are to feel ourselves pilgrims and sojourners, not so much because
earth is fleeting and we are mortal, as because our true affinities
are with the unseen and eternal. But the presence of 'the Canaanite'
is connected also with the following words, which tell that 'the
Lord appeared unto Abram,' and now after his obedience told him that
this was the land that was to be his. He unfolds His purposes to
those who keep His commandments; obedience is the mother of insight.
The revelation put a further strain on faith, for the present
occupiers of the land were many and strong; but it matters not how
formidably and firmly rooted the Canaanite is, God's children can be
sure that the promise will be fulfilled. We can calmly look on his
power and reckon on its decay, if the Lord appears to us, as to
Abram--and He surely will if we have followed His separating voice,
and dwell as strangers here, because our hearts are with Him.

After the appearance of God and the promise, we have an outline of
the pilgrim's life, as seen in Abram. He signalised God's further
opening of His purposes, by building an altar on the place where He
had been seen by him. Thankful recognition and commemoration of the
times in our lives when He has most plainly drawn near and shown us
glimpses of His will, are no less blessed than due, and they who
thus rear altars to Him will wonder, when they come to count up how
many they have had to build. But the life of faith is ever a pilgrim
life, and Bethel has soon to be the home instead of Shechem. There,
too, Abram keeps outside the city, and pitches his tent. There, too,
the altar rises by the side of the tent. The transitory provision
for housing the pilgrim contrasts with the solid structure for
offering sacrifices. The tent is 'pitched,' and may be struck and
carried away to-morrow, but the altar is 'builded.' That part of our
lives which is concerned with the material and corporeal is, after