wave of the hand, and shouting “Goel! Goel!” he rushes on with fleet footstep. Parched with thirst in the hot noonday, he turns a longing eye on the ripe grapes that are hanging in purple clusters on the wayside, or on the water trickling down the narrow ravine. But he dare not pause. Knowing full well that the Avenger is in close pursuit, he hurries on with unabated ardor. Happy sight, when he sees at last, on some mountain slope, the longed-for shelter! Happy, when, weary and footsore, covered with dust, the portals of the city close him in. A few moments before, had he been overtaken on the mountain-top by his pursuer, he might have been heard to cry out, in the bitterness of despair, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” Now, safe within the secure shelter, he can rejoicingly exclaim, even with the Avenger standing close by, “O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end.”[2]

These Cities of Refuge form one of the Old Testament PICTURES of the sinner, and of the coming gospel salvation. This was the way God took to teach the Jewish people great gospel truths. Just as we know that youthful readers like a story-book all the better when it has got pictures in it; so God taught the early church, when it was in a state of “childhood,” by means of similar pictures or types; and the present was one of them. It represented, and still represents, the sinner who has broken the Divine law as pursued by an avenger: Justice following with drawn sword, exclaiming, “The soul that sinneth it must die.”[3] “Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not escape unpunished.”[4]

This is a picture, too, which applies to every one without exception, rich and poor, parent and child, master and servant; “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”[5] But a glorious CITY, “salvation its walls and bulwarks,” opens its gates. The sinner is exhorted to “escape thither;” to “linger not in all the plain;” to “flee for his life, lest he be consumed.”[6] That city is Jesus, the sinner's Refuge and the sinner's Friend. Once within its walls, no enemy can touch him,—no sword can terrify him. He can triumphantly exclaim, “Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?”[7]

Dear young friends, it is because I know this City of Refuge is open for the youngest of you, that I now write these pages. I love to read about a group of little ones who, eighteen hundred years ago, were gathered round its gates, asking admission; and when others, with unkind words, were sending them away, He who held the gates in His hand, “who openeth and no man shutteth,”[8] said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”[9] It is because I believe and know that many as young as you have obeyed the Saviour's invitation, and have already entered this happy City, that I ask you to come and hear while I speak to you about it. I believe and know that many such have learned to feel that they are sinners, and that they need a Saviour. They have been taught by God's own Word and Spirit that they have broken His holy law, and have thereby exposed themselves to eternal death. But they are now safe within the Gospel Shelter. The “enemy” is “stilled.” The “avenger” has sheathed his sword. I think I can hear their youthful voices, as they march through the streets of the City, singing, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest STILL the enemy and the AVENGER.”[10] “Blessed be the Lord; for He hath showed me His marvellous kindness in A STRONG CITY.”[11]

II.
THE SIX CITIES.

II.

It is of these six cities here mentioned, I am now going to speak. The name of each of the six has something significantly to tell about THE NAME OF JESUS. They are six pictures of the Saviour, hung up in the Old Testament picture-gallery. I am going to ask you to take a journey with me to these towns of old Palestine. Before we enter their gates, I should like again to repeat the verse of the precious hymn placed at the beginning of this book:—