that will be wrought out by diligent effort into all beauty of life and
character. Ezekiel seems to be copying the first psalm, or vice versa,
the Psalmist is copying Ezekiel. At any rate, there is a verbal
similarity between them, in that both dwell upon the unfading leaf of
the tree that grows planted by rivers of water. And our text goes
further, and speaks about perennial fruitfulness month by month, all the
year round. In some tropical countries you will find blossoms, buds in
their earliest stage, and ripened fruit all hanging upon one laden
branch. Such ought to be the Christian life--continuously fruitful
because dependent upon continual drawing into itself, by means of its
roots and suckers, of the water of life by which we are fructified.

There is yet another effect of the waters--healing. As we said, Ezekiel
takes great liberties with the geography of the Holy Land, levelling it
all, so his stream makes nothing of the Mount of Olives, but flows due
east until it comes to the smitten gorge of the Jordan, and then turns
south, down into the dull, leaden waters of the Dead Sea, which it
heals. We all know how these are charged with poison. Dip up a glassful
anywhere, and you find it full of deleterious matter. They are the
symbol of humanity, with the sin that is in solution all through it. No
chemist can eliminate it, but there is One who can. 'He hath made Him to
be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him.' The pure river of the water of life will cast out from
humanity the malignant components that are there, and will sweeten it
all. Ay, all, and yet not all, for very solemnly the Prophet's optimism
pauses, and he says that the salt marshes by the side of the sea are not
healed. They are by the side of it. The healing is perfectly available
for them, but they are not healed. It is possible for men to reject the
influences that make for the destruction of sin and the establishment of
righteousness. And although the waters are healed, there still remain