your affection on things above.' Cultivate the sense of belonging to
another polity than that in the midst of which you dwell. The
Canaanites christened Abram 'The Hebrew' (Genesis xiv. 13), which
may be translated 'The man from the other side.' That is the name
which all true Christians should deserve. They should bear their
foreign extraction in their faces, and never be naturalised subjects
here. Life is wholesomer in the tent under the spreading tree, with
the fresh air blowing about us and clear sky above, than in the
Canaanite city.

Observe, too, that Abram's life was permeated with worship. Wherever
he pitches his tent, he builds an altar. So he fed his faith, and
kept up his communion with God. The only condition on which the
pilgrim life is possible, and the temptations of the world cease to
draw our hearts, is that all life shall be filled with the
consciousness of the divine presence, our homes altars, and
ourselves joyful thankofferings. Then every abode is blessed. The
undefended tent is a safe fortress, in which dwelling we need not
envy those who dwell in palaces. Common tasks will then be fresh,
full of interest, because we see God in them, and offer them up to
Him. The wandering life will be a life of walking with God, and
progressive knowledge of Him; and over all the roughnesses and the
sorrows and the trivialities of it will be spread 'the light that
never was on sea or land, the consecration' of God's presence, and
the peacefulness of communion with Him.

Again, we may notice that the life of obedience was followed by
fuller manifestations of God, and of His will. God 'appeared' when
Abram was in the land. Is it not always true that obedience is
blessed by closer vision and more knowledge? To him that hath shall