' J. Sparhawk Jones,
DEUTERONOMY viii. 2 29
leads His children along rough ways to repentance that He may at last have the joy of giving them the kiss of forgiveness.^
5. God finds out what is in men's hearts, whether they will keep His commandments or not. The history of the past, the discipline of the past, the way by which God has led us, all come to this — to the discovery whether we are willing to keep God's commandments or not. We do not need to confine ourselves to these words, these commands, these ordinances which we have in this Book. That was merely a temporary and evanescent way of ex- pressing God's will for His people. We, in our time, have to read into all these commandments all we know of God and His requirements and His leading. It may not be very much ; with some of us it is not very much. We can at least be firm, faithful and fervent in our lives ; can believe it is better to be pure than impure, to be truthful than false, to be honest than dishonest; and if we have nothing more to say about God than to make Him a kind of moral rule, that will carry us a long way. We can at least realize that these things which we ought to be and do represent to us the command of God, and we can live for these things rather than for ourselves; we can keep these command- ments rather than our own ; we can let God be our law rather than be a law unto ourselves.
And O, my heart, my heart, Be careful to go strewing in and out Thy way with good deeds, lest it come about
That when thou shalt depart, No low lamenting tongue be found to say. The world is poorer since thou went'st away.^
V.
The Uses of Eemembeeing.
1. To remember the way that God has led us is to feel Grati- tude. The Israelites were, for the most part, ungrateful. They were always forgetting that God was taking care of them. They did so in the wilderness and out of it ; it was their constant fault all through their national history. It was the great complaint of the prophets, speaking as God's interpreters, that the people
^ J. Strachan, Hebrew Ideals, pt. ii. 120. ^ Alice Cary.
30 REMEMBER ALL THE WAY
did not consider. If they had only considered who their Eock was, and who their Strength was, they would have been grateful ; but they forgot. Do not let us forget. Let us remember all things in order that we may be duly thankful. Gratitude is not only a duty, it is a delight. It is most pleasing and comforting to the heart to be grateful to Him who has enabled such great things to be done. Our blessings come from Him, and if we think of Him even when we eat a crust, that crust will be all the sweeter to us in that remembrance, because it will be seasoned with thankfulness,
^ It seems hard to tell quivering lips to be thankful, and to bid a man be grateful though his eyes fill with tears as he looks back on the past. But yet it is true that it is good for us to be drawn, or to be driven, to Him ; it is good for us to have to tread even a lonely path if it makes us lean more on the arm of our Beloved. It is good for us to have places made empty if, as in the year when Israel's King died, we shall thereby have our eyes purged to behold the Lord sitting on the Koyal Seat.
Take it on trust a little while
Thou soon shalt read the mystery right, In the full sunshine of His smile.
And for the present let us try to remember that He dwelleth in the darkness as in the light, and that we are to be thankful for the things that help us to be near Him, and not only for the things that make us outwardly glad.^
I bring my hymn of thankfulness
To Thee, dear Lord, to-day; Though not for joys Thy name I bless,
And not for gifts I pray. The griefs that know not man's redress
Before Thy feet I lay.2
2. Eemembrance strengthens Faith. For what is remem- brance but the appeal to experience ? And the appeal to experi- ence is one of the most practical appeals which carry conviction even to minds which do not care to investigate the grounds of their validity. "When the Pharisees said to the blind man whom Jesus had cured, " Give God the praise : we know that this man is a sinner," his answer was, " Whether he be a sinner or no, I * A. Maclaren. ' Rose Terry Cooke.
DEUTERONOMY viii. 2 31
know not : one thing I know, that, whereas I was bh".nd, now I see." That was his experience; and then, showing how his experience had strengthened his faith, he added, "Herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes."
3. Our remembrance of the leading of God will give us Courage to go on. It was said that the presence of Napoleon Bonaparte on the field of battle was equal to the arrival of 40,000 soldiers to his side because it gave his troops new courage. They felt that, their great commander being with them, and his eye being upon them, they could do anything. But what are the Napoleon Bonapartes of the world compared with the Most High ? When we think that God is with us, that the mighty God is our Leader, our Champion, our Deliverer, then surely that must give us courage. No man can think of God being on his side and tremble.