nto the tent, so over-awing
was that Presence.

Now it is of intensest interest to mark four things about that
experience. _First_ of all, before it came, there was _obedience_ to
God's instructions. Eighteen times within the narrow limits of the last
two pages of the Exodus record, it is said that Moses and the people did
everything, in every particular, just exactly as "the Lord commanded
Moses." There was explicit obedience before anything else. _Then_
followed the wondrous _infilling_ of the tent with God's presence. The
_third_ thing is particularized very carefully: all their movements were
directed and controlled by that Presence. Clearly the only safe rule for
living in that terrible desert, was to plan to live a planless life so
far as their own planning was concerned. Besides the last two verses of
Exodus which emphasize this, I find that in my revised Oxford edition
forty-five lines in the ninth chapter of Numbers are given to telling
how exactly they were guided, and how explicitly they followed their
Guide. It seems almost at first reading as though there was a decidedly
needless repetition. You seem to understand the thing easily enough
without that. But as one reads it again, and yet again, slowly, it
begins to dawn upon the mind that the purpose is to put marked emphasis
on this feature of their new life in the wilderness. The people would
rise in the morning, and probably the first thing done was to look out
toward the cloud to learn if there was to be any change that day. And so
during the day there would come to be an instinctive habit of watching
that cloud. They might remain in a new camping place for months, or only
for a few weeks, or, possibly only for a few days. They never knew a day
ahead. They lived literally a day at a time. It was certainly a
hand-to-mouth existence so far as the daily manna was concerned. But
then it was from _His_ hand to _their_ mouths and that made a great
difference. It was equally so in their movements and in all of their new
life. When, one morning as thousands of heads peep out, the cloud is
seen to have lifted up from over the tent, the next question was--which
direction? It might be toward the west, or it might be just the
opposite, toward the east. Both the time of going, and the direction,
and the pace were regulated by the presence of their Friend in that
cloud. Their life was a life of obedience to the will of their wise,
loving Companion.

The _fourth_ thin