song of spiritual Israel then, "Lift up your heads O ye gates; and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? Jehovah strong and mighty. Jehovah mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors! and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? hosts, he is the King of Glory." Psalm xxiv. 7, 10.

Jehovah of

Let us now resume our consideration of the Israelitish journey. Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, "and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days into the wilderness and found no water." v. 22.

When we recollect the previous history of Moses, we shall be convinced he was admirably fitted for the leadership of the people in a country with which he must have been well acquainted. Although related in very simple expressions, such as needs reflection to enable us to make ourselves acquainted with the full meaning of the divine narrative, we must not forget that Moses was forty years old when he fled from the palace of the daughter of Pharaoh, and eighty years old when he returned to commence the deliverance of his enslaved brethren. During the intervening period he had been chiefly inhabiting the neighbourhood of the foot of Mount Sinai, and the wilderness of Shur, and thus for forty years had been familiarizing himself with the whole district, and consequently, was an instrument perfectly prepared for the divine work that he had to perform in this country, into which he led Israel. The circumstances mentioned, are such as enable us if we are at all acquainted with the natural condition of the country, to recall every particular that is wanted here-to think, first, of the dry and arid wilderness through which the people had to pass, within the distance which must have been traversed in these three days. There would be all the circumstances intimated here-a hot sun, arid rocks, sands all around, with just one exception. There is a small oasis in the desert called the wells of Moses to the present day, where probably the Israelites drank and made ready for the succeeding journey of three days.

Then comes a district which is easily reached in three days, where there is still a stream of brackish bitter water, now called Howara. Probably this is the very stream which is intimated as having been found by the Israelites. They would doubtless be in a state of great thirst. They would be excited by the sight of water, as is customary with the Arabs when they have travelled far, with little of the refreshing stream. Then when they found its bitter nauseous taste was such as to prevent them from enjoying

it, in their disappointment, they said murmuring, “What shall we drink."

Now, in all this is represented precisely what takes place in the regenerate life. We shall have the key to it, and to all the circumstances which are brought before us in the remainder of this chapter, if we bear in mind the correspondence of water. First, we have the waters of the Red Sea; next, we have the water after which the people longed; then, we have the bitter water which they could not drink, again, there is the sweetened water that seems to have been a delightful enjoyment after their trouble; and lastly, the abundant water mentioned at the end of the chapter, v. 27, " And they came to Elim where were twelve wells of water."

How beautiful, how valuable, how universally useful is WATER.

We have said that the key to the interesting instruction which is given in these several parts, is just simply that correspondence of water which exhibits it as the symbol of truth, or its opposite; and which, when reading the Sacred Word, or when we are seeing water in any of its conditions in the world, we should never forget. It is in the very nature of things that water is the symbol of truth. Just as water is the grand means of purifying the body, so Truth is the grand means of cleansing the soul; and hence you find it written, "I will pour clean water upon you, and will cleanse you from all defilements saith the Lord."

Water is the great means that enables our food to go through the process of being turned into the strength and the nourishment of the body.

Without water, neither food, medicine, nor manufactures could exist. Vegetation would languish and speedily perish without WATER.

Without water there would be no digestion. All beverages are water with more or less of addition, and derive from water their chief efficacy and value.

Water is the universal solvent, the universal purifier. Water is the soul of all medicines, and in its various applications the most potent means of health.

By water those lovely colours are obtained which enrich the robe of the monarch, and give homely beauty to the dress of the cottager.

All the operations of the human body require water, and the body itself is composed three-fourths of water, and one-fourth of all other substances.

In its rivers, seas, and oceans, water is the grandest of highways.

No landscape is charming without water; a fountain in the sunbeams is one of the most beautiful objects in nature, and water itself, fresh and clear, dazzles the eye with a loveliness like liquid silver.

Well then may WATER be regarded as the symbol of that which in its relation to the soul is equally useful, equally healthful, equally universal, equally beautiful, TRUTH. Truth refreshes the soul, truth purifies the soul, truth fertilizes the soul, truth builds up the soul in nobleness and usefulness of character, truth constitutes like water the way to good and progress of every kind. Truth brings out the loveliness of everything else, and is a supreme beauty in itself. TRUTH therefore is SPIRITUAL WATER. We read in the Scriptures of drinking of the "water of life," of "doctrine which comes down like gentle showers upon the grass," of being made "clean by the Word," of "being sanctified by the truth," of "thirsting after righteousness," of "fountains of living water," and of "the stream of the water of life proceeding out of the throne of the Eternal." All these attributes of water applied to our mental wants, reveal the incalculable importance of truth, of divine truth, to the well-being of the immortal soul.

