When they have remembered that the
most high God was their Redeemer, then in them, as in the Jews, have
national life and patriotism revived.
And as it was with the Jews in the wilderness, so it has been with
them since Christ's resurrection. They fancied that they were going
at once into the promised land. So did the first Christians. But
the Jews had to wander forty years in the wilderness; and
Christendom has had to wander too, in strange and bloodstained
paths, for one thousand eight hundred years and more. For why? The
Israelites were not worthy to enter at once into rest; no more have
the nation of Christ's Church been worthy. The Israelites brought
out of Egypt base and slavish passions, which had to be purged out
of them; so have we out of heathendom. They brought out, too,
heathen superstitions, and mixed them up with the worship of God,
bearing about in the wilderness the tabernacle of Moloch and the
image of their god Remphan, and making the calf in Horeb; and so,
alas! again and again, has the Church of Christ.
Nay, the whole generation, save two, who came out of Egypt, had to
die in the wilderness, and leave their bones scattered far and wide.
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