will show you who we are;' and from an Arabic bible he read the words
of my text, and said, 'You will find us 60,000 in number still. See,
the words of the prophet have been fulfilled--"Jonadab the son of
Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever."'

What lesson shall we learn from this story--so strange, and yet so
beautiful? What lesson need we learn, save that which the Holy
Scripture itself bids us learn? The blessing which comes upon
reverence for our forefathers, and above all for God, our Father in
Heaven.

Reverence for our forefathers. These are days in which we are too
apt to sneer at those who have gone before us; to look back on our
forefathers as very ignorant, prejudiced, old-fashioned people, whose
opinions have been all set aside by the progress of knowledge.

Be sure that in this temper of mind lies a sin and a snare. If we
wish to keep up true independence and true self-respect in ourselves
and our children, we should be careful to keep up respect for our
forefathers. A shallow, sneering generation, which laughs at those
who have gone before it, is ripe for disaster and slavery. We are
not bound, of course--as those old Rechabites considered themselves
bound--to do in everything exactly what our forefathers did. For we
are not under the law, but under grace; and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty--liberty to change, improve, and develop as
the world grows older, and (we may hope) wiser. But we are bound to
do, not exactly what our forefathers did, but what we may reasonably
suppose that they would have done, had they lived now, and were they
in our places. We are to obey them, not in the letter, but in the
spirit.