306 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



overwhelmed them, whilst His holy ark stood in the 

 midst of the stream, and Israel crossed in safety ; a 

 token surely that though He was angry with them, His 

 anger had passed away, and He was about to give them 

 double for all their sins. Look further still at the sig- 

 nificant fact that when the Israelites had erected their 

 first sanctuary on the other side of Jordan, on the soil 

 of the Holy Land, which by this solemn act became 

 their own inheritance, they were immediately circum- 

 cised, and thus consecrated anew to the Lord, made 

 new creatures as it were from their birth to Him. So 

 that we see in this incident, as well as in the circum- 

 stance that the older generation which had left Egypt all 

 perished in the wilderness, and only their children 

 entered the Holy Land, what we may regard as the 

 origin and illustration of our Lord's profound saying, 

 " Except ye be converted and become as little chil- 

 dren, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." 



Seeing then that all the incidents and circumstances 

 of the passage of the Israelites across the Jordan form 

 a very focus of symbolism, we are surely warranted in 

 looking for a spiritual significance in the burying of the 

 memorial stones in the bed of the river. The Jordan 

 was a boundary river, separating between the wilderness 

 and the Promised Land. It flowed down to the dreary, 

 lifeless solitude of the Dead Sea. Its waters, laden 

 with mud, were dark and drumly, and concealed their 

 bed and whatever they flowed over completely. Its 

 course also was very rapid and impetuous. In all these 

 respects it was a most expressive symbol to the Israel- 



