almost say, did not complain of it as a deception; he was even
grateful for the non-fulfilment of the promise: he does not seem to
have expected its fulfilment; he did not look for Canaan, but for "a
city which had foundations;" his faith appears to have consisted in
disbelieving the letter, almost as much as in believing the spirit of
the promise.

And herein lies a principle, which, rightly expounded, can help us to
interpret this life of ours. God's promises never are fulfilled in the
sense in which they seem to have been given. Life is a deception; its
anticipations, which are God's promises to the imagination, are never
realized; they who know life best, and have trusted God most to fill
it with blessings, are ever the first to say that life is a series of
disappointments. And in the spirit of this text we have to say that it
is a wise and merciful arrangement which ordains it thus.

The wise and holy do not expect to find it otherwise--would not wish
it otherwise; their wisdom consists in disbelieving its promises. To
develope this idea would be a glorious task; for to justify God's ways
to man, to expound the mysteriousness of our present being, to
interpret God,--is not this the very essence of the ministerial
office? All that I can hope however to-day, is not to exhaust the
subject, but to furnish hints for thought. Over-statements may be
made, illustrations may be inadequate, the new ground of an almost
untrodden subject may be torn up too rudely; but remember, we are here
to live and die; in a few years it will be all over; meanwhile, what
we have to do is to try to understand, and to help one another to
understand, what it all means--what this strange and contradictory
thing, which we call Life, contains within it. Do not stop to ask
therefore, whether the subject was satisfactorily worked out; let each