“We remember,” said they, ” the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic but now our soul is dried away there is nothing at all beside this manna, before our eyes.”īut the hand of God was upon them and when His hand is upon a people, it is destiny, and they cannot resist it. How great a trial it was may be seen in their reluctance at the first, to follow the leader whom God had given them and in their frequent sightings in the wilderness for their old home. The two special expedients to that end were, First, colonization, at God’s bidding, from Egypt and Secondly, a re settlement in the land of Canaan, under the immediate direction of the Almighty.ĭoubtless it was a great trial to the children of Israel to leave that land, which time had now succeeded in making their home. By and by, when God was ready for his own large ends and purposes, then He commenced the processes and the policies for that noble work, which tells, even in our day, in every Christian church and household in the world. Generations passed away and many a soul sank, and many a spirit fainted, and many a despairing man laid down and died but the work went on. God was preparing them then for another land, and far distant duties. Thus, in various ways, they were going through a system of mental and moral training. “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity, he redeemed them.” Large providential favors were mingled with their sore trials in all their tribulations, they were still God’s people much temporal prosperity, yea, even miraculous increase had been given them the spectacle of high civilization was continually set before their eyes. bondage to be, entirely, at any time, unmixed and absolute evil. Their fathers, during all their sojourn in that land, had suffered the keenest miseries and afflictions. They had been nigh four hundred years in servitude in Egypt. The Prophet avails himself of this pause in their history, to relate unto them all the marked peculiarities of their history and migration and to point out to them God’s agency therein, and His intents and purposes. The whole process of their colonization was now about to close the land of promise from the top of Pisgah, was suffered to greet his eyes allotments of land, as the first lesson this evening showed us, had been given to three of the tribes, and full preparations made for a new chieftain to lead them across Jordan into the promised inheritance of the Lord. These words are a part of that summing up of the Exodus, made by Moses to the Israelites, as he was on the eve of his departure, and they well nigh the close of their journey through the wilderness. And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God and worship before the Lord thy God: And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God ha, given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you. And thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous: And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression: And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: And he hath brought us into this place and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord hast given me. And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God. And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us. His sermon appears below.Īnd it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it and dwellest therein that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth, which thou shalt bring of thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there. In a sermon to Barbadian emigrants, at Trinity Church, Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa on May 14, 1863, Alexander Crummell calls on persons of African ancestry around the world to be actively engaged in the religious, economic and social development of the African continent.
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