on. Suppose that a spiritual promise had
been made at first to Israel; imagine that they had been informed at
the outset that God's rest is inward; that the promised land is only
found in the Jerusalem which is above--not material, but immaterial.
That rude, gross people, yearning after the fleshpots of
Egypt--willing to go back into slavery, so as only they might have
enough to eat and drink--would they have quitted Egypt on such terms?
Would they have begun one single step of that pilgrimage, which was to
find its meaning in the discipline of ages?

We are led through life as we are allured upon a journey. Could a man
see his route before him--a flat, straight road, unbroken by bush, or
tree, or eminence, with the sun's heat burning down upon it, stretched
out in dreary monotony--he could scarcely find energy to begin his
task; but the uncertainty of what may be seen beyond the next turn
keeps expectation alive. The view that may be seen from yonder
summit--the glimpse that may be caught perhaps, as the road winds
round yonder knoll--hopes like these, not far distant, beguile the
traveller on from mile to mile, and from league to league.

In fact, life is an education. The object for which you educate your
son is to give him strength of purpose, self-command, discipline of
mental energies; but you do not reveal to your son this aim of his
education; you tell him of his place in his class, of the prizes at
the end of the year, of the honours to be given at college.

These are not the true incentives to knowledge, such incentives are
not the highest--they are even mean, and partially injurious; yet
these mean incentives stimulate and lead on, from day to day and from
year to year, by a process the principle of which the boy himself is
not aware of. So does God lead on, through life's unsatisfying and
false reward, ever educating: Canaan first; then the hope of a
Redeemer; then the millennial glory.

Now what is remarkable in this is, that the delusion continued to the
last; they _all_ died in faith, not having received the promises; all
were hoping up to the very last, and all died in faith--not in
realization; for thus God has constituted the human heart. It never
will be believed that this world is unreal. God has mercifully so
arranged it, that the idea of delusion is incredible. You may tell the
boy or girl as you will that life is a disappointment; yet however you
may persu