ent story indeed, suiting exactly in
its smallest details the place where Moses, or whoever wrote the
Book of Numbers, has put it.

We, in these days, are accustomed to draw a sharp line between the
good and the bad, the converted and the unconverted, the children of
God and the children of this world, those who have God's Spirit and
those who have not, which we find nowhere in Scripture; and
therefore when we read of such a man as Balaam we cannot understand
him. He is a bad man, but yet he is a prophet. How can that be?
He knows the true God. More, he has the Spirit of God in him, and
thereby utters deep and wonderful prophecies; and yet he is a bad
man and a rogue. How can that be?

The puzzle, my friends, is one of our own making. If, instead of
taking up doctrines out of books, we will use our own eyes and ears
and common sense, and look honestly at this world as it is, and men
and women as they are, we shall find nothing unnatural or strange in
Balaam; we shall find him very like a good many people whom we know;
very like--nay, probably, too like--ourselves in some particulars.

Now bear in mind, first, that Balaam is no impostor or magician. He
is a wise man, and a prophet of God. God really speaks to him, and
really inspires him.

And bear in mind, too, that Balaam's inspiration did not merely open
his mouth to say wonderful words which he did not understand, but
opened his heart to say righteous and wise things which he did
understand.

'Remember,' says the prophet Micah, 'O my people, what Balak, king
of Moab, consulted, and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him
from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of the
Lord. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before
the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of
rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my
firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of
my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God.' Why, what deeper or wiser words are
there in the whole Old Testament? This man Balaam had seen down
into the deepest depths of all morality, unto the deepest depths of
all religion. The man who knew that, knew more than ninety-nine in
a hundred do even in a Christian country no