This record of ineffectual marches is full of pathetic interest and warning. If these halting-places had been in the straight line of march for the Land of Promise there had been little room for regret. But they were not. They recall journeys that need never to have been taken. The tribes crossed and recrossed the desert, marking time whilst the bodies of the murmurers fell in the Wilderness and were wrapt about with the desert sands.

Such is the doom of unbelief. To effect nothing, to miss the rest of God, and to perish on the threshold of achievement—such is the experience of the soul described in James 1:6. God has given us in Christ the promise of rest, victory and satisfaction; let us enter upon our itheritance!