erson left for a full week without the camp
must, in separation from accustomed companionship, intercourse, and
occupations, have been thrown upon his or her own thoughts. No doubt
it is often while engaged in our ordinary occupations that the
strongest light is flashed upon our true spiritual condition. It is
while in the company of other people that we catch hints which seem
to interpret to us our past and reveal to us our present state. But
these glimpses and hints often pass without result, because we do not
find leisure to follow them up. There must be some kind of separation
from the camp if we are to know ourselves, some leisure gained for
quiet reflection. It is due to God that we be at some pains to
ascertain with precision our actual relation to His will.

The very feeling of being outcast, unworthy to mingle with former
associates and friends, must have been humbling and instructive.
Miriam had been the foremost woman in Israel; now she would gladly
have changed places with the least known and be lost among the throng
from the eye of wonder, pity, contempt or cruel triumph. All sin
makes us unworthy of fellowship with the people of God. And the
feeling that we are thus unworthy, instead of being lightly and
callously dismissed, should be allowed to penetrate and stir the
conscience.

If the leprosy departed from Miriam as soon as Moses prayed, yet the
shock to her physical system, and the revulsion of feeling consequent
on being afflicted with so loathsome a disease, would tell upon her
throughout the week. All consequences of sin, which are prolonged
after pardon, have their proper effect and use in begetting shame. We
are not to evade what conscience tells us of the connection between
our sin and many of the difficulties of our life. We are not to turn
away from this as a morbid view of providence; still less are we to
turn away because in this light sin seems so real and so hideous.
Miriam must have thought, "If this disgusting condition of my body,
this lassitude and nervous trembling, this fear and shame to face my
fellows, be the just consequence of my envy and pride, how abominable
must these sins be." And we are summoned to similar thoughts. If this
pursuing evil, this heavy clog that drags me down, this insuperable
difficulty, this disease, or this spiritual and moral weakness be the
fair natural consequence of my sin, if these things are in the
natural world what my sin is in the spiritual, then m