These observations are also illustrative of the feelings and conduct of men, in regard to their spiritual privileges and blessings. While the light of divine revelation is shining upon their dwellings, pointing out to them the way of salvation, and opening the prospect of a glorious immortality, they shut their eyes, and turn away into the fatal paths of sin and misery, to the darkness of eternal death; but when their opportunities are lost, when “the evil days are come upon them,” and there is no instructor or counsellor or comforter to be found, they perceive the preciousness of the time and the talents, which have been heedlessly thrown away; and would give the world, if they possessed it, for what they were once unwilling to make the smallest sacrifice. We are apt to express a wonder at the obstinate indifference of the people of Israel to their religious advantages and instructions; we are astonished, that they could forget their miraculous deliverances by the hand of Moses, and the manifold revelations vouchsafed through him for their knowledge and guidance; and that almost every divine communication to them, in after ages, should have been but the forerunner of guilt and apostacy: yet in truth, the history of Israel is but too faithful a picture of the people of God in other times and other countries; by no means excluding our own. The word of God has not been accounted precious, in proportion to the extent to which it has been diffused; the Bible has not been, in too many instances, the most highly prized, where it has been most widely circulated; nor have the ministers of the gospel been always most attentively and devoutly heard, where they have increased and multiplied. Before the age of printing, when the copies of the sacred word were comparatively few, the Christian, who was so happy as to possess one, commonly regarded it as a treasure; or if he could obtain a part only, by the labours of the pen, even a gospel or an epistle, it was considered as a “pearl of great price.” And afterwards, in the days of ignorance and persecution, when the sacred scriptures were withheld from the people by a blind and bigotted priesthood, the thirst for divine knowledge, for these streams of life and salvation, was inconceivably great; men sought them and treasured them at the peril of their lives. In these dark days, and long after, the public preachers of the word were few; and people flocked from distant quarters to hear the good tidings proclaimed. Having no regular supply of spiritual food, they sought it out with earnestness where they might; “the word of the Lord was precious in those days;” and “beautiful upon the mountains were the feet of Him,” who came to “lighten their darkness,” and to deliver the message of salvation to their souls.