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           Title: The Silver Lining: Messages of Hope and Cheer
      Creator(s): Jowett, J. H. (1817-1893)
     Print Basis: New York: Grosset & Dunlap (1907)
   CCEL Subjects: All;
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THE SILVER LINING

                               The Silver Lining

Messages of

Hope and Cheer

    BY

J. H. JOWETT

   This book, while produced under wartime conditions, in full compliance
   with government regulations for the conservation of paper and other
   essential materials, is COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED

GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

    By arrangement with Fleming H. Revell Co.

Copyright, 1907, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
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CONTENTS

   PAGE
   UNDER THE FIG-TREE                   7
   IN TIME OF FLOOD                     15
   DIVINE AMELIORATIVES                 23
   THE CURE FOR CARE                    30
   PREPARING FOR EMERGENCIES            37
   “SILENT UNTO GOD”                    45
   MY STRENGTH AND MY SONG!             53
   THE ABIDING COMPANIONSHIP            60
   LIGHT ALL THE WAY                    69
   OUR BRILLIANT MOMENTS                76
   THE LORD’S GUESTS                    84
   HIDDEN MANNA                         95
   THE REJOICING DESERT                 102
   THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE GRAVEYARD! 110
   COMFORTED IN ORDER TO COMFORT!       118
   THE MINISTRY OF HOPE                 126
   LIFE WITH WINGS                      136
   THE UNEXPECTED ANSWER                143
   THE CENSER AND THE SACRIFICE         152
   THE SCHOOL OF CHRIST                 161
   THE MINISTRY OF REST                 170
   WEALTH THAT NEVER FAILS              179
   THE DIVINE ABILITY                   189
   NEW STRENGTH FOR COMMON TASKS        197
   THE MINISTRY OF THE CLOUD            206
   THE REALMS OF THE BLEST              216
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                               THE SILVER LINING
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UNDER THE FIG-TREE

   “When thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee.”—John i. 48.

   “WHEN thou wast under the fig-tree I saw thee.” But was there any
   special significance in this? There must have been something of very
   deep significance, for it inspired Nathaniel to an outburst of joyful
   faith: “Thou art the Son of God.” Perhaps there was something in the
   tone in which the words were spoken; for revelations are not always
   contained in the literal words, they are often found in the way in
   which they are spoken. It is possible to say to a sorrowful and
   mourning widow, “I saw you,” and the words will suggest nothing more
   than bare recognition; and one may use the same phrase and it would be
   weighted with warm and helpful sympathy. There was surely something in
   the tone of the Master which called forth the exuberant response of
   Nathaniel’s heart. But there was more than this. “Under the fig-tree,”
   was a phrase which recalled a deep and personal experience. Nathaniel
   had been in the habit of retiring in the shade of the fig-tree, away
   from the crowd, and away from his labour, depressed by feelings of
   saddened loneliness and alienation. His was a chaste and sensitive
   soul, and there was much in his day to fill his delicate spirit with
   despondency and pain. So he was often found apart, under the fig-tree.
   The neighbours thought him moody; in reality he was thoughtful. He was
   described as dreamy; in reality he was prayerful. Sometimes he was
   esteemed a little proud; in reality he bore the burden of oppressive
   sadness. He used to retire into the quiet garden, lock the gate, and
   under the fig-tree, with no one near, he would pour out his soul before
   God.

   Can we exercise a prudent imagination, and attempt to realise
   Nathaniel’s state? I think he was probably burdened in worship. He felt
   his spirit fettered by the multitudinous rules and regulations which
   had gathered round about the acts and offices of worship. He sought to
   be punctilious in their observation, but he laboured under the heavy
   load. A certain amount of harness is helpful to a beast; it directs and
   concentrates his strength at the needful points, and makes the yoke
   tolerable and easy. But it is possible so to multiply the harness that
   it adds to the burden, rather than reduces it. And rules and
   regulations can be helpful to the movements of the spirit, but if they
   are multiplied they increase its strain. In Nathaniel’s day the rules
   and regulations had increased until every natural movement was harassed
   and irritated, and life became a galling bondage. Nathaniel hungered
   for free intimacy, for the emancipation of a friendly walk with God.
   And then I think he was weary in service. The attempts to do good
   seemed so fruitless in their issues. The streets of town and village
   rang with hypocrisy and vice, and his own little efforts appeared to
   have no more purifying influence than the dropping of white snowflakes
   into an open sewer.

   And then, too, I think he was faint in waiting. The promised deliverer
   was long in coming. He looked out with aching, weary eyes, but the
   emancipator did not appear. And his spirit grew faint and desponding.
   There is nothing so exhausting as mere waiting. Work does not tire a
   man so much as the looking for work. The hour of labour speeds like a
   weaver’s shuttle; the hour of waiting drags like a cumbersome load, How
   long the minutes seem when we are waiting for the doctor! The loved one
   is passing into deeper need, and we listen for the hand upon the latch.
   Every moment seems an age. And there were many in the time of Nathaniel
   who were “waiting for the doctor”; the general life was sick and
   diseased, and the great Physician had not yet come! And these men
   waited, looking for “the consolation of Israel”! And Nathaniel was one
   of the waiters, and in the long waiting he had grown faint. Is it any
   wonder, then, that this man, burdened in worship, weary in service, and
   faint in waiting, should often be found apart in the retirement of some
   secluded garden, under a fig-tree, with downcast and despondent spirit,
   looking wistfully towards heaven and God? “When thou wast under the
   fig-tree I saw thee.”

   “I saw thee.” And how much the seeing means! The phrase has infinitely
   more significance than that of bare recognition. It is not only that
   Nathaniel was noticed; it means that he was understood. Our Lord’s
   sight is insight. The majority of us see, but only a few perceive. “See
   ye, indeed, but perceive not.” We see a sign, but we cannot give it an
   interpretation. We see a wrinkle, a grey hair, a tear, a smile, a look
   of care, a bent back, but we do not perceive their spiritual
   significance. Our Master not only sees; He “in-sees.” When He looked at
   Nathaniel He understood him. He interpreted his thoughts and fears. He
   saw him through and through. “He knew what was in man.” But the
   Master’s seeing implies more than this. It is not only that sight was
   insight; His perceptions were compassions. He was “touched” with the
   feelings of men’s infirmities. He did not bring to bear upon men the
   mere dry light of understanding; the light was warm and genial, and
   sunny with the grace of sympathy. The apostolic word is very beautiful,
   He was “touched.” But the sight means even more than this. The
   understanding and the sympathy were joined to the ministry of
   co-operation. The Master not only feels, He works; He not only
   sympathises, He serves. When He saw Nathaniel under the fig-tree, His
   understanding, His sympathy, His power, all combined in a ministry of
   benevolent and beneficent love.

   Here, then, is the evangel. Our Lord sees us when we are under the
   gloom of the fig-tree, when in sadness and weariness we are turning
   tired eyes at the expectancy of help. “Before that Philip called thee,”
   before he came out into the open, when he was half hidden, when his
   soul-life was secret and unconfessed, when in grave despondency he was
   turning his weary eyes toward heaven—“I saw thee.” He sees and knows us
   then. He sees us in the gropings in the gloom. That is the glory of our
   Redeemer. Anybody can see an electric light, but to feel the current,
   when there is not enough to make a light, requires a more refined
   discernment. We all become aware of the electrical power when there is
   enough to ring a bell; but when the power which is stored in the wires
   is feeble and faint, it requires something as sensitive as the palate
   to detect it. Our Master discerns the feeble stirrings of spiritual
   life. When there is not enough to illumine the soul, or to make its
   powers ring out the truth, He detects the faint beginnings which to
   other people are unknown. The woman of Samaria comes to Him. She was
   only a common woman of the city. Far from being a light, she was like a
   burnt-out fire. But I think that in her desolate soul there were often
   faint and uncertain movements. She had long seasons of despondency,
   with little flickerings of aspiration after a better life. I think she
   often went apart, and in deep dejection of spirit sighed out her woe.
   We are not told that our Master spake to her of these seasons, and yet
   I cannot but think He did. He would mention one place and another
   place, and one thing and another thing, which would recall to her the
   experiences of these darker seasons. “When thou wast under the fig-tree
   I saw thee!” One after another the deepest things in her life were
   recalled to her, until at length she turned away to her friends,
   saying, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that ever I did.”

   And was it not so with Zacchæus? Can we think that when Jesus looked up
   at Zacchæus and bade him come and offer hospitality, it was the first
   time He had seen him? Nay, I think He had often passed him in the
   streets, He had seen the shadow over his face. There was unrest and
   trouble in his eye. He looked like a man who was often awake at nights.
   For Zacchæus often went home with a full purse and a very empty and
   improvished heart. He was often “under the fig-tree,” in gloom and
   despondency, casting fitful glances at the better life. And so when the
   Master called to him, there was something in the very tone which
   revealed that he was understood. We are not told what they talked about
   on their way to the publican’s house, but I think I can hear the Master
   saying to His newly-found disciple, “when thou wast under the fig-tree
   I saw thee.” I say this is the way of the Master. He sees us in the
   faint beginning and gropings of the spiritual life. “When he was yet a
   long way off his father saw him!” That is characteristic of the Divine
   eyes. He sees us in the long distance! The first faint impulses are
   recognised; the first turning is known. When we are under the fig-tree
   He sees us!

