The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 112

their results as they are disastrous in their immediate miseries. Successive inva• EionH of the great monarchies of Persia and Babylon have left little but a lesson on the vanity of human glory, Successive invasions of India ha.ve left their traces chiefly in those caste distinctions, ea.eh step of which tells of a class lorded over by a class above it on the strength of a conquest completely made and long enforced, But the invasion of Canaan hallowed a land, gave God an earthly throne, started what was, with all its faults, a model co=onwealth, and gave a home to a people which, with all its backslidings, was still "a kingdom of priests" to mankind. Con- fiider a few features of this great event. And first consider the illustration afforded here of- I. THE CRISES OF LIFE.-Our life is built up of acts, every one of them import- ant, They, made by our character, react on our character and make it. And in the sense'that it contributes to an enduring result in character, no act is little. But there are times specially solemn in our life, when the roads which invite us diverge at a large angle, and are such that each step we take on the one makes return to the other more difficult. And if a man is made by his ordinary acts, much more is he made by his crisis acts. If a nation's character is moulded by its acts, much more by its crisis acts. Here there is a crisis reached in Israel's history very analogous to the first great crisis, when they passed the Red Sea. Shall they or shall they not commit therr sJlves to the struggle with the seven nations of Canaan- some with what seemed impregnable fastnesses, some with chariots of iron, some conspicuous for gigantic stature ? Jordan accentuates the question. To cross it is to commit themselves to a course condemned by ten out of twelve of the spies sent out forty years before, is to hazard everything on the chance of battle, is to have no retreat, is to win or lose all things. It was a crisis on which their national future hung. It needed crisis virtue. Let them hang back and their enthusiasm would evaporate, tbeir unity break up ; they would fall off into a number of nomadic tribes, and probably degenerate into a people like the Ishmaelites, without any of that consecutive progress and self-contained strength that constitutes a history. Let them go forward, and to remotest ages and countries me,nkind is blessed by the national history that takes a forward stride and reaches a stouter solidity by tbeir new departure. Happily, they had crisis virtue; at least, a sufficient amount of faith to let them venture - to make them obedient to faithful leaders, and united in their purpose to obey the guidance of their God. And meeting the crisis, they acceptecl its duty, with results of perpetual usefulness, and left us a testimony as to the solemnity of all such junctures and the blesseclness of meeting them aright. The kind of junc- ture that comes to us you will recognise from your own experience. They ;-ary in their ldnd, but all have this in co=on, that they summon a man to some higher duty, some better life, some bolder enterprise, and put before him "an open door ; " that to decline tbem is to degenerate into a poorer character and more sordid life, while to accept them is to rise to " newness of life." Their variety, indeed, is striking. Sometimes it is a great mercy that comes to a man, meant to wake him to a sense ·of the fatherliness of God, and to win him by the gentle constraints of gratitude to filial duty ; to cw·e grumbling or to destroy despair. If he meets this crisis well, he passes to a higher level of gentler, kinder, gracious thoughts and purposes; and a sense of debtor8hip to man and an overflowing gratitude to God are the abiding results of the crisis of a great mercy. Sometimes the crisis is the revelation of a duty. Some sudden turn in om· experience devolves on us a duty hitherto dis- charged by others; or some new duty arising from a fresh contingency. It may be a duty of Christian mercy to some overtaken in calamity. It may be that a slum- bering conscience or an indolent mind has been a waked to the discernment of God's requirements. It may be that with some growth of years or development of thought and feeling we see we owe some duty to our Saviour and our fellow-men hitberto not due from us or not known to us. This is a crisis not to be overlooked. Hitherto there was comparatiYe unimportance in the neglect of this duty. It was a " time of ignorance God winked at." But to neglect it now, when it stands out eminent and clear, would be to cast off the Divine !\faster, and to be guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord that bought us; while to do this would strengthen the bond that binds  THE DOOK OF JOSRU A. [ CB, Ill. 1--0,