us to Himself, and has since led us exactly where we are; and if we have entrusted ourselves to Him all our matters are ordered by Him, and when we murmur, we murmur against Him; yet does He not love us, and does He not know what is best for us? Oh for grace to remember, not only when His dispensations are agreeable to the flesh, but also when they are painful and flesh-crucifying, that the Lord reigneth, that the Lord is our Father, and to praise the Lord.

I believe there is nothing that honours God more, or that God more honours, than praising Him in tribulation; and few men know what a talent He commits to their charge when He gives them bitter water. When did Paul ever honour God more than when at midnight, in the inner prison, his back cut to pieces by the Roman whips, and his feet made fast in the stocks, he prayed, and sang praises unto God? And when did God ever honour Paul more than when, through the instrumentality of those prayers and praises, he brought the

S

jailer to his feet with the question-"What shall I do to be saved?" Paul was caught up into the third heaven, and he thanked and praised God for the honour and the glory. Yet I never heard of anybody who was converted by that portion of Paul's history: but who can count the numbers that owe their soul's salvation to the answer given to the jailer's question-"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!" And we never should have had that Scripture if Paul had murmured in the inner prison instead of singing praises.

Job said "The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord." And the Lord said "In all this Fob sinned not." Job said "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil? And the Lord said—" In all this did not Fob sin with his lips." Twice in ten verses it is recorded of Job, by the Holy Ghost, that he acted, when tried, so that God could and did say of him—“In all this did

not Job sin." As far as I know such a testimony was never vouchsafed to any other human being-the man Christ Jesus alone excepted. And God thus honoured Job because Job honoured God and blessed Him in his affliction. (See Job i. 22, and ii. 10.)

God's commandment to His people is "Give thanks for all things;" "Be content with such things as you have." God's promise is—“ I will never leave you, nor forsake you." And the more literally we obey His commandments and rest on His promises, the more we prove our love to Him, and the more may we expect Him to manifest His love to us. And it is not at the waters of Marah only, but because I never find these Israelites praising God for anything they did not like, that I judge them as I do, and say that they mistook love of self for love of God. The publicans and sinners would have praised God on the shores of the Red Sea; not to have done so would have been unnatural; but the true Israelite, the man who really loved God,

would have praised Him also at the waters of Marah.

And now God having shown them what is in themselves-sin and self-deception; shows them what is in Himself-love and power. Love, not to deal with them after their sins, and power to make sweet the bitter water. Moses, we read, " cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet." Moreover, He brought them on "to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees." Oh how happy they were then, and doubtless again thought and felt that they loved God.

Reader, love is a conduct, not a feeling; and the evidence of love is not emotion, but obedi(John xiv. 21-23.)

ence.

"Be

Is God leading you to bitter waters ? hold the MAN, whose name is the BRANCH." (Zech. vi. 12.) He can give you patience under your sufferings, and a happy issue out of all your afflictions.

XIV.

No Bread. No Water.

ND now God having rested and refreshed the children of Israel at

Elim, again leads them onward and forward towards the land of Canaan.

Fresh trials overtake them, however, before they have gone far; and I believe no child of God ever yet escaped their next temptation. I do not say that it has succeeded even for a moment, with every Christian; but I believe every Christian knows the temptation well. Our precious Lord Himself was subjected to it, and the disciple is not above his Master. It it this: "I shall perish in the wilderness for want of food."

On the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt, the children of Israel had no bread; and in