   This, surely, is a word full of heartening and inspiration. We are
   never alone. Our Saviour understands us, sympathises with us,
   co-operates with us. He is with us under the fig-tree! And see how rich
   and wealthy is the promise. “Hereafter ye shall see heaven opened and
   the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” How
   glorious and fitting is the issue! Nathaniel is to see heaven opened!
   The man who has been in the gloom of the fig-tree, with fitful and
   uncertain glimpses through the broken clouds, is to attain to firm,
   clear, and permanent vision. And the man who is so frequently timid,
   and wonders at the controlling power of life and the world, is to have
   his confidence steadied and stayed, and is to be made sure of the
   sovereignty of Christ.
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IN TIME OF FLOOD

   “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord
   shall lift up a standard against him.”—Isaiah lix. 59.

   THESE heartening words were spoken to exiles who were preparing to
   return to the homeland. They had become so accustomed to their
   captivity that emancipation seemed a dream. Even when they lifted their
   eyes to the possibilities of return they seemed to gaze upon range
   after range of accumulating difficulties which would obstruct their
   journey home. As often as the prophet proclaimed their deliverance they
   proclaimed their fears. Their fears were laid one by one, but as soon
   as one was laid another arose!

   There was, for example, the wilderness to be crossed with all its
   fierce and sombre desolation! “The wilderness shall rejoice and blossom
   as the rose.” And there was the weary, pathless desert, offering only
   the prospect of homelessness to the bewildered pilgrim! “And an highway
   shall be there, and a way,” clean and clear across it. There are waters
   to be crossed and floods to be overcome! “When thou passest through the
   waters they shall not overflow thee.” And other difficulties will
   arise, all the more burdensome because unforeseen! “Every valley shall
   be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low.” And the
   enemies on the right hand and the left hand, what about them? The
   hostile peoples will accept their chance, and will come down upon the
   returning company in destructive array! “When the enemy shall come in
   like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against
   him.” To every fear the prophet presents a promise; to every suspicion
   he offers an assurance. Now, we, too, are exiles returning to the
   homeland. We, too, have been in the dark realms of captivity, and by
   His redeeming grace our eyes have been lifted toward the better
   country. And we, too, are full of uncertainties and fears. There is a
   desert to traverse, a wilderness to cross, waters to pass through,
   mountains to climb, and we know not how we may safely reach our
   journey’s end. And particularly are we beset by the enemy, who suddenly
   and unexpectedly sweeps down upon our path. But if we have the fears,
   ours, too, are the promises. Between the enemy and ourselves there
   shall be erected the standard of the Lord. “When the enemy shall come
   in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
   against him.”

   “When the enemy shall come in like a flood.”! think that the figure is
   surely taken from the river-beds of their native land. They had looked
   upon the dry, bleached ravines in time of drought, when scarcely a
   rivulet lisped down its rocky course. And then the rain had fallen on
   the hills, or the snow had melted upon the distant mountains, and the
   waters had torn down like a flood. I have picnicked away up in the
   solitudes of the higher Tees, when there was only a handful of water
   passing along, a little stream which even a child could cross. And once
   I saw what the natives call the “roll” coming away in the distance.
   Great rains had fallen upon the heights, and this was their issue; in a
   moment the quiet stream became a roaring torrent, and shouted along in
   thunderous flood. That, I think, is the figure of my text. When the
   sudden “roll” shall come in the life, and the little rivulet is changed
   into tempestuous waters, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood,
   the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.”

   Now, what are some of these flood times in life when the enemy comes
   against us in overwhelming power? There is the flood of passion. There
   are many among my readers who do not know that flood. We are very
   differently constituted, and some there are in whom these particular
   waters bring no peril. There are some whose passion fills up slowly
   like a cistern; there are others who overflow in a moment. There are
   some who are constitutionally calm; there are others who “boil” at the
   slightest provocation. Well, now, floods always destroy something
   valuable and beautiful. I have watched a great river in flood, and I
   have seen how many precious things are carried down in the violent
   stream; a sheep that has been harmlessly playing by the bank, some
   tender sapling, some useful bridge. And so it is with the flood of
   passion that sweeps through the soul. It always damages the life
   through which it flows. Some seed of the kingdom, just beginning to
   germinate, is washed out of the ground. Some tender growth is impaired
   or destroyed, some little plant of meekness, or gentleness, or faith,
   or hope, or love. Even onlookers can frequently see the ruin; and to
   the Lord the fruitful place must become a desert. “The enemy has come
   in like a flood.”

   And sometimes the flood is in the form of a great sorrow, and we are
   engulfed by it. Billow after billow goes over us, and does tremendous
   damage. I know that there is a sorrow appointed of the Almighty, but it
   is never ordained to hurt or destroy. And yet how often this particular
   flood, rushing into a life, works havoc with spiritual things. Have we
   not known many such in our own experience? “Was not So-and-so at one
   time a great worker in the Church?” And the answer was, “Yes, but he
   has never done anything since his child died!” The flood had done its
   evil work. And so it frequently is in lives that have been drowned in
   the enveloping waters. In one of our churches a little while ago a
   flood occurred, and the two things that were injured were the heating
   apparatus and the organ. I could not but think of the destructiveness
   wrought in the soul by the gathering waters of sorrow. Very frequently
   they put out the fires of geniality, and they silence the music and the
   song.

   And so it is, one may say, with all the perilous waters that arise in
   human life. Sometimes the flood gathers from a multitudinous
   contribution of petty cares. It is amazing how mighty a volume can be
   made with small contributions. We could deal with one; the multitude
   overwhelms us! We could deal with one worry, but multitudes of them
   create the flood we call anxiety, and we are overthrown. And again
   great damage is done, working havoc to our peace and self-control and
   magnanimity.

   Now, whenever a flood in the life damages a life the work is the work
   of the devil. When I am tempted into overflowing passion, or into
   excessive sorrow, or into overwhelming care, it is the work of the
   enemy. I think that if we could realise this we should be greatly
   helped in these perilous and frequently recurring seasons. If we could
   only practise our eyes so as to see in the tempting circumstance the
   face of the evil one we should be less inclined to the snare. If we
   could only get into our minds and hearts the settled conviction that
   behind all these threatening approaches there is the ugly enemy of our
   souls, we should more eagerly turn our eyes and feet toward the Lord of
   life and beauty. Now that Lord of life offers Himself as our defence in
   the time of the rising flood. He will “lift up a standard against him.”
   I think that is very beautiful! King Canute had his regal chair carried
   down to the flowing tide, and he commanded the waters to retreat. The
   waters paid no heed, and the mighty flood advanced. But our King raises
   His standard against the threatening flood, and the retreat is
   absolutely ensured. In the moment when we are tempted to the
   overwhelming passion He will come between us and the flood. “The waters
   shall not overflow thee.” Have you noticed that wonderfully suggestive
   passage in the Book of Revelation where a promise is made of help in
   the time of flood? “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a
   flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away at
   the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her
   mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his
   mouth.” I believe that that great promise has been abundantly confirmed
   in countless lives. Even the earth itself is our ally in contending
   with the foe. The beauties of nature will help us to contend with the
   forces of evil desire. I believe that if we more frequently communed
   with the flowers of the field we should find that the earth was a
   minister of the Holy Spirit. The earth would swallow up the flood. But
   we have more than Nature as our defence; we have the Lord of nature,
   the Lord in nature, not so much the supernatural as the Spirit who
   pervades nature and all things. That gracious Spirit will subtly steal
   into the threatened parts of our life, and will contend with our foe.

   And so, too, it is in the flood times of sorrow. The Spirit of the Lord
   will engage for us, “lest we be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.”
   Have I not seen it done a hundred times? Have I not seen sorrow come
   into a life, and it has been entirely a minister of good and never of
   ill? The devil has not got hold of it, and used it as a destructive
   flood. Not one thing has been damaged or destroyed. It has been a
   minister of irrigation rather than destruction, and in the moist place
   of tears beautiful ferns have grown, the exquisite graces of compassion
   and long-suffering and peace.

   “The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard!” Well, then, let Him
   do it. Do not let us attempt to do it for ourselves. Let us hand it
   over to Him. “Undertake Thou for me, O Lord.” The life of faith just
   consists in a quiet, conscious, realising trust in the all-willing and
   all-powerful Spirit of God.
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DIVINE AMELIORATIVES

   “Sleeping for sorrow.”—Luke xxii. 45.

   I AM not concerned with the element of human weakness suggested by my
   text; I want to dwell entirely upon the Divine graciousness which I
   think is enshrined in it.

