HOMILETICS. Vers. 18-21.-It i,s the method of the Divine action to accomplish ends by ctrcuitous means. God "led the Israelites about." Instead of conducting them straight from Tanis t.o Canaan in the course of six or seven days, he carried them down nearly to the furthest point of the Sinaitic peninsula, at least two hundred miles out of the direct line of rout£. He afterwards made them occupy in desert wanderings the space of forty years, and brought them ill.t.o Cana.an on the side furthest from Egypt-that which fronted the east. So it is- I. IN Gon's NATURAL WORKINGS. To make a planet suitable for the habitation of man, he does not create one fit for him straight off. He prepares an extended mass of matter which gradually condenses, throws off an atmosphere, settles into land and sea, undergoes for many thousands of years a series of aqueous and igneous changes, deposits strata. elevates them illto mountains, works out river courses, raises and submerges cont~ents; and only after a number of millennia does he, by this long and tedious process, effect the end aimed at from the fir.;t, the construction of a habitation suitable for such a beinu as man. Again, he will have man live on bread; but he does not make bread. He makes a germ capable of developing into a plant, of throwing out roots and leaves, derivinu sustenance from air and earth and showers, increasing gradu- ally for several mon~hs, ~d fina.11:y throwing up the tall sl?ike, wh!ch a~er growing, an,d swelling, and ripenrng, bears ultunately the golden gram that 1s suited to be man s food. II. fr Gon's SPIBITUAL WORKINGS. If God has a work for a man to do, if for this a certain character is reqWied, God again pursues no compendious method. The man is oom in a certain sphere, given certain powers, and then it is left for the circumstances -;if life to work out in him, ~der Divine sul?erin~ndence, ~he ch:i,~acter req1;1ired. Moses is trained for eighty years m order t.o qualify hun for his pos1t10n as deliverer of the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt; and is only rendered fit to accomplish the task by what befals him in that long period. .A.11 the saints of God, raised up to do any great work, have had some such long training. Even Christ did not enter on his ministry at once, but remained in obscurity for thirty years, before asserting his lllission. III. EVEN IN Gon'a HIBActJLOUB WORKINGS. Christ would assuage the pains of OH. XIII, 18-21.] THE BOOK OF EXODUS. 307
hunger of tho five thousand. He does not simply, as he mi"ht have done, remove them by a word. He obtains such food ae there is at hand: he blesses and breaks; he causes the multitude to sit down; he distributes the food among the apostles, and bids them distribute to the multitude. If the Red Sea is to be parted, an east wind is made to blow for some hours; if a blind man is to be cured, clay is taken, and mixed with spittle, and put upon the blind man's eyes, and by a circuitous method his cure is effected. .All this seems strange to us because we are so impatient. Our life here endures so short a space, and we so little realise the fact of the life to come, that we are always in a hurry to obtain results, and are annoyed at having to wait for them. But an Eternal Being can afford to be patient. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The question with God is never as to the quickest, but always as to the best method. Haste is proverbially unsafe. "Most haste, worst speed," says the adage. It would bring much improvement into human life, if there were less of bustle and hurry in it--if men were not in so much haste to be rich-if they did not expect to reap the harvest so soon as they have sown the seed-if they would allow time for plans to take effect, for improvements to be brought to perfection, for institutions to take root and grow. Ver. 19.-Jt i., a <Jhristian duty to carry with us on the path of life the bone., of our dead. Joseph had sworn the Israelites to carry his bones with them out of Egypt at their departure; and they were thus in a special way bound to do it. But, apart from any such oath, or any positive wish expressed, it would have been well for them to have taken him with them. We are intimately bound up with the men of the generation before our own, and cannot too carefully carry along with us their memory. Men may be considered to carry their dead with them on their course through life- I. WHEN THEY BEAR IN MIND AND HAVE RESPECT TO TlIEIR FATHERS IN THE FAITH, ESPECIALLY THOSE NEAR TO TlIEM IN TIME. It is almost impossible to measure adequately the amount of our debt to those who have immediately preceded us in life-- who have set us an example of a consistent Christian course-and shown us its possi- bility. What living Christian man does not feel that to some other Christian man, older than himself, still alive or else passed away, he is indebted for the impetus which changed his path in life, turned him from the dumb idols which he was following, and led him to the worship of the living God? What gratitude is not due in each such case! Such memories ii.re to be cherished, clung to----not relinquished, because he to whom we owe so much is dead. Being dead, such an one "still speaketh;" and it is well that our hearts should still hear his voice, and be thankful for it. II. WHEN THEY CHERISH 'l'HE MEMORY OF THE FRIENDS AND RELATIONS WHOM THEY HAVE LOST. It is too common a. practice, with men especially, to shut out the memory of the deceased. Bereavement is so terrible a. thing, so poignant a grief, that to spare themselves men mostly make a sort of resolve that they will not think upon their dead . .And it is quite possible, after a while, so to tum from the thought as to make it both transient and rare. But the better course----the true Christian course----is to retain our dead in our thoughts. The recollection can do us nothing but good. It is sobering, chastening, yet elevating. It is apt to wean us from the world; to soften us; to draw us into communion with the unseen; to help our higher nature in its struggle with the lower. III. WHEN THEY BEAR IN REMEMBRANCE THE WORST SINS THAT THEY HAVE COM- lllTTED. The most terrible death to which we poor human creatures are subject is that "body of death," which we bear about with us in our flesh, and under which we "groan, being burthened "-viz. sin. There are persons who succeed in putting away the memory of their past sins, and who are as gay and light-hearted as if there were nothing against them in God's book. But it is a wiser course to bear about with us always this "death" also, and not seek to hush it up or put it out of sight. The thought of our past sins is well calculated to make us humble, penitent, forgiving; to save us from presumption, and make us throw ourselves absolutely for justification on the merits and a.toning blood cf Christ,
x2 308 THE BOOK OF EXODUS. Lc11. xm. 17-21.