Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/351

 posits—the gift of God to man, and for any one to hold these in pledge, is to deprive him of all the means of loving what is good, and of perceiving any truth. When the church is corrupted by evil and falsehood, these two spiritual powers are dormant—there is a Spiritual famine in the land, and then "the sound of a millstone is heard no more." (Rev. xviii. 22.) Those who oppress innocence, are such as offend one of the Lord's little ones, and as in such a one all good and truth are perverted, so the millstone is said to be hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea. (Matt. xviii. 6.) In the consummation of the age, "two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken and the other left." (Matt. xxiv. 41.) To grind at a mill is to procure truths from the Word of God. One applies them to a holy life, the other only to confirm what is false. The former is taken, the latter left.

HEN the Israelites had crossed the Jordan, the Ark of God, wherein the tables containing the commandments were deposited, continued for sometime at Gilgal, whence it was removed to Shiloh, and from hence they took it to their camp. When at war with the Philistines, it was taken by the enemy, and by their taking it the glory is said to have departed from Israel. (1 . iv. 22.) The Philistines,