A BATTLEFIELD FOR SALE.
(To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia,—With reference to your remarks on the above subject, may I remind you that there is an interesting parallel ? When the fortunes of Judaea were at their lowest, the prophet Jeremiah, at the word of the Lord, bought a field to have a stake in the country to show his confidence in its future. Chap. xxxii. describes how Jeremiah, while imprisoned by Zedekiah for his prophecy that the King of Babylon, then besieging Jerusalem, would take it, bought and paid for the field of Hanameel, uncle's son. " For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again
in this land." Jeremiah, after enjoining on Baruch that he must preserve the evidence, as tokens of the people's return, prays to
God, Who confirms the captivity for the people's sins, but adds:— For thus saith the Lord; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ve say, It is desolate without roan or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences, and seal them, and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains, and in the cities of the valley, and in the cities of the south : for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord."
Mansfield Rectory.
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