INTRODUCTION. The wilderness hath shut them in. EXODUS, chap. xiv, ver. 3. WHY do I not repose beneath the soft shade of unwithering foliage, feasting on delicious fruits, and sipping pure draughts from the crystal brook that runs meandering by? Why am I urged forward, a traveller still, with all a traveller's privations and dangers? or why, if travel I must, have I not an even path, securely fenced on either side, and well provided with refreshments for the way-faring and the weary? Why is it thus? Ah! there is a tale, which, although often told, as often dies disregarded on the ear, and leaves individuals, however assenting to its gene B ral application, especially marvelling at their own lot. The paternal inheritance forfeited by their ancestors, for certain misdeeds which they had done, each one seems obstinately disposed to reclaim in his own right, although daily experience proves the inefficacy, as well as the criminality of such endeavours; for a flaming sword now guards the entrance to these forfeited possessions, and there remains no alternative, but to travel onward through a dreary wilderness: yet with the sure prospect of a fairer inheritance beyond it, for those who pursue the direct road, however dangerous or toilsome the journey may prove. Stranger, have you not long ere this found out that you are but a traveller, and a traveller too in a wilderness? and shall you marvel thereat? Shall you expect to find the ground you tread blessed, which for man's sake is pronounced to be cursed, and which denies its increase, but to the sweat of our brow? What fruit do you expect from the thorns and the thistles, which spring up in your path? 'Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?' Yet, a creature pronounced to be of dust, and to that dust returning, presumes to take up his rest here as though it were his final destination! Behold them dancing around their idols of every shape, reared aloft in all directions, and exclaiming 'Our mountain stands strong; we shall never be moved'-' tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.' While others are standing at the door of their tents, murmuring against the Lord, and against his servants or sitting beneath their withered gourds, exclaiming, 'We do well to be angry our soul is weary because of the way?' Some, too, anxiously waiting the accomplishment of a darling project or scheme, upbraid the slow progress of time, and impatiently count the tedious. days and hours; unconscious how those fleeting days, those winged hours, curtail the short span of that life in which are concentrated all their hopes, and to which |