1.  It serves to allure us on.  Suppose that a spiritual promise had been made at first to Israel; imagine that they had been informed at the outset that God’s rest is inward; that the promised land is only found in the Jerusalem which is above—­not material, but immaterial.  That rude, gross people, yearning after the fleshpots of Egypt—­willing to go back into slavery, so as only they might have enough to eat and drink—­would they have quitted Egypt on such terms?  Would they have begun one single step of that pilgrimage, which was to find its meaning in the discipline of ages?

We are led through life as we are allured upon a journey.  Could a man see his route before him—­a flat, straight road, unbroken by bush, or tree, or eminence, with the sun’s heat burning down upon it, stretched out in dreary monotony—­he could scarcely find energy to begin his task; but the uncertainty of what may be seen beyond the next turn keeps expectation alive.  The view that may be seen from yonder summit—­the glimpse that may be caught perhaps, as the road winds round yonder knoll—­hopes like these, not far distant, beguile the traveller on from mile to mile, and from league to league.

In fact, life is an education.  The object for which you educate your son is to give him strength of purpose, self-command, discipline of mental energies; but you do not reveal to your son this aim of his education; you tell him of his place in his class, of the prizes at the end of the year, of the honours to be given at college.

These are not the true incentives to knowledge, such incentives are not the highest—­they are even mean, and partially injurious; yet these mean incentives stimulate and lead on, from day to day and from year to year, by a process the principle of which the boy himself is not aware of.  So does God lead on, through life’s unsatisfying and false reward, ever educating:  Canaan first; then the hope of a Redeemer; then the millennial glory.

Now what is remarkable in this is, that the delusion continued to the last; they all died in faith, not having received the promises; all were hoping up to the very last, and all died in faith—­not in realization; for thus God has constituted the human heart.  It never will be believed that this world is unreal.  God has mercifully so arranged it, that the idea of delusion is incredible.  You may tell the boy or girl as you will that life is a disappointment; yet however you may persuade them to adopt your tone, and catch the language of your sentiment, they are both looking forward to some bright distant hope—­the rapture of the next vacation, or the unknown joys of the next season—­and throwing into it an energy of expectation which only a whole eternity is worth.  You may tell the man who has received the heart-shock which in this world, he will not recover, that life has nothing left; yet the stubborn heart still hopes