pleasure in recalling our tears and griefs. But this is often mere selfish melancholy, brooding in solitude over a strange history. Sometimes, too, it is pride. We take a proud pleasure in thinking that none have ever suffered as we have done. Sometimes it is worldly sentiment, sitting down to muse over faded blossoms, or to recall the images of suns long set, or it may be to contrast the decay of earth with the abiding oeauty of yon unwrinkled azure.
But this is not what God desires. It is not the remembrance of sorrow merely that he seeks, but of sorrow as chastisement, — of sor- row as linked all along with his gracious deal- ings towards us. The natural heart separates these two things. It remembers the one but forgets the other, and so frustrates God's de- sign. Himself he ever presents to us ; himself he strives to keep before us, not simply as con- nected with all our present and all our future history, but as inseparably entwined with all the PAST.
It was thus that he expressed his mind to Israel regarding this very thing. " Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilder- ness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to
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know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know ; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God doth man live. Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell these forty years. Thou shall also consider in thine heart, that, as -a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee."* These recollections of the wilderness he wished to write upon Israel's heart forever. He evidently lays much stress on this. He would not have them lose the benefit of their desert-wanderings, and his desert dealings. They were too precious to be forgotten. Forty years close and solitary intercourse with God in such various ways, ought to have taught them much, both of him and of themselves, which deserved everlasting memory. Each name had some wondrous scene attached to it ; each rock had its story to tell. Their enemies and dangers ; their hunger and their thirst ; the manna and the * Deut viil 2—5.
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water ; the murmu rings and the thanksgiv- ings ; their journeys and their encampments ; their raiment that waxed not. old ; their shoes that were as iron and brass ; their feet that swelled not: and above all, the cloud that rested over them, and the tent of Jehovah that was pitched in the midst of them. These were memorable scenes. And they were all connected with the wilderness. Never before had there been such an assemblage of won- drous dealings, and never since has anything like this been seen on earth. It could occur but once. And that once was to furnish mat- ter for remembrance to Israel, descending as a precious heritage to their children, and their children's children for ever.
It is thus with the saint in reference to his desert days and desert trials. They must not be forgotten as if they had served their pur- pose. They must be ever rising before us, — not merely preserved in memory like the manna in the ark, but brought forth to feed upon every day. In this way sorrow may be most profitable to us long after its bitterness has passed away. It may furnish us with a treasury of blessings for a lifetime. It may be a mine of gold to us all our days.
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We are too little aware of this. We look on trial too much as we do upon a passing shower, which falla and then is gone. Whereas, it is truly the smiting of the rock and the issuing forth of a new stream, whose waters are to keep us company through all our days of wandering. The benefits of chas- tisement should never be exhausted. They should be coming forth in freshness with every hour. Even when sitting calmly in the sun- shine we may be drawing profit from the stormy past. This is consolation to the chas- tened soul ; for how often in this way will a short sorrow be turned into lasting gladness. And it does seem as if what is thus obtained by us were a richer kind of blessing, a holier, deeper joy. Oh, let us remember past trials and carefully treasure them up as the choicest of our earthly possessions. The saint who has many of these to look back upon, has some reason to glory in his inheritance.*
It is this that especially exercises that soft-
* "Truly no cross should be old to us. We should not forget them, because years are come betwixt us and them, arid cast them by hand as we do old clothes. We may make a cross old in time new in use, and as fruitful as in the begin- ning of it." — /S. Rutherford.
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