Yet there are a great number of persons who live as if they had never learned the fact, that truth is the grand element of power and progress, who go on through the whole of their life in the world, just accepting mentally what other people ask them to take, and never enquiring what is truth and grasping it. The circumstance that without water solid food is of little use, and that we can endure much longer without solid food than without water, teaches us the importance of water, and by correspondence the importance of truth. Our very body, as we said, is built up of water, and so is every sound spiritual system. The mind that does not yearn after truth, that does not pray to the Lord, "Give me to drink," that does not sigh and long after the truth in the spirit expressed in the Psalms, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God." Such a soul has no real healthy life. With such a soul there is no real solid progress. He lives in delusions, and dreams and dies, without ever acquiring that true nobility of character which constitute man's chief likeness to God. "Ho! every one that thirsteth," says the Word, 66 come ye to the waters, come buy wine and milk, without money and without price."

When the soul has fully realized the blessings of one state, and

made its gracious mercies its own, it is prepared for further and higher truth. That it may come into an ardent spiritual appetite, it does not obtain that new truth at once. It goes three days, or through a full spiritual experience, and finds no

water.

It then comes to water, but BITTER WATER. That is, truth is revealed to it, but truth bitter, unpleasant and condemnatory. How often is this the case! Truth reveals to us tempers which we now see for the first time are not heavenly.

Some annoyance, some trial, some disappointment, shews us we can be angry, impatient, unforbearing, and unkind.

We cannot bear this truth. We cannot drink this water. What shall we drink?

If we have elevated the LAW OF THE LORD our Moses, to be our leader, he will cry unto the Lord, and the Lord will shew him some wood, as the word translated tree in our text, might be better rendered. Wood corresponds to the solid love of duty. It is the solid substance of a tree. The wood thrown into the waters turned them sweet, to teach us, that the spirit of duty which takes divine teaching however unpleasant, and determines lovingly to obey, which takes up the cross and kisses it as it were, this will turn the bitterest waters into sweetness.

The wise have long known that

"Sweet are the uses of adversity."

"Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.” "Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow," is the language of the Psalmist, and of the true soul in every age. And when the regenerating soul says lovingly and meekly, "Thy will be done," a softening, hallowing, sweetening process commences, a smile from heaven lights up the tear, the bitter waters become sweet.

This is said to be for them a statute and an ordinance. This blessed lesson is for true Israelites in every age. Let us never forget it. Whenever the waters of truth are bitter to us, let us pray to our Heavenly Father to make us faithful, obedient, and true, and soon shall we realize the fact that what is bitter is often salutary, and then comes the blessing. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart."

66

SERMON XV.

THE QUAILS AND THE DEW.

"And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host."-EXODUS xvi. 13.

To those who have regarded without any deep knowledge of human nature the wonderful circumstances of which the Israelites had been witnesses, who remember the astonishing displays of Divine Omnipotence, of divine patience and long suffering, that they had witnessed in Egypt, during their passage thence, and in their sojourn thus far on the border of the Wilderness, it does seem an astonishing thing, that now, within one month, the Israelites should be murmuring against the Lord, distrusting His divine providence, imagining that they were about to perish, and fancying that they had left something that was really worthy of their regrets, when they left what they called the flesh-pots of Egypt, and what they now described as bread to the full.

To those who suppose that good and evil are simply opposites, that when a man leaves the one he takes the other, and that the whole work is then completed, the Israelitish history will appear to be remarkably perplexing. It pictures to us variations, temptations, trials, murmurings, victories, and so on from time to time throughout the whole of forty years sojourn and pilgrimage. And yet, if we are right in describing the exodus of the Israelites as a divine drama, illustrative of regeneration, where the scenes are extensive countries, the actors, a whole nation, their history the Word of God for all ages and for all nations, then we must find their history to be but the reflex of human spiritual history in every age.

If we have sought to come out of the bondage of our Egypt, if we have made any progress in our way towards the land whither we go to possess it, then has it been precisely the case with us as it was with Israel. We have supposed at times that we are now so thoroughly on the Lord's side that all will hence

P