Different from What He Meant—Better than He Knew.
It is so easy to hark back to Rome and Babylon when we are walking in their ways. For instance, when a noted orator recently (we are in no way alluding to the politics of the matter) was seconding an important nomination, and expatiating upon the glories of the Republic, he used the following from Eze. 17:3-5 as follows:— “Thus saith the Lord God: A great eagle with great wings, long winged, full of feathers, which had divers colors, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar; he cropped off the top of his young twigs, and carried it into a land of traffic; he set it in a city of merchants. He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree.” The gentleman quoted the last sentence as saying “across great waters;” the scripture is as above quoted. This is his application:— “How like unto our emblem of freedom he has cropped off the young twigs of our cedar of liberty and carried them across the ocean to the land of traffic, and set them in the city of merchants. The seed of our land is there among fruitful fields, beside great waters, and set as a willow tree.” But note the Lord’s application in the chapter from which the above is taken. The eagle refers to Babylon, and the cropping of the cedar branches to the captivity and deportation of Israel. And further, thus saith the Lord concerning the branch: “Shall it prosper? shall he not pull up the roots thereof, and cut off the fruit thereof, that it wither? it shall wither in all the leaves of her spring, even without great power or many people to pluck it up by the roots thereof. Yea, behold, being planted, shall it prosper? shall it not utterly wither, when the east wind toucheth it? it shall wither in the furrows where it grew.” In departing from the foundation principles which gave her existence, this country will find no prosperity either in the way of Babylon or Egypt.