---

It is very wonderful how the element of novelty seems to penetrate our whole life, so that though we are surrounded by the old conditions we are always about to do something new. The things which we do may be like one another in certain broad features, yet they may be contradistinguished by fine lines of difference so minute and delicate as to be seen only by the closest attention. In the discrimination and right estimate of such lines lies the difference between a life that is lived roughly and a life that is finely balanced and critically calculated and arranged in every detail and bearing.

1. "Ye have not passed this way heretofore," therefore do not go until you be assured of the Divine presence and protection. What is the way? Is it a new year? Will you encounter unknown time in your own strength? Is it a new enterprise? Dare you challenge the secret resources of fortune without any help but your own? Is it a new discipline? It may destroy you if you have not bread to eat that the world knoweth not of. The great historical fact upon which you have to rest is that God has been with His people in every possible variety of circumstances, and that His love never changes (Exodus 3:12; Joshua 1:5; Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 37:5; Isaiah 30:21).

2. "Ye have not passed this way heretofore"; it is quite right, consequently, to take new ways and untried paths in life.

(1) Socially. New companionships, new alliances, new partnerships; opening up our friendly, conjugal, and commercial life.

(2) Nationally. New compacts, new wars, new laws. We are bound by every consideration arising out of stewardship and responsibility to try new.

3. "Ye have not passed this way heretofore"; there are some particulars in which this must be true even of the least eventful life.

(1) Is it an uneventful thing for a young man to leave his home that he may try to make his way in the world? "Ye have not passed this way heretofore." What a world it is! "Full of temptations and hidden snares," &c.

(2) Is it an uneventful thing for a man to die? What is beyond? How do we become prepared for the world unseen? Is that world more sharply divided than this; for here the wicked have some enjoyments, and the righteous many pains? Is it true that in this world we really make the next? This is a journey we must all take; we may take it blindly, we may rush upon it madly, or we may so live as to become enabled to say, "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit."

4. "Ye have not passed this way heretofore" — the suggestion is not human, but Divine; it is God Himself that proposes to guide and defend the lives of men. Before we pray, He answers! Consider how true it is that all the great proposals which have made our life richer and better have come from God, and in no degree from our own poor wit or genius. "It is not good for the man to be alone" — that is one. "Ye have not passed this way heretofore" — that is another. "Come now, let us reason together" — that is a third. And so on throughout all our life.

(J. Parker, D.D.)

---

---

KJV: And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host;

WEB: It happened after three days, that the officers went through the midst of the camp;