Matthew 2:4

Priests and scribes.

Near in privilege, far from piety

Some that are best acquainted with the gospel are practical strangers to it. They are like one who should pore over a map, mastering its geography; marking each sea, lake, river; understanding the position of every range of mountains; learning the names of all the localities indicated, but never visiting them. A living author, describing his journey to the falls of Niagara, says: “I met with a gentleman who told me that he had walked from Boston, a distance of seven hundred miles, to see Niagara. “When within seven miles, he heard what he thought might be the roar of the torrent, and asked a man who was at work on the road if this was so. The man replied that he didn’t know; it might be, but he had never been there himself. Yet he had lived within sound of it all his life!” Wonderful stupidity, this! Who does not reprobate such folly? Nevertheless, it is nothing-absolutely nothing-compared with the direr folly which may be witnessed any day that we choose to look around us. Numbers are within sound of “ the river of the water of life “ without an actual, personal experience of its benefit. (Rev. T. R. Stevenson.)

Like in this to those who built the ark for Noah, providing others with a refuge, themselves perished in the flood; or like to the stones by the road that show the miles, but themselves are not able to move. (Augustine.)