   “Sleeping for sorrow.” Is it not a very strange conjunction of words?
   One would have thought that wakefulness and sorrow would have been
   associated, and that sleep and sorrow would never have found communion.
   But here is sorrow passing into sleep! As though sorrow itself contains
   a gracious opiate which lulls and subdues into slumber. As though God
   had determined that every distress should carry a certain palliative in
   order that we might not be burdened beyond measure. When sorrow becomes
   very intense it induces sleep. A Divine ameliorative is at hand, and
   the strain of the galling burden is lightened. They say in the North
   that there is never a nettle that has not its companion dock. The dock
   supplies the opiate for relieving and destroying the sting of the
   nettle. And so I wish to consider some of these Divine amelioratives
   which the good Lord has appointed for reducing the burdensomeness of
   grief, and for making the daily sorrow tolerable.

   The ameliorative of sleep. What a wonderful minister is the genius of
   sleep When our bodies are tired out, and the nervous force is almost
   spent, and we feel ourselves wearied and “down,” what a hotbed is
   provided for irritableness, and doubt, and despondency and despair! A
   tired-out body offers a fertile rootage to all manner of mental
   ailments. Many a man in the evening time feels that life is very
   colourless and juiceless, and this ’sense of the sombreness and
   dullness arises from a body which has temporarily lost its spring. And
   then comes sleep! During the hours of sleep our gracious God comes and
   refills the exhausted lamp, and in the morning the touchiness and
   irritableness and tastelessness have all gone, and we face the new day
   as men renewed. The Lord has been near with His gracious palliative of
   sleep, and the oppressiveness of the passing day has been removed.

   Then how frequently sleep acts as a gracious opiate when we are
   inclined to make precipitate vows! Something has happened and we
   hastily resolve upon hasty action. But some discreet friend says to us,
   “Sleep on it.” And the influence of the one night’s sleep scatters our
   rash resolve like morning mist. Have we not recently been told of a
   great minister who, in some moment of impatience, resolved upon sending
   his resignation to his deacons, but he took the counsel of his wife to
   “sleep on it,” and the resignation was never sent. God’s gracious gift
   came in the meantime, and the storm-tossed mind and heart were laid to
   rest.

   And what a wonderful servant is this same sleep in the time of
   bereavement! I have frequently known a widow in the very first day of
   her widowhood, when the body of her husband was scarcely cold, pass
   into a deep and most refreshing sleep. “I have had the best night’s
   sleep I have had for many a month,” she has said; and this was the
   first night of bereavement! “Sleeping for sorrow.” It is a wonderfully
   gracious providence of our God to mingle this Divine opiate with our
   sorrows, and to put us into a quiet and restoring sleep. “He giveth His
   beloved sleep.”

   The ameliorative of Time. What a healing minister we have in Time
   itself. The old proverb tells us that Time brings roses. And a still
   older proverb, coming down from the days of the Romans, tells us that
   Time is generally the best doctor. The new railway cutting is a great
   red gash in the green countryside, but Time is a great healer and
   restorer, and day after day the bald, bare place is being re-covered
   with fern and grass and wild flower, until at length the ugly cutting
   harmonises with the colours of the surrounding landscape, and the gash
   is healed. And Time works a similar history with human life. A cutting
   injury is done to me. I think I can never forget it. The wound is deep,
   rankling is sore. But Time takes the thing in hand, and little by
   little, and day by day, the healing process is continued, until at
   length the open wound is closed, and I wonder how I could have been so
   silly as to make so much stir about it. And we all know what Time can
   do even for the sharp pangs of a great bereavement. In the first dark
   and cloudy day it seems as though no light will ever fall upon our path
   again. “I shall never laugh any more.” Oh, yes, you will! Time, the
   Lord’s ameliorative, will begin to minister to the broken spirit, and
   however incredible it may now appear, some day the smiles will come
   back in the blanched cheek, and the mouth will be filled with laughter.
   And this because, as the days go by, Time turns a beautiful memory into
   an alluring hope. We not only feel the season behind us, but the
   pulling power of the age that lies before. Let us never forget, when we
   are counting our blessings, to thank God for the glorious ministry of
   gracious Time.

   The Divine ameliorative of work. May we not speak of work as one of the
   Lord’s servants appointed by Him to subdue the distresses of life, and
   to mitigate its pangs? How frequently it happens that the needful work
   that is required to be done immediately after a death is a gracious
   helpmeet to the spirit. We have to be busy about the funeral, and even
   that bit of business is a minister of rest. We say one of another,
   “It’s well she had so much to do.” Goethe’s mother said of her son, “My
   son, when he has a grief, puts it in a poem and so gets rid of it.” We
   cannot all put our griefs into poems, but it is amazing how much of
   them we can put into work. And so it is well for us to look upon work
   as a signal token of Divine Providence and Fatherly love and grace. He
   has appointed us to work, and the work has been ordained for our
   eternal good. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake”; yes, but the cursing
   of the ground was for the blessedness of man. In cursing the ground God
   blessed the race. When God cursed the ground He made it essential that
   man should work. The curse was only a restraining of the natural
   energies of the earth, in order that man should co-operate and bring
   the hidden things to fruition. God made work compulsory in order that
   man might regain his lost Eden. To lose his Eden, and then to have no
   work, would have made the alienation too grievous to be borne. The
   compulsory work was the decree of Eternal love.

   I am not surprised, therefore, when I turn to the New Testament to find
   how great was Paul’s fear of indolent Christians. The early believers
   gave up their ordinary work and passively waited the coming of their
   Lord. Now Paul knew that, in the time of stress, and persecution, and
   tribulation, to have no work would be to take sides with the enemy.
   Therefore “let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called.”
   Let every man go on working, for he will find in his work an
   ameliorative for his sorrows. To cast aside work is to deprive oneself
   of the means of grace. A doctor, quite recently in my hearing, said to
   a man who was inclined to become a little morbid and depressed, “Go out
   and weed your garden.” The weeding of the garden was the smallest part
   of the hour’s work; while the man was weeding the garden he was also
   extracting weeds from his own heart and life. Let us thank God for
   work.

   The Divine ameliorative of service. I distinguish between work and
   service. Work is primarily for our own profit; service is primarily
   profit for others. And therefore I speak now of labour expended in
   another’s good, and in this kind of service I say there is a grand
   ameliorative for the griefs and distresses of life. It is an amazing
   thing to watch the new colour which our sorrow assumes when we go out
   to minister to others. The rawness goes out of our own wound while we
   are dressing the wounds of our neighbour. Our own pang is lessened when
   we seek to take the pang out of another’s soul. “I felt as though my
   heart would break, so I just got up and went out to help a poor body
   who I knew was in need.” Yes, and while she went to bring comfort to
   her needy sister the heart’s-ease came into her own soul. This is the
   beautiful, gracious way of God. We can go out with a broken heart to
   minister to other broken hearts, and a cooling balm is applied to our
   own feverish pain and fears. Along these lines we can all make bold and
   immediate experiment, and you may depend upon it you will find that in
   this kind of service there is hidden a gracious opiate which deadens
   the sense of our own sorrows and makes it possible for us to endure
   them.

   All these are Divine amelioratives, the gracious ministers of God, and
   I would that we might more frequently remember them when we seek to
   tell the story of His mercy and grace. Let us think of them as the
   angels of the Lord, appointed by Him to do us service in the dark and
   cloudy day. “He shall give His angels charge concerning thee, to keep
   thee in all thy ways.”
     __________________________________________________________________

THE CURE FOR CARE

   “Fret not thyself.”—Psalm xxxvii. 1.

   “Fret not thyself.” Do not get into a perilous heat about things. And
   yet, if ever heat were justified, it was surely justified in the
   circumstances outlined in the psalm. Evildoers were moving about
   clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day.
   “Workers of iniquity” were climbing into the supreme places of power,
   and were tyrannising over their less fortunate brethren. Sinful men and
   women were stalking through the land in the pride of life, and basking
   in the light and comfort of great prosperity. And good men were
   becoming heated and fretful. “Fret not thyself.” Do not get unduly
   heated! Keep cool! Even in a good cause fretfulness is not a wise
   helpmeet. Fretting only heats the bearings, it does not generate the
   steam. It is no help to a train for the axles to get hot; their heat is
   only a hindrance; the best contribution which the axles can make to the
   progress of the train is to keep cool. Fretfulness is just the heating
   of the axles; it is heat in the wrong place; it is heat become a source
   of weakness rather than strength. We sometimes say of a man, concerning
   his relationship to some particular topic, “He got quite hot over it!”
   That kind of heat does not increase a man’s driving power, nor does it
   contribute to his vindication. It is only the perilous heat of the
   axles.

   Now, when the axles get heated it is because of unnecessary friction;
   dry surfaces are grinding together which ought to be kept in smooth
   cooperation by a delicate cushion of oil. And is it not a suggestive
   fact that this word “fret” is closely akin to the word “friction,” and
   is indicative of the absence of the anointing oil of the grace of God?
   In fretfulness, thought is grinding against thought, desire against
   desire, will against will; a little bit of grit gets into the
   bearings—some slight disappointment, some ingratitude, some
   discourtesy, and the smooth working of the life is checked. Friction
   begets heat, and with the heat most dangerous conditions are created.

