The day wore by; the sun was far down the west; the shadows were deepening on the earth: the weary patriarch dropped his head upon his breast, and slept. A horror of great darkness fell upon him; and then came a vision and a voice, which revealed to him the future. When this had passed, night had set in; and in the darkness the weary watcher waited, near the limbs of his slain victims, for Jehovah to reveal his presence and seal his promises, till at length, through the thickening gloom and spectral silence, the Shechinah is discovered, moving in awful majesty near the sacrifice. A smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces. Abram understood it all: God's visible presence was before him; Jehovah had ratified his covenant; the deed was done. The patriarch was satisfied. He had not been imposed upon by his fancy; he had not been deceived by some _ignis fatuus_. It was Jehovah's presence he had looked upon; it was Jehovah's own doings, making his covenant sure to him. Yet all he saw was a smoking furnace and a burning lamp pass between the pieces. He heard no voice; he saw no living personal form: but that appearance before him was Jehovah's sign. He doubted not a moment; he asked for nothing more. It is evident that the manner in which God signified his presence on this occasion had a peculiar significance in it, that there was a peculiar fitness in the form which he assumed--_a smoking furnace and a burning lamp_--rather than some other visible form. We believe that these signs indicated not only that Jehovah was there, but who that Jehovah was. They exhibit God as _hiding, and yet revealing_ himself. The smoking furnace, dimly visible, and followed by the burning lamp, presents the side which the Almighty turns towards us, marked by _obscurity, and light_. The Most High is known, and yet unknown; revealed to us, and yet concealed. And we believe that a correct view of God, as exhibited to us in his word and providence, will correspond with the view which the patriarch had of him in the loneliness and darkness of that night, when He sealed His covenant with him. We hold that in the goings forth of his providential government for thousands of years, and in the utterance of his word, there are the same traces of light and obscurity, of concealment and illumination, which were symbolized to Abram; and the same God who passed between the pieces of his sacrifice under the form of a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, is still passing before us all in a like manner. Such is the Almighty whenever he turns himself towards us. And while I gaze with the patriarch upon the awful solemnities of that hour, that smoking furnace and burning lamp seem to move, not only across that spot, but over the ages and the world, and indicate the presence and the doings of God in all the conduct of his government.