Thus the little company, without arms, without protection, with
nothing but a prayer and a trust to make them strong, flung themselves
into the pathless desert with all those precious things in their
possession; and all the precaution which Ezra took was to lay hold of
the priests in the little party, and to say: 'Here! all through the
march do you stick by these precious things. Whoever sleeps, do you
watch. Whoever is careless, be you vigilant. Take these for your
charge, and remember I weigh them here before we start, and they will
be all weighed again when we get there. So be alert.'

And is not that exactly what Christ says to us? 'Watch; keep them; be
vigilant, that ye may keep; and keep them, because they will be
weighed and registered when you arrive there.'

I cannot do more than touch upon two or three of the ways in which
this charge may be worked out, in its application for ourselves,
beginning with that first one which is implied in the words of the
text--_unslumbering vigilance_; then _trust_, like the trust
which is glorified in the context, depending only on 'the good hand of
our God upon us'; then _purity_, because, as Ezra said, 'Ye are
holy unto the Lord. The vessels are holy also'; and therefore ye are
the fit persons to guard them. And besides these, there is, in our
keeping our trust, a method which does not apply to the incident
before us; namely, _use_, in order to their preservation.

That is to say, first of all, no slumber; not a moment's relaxation;
or some of those who lie in wait for us on the way will be down upon
us, and some of the precious things will go. While all the rest of the
wearied camp slept, the guardians of the treasure had to outwatch the
stars. While others might straggle on the march, lingering here or