   We can never really foresee to what kind of disaster this perilous heat
   may lead. The psalmist, in the early verses of this psalm, points out
   some of the stages of increasing destructiveness to which this unclean
   fire assuredly leads. It is somewhat strange, and yet not strange, that
   the second piece of counsel in this psalm is concerned with the
   disposition of envy. It is not put there as an irrelevance. It
   indicates a possible succession. Fretfulness frequently leads to
   jealousy. For what is jealousy? Again, let it be said that jealousy is
   heat out of place. The “jealous” man and the “zealous” man are somewhat
   akin, but in one case the fire is clean and in the other it is unclean.
   It is the difference between fervour and fever. Fretfulness creates the
   unclean fire of envy. Now see the further stage proclaimed by the
   Psalmist. “Cease from anger.” The fire is now burning furiously, noisy
   in the fierceness of its wrath. What shall we expect as the climax of
   all this? “Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” That is what I
   should expect. Men who have worked themselves into envy and anger will
   be led into the very evil they originally resented. Men begin by
   fretting “because of evildoers,” and they end by “doing the evil”
   themselves. “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” “Fret
   not thyself!” Do not let thy bearings get hot. Let the oil of the Lord
   keep thee cool, lest by reason of an unclean heat thou be reckoned
   among the evildoers.

   How, then, is fretfulness to be cured?—The Psalmist brings in the
   heavenly to correct the earthly. This psalm is full of “the Lord”! “The
   Lord” is the refrain of almost every verse, as though it were only in
   the power of the heavenly that this dangerous fire could be subdued.
   Let us look at the counsel in detail.

   “Trust in the Lord.” “Trust.” It is, perhaps, helpful to remember that
   the word which is here translated “trust” is elsewhere in the Old
   Testament translated “careless.” “Be careless in the Lord!” Instead of
   carrying a load of care let care be absent! It is the carelessness of
   little children running about the house in the assurance of their
   father’s providence and love. It is the singing disposition that leaves
   something for the parent to do. Assume that He is working as well as
   thyself, and working even when things appear to be adverse.

   I remember meeting a man in Birmingham, not so very long ago, a man who
   is honestly and earnestly seeking to live a Christian life, but he
   mourned to me the depression under which he was suffering on that
   particular day. “I feel very depressed; my feelings are gloomy; I feel
   as though my Lord were far away!” It was a very miserable morning; the
   unclean snow was melting in the streets, and a November fog possessed
   the town. I said to him, “Do you think the Welsh water is running into
   our town today? Has the supply from the Welsh hills been stopped? The
   day is gloomy enough, the fog is about, and the atmosphere is certainly
   chilly, but the water from the Welsh hills is flowing into the city
   quite as abundantly as it will do on the sunniest day in June! The fog
   in Birmingham will not check the gracious supply from the hills!” And
   so it is with our feelings. The supply of grace is not determined by
   the changes in our moods; it is independent of our feelings. ’There is
   a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God!” That
   river is flowing even when we are temporarily depressed, and we are no
   longer enjoying the ecstasy of the heights. “Trust in the Lord!”
   Believe in His fidelity! Assume that the river is flowing even on the
   darkest day. This would be an amazing cure for fretfulness and
   excessive care.

   “Delight thyself also in the Lord.” How beautiful the phrase! The
   literal significance is this, “Seek for delicacies in the Lord.” Yes,
   and if we only set about with ardent purpose to discover the delicacies
   of the Lord’s table, we should have no time and no inclination to fret.
   But this is just what the majority of us do not do. We take the crumbs
   from the Master’s table, and we have no taste of the excellent
   delicacies. Now the delicacies of anything are not found in the
   elementary stages; we have to move forward to the advanced. The
   delicacies of music are not found in the first half-dozen lessons; it
   is only in the later stages that we come to the exquisite. And so it is
   in art, and so it is in literature, and so it is with the “things of
   the Lord.” “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into
   the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
   Him.” Let us be ambitious for the excellent! God has not yet given to
   us of His best. He always keeps the best wine until the last. We shall
   never reach God’s superlative! The “unsearchable riches of Christ” will
   reveal themselves more and more to us throughout the glorious seasons
   of the eternal day. When we sit at the table of the Lord, tasting of
   His delicacies, fretfulness will be unable to breathe.

   “Commit thy way unto the Lord.” “Thy way!” What is that? Any pure
   purpose, any worthy ambition, any duty, anything we have got to do, any
   road we have got to tread, all our outgoings. “Commit thy way unto the
   Lord.” Commit it to Him, not merely when we are in the middle of the
   way and are stuck and lost in the mire. Let us commit our beginnings
   unto Him, before we have gone wrong; let us have His companionship from
   the very outset of the journey. “I am Alpha.” He likes to be in at our
   beginnings. What am I purposing for tomorrow? What am I setting out to
   do? Have I committed it to the Lord, or am I setting out upon a
   solitary journey? If I am going out alone, fretfulness will encounter
   me before I have gone many steps in the way; if I go out in the company
   of Jesus I shall have the peace that passeth understanding, and the
   heat of my life will be the ardour of an intense devotion.

   “Rest is the Lord.” Having done all this, and doing it all, trusting in
   the Lord, delighting in the Lord, committing my way unto the Lord, let
   me now just “rest.” Don’t worry. Whatever happens, just refer it to the
   Lord! If it be anything injurious He will suppress it. If it be
   anything containing helpful ministry He will adapt it to our need. This
   is the cure for care.
     __________________________________________________________________

PREPARING FOR EMERGENCIES

   “Before governors and kings shall ye be brought for My sake, for a
   testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, be
   not anxious how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in
   that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the
   Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.”—Matthew x. 18-20 (R. V.).

   “Ye shall be brought before governors and kings.” This was said to
   fishermen who had lived a quiet, unobtrusive life on and by the
   Galilean lake. It does not require much imagination to enter into the
   panic occasioned by the Master’s words. In our day, to appear before a
   Court even as a plaintiff makes one limp and weak and useless; to
   appear as defendant is to suffer collapse. And these humble, toiling
   men, with their horny hands, with their homely dialect, are told that
   they must appear before kings and governors to answer for their lives!
   It is no easy experience for obscure people to appear in the presence
   of the great and mighty. They are often either the victims of
   awkwardness or the prey of paralysing fear. They do the wrong thing;
   they say the wrong thing; things they purposed saying and doing are
   forgotten; both in the presence of the august and when they leave it
   they feel abashed and ashamed. If not the prey of awkwardness they are
   in the bondage of fear; the pith goes out of their powers, and they
   feel as though their wills are melting away. It was by no means an easy
   prospect which the Master held out before them. “Ye shall be brought
   before governors and kings.” When they heard the words their secret
   hearts began to busy themselves with this unspoken question: “What
   shall we do?” Immediately they became anxious, possessed by worry,
   thrown into mental and spiritual disorder.

   Here, then, are the disciples contemplating a remote emergency. The
   emergency will come. It is inevitable. The line of their life, at
   present commonplace and even, will rise into a great crisis. As sure as
   the morrow comes the emergency will come with it! What shall they do?
   That was the pregnant question, and the question suggests our present
   meditation. How shall we prepare for emergencies?

   Our life now may be a level, regular road; but to-morrow the character
   of the road will be changed, and we shall be confronted by some great
   and unusual task. What shall we do? It may not be ours to stand as
   culprits before powers of an imperial or ecclesiastical kind. But it is
   not only kings and governors who make life’s crises. There are
   presences and powers of another kind, great, strong, and inevitable.
   Other things may stop us, arrest us, imprison us in close bondage.
   There are other kings beside those who sit on thrones. To-morrow I may
   not stand before a king who wears the purple, but I may come into the
   presence of sickness. I may approach the sudden shadow of calamity. I
   may come within the chill and loneliness of bereavement. I may meet
   King Death himself, the king of kings, the king of terror, the shadow
   feared of man. “Ye shall be brought before” sickness, calamity,
   bereavement, death! These presences are inevitable. What shall we do?
   How shall we prepare for them?

   “Ye shall be brought before kings.” When the disciples heard the words
   many of them began already to prepare the words which they would
   address to the king. “No,” said the Master, “do not prepare a speech,
   be not anxious what ye shall speak. Don’t prepare a speech, prepare
   yourselves!” That is the way to meet all emergencies. Not to make
   little detailed arrangements and little specified plans and finished
   speeches, but to have our souls in health and to meet all emergencies
   with the invincibility of a prepared life.

   “Be not anxious.” The first step in all wise preparation for
   emergencies is to cultivate the strength of stillness. Anxiety is
   mental and spiritual unrest. It always signifies the absence of
   stillness, the calmness which is the very secret of strength.

