Note 1 — ISAIAH. (continued 14)

Rivers are highly important as the outlets and inlets of commercial enterprise; but the merchant ship, though richly laden, may carry the seeds of physical and moral disease, and inflict untold injury. Rivers give security to the cities built on their banks, but they may also prove the means of destruction. Cyrus made use of the Euphrates when besieging Babylon, and thus captured the city. The strength of Babylon became its weakness. The same river that bears on its tidal waves the merchant ship laden with the precious produce of distant lands may also bring the war-ship laden with the instruments of destruction and death. But the city of our solemnities is secure. No mischief can come to us along the broad river of Almighty grace.—Burrows.

[See also outlines, Rivers of Waters, xxx. 25, 26, and Rivers of Water in a Dry Place, xxxii. 2.]