(2) "To prove thee." God's guidance is a guidance for discipline ; it means testing. The whole history of the Hebrew people was a testing process, to see whether they would be fit for their great work in the history of the world ; and the whole of God's dealing with us is a testing, to make us fit for the particular work that He has for us to do.
IT The Bible and Christianity represent the earth as a theatre erected by the Supreme Wisdom to be the scene of an experiment — not a mechanical or chemical experiment, but, far more serious, a moral one. This is the Christian theory of the earth and man, not stated in terms of matter and force, but in terms of mind and morality. So that while gold, iron, brass are hidden in the interior of the earth, and while forests of timber grow out of it, while seas tumble and flash on its surface, and harvests return year after year to feed man's hunger, and he may build up his lofty civilisation out of the raw materials furnished in nature, clothing himself in furs and fine linen, hewing his dwelling-place out of porphyry and granite, baking clay for brick, and feeding upon the finest wheat, nevertheless, it was not the primary design to create and upholster a planet that should simply satisfy the animal appetite, and where man could browse and fatten > W. B. Selbie. ' Ben Jonson.
DEUTERONOMY viii. 2 27
and frisk Kke a calf. The true conception of the earth is as a place where each element, each fact, is a symbol of something occult and supernatural. Consequently it is not so important that men should hunt for gold as that they should know what use to make of it when found. It is not so important that they should build arks and leviathans fit to ride stormy seas as it is that the nations be drawn together and the federation of the world be hastened. It is not so important that they should grind glasses and set and sight telescopes, resolve nebulae, weigh planets, and predict eclipses, as it is that behind the stars and the firmaments they should detect mind, intelligence, and will. Without this moral intention the universe becomes a great grist-mill, and man a blind horse on an endless plank. The earth's flora and fauna, its marbles and metals, its sunrises and sunsets, all that it contains and carries — all is part of a curriculum provided for the instruction and elevation of man. The whole experiment of this revolving earth is in order to the fashioning of human faculties and that man should be led up to the top of his possibilities. If we leave out this consideration, it will be hard to account for the present constitution of things; the earth will deteriorate into a larder, a ranch for cattle, instead of being a solemn scene where man, made in the image of God, is getting stature, and wisdom and expansion, and making increase in the higher elements of personality.^
4. This proving is to know what was in their hearts, whether they would keep His commandments or not. And it is a truth of great moment that God is conducting men and women through this earthly scene in order to show what is in their hearts. And, if so, one can imagine what thrilling tragedies, broad farces, amazing spectacles are enacted on these boards of time. We pass across the platform, each playing his little part, each pushed by his strongest impulse, each illustrating his leading trait, each acting out his deepest, most real self and showing forth what is in his heart.
1[ God leads men as He led those forlorn, overspent, wandering Jews, through drought and heat, through alarms and ambuscades, to see if they are strong enough to assault and carry some battlemented Jericho and to eat the purple clusters of Eshcol. It is a solemn truth, indeed, that your life is the solution of a problem — a public exhibition of your personal character and moral temper. Are you a sensualist? Well, then, you will have
* J. Sparhawk Jones.
28 REMEMBER ALL THE WAY
abundant opportunity to show what is in your heart — eating and drinking your way through the world, and living by the force of the natural appetites. Are you addicted to greed and money- getting ? This is only pouring the cedar-oil of immortality around perishable commodities and showing what is in your heart. Are you devoured by love of self-display, with a wolf's hunger for admiration, applause, popularity ? This is little better than the strutting of a lordly peacock in gay plumage, self-centred and self-seeking. Everywhere, at every turn, in the shop, in the office, in the drawing-room, on the street, we are showing what is in our heart — our ideals, aims, by what arguments and motives we are actuated. Study it carefully, and this is really a prolific principle, and one of wide applicability, that underlay the Exodus. For it comes to this, that, however we may designate our callings and occupations in life, there is a deep below, and in the Divine idea of them they are, essentially, the ways and means by which we are discovered to ourselves and displayed to others.^
•[j When Joseph overheard his brothers saying, " We are verily guilty," he did not at once reveal himself to them and offer them forgiveness. Some readers blame him on this account. A foreign writer says, " He is hard-hearted enough systematically and in cold blood to punish them for the suffering they inflicted on him " and " to put them to the torture," when he should have instantly fallen upon their necks and kissed them. If Joseph had been a weaker man he would have done as is here suggested. If his amiability had been untempered by principle, he would have done it. But Joseph's conscience was as sound as his heart was tender. He had serious work to do before he indulged in emotion. He avoided the sentiment which blurs the distinctions between good and evil. Forgiveness was not his only duty to his brothers. He had to test the reality of their repentance, to drive the arrow of conviction deeper into their hearts, keeping his own lips sealed till the right moment came for divulging to them his secret. He could endure the pain of seeing them suffer, in the hope that suffering would bring them to a better mind. Provid- ence was making him their judge, as nature had made him their brother, and he loved them with that exacting love which has often been an erring brother's salvation. He would rejoice to have them reconciled to himself, but still more to see them reconciled to God. Love docs not always caress and soothe and say kind things. Sometimes it scourges. Its mingled goodness and severity are the reflection of the perfect love of God, who