   Most of us are familiar with the calm people to whom we instinctively
   turn in times of stress and danger. Among the poor and the working
   classes, where neighbourliness is more alive than among the well-to-do,
   it is beautiful how some one neighbour is renowned for this quality of
   calmness. There is nearly always some woman in the locality to whom
   poor people turn when life passes into the strain of some great
   emergency. She is sent for in cases of accident, or when bad news is
   received, or when Death is at the door. The neighbours say one to
   another, as their first and readiest counsel, “Send for Mrs.
   So-and-So,” and the calm woman comes on the scene of general panic and
   disorder, and her presence at once begins to restore confidence. She
   has the strength of stillness. What do we mean by this calmness? We
   mean that she is self-possessed, that she has everything in hand, that
   all her powers are at her disposal like the well-arranged tools in the
   carpenter’s shop. We have a very expressive word by which we describe
   this quality of mind. We call it “collectedness.” The opposite of
   collectedness is distraction, when a man’s powers do not work together,
   but one is passive and another is active, one pulling this way and
   another that, and there is no general aim and direction. The collected
   man has his faculties about him Me well-ordered troops, and he says to
   one “Go,” and he goeth, and to another “Come,” and he cometh, and to
   all his servants “Do this,” and they do it. These are the people who
   save us from the perils of panic, and turn our crises into advantage.
   Lord Kitchener is known in the Army as the strong, silent man. There is
   no flurry or hurry about him. He moves toward seeming disaster as
   though he were going to a feast. None of his powers are paralysed by
   disorder, none are impoverished by anxiety, no strength is wasted,
   everything is intent upon a quietly seen and deliberate end. Now, if we
   are to meet the crises of life, this calmness of spirit must be
   cultivated. It is infinitely better than a prepared speech or a
   ready-made plan; these may fail us when the crisis arrives; the
   stillness is our friend in the dark and stormy day.

   But if we are to obtain the strength of stillness we must practise the
   art of living in the present. “Be not anxious for to-morrow.”
   “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” We must not needlessly go
   out to anticipate the crisis. We must not meet our trouble half-way.
   Half-met troubles always appear monstrous. Anticipation makes trifles
   loom gigantic. The thing that frowns, in threatening and terrific
   guise, often ceases to terrify when we draw closer to it. I saw a
   picture some time ago which represented a rising storm. Seen at some
   little distance it appeared as though dark, black, threatening
   cloud-battalions were speedily covering the entire sky and blotting out
   all the patches of light and hope. But when I went a little nearer to
   the picture I found that the artist had subtly fashioned his clouds out
   of angel faces, and all these black battalions wore the winsome aspect
   of genial friends. I have had that experience more than once away from
   the realm of picture and fiction, in the hard ways of practical life.
   The clouds I feared and worried about, and concerning which I wasted so
   much precious strength, lost their frown and revealed themselves as my
   friends. Other clouds never arrived; they were purely imaginary, or
   they melted away before they reached my threshold. “Be not anxious for
   to-morrow.” Live in the immediate moment. Practise the art of omission.
   Leave out some things and concentrate upon the rest. The best
   preparation for the morrow is quiet attention to-day.


   “I ask Thee for a present mind.

   Intent on pleasing Thee.”

   If I am to be a capable expert, living in the present, I must engage in
   the practice of trusting God in every passing moment of my life. What
   is this that is nearest to me? What is this duty? What is this task?
   What is this immediate trouble? Just here and just now let me trust in
   God. Let me turn this present moment into happy confidence, and in this
   very season let me hold communion with my God. Let my trust be
   deliberate, repeatedly deliberate, until by conscious, volitional trust
   I come to have instinctive confidence in my God. Let me fill the
   present with holy faith, and “the changes that will surely come I shall
   not fear to see.”

   And why shall I not fear them? “Be not anxious how or what ye shall
   speak: for it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father that
   speaketh in you.” Lay hold of the last two words of this great promise,
   “in you.” That is the secret of everything. Every act of trust
   increases your capacity for God. Every time I trust Him I have more
   room for Him. He dwells within me in ever-richer fullness, occupying
   room after room in my life. That is a glorious assurance, and one that
   is filled with infinite comfort. Let me repeat it again, for it is the
   very music of the soul; little acts of trust make larger room for God.
   In my trifles I can prepare for emergencies. Along a commonplace road I
   can get ready for the hill. In the green pastures and by the still
   waters I can prepare myself for the valley of the shadow. For when I
   reach the hill, the shadow, the emergency, I shall be God-possessed: He
   will dwell in me. And where He dwells He controls. If He lives in my
   life He will direct my powers. It will not be I that speak, but my
   Father that speaketh in me. He will govern my speech. He will empower
   my will. He will enlighten my mind. He will energise and vitalise my
   entire life.

   Here, then, is the little sequence I have been endeavouring to unfold.
   Put your trust in the Lord and you will live well in the immediate
   present; live well in the immediate present and you will have the
   spirit of calmness which is the secret of strength. The emergency will
   not affright you. You will approach it with that quietness which is the
   essential factor in triumph.
     __________________________________________________________________

“SILENT UNTO GOD”

   “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him. He
   only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be
   moved.”—Psalm lxii. 5, 6.

   “My soul!” Here is a man communing with his own soul! He is
   deliberately addressing himself, and calling himself to attention. He
   is of set purpose breaking up his own drowsiness and indifference, and
   calling himself to a fruitful vigilance. There is nothing like the
   deliberate exercise of a power for making it spontaneously active. Men
   who come to have keen and discerning vision begin by deliberate
   exercise of the eyes. It is a good and a healthy thing to stand before
   a flower and to clearly and strongly challenge the eyes to attention.
   It is a profitable thing to stand before some natural panorama and wake
   the eyes to diligent quest. Eyes that are trained in deliberateness
   come at last to watch instinctively. We may apply the same reasoning to
   the realm of the spirit. We must challenge our own souls, and rouse
   them to the contemplation of the things of God. “My soul! look upon
   this, and look long!” But let us see to it that when we do incite the
   attention of our spirits we give them something worthy to contemplate.
   “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease!”
   That was a most unworthy spectacle to present to the wondering spirit,
   and it would be no surprise if, after a single glance, the soul fell
   back again into deeper and more perilous slumber.

   Here in my text the Psalmist calls upon his soul to contemplate the
   manifold glory of God. Let us gaze at one or two aspects of the
   inspiring vision.

   “He only is my rock.” Here is one of the figures in which the Psalmist
   expresses his conception of the ministry of his God. “My rock!” The
   figure is literally suggestive of an enclosure of rock, a cave, a
   hiding-place. There are two or three kindred words used in the Old
   Testament Scriptures which will, perhaps, unfold to us something of the
   wealthy content of the speech which the Psalmist employs. All the words
   are suggestive of encirclement; they describe the state of being
   surrounded, protected, and secured. Here is one of the kindred words,
   “Thou hast beset me behind and before.” How perfectly complete is the
   suggestion of an all-encircling presence, round about me on every side.
   The ramparts are built up all about me, and the ring of defence is
   complete. Perhaps there is no experience in human life which more
   perfectly develops the thought of the Psalmist than the guardianship
   offered by a mother to her baby-child when the little one is just
   learning to walk. The mother literally encircles the child with
   protection, spreading out her arms into almost a complete ring, so that
   in whatever way the child may happen to stumble she falls into the
   waiting ministry of love. Such is the idea of “besetment” which lies in
   this familiar word “rock.”

   But let me remind you of another kindred word, “Bind up the money in
   thy hand.” You place a coin in the palm of your hand, and your fingers
   close over it, and the precious metal is strongly secured. It is
   encircled by a muscular grasp. Let us carry the suggestion into the
   relationships between ourselves and God. Our Father will secure us as a
   precious jewel in His own clenched hand. His fingers will wrap round
   about us, and there shall be no crevice through which the sheltered
   piece may slip. “None shall pluck you out of My hand!” This, then, is
   the significance of the word “rock.” It is a strong enclosure, an
   invincible ring, a grand besetment within which we move in restful
   security.

   “He is my salvation.” Then He not only shields me, but strengthens me!
   We are not left by protection in the state of weaklings. We are
   nourished and developed into healthy children. Salvation is a wealthy
   and comprehensive word. It denotes not merely “first aid,” the primary
   treatment given to those who are bruised and wounded by the wayside; it
   means, also, “last aid,” the bringing of the wounded into strength
   again. Salvation implies more than convalescence, it denotes health. It
   is vastly more than redemption from sin; it is redemption from
   infirmity. It offers no mediocrity; its goal is spiritual prosperity
   and abundance. This promise of health we have in God. He accepts us in
   our disease; He pledges His name to confer absolute health. “Having
   loved His own, He loved them unto the end.”

   “He is my defence.” The Psalmist is multiplying his figures that he may
   the better bring out the richness of his conception. Defence is
   suggestive of loftiness, of inaccessibility. It denotes the summit of
   some stupendous, out-jutting, precipitous crag! It signifies such a
   place as where the eagle makes its nest, far beyond the prowlings of
   the marauders, away on the dizzy heights which mischief cannot scale.
   God is my defence! He lifts me away into the security of inaccessible
   heights. My safety is in my salvation. Purity is found in the
   altitudes. I have lately been reading the analysis of the air as it is
   found by the aëronaut at different levels above our metropolis. The
   heightening grades revealed heightening degrees of purity, until the
   last microbe appeared to have been left behind. God lifts us to
   spiritual heights where our very loftiness of thought and feeling is
   our best defence. “He hath made us to sit with Him in the Heavenly
   places.” In those lofty spheres the pestilential microbe is harmless.
   “Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.”

