3 o8 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



which was an incident of a similar character and signifi- 

 cance to this, the Egyptians who pursued them were 

 drowned, when the Israelites escaped safely to the other 

 side; and their dead bodies, like the memorial stones 

 placed in the bed of the Jordan, represented the death 

 and burial of all that hindered their spiritual advance- 

 ment and welfare. From their own dead selves, from 

 their besetting sins and spiritual foes, they were now 

 delivered. These all perished in the waters of forget- 

 fulness ; never more' should they rise up to condemn 

 or annoy them ; and they were to emerge from their 

 baptismal purification in the Jordan no more the slaves 

 of sin, but the servants of God. While, on the other 

 hand, the memorial stones erected on the opposite side 

 of the river, like the altars which Abraham built in the 

 places where God had appeared to him, and the pillar 

 which Jacob set up at Bethel, clearly indicated the new 

 consecration of their lives to God. It was an archi- 

 tectural vow a token that they took possession of 

 the Holy Land, not for selfish greed or aggrandise- 

 ment, but for unselfish religious purposes, to subserve 

 the high ends for themselves and mankind which God 

 had in view in bringing them into it. Grateful for their 

 deliverance for all the wonderful way by which they 

 had been led they built their first temple of worship 

 out of the stones which they had gathered from the 

 bed of the river, which had proved to them the path 

 of life, and not of death, and resolved that they would 

 live no more unto themselves, but unto God. 



Our Lord Himself though purer than the purest 



