sufficient reasons, as even we can see, for such a deed. To bring in
Jehu into the problem is unnecessary. He was the sword, but God's was
the hand that struck. It is not for men to arraign the Lord of life
and death for His methods and times of sending death to evil-doers.
Granted that the 'long-suffering' which is 'not willing that any
should perish' speaks more powerfully to our hearts than the justice
which smites with death, the later and more blessed revelation is
possible and precious only on the foundation of the former. Nor will a
loose-braced generation like ours, which affects to be horrified at
the thought of the 'wrath of God,' and recoils from the contemplation
of His judgments, ever reach the innermost secrets of the tenderness
of His love.

From the merely human point of view, we may say that revolutions are
not made with rose-water, and that, at all crises in a nation's
history, when some ancient evil is to be thrown off, and some powerful
system is to be crushed, there will be violence, at which easy-going
people, who have never passed through like times, will hold up their
hands in horror and with cheap censure. No doubt we have a higher law
than Jehu knew, and Christ has put His own gentle commandment of love
in the place of what was 'said to them of old time.' But let us, while
we obey it for ourselves, and abjure violence and blood, judge the men
of old 'according to that which they had, and not according to that
which they had not.' Jehu's bloody deeds are not held up for
admiration. His obedience is what is praised and rewarded. Well for us
if we obey our better law as faithfully!

The last point in the story is the imperfection of the obedience of
Jehu. He contented himself with rooting out Baal, but left the calves.
That shows the impurity of his 'zeal,' which flamed only against what