But there is one note in this song to which I shall just invite my reader's attention.--"He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation." It is worthy of note that when the heart was full to overflowing with the joy of redemption, it gives expression to its devoted purpose in reference to "a habitation for God." Let the Christian reader ponder this. God dwelling with man is a grand thought pervading Scripture from Exodus xv. to Revelation. Hearken to the following utterance of a devoted heart: "Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, nor slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for the Lord, _a habitation_ for the mighty God of Jacob." (Ps. cxxxii. 3-5.) Again, "For the zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up." (Ps. lxix. 9; John ii. 17.) I do not attempt to pursue this subject here; but I would fain awaken such an interest concerning it in the breast of my reader as shall lead him to pursue it, prayerfully, for himself, from the very earliest notice of it in the Word until he arrives at that soul-stirring announcement, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." (Rev. xxi. 3, 4.) "So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; and they went out into the wilderness of Shur: and they went three days into the wilderness and found no water." (Ver. 22.) It is when we get into wilderness experience that we are put to the test as to the real measure of our acquaintance with God and with our own hearts. There is a freshness and an exuberance of joy connected with the opening of our Christian career, which very soon receives a check from the keen blast of the desert; and then, unless there is a deep sense of what God is to us, above and beyond everything else, we are apt to break down, and, "in our hearts, turn back again into Egypt." The discipline of the wilderness is needful, not to furnish us with a title to Canaan, but to make us acquainted with God and with our own hearts; to enable us to enter into the power of our relationship, and to enlarge our capacity for the enjoyment of Canaan when we actually get there. (See Deut. viii. 2-5.) The greenness, freshness, and luxuriance of spring have peculiar charms, which all pass away before the scorching heat of summer; but then, with proper care, that very heat which removes the fair traces of spring, produces the mellowed and matured fruits of autumn. Thus it is also in the Christian life; for there is, as we know, a striking and deeply instructive analogy between the principles which obtain in the kingdom of nature and those which characterize the kingdom of grace, seeing it is the same God whose handiwork meets our view in both.