First of all, then, look at the illustration given us by these words of the mysterious contradiction between the ideal of Israel and the actual condition of things.
Recur, for the sake of illustration, to the historical event upon which our text is based. The old prophet had said, The Lord thy God giveth thee a good land, a land full of brooks and water, rivers and depths, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it ; and the startling fact is, that these men saw around them a land full of misery, for want of that very gift which had been promised. The ancient charter of Israel's existence was that God should dwell in the midst of them, and what was it that they beheld? As things are,' says the prophet, it looks as if that perennial presence which Thou hast promised had been changed into visits, short and far between. Why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man, that turneth aside to tarry for a night?
Now, I suppose there are two ideas intended to be conveyed--the brief, transitory, interrupted visits, with long, dreary stretches of absence between them; and the indifference of the visitant, as a man who pitches his tent in some little village to-night cares very little about the people that he never saw before this afternoon's march, and will never see after to-morrow morning. And not only is it so, but, instead of the perpetual energy of this divine aid that had been promised to Israel, as things are now, it looks as if He was a mighty man astonied, a hero that cannot save--some warrior stricken by panic fear into a paralysis of all his strength--a Samson with his locks shorn. The ideal had been so great --perpetual gifts, perpetual presence, perpetual energy; the reality is chapped ground and parched places, occasional visitations, like vanishing gleams of sunshine in a winter's day, and a paralysis, as it would appear, of all the ancient might.
Dear Christian friends, am I exaggerating, or dealing only with one set of phenomena, and forgetting the counterpoising ones on the other side, when I say, Change the name, and the story is told about us? God be thanked we have much that shows us that"He has not left us, but yet, when we think of what we are, and of what God has promised that we should be, surely we must confess that there is the most sad, and, but for one reason, the most mysterious contradiction between the divine ideal and the actual facts of the case. Need we go further to learn what God meant His Church to be, than the last words that Jesus Christ said to us--Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world ? Need we go further than those metaphors which come from His lips as precepts, and, like all His precepts, are a commandment upon the surface, but a promise in the sweet kernel--Ye are the salt of the earth,' ye are the light of the world '--or than the prophet's vision of an Israel which shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord ? Is that the description of what you and I are? Have not we to say, We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen'? Salt of the earth,' and we can hardly keep our own souls from going putrid with the corruption that is round about us. Light of the world,' and our poor candles burnt low down into the socket, and sending up rather stench and smoke than anything like a clear flame. The words sound like irony rather than promises, like the very opposite of what we are rather than the ideals towards which our lives strive. In our lips they are presumption, and in the lips of the world, as we only too well know, they are a not Undeserved scoff, to be said with curved lip, The salt of the earth,' and the light of the world !
And look at what we are doing: scarcely holding our own numerically. Here and there a man comes and declares what God has done for his soul. But what is the Church, what are the Christian men of England, with all their multifarious activities, performing? Are we leavening the national mind? Are we breathing a higher godliness into trade, a more wholesome, simple style of living into society? And as for expansion, why, the Church at home does not keep up with the actual increase of the population; and we are conquering heathendom as we might hope to drain the ocean by taking out thimblefuls at a time. Is that what the Lord meant us to do? Our Father with us; yes, but oh! as a mighty mail, astonied, as He might well be, that cannot save' for the old, old reason, He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.' No wonder that on the other side men are saying--and it is not such a very presumptuous thing to say, if you have regard only to the facts that appear on the surface--men are saying, wait a little while, and all these organisations will come to nothing; these Christian churches, as they are called,' and everything that you and I regard as distinctive of Christianity, will be gone and be forgotten.' We believe ourselves to be in possession of an eternal light; the world looks at us and sees that it is like a flickering flame in a dying lamp. Dear brethren, if I think of the lowness of our own religious characters, the small extent to which we influence the society in which we live, of the slow rate at which the Gospel progresses in our land,
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