THE opportune moment, fraught with illimitable promise, invariably comes to those who are ready for it, and happy is he who then seizes it and casts his net upon the right side. Such a propitious moment once came to the children of Israel, when, according to the third chapter of the book of Joshua, they crossed the river Jordan, the final geographical barrier that then lay between them and the "land flowing with milk and honey," which ages before had been promised to their forefathers for them.
The gross darkness of Egypt had been left behind. The Red Sea had been crossed. The wilderness had been successfully compassed. One by one, its dangers had been overcome under the guidance of the noble Moses; and now, under the trustworthy leadership of the God-fearing Joshua, they came face to face with this decisive step upon which depended the final outcome of all their journeyings.
To such as did not remember the previous triumphant passage across the Red Sea, the task of crossing the river, which was then at flood and overflowing its banks on either side, may have seemed a formidable one. That there were some forgetful ones appears highly probable, for it was not uncommon with the Israelites, when some new danger threatened, to forget God's care in the past. To such as these the present undertaking doubtless seemed a hard one, fearful, as they may have been, that at this crucial juncture God might fail them.
