The most tumbling and desponding pilgrim Zionward has in him that blessed hope of eternal life, which however unconsciously, will continue to animate till it be lost in fruition; a hope, the necessary attendant of holy faith, and having for its object deliverance from the body of sin, perfect restoration to the likeness of God, and His full and everlasting communion; founded not on any internal experience, but on the promises of a faithful God in Christ Jesus. He who has but just entered on his pilgrimage, he in whose heart the spark of grace glows most feebly, has yet desires wrought in him, which nothing less than the holy blessedness and communion of heaven can satisfy. It is not indeed at once that the barrenness of this world in all that can worthily fill the mind or the heart is fully perceived by the pilgrim. Christ was the only perfect pilgrim. He alone was truly unspotted from the world. The faith that gives substance to hoped for blessedness is encountered by unbelief, which represents it as shadowy and unsubstantial; the hope that incites to press forward to its enjoyment is met by chilling despondency and fear; and the holy desire that pants for its full gratification by deadening withering carnality. But wherever the spirit of pilgrimage is implanted, there it never wholly dies away. And therefore it is that the Christian is never permitted to settle down in this world as if it were his home; despite of the suggestions of unbelief and carnal reason, despite the proneness of his heart to go after its covetousness, and despite the ensnaring example and practices of the world, he still feels that he is here in a wilderness condition. It is a part and not the least precious part, of his great Leader’s conduct and management to correct him when he goes astray, and to remind him painfully and practically that this is not his rest, and that he must not view it as such. It is his privilege to have his heart’s dearest idols thrown down, to have his fairest worldly hopes blasted, to have the emptiness of the creature discovered to him. It is his privilege to feel an aching void in his heart which the world can never fill, to be kept deeply sensible of wants that created good cannot supply, and to be led by a hard and rugged path as often as his treacherous, idolatrous heart would have him take his ease. He is thus enabled to go out of the wilderness with his face towards the heavenly Canaan.