December 30

Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness. - Deuteronomy 8:2.

OBSERVE the passage they were to review. They were to remember all the way which the Lord their God had led them through the wilderness. Not that everything in their journey was equally important and interesting; this could not be-but all had been under the appointment and discipline of God, and all would be rendered profitable. All their stations were distinctly known; they had memorials of them all. Some of them had been rendered very famous by new names imposed as significant of some instances of the Divine conduct, or of their miscarriage.

It must have been affecting to them to look back upon some parts of their journey. Elim, where there were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees-the waters of Mara, whose bitterness had been made sweet, the Red Sea, the mountains of Horeb and Sinai, and to recollect the marvellous and striking scenes which had been exhibited to them.

Now it is the same as to us. Some things in life are very eventful; they have had an amazing influence on our character, our reputation, our happiness, our usefulness; and in the review of our life, these are the things which we are peculiarly to dwell upon, and then, if we are wise, nothing will be found unimprovable. If, indeed, we lived in “a fatherless world” as Jeremy Taylor has expressed it, if we were under the empire of chance, if we were abandoned to ourselves, it would be a very little in life that would be worth our review.

But since all is under the administration of our heavenly Father, since we know the very hairs of our head are all numbered, since we must be compelled to say-

“If light attends the course I run,

’Tis he provides those rays,

And ’tis his hand that hides my sun,

If darkness cloud my days;”

and since he does all things well, he that is wise will, in the review of his life observe these things: he will see the hand of God directing with infinite wisdom and paternal goodness every circumstance in his lot, and thus will he be taught the loving-kindness of the Lord.

Besides, those parts of our life that may seem to be the most insignificant, are often found to have had suspended upon them relations and consequences the most momentous. That a company of Ishmaelites, for example, should pass by a particular place, at a certain hour, trading down to Egypt, was no very remarkable thing, and yet Joseph, when he came to look back upon his life, would see all the mighty interests connected with his humiliation, and his advancement quivering upon that little point. And then the period to be reviewed. “Forty years.”

This was a considerable period as to length, but, oh, what did it contain! oh, what displays of Deity! What proofs of his power, his holiness, his patience, his mercy, and his truth. And oh, what developments of their folly, their impatience, their unbelief and disobedience, and we should endeavour to realize the progression of our time, so as to be impressed by its daily, weekly, monthly, and annual lapses. These periods are so many little breaks in the continual eddyings of the current of life, the murmurs of which conscience may chance to hear, and at the close of another year we are called upon to observe how gradually and insensibly it has passed away.