   In these three words the Psalmist expresses something of his thought of
   the all-enveloping and protecting presence of God. He is “my rock,” “my
   salvation,” “my defence.” What, then, shall be the attitude of the soul
   towards this God? “My soul, wait thou only upon God.” “Wait!” Or as the
   marginal rendering so beautifully gives it, “be thou silent unto God.”
   We are to be in the presence of God with thoughts and feelings which
   are the opposite to those of false haste. The spirit of impatience is
   to be hushed and subdued. There is to be nothing of passion or of
   heated distemper. Loud murmurings are to be silenced. Our own clamorous
   wills are to be checked. The perilous heat is to be cooled. We are to
   linger before God in composure, in tranquillity. We are to be
   unruffled. It is the unruffled surface of the pool that receives the
   reflected beauty of the skies. The reflection is clearest where the
   life is most calm. How much evidence we have of this in the temper and
   disposition of the Quakers! They are so frequently, and so long, silent
   unto God that the very peace of God steeps their spirits, and chastens
   and refines their manners, gives softness to their speech, and appears
   to impart leisureliness even to the very activities of their bodies.
   Would it not be wise for us to copy something of their method, and to
   linger silently and quietly in the presence of our God? Perhaps we are
   inclined to talk too much in communion with our God. If silent our
   spirits might be the more receptive. “One evening,” says Frances Ridley
   Havergal, “after a relapse, I longed so much to be able to pray, but
   found I was too weak for the least effort of thought, and I only looked
   up and said, `Lord Jesus, I am so tired,’ and then He brought to my
   mind ‘Rest in the Lord,’ and its lovely marginal rendering, ‘Be silent
   to the Lord,’ and so I was just silent to Him, and He seemed to
   overflow me with perfect peace in the sense of His own perfect love.”

   “My expectation is from Him.” It is to my mind a very fruitful
   significance that the word translated “expectation” might also be
   translated “line” or “cord.” “The line of scarlet thread.” The line of
   all my hope stretches away to Him, and from Him back to me! The
   Psalmist declares that however circumstances may vary, the cord of his
   hope binds him to the Lord. Ever and everywhere there is the
   outstretched line! I stood a little while ago by the sea. Away over the
   waters above the horizon, there was the moon shining at the full.
   Between me and the moon there was a golden line of light stretching
   across the waters. I walked away down the shore and the line moved with
   me. Wherever I stood there was the golden cord between me and the lamp
   of the night. The experience came back to me when I was considering the
   meaning of the Psalmist’s words, “My line is from Him.” Whether he was
   in trouble or in joy, in prosperity or adversity, on whatever part of
   the varying shoreline he stood, there was the golden track between him
   and his God. “Thine expectation shall not be cut off”; the line shall
   never be broken.

   “I shall not be moved.” Of course not! man whose conception of God is
   that of “Rock,” “Salvation,” and “Defence,” and who is “silent unto
   Him,” and is bound to Him by the golden “cord” of hope, cannot be
   moved. But mark how the Psalmist’s confidence has grown by the exercise
   of contemplation. In the outset of the Psalm his spirit was a little
   tremulous and uncertain. “I shall not be greatly moved.” But now the
   qualifying adverb is gone, the tremulousness has vanished, and he says
   in unshaken confidence and trust, “I shall not be moved.”
     __________________________________________________________________

MY STRENGTH AND MY SONG!

   “The Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is become my
   salvation.”—Isaiah xii. 2.

   THE storm is over. Even the distant rumblings have ceased. The
   righteous, and yet very tender and pitiful, severity of the Lord has
   perfected its ministry and has passed away. The alienated heart has
   been constrained by the sharp instrument of suffering to turn its weary
   self unto God. And now the sun is shining again, the birds are singing,
   the desert is blossoming like the rose! There is a new heaven and a new
   earth! “The Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song: He also is become
   my salvation.”

   What does this sweet and joyful singer find in God? “My strength”! “My
   song”! “My salvation”! How extraordinarily rich and comprehensive!
   Everything is there! All that a man needs in the battle of life is
   enshrined in this most wealthy and ancient word. “My strength”; the
   very power to fight! “My song”; with my God I can fight to music; I can
   march to the war to the accompaniment of the band; I can be a singing
   warrior, stepping out to the harmonies of heaven! “My salvation”; with
   my God I fight to victory, to larger liberty, to ever more glorious
   possessions. I say everything is here, the strength that makes me a
   warrior, the song that makes me a happy warrior, the salvation which
   makes me a happy warrior fighting unto richer freedom. Here truly is a
   perfect equipment for life’s battle, and this equipment is absolutely
   and entirely found in God.

   “The Lord Jehovah is my strength.” That is primary and fundamental. The
   first thing we need is that our weakness be transformed, and that we
   become possessed of resource. All other gifts are useless if this
   initial gift be denied. A box of tools would be impotent without the
   strong hand to use them. There are many gifted lives that are held in
   languor and are altogether inefficient because the gifts ire not backed
   by this elementary strength. Phrenology is far from being a science,
   and much of its teachings savour of quackery, but, amid all its
   vagaries, one lesson has been emphasised, and I think to great
   advantage, that, however finely built a man’s mind may be, it is like a
   magnificent engine, idle and productless, unless beneath and behind it
   there is a fine force of executive strength. Our mental powers are
   built up, layer upon layer, from the domestic sentiments, through the
   intellectual senses, to the social and moral and spiritual perceptions,
   but they are all dependent for their vigour and persistence on a
   primary strength, without which they are altogether impotent. Here is
   the organ, which leads the musical services of the church. It is a
   combination of faculties and functions; let the engine power go wrong,
   and all the constituents will become idle! The engine provides the
   power in which all the pipes find their requisite strength. “The Lord
   is my strength.” The Lord imparts unto us that primary strength of
   character which makes everything in the life work with intensity and
   decision. We are “strengthened with all might by His Spirit in the
   inner man.”

   And the strength is continuous; reserves of power come to us which we
   cannot exhaust. “As thy day so shall thy strength be,” strength of
   will, strength of affection, strength of judgment, strength of ideals
   and of achievement. “The Lord is my strength,” strength to go on. He
   gives us the power to tread the dead level, to walk the long lane that
   seems never to have a turning, to go through those long reaches of life
   which affords no pleasant surprise, and which depress the spirits in
   the sameness of a terrible drudgery. “The Lord is my strength,”
   strength to go up. He is to me the power by which I can ascend the Hill
   Difficulty, and not be afraid. “They shall walk and not faint.” “The
   Lord is my strength,” strength to go down. I heard a man say the other
   day concerning his growing physical frailty, “It is coming down that
   tires me!” And in other senses it is coming down that tires a great
   many of us. It is when we leave the bracing heights, where the wind and
   the sun have been about us, and when we begin to come down the hill
   into closer and more sultry spheres, that the heart is apt to grow
   faint. When a man has reached his height, the height of his fame and
   popularity, and he begins to go down the hill, it is then he requires
   exceptional resource. “Though I walk through the valley . . . I will
   fear no ill, for Thou art with me.” “The Lord is my strength,” strength
   to sit still! And how difficult is the attainment. Do we not often say
   to one another in seasons when we are compelled to be quiet, “if only I
   could do something!” When the child is ill, and the mother has to stand
   by in comparative impotence, how severe is the test! If she could only
   do something, if she could only exhaust herself in some effective
   ministry, if she could only open her own veins and give away her blood!
   But to do nothing, just to sit still and wait, requires tremendous
   strength. “The Lord is my strength!” “Our sufficiency is of God.”

   Let us bring out the music of the pronoun which also brings out the
   wonder of the promise. “The Lord is my strength.” Is the conjunction
   presumptuous, to bring the Almighty in communion with me? I made a
   little toy water-mill the other day for my little girl, and I used the
   water from the Welsh hills to work it. And we can let in the river of
   Water of Life to work the little mill of our life, to make all its
   powers fruitful and effective. Our God is

   “A gracious, willing Guest,
   Where He can find one humble heart
   Wherein to rest.”

   “The Lord is my song.” The religious life must not only be
   characterised by strength but by music. If the life of the Christian is
   not musical it is because there is not strength enough. Have you ever
   heard an organ when the wind-power was insufficient? Have you ever
   listened to a man with defective lung-power trying to blow a bugle? The
   wind with inadequate strength results in imperfect harmonies. It is
   when the strength is abounding that we have full song. Go to the Book
   of the Acts, the pentecostal book, where the Holy Spirit is sweeping
   men’s lives like a mighty wind. Is there any book more full of music
   and song, with the strain of a triumphant march? Even in the midnight
   “Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God.” It is not otherwise
   with the Epistles. The power-Epistles are the singing Epistles. In the
   greatest of the Epistles, when Paul’s Spirit-swept soul surveys the
   wonders of grace, the doxologies are abounding. We can be perfectly
   sure that if we are melancholic and gloomy we are wrong at the base, we
   are lacking in resource. Let me return to the illustration I have just
   used. When I had made the little water-mill, and I turned the tap and
   let in a little water from the Welsh hill, it ran reluctantly and
   sluggishly, and without any song. When I still further turned the tap,
   and let in a stronger supply, the wheel spun round with great speed and
   hummed in the spinning! That is what we want. More power would make
   things hum, would make our spirits sing in the riches of grace. How the
   psalmists sang in the day of their power! How frequently comes the
   phrase, “I will sing!” And we can depend upon it, it is a singing
   religion, a religion that sings while it serves, a cheering, musical
   religion that is going to save the world! Again let us say, “Our
   sufficiency is of God.” “The Lord is my song.” All my music is from
   Him. If the Lord fill my soul with power, there shall rise a unique
   song, a perfectly original strain. Every life will be a new song. Get
   the elementary strength and “the time of the singing of birds is come.”

