fast told his
companions, he had sat beside his father and his mother in that obscure
land where to his sorrow his father and his mother still sat. But in
Beulah "the rose of evening becomes silently and suddenly the rose of
dawn." This land lies beyond the Valley of the Shadow of Death, neither
could they from this place so much as see Doubting Castle. Now, Doubting
Castle is a dismal place for any soul of man to be shut up into. And in
that dark hold there are dungeons dug for all kinds of doubting souls.
There are dungeons dug for the souls of men whose doubts are in their
intellects, as well as for those also whose doubts arise out of their
hearts. Some men read themselves into Doubting Castle, and some men sin
and sell themselves to its giant. God casts some of His own children all
their days into those dungeons as a punishment for their life of
disobedience; He casts others down into chains of darkness because of
their idleness and unfruitfulness. But Beulah is far away from Doubting
Castle. Beulah is a splendid spot for a studious man to lodge in. For
what a clear light shines night and day in Beulah! To what far horizons
a man's eye will carry him in Beulah! What large speculations rise
before him who walks abroad in Beulah! How clear the air is in Beulah,
how clean the heart and how unclouded the eye of its inhabitants! The
King's walks are in Beulah, and the arbours where He delighteth to be.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall be admitted to see God in
the land of Beulah. In the land of Beulah the sun shall no more be thy
light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee;
but the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and thy God thy glory!

4. "In this land also the contract between the bride and the bridegroom
is renewed." Now, there is no other day so bitter in any man's life as
that day is on which his bridal contract is broken off. And it is the
very perfection and last extremity of bitterness when his contract is
broken off because of his own past life. Let all those, then, who would
fain enter into that sweet contract think well about it beforehand. Let
them look back into all their past life. For all their past life will be
sure to find them out on the day of their espousals. If they have their
enemies--as all espoused men have--this is the hour and the power of
their enemies. The day on which any man's espousals are published is a
small and local