What, then, are we to learn from the regulations with respect to the passover in the second month? Why was Israel so specially enjoined not to omit a single rite or ceremony on that particular occasion? why is it that in this ninth chapter of Numbers the directions for the second month are much more minute than those for the first? It is not, surely, that the ordinance was more important in the one case than in the other, for its importance, in God’s judgment, was ever the same; neither is it that there was a shade of difference in the order in either case, for that, too, was ever the same. Still the fact must strike the reader who ponders the chapter before us that where reference is made to the celebration of the passover in the first month, we simply read the words, “according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it;” but on the other hand, when reference is made to the second month, we have a most minute statement of what those rites and ceremonies were,—“They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it.” (Compare verse 3 with 11, 12.) What, we ask, does this plain fact teach us? We believe it teaches us, most distinctly, that we are never to lower the standard, in the things of God, because of failure and weakness on the part of God’s people; but rather, on that very account, to take special pains to hold the standard up, in all its divine integrity. No doubt, there should be the deep sense of failure—the deeper the better; but God’s truth is not to be surrendered. We can always reckon, with confidence, upon the resources of divine grace, while seeking to maintain, with unwavering decision, the standard of divine truth. Let us seek to keep this ever in the remembrance of the thoughts of our hearts. We are in danger, on the one hand, of forgetting the fact that failure has come in—yea, gross failure, unfaithfulness, and sin; and on the other hand, we are in danger of forgetting, in view of that failure, the unfailing faithfulness of God in spite of everything. The professing church has failed, and become a perfect ruin; and not only so, but we ourselves have individually failed and helped on the ruin. We should feel all this—feel it deeply—feel it constantly. We should ever bear upon our spirits before our God the deep and heart-subduing consciousness of how sadly and how shamefully we have behaved ourselves in the house of God. It would be adding immensely to our failure were we ever to forget that we have failed. The most profound humility and the deepest brokenness of spirit become us in the remembrance of all this; and these inward feelings and exercises will surely express themselves in a lowly walk and carriage in the midst of the scene in which we move.