9. _From the top of the rocks_, he says, _I see him_; for I cannot embrace within my ken this people, which shall dwell alone, marking out their boundaries, not so much by the occupation of space as by the abode of virtue, and extending them into eternal ages by the distinctive peculiarity of their manners. For which of the bordering nations shall be numbered with this one, which is raised above their fellowship by its exalted righteousness? Who shall understand the nature of its generation? Their bodies we indeed perceive to have been compounded and fashioned of human seed, but their minds have sprung from higher and wondrous seed-plots. Sidenote: Ib. 10. 10. _Let my soul die with their souls_, die to this bodily life, that with the souls of the just it may attain to the grace of that eternal life. Herein even then was revealed the excellence of our heavenly Sacrament and of holy Baptism, by the operation whereof men die to original sin and to evil works; that being transformed by newness of life into fellowship with the just they may rise again to live as do the just. And what wonder is it that it should be so, when men die to sin in order to live to God? Sidenote: Ib. 11. Sidenote: 1 Cor. xiii. 1. Sidenote: Numb. xxiii. 21. 11. Balak hearing this, was wroth and said, ‘I brought thee to curse and thou blessest.’ He answered, ‘I am reproved for that of which I am not conscious; for I speak nothing of my own, but utter sounds like _a tinkling cymbal_.’ Again, being carried to a second and a third place, although he wished to curse, he blessed; _He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel; the Lord his God is with him_. And afterwards he commands seven altars and sacrifices to be prepared. He ought, indeed, to have departed, but his weak mind and mutability of purpose led him to believe that he could turn aside the Will of God: he himself, the while, being in a trance, desired one thing but spoke another. Sidenote: Ib. xxiv. 5, 6. Sidenote: v. 19. Sidenote: v. 8. Sidenote: v. 7. Sidenote: v. 9. Sidenote: Heb. iv. 12.