And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt.
The path of duty the path of trial
I.That the path of human duty here runs through great trials.
1. Sometimes it involves the sacrifice of endeared friendship. Lot had to separate from Abraham, Barnabas from Paul, Paul from Mark.
2. Sometimes it involves the sacrifice of worldly prospects.
3. Sometimes it involves the endangering of life itself.
4. Sometimes it involves an outrage on our tender sentiments. Abraham offering up Isaac.
II. That great trials through which the path of duty here runs serve to test the principles of the pilgrims.
1. It reveals the bad principles of the heart. The Jews at the Red Sea revealed their ingratitude, meanness, aspostasy, cowardice,
2. It reveals the good principles of the heart.
III. That unbounded faith in god is essential to carry us safely ‘through the path of duty with all its great trials. (Homilist.)
God our helper
The following is an extract from Stanley to Sir William Mackinnon: “You, who throughout your long and varied life have steadfastly believed in the Christian’s God,and before men have professed your devout thankfulness for many mercies vouchsafed to you, will better understand than many others the feelings which animate me when I find myself back again in civilisation, uninjured in life or health, after passing through so many stormy and distressful periods. Constrained at the darkest hour to humbly confess that without God’s help I was helpless, I vowed a vow in the forest solitudes that I would confess His aid before men. A silence as of death was round about me; it was midnight; I was weakened by illness, prostrated with fatigue, and worn with anxiety for my white and black companions whose fate was a mystery. In this physical and mental distress I besought God to give me back my people. Nine hours later we were exulting with a rapturous joy.In full view of all was the crimson flag with the crescent, and beneath its waving folds was the long-lost rear column.” Mungo Park was comforted by the Lord by a tiny morsel of moss, and Livingstone was preserved by Him when most people gave him up for lost: and now, from the awful gloom of endless forests, Stanley cries unto the living God, and lives to bear witness to the faithfulness of the prayer-hearing Jehovah.
