the similitude of the highest branch of the cedar of Lebanon carried by the great Assyrian eagle away Eastward "into a land of traffic" and set in "a city of merchants." The description of Babylon is applicable to the great centres of population in our own and other lands, which serve both to concentrate and to diffuse the products which constitute so large a part of the wealth of the world, and which minister to human convenience and luxury. As an important factor in civilization, such cities should be considered in the light of reflection and religion.
I. COMMERCIAL CITIES ARE AN EXPRESSION OF A DEEP-SEATED TENDENCY OF HUMAN NATURE. There are, indeed, impulses which estrange and isolate men; but there are others which draw them together. We are by nature social; we have natural sympathies; we depend one upon another; we only live intellectually and morally in virtue of our mutual intercourse. Not only so; men find their interest and pleasure in close associations of various kinds. It is to their mutual advantage to gather together for the interchange of services. Thus it is in accordance with laws imposed upon our constitution by the Maker of all that men gather together in cities. In such populous centres the busy and active, the laborious and the influential, find scope for the exercise of their powers. Craftsmen and tradespeople, the bees of the social hive, spend in town life almost the whole of their earthly existence. And even those whose vocation is more distinctively intellectual, and who prefer retirement and quiet, still do not allow themselves to be cut off from the busy haunts of men; but ever and anon plunge, if but for a brief season, into the rapid, whirling tide of humanity that sweeps through their country's capital.
II. COMMERCIAL CITIES ARE THE SCENE OF VERY VARIED EXPERIENCES AND OF REMARKABLE FRICTION OF MIND WITH MIND. As compared with those engaged in rural pursuits, the dwellers in cities are quick and enterprising. They are brought more frequently into contact with one another, and each man meets daily a far richer variety of character. They are more ready to take in new ideas and to form new habits. In cities there are great contrasts. The life of the farm labourer and that of the country gentleman are not so contrasted as the life of the artisan and that of the merchant. In civics wealth and luxury are side by side with poverty and wretchedness. The poor have fewer to care for them, and the rich have fewer natural claims and responsibilities There is a rush and scramble for wealth and position, which renders a great city the natural theme of the cynic's sniper and the satirist's invective. Yet beneath all this there is much in city life which cannot but be regarded with interest and admiration; and the contempt which is felt for townspeople is often superficial prejudice.
III. COMMERCIAL CITIES ABOUND WITH TEMPTATIONS TO SIN. There is a bad as well as a good side to city life. In the race for riches there are many opportunities for theft, peculation, embezzlement, and forgery, and the widespread desire for rapid enrichment furnishes motives to which too many sooner or later yield. In a vast population provision is made for amusement and excitement, and for vicious gratification, and in this whirlpool multitudes of the young and heedless and pleasure seeking go down, never to emerge. There is in great cities a possibility of concealment, by which many are encouraged to form habits of self-indulgence and dissipation, from which they might in more favourable circumstances have been restrained by the gentle pressure of home influence and wholesome public opinion. No wonder that, when parents send a son to the metropolis to earn a living or to seek a fortune, their minds are distressed and anxious at the thought of the manifold temptations to which the child of many prayers is to be exposed.
IV. COMMERCIAL CITIES ARE THE CENTRES AND SOURCES OF GREAT INFLUENCE FOR BOTH GOOD AND EVIL. A great capital, the seat of government, of literature, of manufacture, of commerce, is often compared to the heart in the body, whence the streams of life flow constantly and regularly to reach the remotest extremity. In the great monarchies, empires, and republics of the world, how great a part has been played by the cities in which wealth and power have been concentrated, and by which national policy has been so largely shaped! How could the history of mankind be written without reference to Memphis, to Nineveh, to Babylon, to Rome, to Constantinople, to Paris, to London? Intelligence and wealth, luxury and vice, patriotism and public spirit, law and religion, spread from the great centres of population, industry, and prosperity, and affect the remotest regions.
V. COMMERCIAL CITIES AFFORD ESPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORKS OF BENEVOLENCE AND EVANGELIZATION. They abound in enterprise and public spirit, and these may be employed as truly in the enlightenment and improvement of men as in the acquisition of wealth. They abound in population, and furnish persons of every grade of natural and acquired qualification for the several departments of Christian usefulness. They abound in wealth; and material means are necessary for the conduct of educational, philanthropic, and missionary plans. They have abundant means of communicating with localities near and far, which it may be desired to reach and affect for good; from them roads radiate to every part of the land, and ships sail to every port. These and other circumstances lead to the belief that our great cities will become in the future, even more than in the past, centres and ministers of blessing to mankind.—T.
Prosperity in adversity.
In figurative language Ezekiel describes the position of the remnant permitted by the monarch of Babylon to remain in the land of their fathers, and to pursue their industries in peace under their own rulers, enjoying the protection of the Eastern power. The lowly vine is suffered by the mighty eagle to take root in the soil, to spread, and to bear fruit, unmolested and in a measure prosperous. The prophet is aware of the foolish and treacherous conduct of his countrymen, who, instead of accepting and acquiescing in their lot, are intriguing with. the neighbouring state on the south, hoping that Egypt may come to their aid and deliver them from subjection to Babylon. A more false and foolish policy the helpless remnant could not have adopted; and it was a policy Jehovah, the King of nations, Hid not suffer to be successful. Even in their political adversity it was open to them to enjoy some measure of peace and prosperity. Their plotting was against their own interests, their own well being.
I. A NATION'S HUMILIATION IS PERMITTED BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE. God raiseth up one, and setteth down another. It is a foolish and superficial view of political affairs which they take who attribute the rise and fall of nations to chance and accident. The Lord reigneth. There is wisdom and righteousness in his government of the world.
II. NATIONAL HUMILIATION SHOULD BE REGARDED AS A PROBATION AND A DISCIPLINE FOR BRIGHTER DAYS. They who see the hand of God in what happens to them will not be slow to believe that there is a purpose in human experience, and that this principle applies to communities as well as to individuals. There are lessons to be learnt in adversity which prosperity cannot teach. Schooled in the "waste, howling wilderness," Israel was made strong to enter and to possess the land of promise. The same principle has operated in the history of our own and of ether nations.
III. THE RELATIVE PROSPERITY WHICH IS POSSIBLE EVEN IN HUMILIATION MAY BE CHECKED AND DESTROYED BY SELFISHNESS AND TREACHERY. It was the policy of the remnant patiently to wait for better times; and it was their duty to observe the covenant into which they had entered with Babylon. The discontented vine which sought other patronage was to be plucked up and to wither. Increase of prosperity should not be sought by unlawful and forbidden means.
IV. SUBMISSION AND PATIENT IMPROVEMENT OF ADVANTAGES MAY BE THE MEANS OF NATIONAL GOOD. The subject sons of Abraham might not be eminent and majestic as the cedar of Lebanon. But they might he as the fruitful vine, planted in a well placed and well guarded vineyard, which bears abundance of fruit, and does not enjoy its advantages and opportunities in vain.—T.