view of truth, but an assuring grasp of it. He had straitly sworn the
children of Israel saying, "God will surely visit you; and ye shall
carry up my bones away hence with you."

Many a Christian might well envy a confidence so practical, so
thoroughly realised, entering so naturally into the tissue of his
thoughts and calculations. And their actual remembrance of him goes to
show that the tradition of his faith had never completely died out, but
was among the influences which kept alive the nation's hope.

And as the people bore his honoured ashes through the desert, these
being dead spoke of bygone times, they linked the present and the past
together, they deepened the national consciousness that Israel was a
favoured people, called to no common destiny, sustained by no common
promises, pressing toward no common goal.

If Israel had been wise, they would have thought of him, the Israelite
in heart, though glittering in the splendours of Egypt; and would have
considered well that as little as men detected his secret life from his
appearance, so little could theirs be judged. To the eye, they were free
from the foreign trammels in which he was seemingly entangled, yet many
of them in heart turned back to all which strove in vain to bind his
affections down. The lesson holds good to-day. Many a modern religionist
looks askance at the "worldliness" of high office and rank and state;
little dreaming that the "world" he censures is strong in his own
ambitious and self-asserting spirit, and is overcome by the gentle and
tranquil spirit of hundreds of those whom he condemns.

Bearing this hallowed burden, which might easily have become an object
of superstitious regard, the nation moved from Succoth to Etham on the
edge of the wilderness. And with them a Presence moved which rebuked all
others, however venerable. The Lord went before them. It has already
been pointed out that throughout the early history of this nation, just
come out of an idolatrous land, and too ready to lapse back into
superstition, God never reveals Himself except in fire. To Abraham and
to Jacob He appeared in human form, and again to Joshua; but in the
interval, never. So now they see Him by day in a pillar of cloud to
guide them on the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them
light. The glory of the nation was that manifested Presence, lacking
which, Moses besought Him to carry them up no farther. Nothing in the
Exodus is more impressive,