I trust many who read this will love often to visit in thought the old city of the patriarchs, and to dwell on its name and meaning, "_fellowship_." Think of what _you_ would have been without Jesus, your Hebron-City of Refuge,--a poor outcast in creation, an alien from all that is holy and happy. But by Jesus all is changed. God is your Father--Christ is your elder Brother. In Him, God loves you,--angels visit you,--the Holy Spirit teaches you,--heaven is open for you. You are enrolled as a citizen of the great _Hebron_ above--"the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Christ has made you to be members of the great heavenly family; so that the little child who loves Jesus, is brother or sister to the archangel before the throne! You may be deprived of human friendship and fellowship. The brother or sister, the father or mother, or friend you once dearly loved, may be laid in some earthly Machpelah--some silent grave. But rejoice! nothing can separate you from a better friend and more lasting fellowship. Though all earthly joys were to perish, you can always rush within the gates of that mighty Hebron of refuge, and say, "_Truly our_ 'FELLOWSHIP' _is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ_." "Earthly friends may pain and grieve me, One day kind, the next they leave me; But this Friend can ne'er deceive me-- Oh, how He loves!" [Illustration: Bezer] Fourth City--Bezer. BEZER was situated beyond the Jordan, in the tribe of Reuben. Although its precise site has not been discovered, we may infer that it was perched on one of the many rocky heights among the mountains of _Abarim_,--perhaps a spur of the great mount Nebo, from whose summit Moses was permitted, before death, to get a view of the Land of Promise. The northern portion of the waters of the Dead Sea would be seen from it, and the pastoral mountains of Judah in the distance. From its name, as well as from its being a border town, and subject to attack from the warlike tribe of Moab, Bezer would probably be strongly fortified,--similar, perhaps, in this respect to the towns in the neighbourhood, with which the Israelites were so struck on their first approach to Canaan, with "their walls great and high, reaching to heaven." What does the name BEZER tell of Christ? It literally means "_stronghold_," or Rock. Jesus is the believer's BEZER. The sinner is in danger everywhere else, but in Jesus he is safe. He is invited to "turn to the STRONGHOLD" as a "prisoner of hope," and once within its gates, "though an host encamp against him," he need "fear no evil." What a mighty force _does_ encamp against him! There is _God's Holy Law_, with all its terrible threatenings and curses. But sheltered in the true BEZER he can triumphantly say, "It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth?"[37]