desert, as becomes the priests of the most high God.

The treasure is first--our own selves--with all that we are and may
be, under the stimulating and quickening influence of His grace and
Spirit. The treasure is next--His great word of salvation, once
delivered unto the saints, and to be handed on, without diminution or
alteration in its fair perspective and manifold harmonies, to the
generations that are to come. So, think of yourselves as the priests
of God, journeying through the wilderness, with the treasures of the
Temple and the vessels of the sacrifice for your special deposit and
charge.

Further, I touch on the command, the guardianship that is here set
forth. 'Watch ye, and keep them.' That is to say, I suppose, according
to the ordinary idiom of the Old Testament, 'Watch, in order that you
may keep.' Or to translate it into other words: The treasure which is
given into our hands requires, for its safe preservation, unceasing
vigilance. Take the picture of my text: These Jews were four months,
according to the narrative, in travelling from their first station
upon their journey to Jerusalem across the desert. There were enemies
lying in wait for them by the way. With noble self-restraint and grand
chivalry, the leader of the little band says: 'I was ashamed to
require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen, to help us
against the enemy in the way; because we had spoken unto the king,
saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him;
but His power and His wrath is against all that forsake Him.' And so
they would not go to him, cap in hand, and ask him to give them a
guard to take care of them; but 'We fasted and besought our God for
this; and He was intreated of us.'