e--with fields of toil and tracts of
blood between--would that which was meant as an inspiration for their
souls become fixed for their sight, and tabernacles that should never
perish enclose a glory that should never pass away.

You may have anticipated the lessons for ourselves which I propose to
draw from this unconsidered request of Peter. At least, you will readily
perceive that it does contain suggestions applicable to our daily life.
For I proceed, at once, to ask you if it is not a fact that often we
would like to remain where, and to have what, is not best for us? Do not
illustrations of this simple thought occur easily to your minds? Does
not man often desire, as it were, to build his tabernacles here or
there, when due consideration, and after-experience will convince him
that it was not the place to abide; that it was better that the good
be craved, or the class of relations to which he clung, should not be
permanent? In order to give effect to this train of reflection, let
me direct you to some specific instances in which this desire is
manifested.

Perhaps I may say, without any over-refinement upon my topic, that
there are three things in life to which the desires of men especially
cling,--three tabernacles which upon the slope of this world they
would like to build. I speak now, it is to be remembered, of desires of
impulse, not of deliberation,--of desires often felt, if not expressed.
And I say, in the first place, that there are certain conditions in life
itself that it sometimes appears desirable to retain. Sometimes, from
the heart of a man, there breaks forth a sigh for perpetual youth. In
the perplexities of mature years,--in the experience of selfishness, and
hollowness, and bitter disappointment; in the surfeit of pleasure; in
utter weariness of the world,--he exclaims, "O! give me back that sweet
morning of my days, when all my feelings were fresh, and the heart was
wet with a perpetual dew. Give me the untried strength; the undeceived
trust; the credulous imagination, that bathed all things in molten
glory, and filled the unknown world with infinite possibilities." Sad
with skepticism, and tired with speculation, he cries out for that faith
that needed no other confirmation than the tones of a mother's voice,
and found God everywhere in the soft pressure of her love; and when his
steps begin to hesitate, and he finds himself among the long shadows,
and the frailty and fear of the body overcom