   “The Lord has become my salvation.” That is a fine, full-blooded word,
   literally signifying “wealth of space.” It is as though a man had been
   fighting in a tight corner, and by the aid of immeasurable “strength,”
   used to the accompaniment of a “song,” he had fought his way through
   into a wide space, into larger liberties, into more glorious
   possessions. Salvation includes deliverance, inheritance, and freedom.
   This man has fought and sung his way into ever richer inheritances of
   spiritual liberty. And that may happen to all of us after every one of
   our battles. The Lord will always become our salvation. And then,
   surely, after every fresh deliverance the soul will have more strength
   for its next victory, and in its victory it will sing a larger song,
   and in its song it will be ready for the next fray! “And they sang a
   new song.” I do not wonder at it, and they changed it every day!


   “From victory unto victory

   His army shall He lead,

   Till every foe is vanquished

   And Christ is Lord indeed.”
     __________________________________________________________________

THE ABIDING COMPANIONSHIP

   “My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.”—Exodus
   xxxiii. 14.

   THE other morning I went for a walk up the valley of the Tees. My path
   left the home, passed under the shadow of the County School, crossed
   the Recreation grounds, wound in and out among the wide-spreading
   meadows, now and again coming within sight and sound of the swift,
   eager river, and now veering round and threading the crowded street of
   the busy market-town, and now narrowing to the little track that led to
   a new-made grave. And through all the varying way this evangel
   possessed my mind, “My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give
   thee rest.”

   And then suddenly I realised that my walk had been parabolic, and that
   in all its shifting changes life itself had been pourtrayed. My walk
   had been a Pilgrim’s Progress, every turning laden with spiritual
   significance. I had touched life at all its emphases, and the gracious
   evangel was fitted to all. “My Presence shall go with thee,” in the
   serious affairs of the home, in the serious place of education, in the
   relaxations of amusement and sport, in the broad, quiet spaces of
   Nature’s strength and beauty, in the stress and speed of business, and
   along the narrow road that leads to the open grave. The changing road:
   the unchanging Presence! The shifting environment: “the Friend that
   sticketh closer than a brother!” “My Presence shall go with thee, and I
   will give thee rest.”

   Whither is our road going to lead? What sudden and unexpected turnings
   shall we experience? Shall we find the road firm and smooth and easy,
   or shall we find it rough and “rutty,” straining and tiring to the
   limbs? Will it provide a pleasant saunter, or will it involve bleeding
   feet? Will it be a green lane, or a stony steep? Will the way be clear
   and legible as a turnpike, or will it sometimes be faint and doubtful,
   like an uncertain track across the moor? We do not know: we are alike
   in a common ignorance: culture and wealth ensure no favour: all
   distinctions are here wiped out: we are all upon an unknown road, and
   for everybody the next step is in the mist! “Thou knowest not what a
   day may bring forth.” If it were good for us to know it, we should be
   taken into the counsels of the Almighty. The knowledge of the future
   path really matters nothing: the perception of the present
   companionship matters everything! What of the road? “Thou knowest not
   now.” What then? “My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee
   rest.” And so our text entwines the gracious offer of a Companion for
   the unknown and changing road. It promises the destruction of
   loneliness, but not the dispersal of the mist. Let me remind you of
   some of life’s lonelinesses which this wonderful Companionship will
   destroy.

   There is the loneliness of unshared sorrow. Is there anything more
   solitary than sorrow that can find no friendly ear? Sorrow which has an
   audience can frequently find relief in telling and retelling its own
   story. How often the bereaved one can find a cordial for the pain in
   recalling the doings and prowess of the departed! It is a wise ministry
   in visiting the bereaved to give them abundant opportunity of speaking
   about the lost. The heart eases itself in such shared remembrance.
   Grief is saved from freezing, and the genial currents of the soul are
   kept in motion. But when sorrow has no companionable presence with
   which to commune, the grief becomes a withering and desolating
   ministry.

   “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old.” Aye, there is nothing ages
   people like the loneliness of unshared grief. And there are multitudes
   of people who know no friendly human ear into which they can pour the
   story of their woes. The outlet manward is denied them. What then? Is
   the desolation hopeless? “My Presence shall go with thee.” The story
   can be whispered into the ear of the Highest. The Companionship is from
   above. Said one lonely soul, who had been nursing his grief in secrecy,
   as the stricken dove seeks to hide the arrow that rankles in its
   breast, “I will pour out my soul unto the LORD,” and in the sympathy of
   that great Companionship his sorrow was lightened, and transfigured,
   like rain clouds in the sun.


   “In the dark and cloudy day,

   When earth’s riches flee away,

   And the last hope will not stay,

   My Saviour, comfort me.


   “When the secret idol’s gone,

   That my poor heart yearned upon,

   Desolate, bereft, alone,

   My Saviour, comfort me.”

   There is the loneliness of unshared triumph. I asked a little while ago
   if there is anything more lonely than sorrow that can find no friendly
   ear? I am bound to say that I sometimes think that lonely triumph is as
   desolate as unshared grief. My memory recalls with vivid clearness one
   of the boys in the school where I received my earliest training. He was
   an orphan-boy, but more than that, he was perfectly friendless. Those
   who were nearest to him were all dead, and the entire interest of his
   guardian exhausted itself in paying the school-fees as they became due.
   When the holidays came, and we all bounded home, he remained at the
   school, for he had nowhere else to go. I thought little or nothing
   about it. Certainly his position did not move me to pain, until one day
   his loneliness broke upon me with appalling reality, when in the
   class-lists he appeared as the premier boy in the school. His triumph
   was most distinguished and brilliant, but he had no one to share it! No
   father, no mother, no kinsman, no friend! I felt that in his success he
   was more desolate than in his defeats! His bereavement seemed to
   culminate in his triumphs!

   Let me illustrate further. I had a friend who in mature life published
   a book on which he had bestowed the hard labours of many years. Some
   time before its publication his wife died, and he was left alone. The
   book received an enthusiastic welcome, and now enjoys high eminence in
   its own department of learning. I spoke to my friend of his
   well-deserved reward, and of the triumph of his labours. His face
   immediately clouded, and he quietly said, “Ah, if only she were here to
   share it!” I say, his loneliness culminated there, and his sharpest
   pang was experienced in his sunniest hour.

   It is not otherwise with the moral triumphs of the soul. When I sin and
   falter, I feel I need a companion to whom I can tell the story of my
   defeat: but when I have some secret triumph I want a companion to share
   the glow and glory of the conquest, or the glow and glory will fade.
   Even when we conquer secret sin the heart calls for a Companion in the
   joy! And here He is! “My Presence shall go with thee!” If you will turn
   to the book of the Psalms you will find how continually the ringing
   paeans sound from hearts that are just bursting with the desire to
   share their joy and triumph with the LORD. They are the communings of
   victory, the gladsome fellowship of radiant souls and their GOD. His
   Presence shall go with us, and He will destroy the loneliness of
   unshared joy.

   And there is the loneliness of temptation. Our friends can accompany us
   so far along the troubled way, and by GOD’S good grace they can
   partially minister to our progress by re-arranging our environment, and
   removing many of the snares and pitfalls from our path. But in this
   serious business of temptation it is little that friend can do for
   friend. The great battle is waged behind a door they cannot enter. The
   real fight, the death-grip, is not in some public arena, with friends
   and spectators gathered around: it takes place in awful and desolate
   loneliness! In the secret place of every temptation no earthly friend
   can be near. A man might possibly fight with wild beasts, if the
   theatre were a public one, and amid the plaudits of assembled crowds:
   but to contend with beasts in secret, to slay them behind the closed
   and muffled door, is desperate and lonely work. But we need not be
   alone! One Presence can pass the door that leads to the secret place.
   “My Presence shall go with thee,” not as an interested or applauding
   spectator, but as Fellow-worker, Fellow-fighter, Redeemer, and Friend.
   The loneliness of the wilderness is peopled by the ubiquitous presence
   of the LORD.

   And there is the loneliness of death. It is pathetic, deeply pathetic,
   how we have to stand idly by at the last moment—doctor, nurse, husband,
   wife, child—all to stand idly by, when the lonely voyager launches
   forth into the unknown sea! “It is the loneliness of death that is so
   terrible. If we and those whom we love passed over simultaneously, we
   should think no more of it than changing our houses” from one place
   into another. But every voyager goes alone! Alone? Nay, there is a
   Fellow-voyager! “My Presence shall go with thee.” The last, chill
   loneliness is warmed by the Resurrection Life. There is a winsome light
   in the valleys, as of the dawning of grander days. “Though I walk
   through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou
   art with me.” “My Presence shall go with thee!” “When thou passest
   through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they
   shall not overflow thee.”

