There is surely no man, however great and exalted, however learned and wise, however smooth and comparatively free from trouble his journey through life may have been, who" has not, at some time in his career, longed for a refuge, either from self or from circumstance. How much truer is this of the poor and the timid, the foolish and the ignorant! "Jehovah is my refuge and my fortress" was the inspiration of many a song of David, and had he been here with us, in our assemblies, how easy to imagine him making his harp ring and lifting his voice in songs such as Charles Wes-ley's "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," with its appeal, "Hide me, O my Saviour, hide," for "Other refuge have I none."

I suppose that we have all sung this hymn and have learned that Christ is the only true and abiding refuge. Nevertheless, so multiplex and various are the troubles from which He hides us, and so many and different are the characters that our Refuge assumes, varying with the varying experience, that it has occurred to me that we all might like to take a little journey together around the "Cities of Refuge" that God ordained for the Israelites of old, inasmuch as they will afford us many reminders of our own "places of refuge" along the pilgrim pathway.

Doubtless many have been this way before, but every Christian should be able like the "Impressionist painter," to give something of his own peculiar experience, and if not there are still views of which we never tire. They are full of "sacred memories" like

"….. .Those Holy Fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet that fourteen hundred years ago Were nailed for our advantage to the bitter Cross."

So wrote Shakespeare, and though we may add an odd five hundred more to the score, we all still cry, "Ah Lord, Thou hast been our hiding place in all generations;" "Jesus Christ, is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever."

We're going to start in the wilderness, the "desert," the "eremos," the "bereft place," for that was the way we took after breaking away from the land of Egypt. So shall we visit in order Bezer, the city of Reuben, Ramoth, belonging to Gad, Golan in Bashan, territory assigned to Manasseh, pass on over Jordan to Kedesh-Naphtali, up and up over the hills to Shechem in Ephraim, and close our journey at Hebron, city of Judah, with our eyes catching happy glimpses of "Jerusalem the Golden" in the distance.

I don't know how you feel about it, but I would like to live forever in Hebron. The sun is ever shining there (see 1 John 1:6); there are no quarrelings or dissensions, for it is a happy city of "communion," "fellowship with both God and men," and there our hearts shall ever be "making David, our David, King."

But we first go to Bezer, and a wonderful place of refuge it is, for all those that as helpless sinners flee to it. Do you know what the name means? It is capable of several interpretations, as indeed most names are, but the one we are going to ponder is "fortress," or if you would enliven it somewhat, "stronghold," suggesting to us that it is a "strong place of refuge." We would have to live in those days of long ago to catch the full inspiration of such a word; we would have to experience the sad desolation stalking before armed hosts of marauders, the death and destruction following in their rear, threatening the lives of all. Yet the sins of our past like these marauders also make waste and desolate; they too destroy life and hope. They too blast and blacken,' and it is from their sad consequences we all first seek refuge.

The story of Reuben as told in Genesis is a very sad illustration of all this. "Reuben" means "See a son," and it was with proud exultation his mother gave him his name. We have the final summing up of his career in Jacob's last words to his children. Instead of turning out the pride of his parents, he had struck hard at the most sacred ties of family life, and his career had been nothing but a frothy effervescent "bubbling up," no stability or strength in it.

Alas, this history has been the history more or less of all too many of the sons of Adam. It is a graphic epitome of much that is in life through sin. It is not merely hope deferred and frustrated, but hope seemingly mocked and derided. Surely, then, we sons of Adam need a "fortress" and "stronghold" if we are to find a refuge against the sin of man and its consequences. But with what exultation, when sheltered behind its impregnable walls, with what exuberant joy, beside which the joy of Reuben's mother is as nothing, shall we exclaim:"See THE SON," the One who is both Son of God and Son of Man. "For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the SON OF MAN be lifted up." "For God so loved the world that He gave HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

"Whither would we go, oh, whither?
Whither from the glorious sight?
Truth and mercy meet together,
Righteousness and peace unite,
'Tis the Cross that gives us rest,
Makes us safe and makes us blest."

Hoist high then the standard over Bezer; let the loyal breezes shake out its folds to our gaze; let the first light of the rising sun rest upon it; let its last rays linger caressingly there:and let us gladly sing,

"In the Cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of Time,
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime."

Our next stopping-place is Ramoth in Gilead, and rough is the going ere we reach it. Ramoth is high, high up. It means "heights," and it is situated amidst "rocky ground," for that is the significance of Gilead. It is therefore hard to get there. How ideally these names fit into Christian experience! They remind us of the names in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." And Bunyan, too, shortly after the visit to the Cross, where Christian's great burden rolled off, shows us the frowning crags of the hill Difficulty and in graphic words portrays the hard climb of his pilgrim ere he could reach the summit, crowned with the Palace Beautiful.

It is quite natural and fully in accord with the experience of the average young Christian to think that after he has escaped the peril of his sins and the threat of coming judgment he has now before him only an easy pathway, a triumphal progress from "strength to strength." Is it not God that is with him, and who can oppose God? But the Christian road to the "heaven-lies," the Ramoth heights, is arduous, and while positionally he is indeed already seated there in Christ, experimentally he has a hard road to walk, and happy is he who quickly arrives at the Palace Beautiful.

This is very much the story of Gad, to whom Ramoth belongs. When Gad was born into the world his mother triumphantly cries:"A troop cometh." She verily expected a troop of blessings. Gad's real history, however, as given us in Jacob's play on the word, Gad ("a troop"), reads:"A troop shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last." So the lesson of the "going" in Gad's history is ever-recurring difficulty, disappointment, defeat, and the natural consequence is but too often despondence. Continued defeat is the most discouraging thing in the world. Difficulty and trial are hard enough, in all conscience, but if capped with defeat, they will, in time break down the morale of any man or group of men. Oh, how many of us have had Gad's experience! How often enemies within and without have assailed us! How often they have won the upper hand! Nevertheless, if we are indeed Christians, we have through Christ assurance of final triumph at the last :we have assurance that we shall reach the heights of Ramoth. Yes, we shall all come there; come to heights where the trials and sorrows and failures of the way down here shall be utterly forgotten; heights above the clouds, regions of perpetual bliss and sunshine; irradiated uplands where the swelling triumph of the Apostle's magnificent doxology shall thrill through every fibre of our hearts :"Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the VICTORY, through JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD." And if an earthly poet has graphically pictured the triumph of reunion with earthly loved ones, what added joy shall we not know, who behold in His beauty the Man of Calvary:

"For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end.
And the elements rage, the fiend voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast;
O thou soul of my soul, I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest." F. C. Grant

(Concluded in next number.)