e with his Master, his
followers, though few, will be all the more worth having. The Delectable
Mountains are wide and roomy. They roll far away both before and behind.
Immanuel's Land is a large place, and there are many other shepherds
among those hills and valleys besides Knowledge and Experience and
Watchful and Sincere. And each several shepherd has, on the whole, his
own sheep. Knowledge has his; Experience has his; Watchful has his; and
Sincere has his; and all the other here unnamed shepherds have all theirs
also. For, always, like shepherd like sheep. Yes. Hosea must have been
something in Israel somewhat analogous to a session-clerk among
ourselves. 'Like priest like people' is certainly a digest of some such
experience. Let some inquisitive beginner in Hebrew this winter search
out the prophet upon that matter, consulting Mr. Hutcheson and Dr. Pusey,
and he will let me hear the result.

4. Now, my brethren, in closing, we must all keep it clearly before our
minds, and that too every day we live, that God orders and overrules this
whole world, and, indeed, keeps it going very much just that He may by
means of it make unceasing experiment upon His people. Experiment, you
know, results in experience. There is no other way by which any man can
attain to a religious experience but by undergoing temptation, trial,
tribulation:--experiment. And it gives a divine dignity to all things,
great and small, good and bad, when we see them all taken up into God's
hand, in order that by means of them He may make for Himself an
experienced people. Human life on this earth, when viewed under this
aspect, is one vast workshop. And all the shafts and wheels and pulleys;
all the crushing hammers, and all the whirling knives; all the furnaces
and smelting-pots; all the graving tools and smoothing irons, are all so
many divinely-designed and divinely-worked instruments all directed in
upon this one result,--our being deeply experienced in the ways of God
till we are for ever fashioned into His nature and likeness. Our faith
in the unseen world and in our unseen God and Saviour is at one time put
to the experiment. At another time it is our love to Him; the reality of
it, and the strength of it. At another time it is our submission and our
resignation to His will. At another time it is our humility, or our
meekness, or our capacity for self-denial, or our will and ability to
forgive an injury, or our perseverance i