They who believe that the Jews will be restored to their native land,
expect it on the express ground that Canaan has never been actually
and permanently theirs. A certain tract of country--300 miles in
length, by 200 in breadth--must be given, or else they think the
promise has been broken. To quote the expression of one of the most
eloquent of their writers, "If there be nothing yet future for Israel,
then the magnificence of the promise has been lost in the poverty of
its accomplishment."

I do not quote this to prove the correctness of the interpretation of
the prophecy, but as an acknowledgment which may be taken so far as a
proof, that the promise made to Abraham has never been accomplished.

And such is life's disappointment. Its promise is, you shall have a
Canaan; it turns out to be a baseless airy dream--toil and
warfare--nothing that we can call our own; not the land of rest, by
any means. But we will examine this in particulars.

1. Our senses deceive us; we begin life with delusion. Our senses
deceive us with respect to distance, shape, and colour. That which
afar off seems oval, turns out to be circular, modified by the
perspective of distance; that which appears a speck, upon nearer
approach becomes a vast body. To the earlier ages the stars presented
the delusion of small lamps hung in space. The beautiful berry proves
to be bitter and poisonous: that which apparently moves is really at
rest: that which seems to be stationary is in perpetual motion: the
earth moves: the sun is still. All experience is a correction of
life's delusions--a modification, a reversal of the judgment of the
senses: and all life is a lesson on the falsehood of appearances.