Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 2.pdf/54

 Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, and their entrance into Canaan. We are all born in ignorance, and our first knowledge is that which serves to connect us with the world and time—this is Egypt with its bondage. Out of this we must rise, if we would possess celestial love and wisdom—the land of promise! Man was not created to be the creature of a day, to eat, and to drink, and die! His mental faculties shew his capability of becoming possessor of an eternal and happy existence. All his numerous affections and thoughts should not be eternally bound down in Egypt—to the things of time and sense, but rather consecrated to the Lord and to His service; for these, in Scriptural language, are the Lord's people; and God, by His written word, will often be heard to speak as he did by Moses to Pharaoh, "Let my people go, that they may serve me." (Exod. vii. 16.)

The Lord went before the Israelites in this mystic pillar to guide them in all their way; instructing us by this fact, that the Lord goes before us, in the very same pillar, to guide us in our way, and to bring us to the good land. The written Word of God is the Christian's only guide in all his struggles and temptations of life! This is his pillar of cloud and of fire, in which the glory of Jehovah is constantly present and seen. The WORD is called a pillar of a cloud in reference to its literal sense; for in this, its lowest order, it is accommodated to man's apperception while in this lower world. Perception is divine truth perceived in reference to God and to His eternal providence; but apperception is the same Truth seen by man in reference to himself and his progress in regeneration. It is as the reception of truth by man, and its reflection