will find more about these cities and their names if you will read the
thirty-fifth chapter of Numbers, the nineteenth chapter of
Deuteronomy, and the twentieth chapter of Joshua.

But what interest can boys and girls and all older persons have in
these cities?

I will try to tell you. God has different ways of teaching. A great
many things about which we read in the Old Testament are what is
called types. A type, in scripture language, means a pattern or a
likeness to a person who is to come, or to an event which is to take
place. It is supposed to point forward to something more valuable than
itself. Thus, for example, the blood of the lamb which was slain on
the Jewish altar was a type, or a foreshowing, of the crucifixion of
Jesus Christ for our salvation. Hence John the Baptist pointing to the
Saviour, said to his disciples, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh
away the sin of the world." John 1:29. The paschal lamb, which was
slain to commemorate the deliverance of the Jews from the bondage of
Egypt, and the lamb which was offered daily, both morning and evening,
in the service of the temple, were representations of the greater
sacrifice which Christ came from heaven to make for our salvation.

So the land of Canaan was a type of heaven. The lifting up of the
brazen serpent on a pole was a type of our Saviour's crucifixion; and
the cities of refuge were a beautiful type of Jesus Christ, who is the
sinner's refuge.

You know, my dear children, that we have all sinned, and that we all
need a place of safety. The avenger says, "Thou shalt surely die."
Escape for thy life. But that we may not die eternally, God has given