   Now, if we only firmly believed this, and clearly realised this
   gracious Presence, what would be the ministry? Well, we should work
   without worry. We should step out without dread. We should waste no
   energy in fruitless fear and sapping care. We should face the unknown
   not daunted by our ignorance. The great Companion may still think it
   good to deny us the light of comprehension: but then, though we may not
   comprehend the nature of the entire way, He will see to it that we have
   light at the next turning of the road. Don’t let us be afraid of our
   ignorance. Our Companion is a great husbander of light, and at the
   appointed moment, when “His hour is come,” He shall “bring forth thy
   righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.”

   And do not let us be afraid of our weakness. You feel about as little
   like carrying the possible load of the new day as a grasshopper! Never
   mind! Perhaps that is how we ought to feel. We must leave something for
   the great Companion to do! Do not let us try to carry our GOD and our
   burden too! You remember that passage in Isaiah where, with pathetic
   irony, the prophet declares that the people are busy carrying their
   gods, when all the time the great Jehovah is waiting to carry the
   people! No, our little strength will soon leak out. The real combatants
   are not our weakness versus the burdens and difficulties of the day,
   but all these things versus our Almighty Friend! “My Presence shall go
   with thee,” and thou shalt lack neither light nor might; “as thy day so
   shall thy strength be,” and “at eventide it shall be light.”

   But we must lean upon Him and allow Him to carry our load. An aged,
   weary woman, carrying a heavy basket, got into the train with me the
   other day, and when she was seated she still kept the heavy burden upon
   her arm! “Lay your burden down, mum,” said the kindly voice of a
   working man. “Lay your burden down, mum; the train will carry both it
   and you.” Aye, that’s it! “Lay your burden down!” The LORD will carry
   both it and you! “I will give thee rest”: not by the absence of
   warfare, but by the happy assurance of victory: not by the absence of
   the hill, but by the absence of the spirit of fainting. “I will give
   thee rest.”
     __________________________________________________________________

LIGHT ALL THE WAY

   “I am the light of the world.”—John viii. 12.

   “I AM the light!” breaking up the empire of darkness, making things
   luminous by the gracious rays of His own presence. “I am the light of
   the world,” breaking upon the tired eyes of men with the soft, quiet
   glory of the dawn. Twice recently has it been my privilege to watch the
   sun rise in circumstances of unusual beauty. Long before his appearing
   we had tokens of his coming. The horizon, and the clouds that gathered
   in little flocks about the horizon, and banks of clouds further remote
   abiding motionless in the highest places, beg-an to clothe themselves
   in appropriate raiment to welcome the sovereign of the morning. Dull
   greys, gleaming silver, deep reds, dark purple—all available hues were
   to be seen in that array. Then in the fullness of time the great flame
   rode out among the encircling glories, making them all appear dim and
   faint in the presence of his own effulgence.

   “I am the light of the world”; and before His coming, His appearance
   was foretold in tokens of purple and gold. Here and there, in Isaiah
   and Jeremiah, we have great peaks tipped with the light of the coming
   day, suggesting the glory in which the whole world would be bathed in
   after time. “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd”; is not that a
   fore-token of the tenth chapter of John? “Liberty to the captive, and
   the opening of the prison to them that are bound”; is not this the
   herald of the wonderful happenings which thrill the gospel story
   through and through? And then, after all these golden hints of promise,
   there came the Sun, the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings,
   and the whole world passed into a new day.

   “I am the light”; and what multitudes of things He illumined I He threw
   light upon the character of God, upon the nature of man, upon the
   beauty of holiness, upon the abominableness of sin. He revealed the
   poverty of the far country, and with a clear, winning light he showed
   the way back home. The illumination touches everything, enlightening
   and quickening everywhere. Let me narrow our subject, and bring our
   consideration into certain immediate aspects and needs of the personal
   life. Christ is the light and I need Him. When? Where? I need a light
   in the unknown day of life. I need a light in the unknown night of
   death. I need a light in the unknown morrow beyond. I want my Lord
   to-day, to-night, to-morrow.

   I need the light in the unknown day of life. If I interpret myself
   aright I am in need of three great primary things: I want to see the
   right way, I want to love it, and I want power to walk in it. The Light
   of Life will satisfy all these needs and equip me throughout my
   pilgrimage. How shall we interpret light? Let us begin here. Science
   tells us of the conversion of forces, how one force can be translated
   into another, how motion can become heat and heat become light; and
   this process of translation can be reversed. Our scientific papers have
   been recently telling us of a great experiment which has been tried in
   America. A vast machine was invented in the shape of a gigantic
   windmill, the arms being composed of reflectors catching the light of
   the sun. The concentrated light, in the form of heat, was then made to
   generate steam, and the steam was used to drive complicated machinery.

   Now in this wonderful invention we have illustrated the process of
   transformation by which light is converted into heat and heat into
   motion. In light we have the secret of fire, and in fire we have the
   secret of movement. So that when my Lord uses the figure of light I may
   find in its spiritual suggestion satisfaction for all other needs of my
   life. “I am the light,” not only to make lucid but to make fervid, not
   only to make fervid but to make operative. The light illumines; the
   light kindles; the light empowers. The Lord brings to me light that I
   may know, warmth that I may feel, and power that I may do. He satisfies
   the mind, He inflames the desire, He communicates energy to the will.
   In my mind I need the light! “Lord, give me light to do Thy work.” When
   the Saviour of the world takes up His abode in me, illumination is
   conveyed to two of my powers; the conscience is made to shine with the
   distinctiveness of a lighthouse, and the judgment glistens with the
   brightness of a sharp sword. The “eyes of my understanding” are
   enlightened, and the lamp of the conscience is never suffered to grow
   dim.

   In my desires I need warmth! Bright ideas would not adequately serve my
   need. If I am cold in desire the lucid ideal will have no allurement.
   “Lack of desire is the ill of all ills.” And when the revelation has
   been given, aspiration is needed. How often this healthy desire is
   mentioned in the Word of God! “They desire a better country.” “Desire
   the sincere milk of the Word.” “Desire spiritual gifts.” Now it is this
   desire which the Light of the World enkindles. He makes me not only to
   see the ideal, but to become fervid in spirit. He makes His disciples
   “burning and shining” lights.

   And I need strength in my will! The power to see and the power to feel
   would not give me perfect equipment. I need the strength to move. In
   the illustration I employed it was seen how light could be translated
   into the power of motion; and the Light of Life conveys energy to the
   spirit which enables it to follow the gleam. In Him we live and move.
   “It is God that worketh in you to will.” And so in light and warmth and
   power the Lord will be to me all that I need in the day of life. I
   shall know His mind, I shall love His appearing, I shall be
   strengthened to move at His command.

   But the night cometh! I shall need Him to-night. To-night I shall have
   to lie down and die. Is there any light? “I am the light.” He claims
   that to those who are in Him the night shineth even as the day. What
   does my Lord do in the hour of death to break up the reign of darkness?
   He gives us the cheer of sovereignty. “All things are yours . . . .
   death!” Then I do not belong to death? No, death belongs to me. Death
   is not my master, he is my servant. He is made to minister to me in the
   hour of translation, and I shall not be enslaved by his approach. That
   was a true and beautiful word uttered by Mrs. Booth when she was
   passing home: “The waters are rising, but I am not sinking!” Death was
   her minister, floating her forward to glory. “All things are yours . .
   . . death.” And my Lord further softens the night by the gracious light
   of fellowship. “I will be with thee.” When we are in fine and congenial
   company how the time passes! The hours slip away and we marvel when the
   moment for separation comes. And so it will be in death! Our company
   will be so rich and welcome that the season will pass before we know
   it. I think the Christian’s first wondering question on the other side
   will be: “Am I really through? Really?” “Even the night shall be light
   about thee.” It matters not how stormy the night may be, the Light of
   Life shall never be blown out. “At even-tide it shall be light.”

   And what about the morrow? When the river is crossed, is there any
   light upon the regions beyond? Am I to gaze into blackness,
   impenetrable, inscrutable? “I am the light.” What kind of light does He
   give me here? “In my Father’s house!” Is there not a softening gleam in
   the very phrase? Look here for a sheaf of rays of welcome light. “In my
   Father’s house,” there is our habitation! “I go to prepare a place for
   you,” there is the preparation for us! “I will receive you unto
   myself,” there is a welcome for us! Does not this throw the soft light
   of the morning on the Beyond? The same light which has been given to me
   along the way of time will shine upon me in the realms of the new day.
   “The Lord God is the light thereof.” So, you see, it is Jesus all the
   way; my light to-day, tonight, to-morrow!


   “I heard the voice of Jesus say:--

   ‘I am this dark world’s light.

   Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise,

   And all thy days be bright.’

   I looked to Jesus and I found

   In Him my star, my sun:

   And in that Light of Life I’ll walk

   Till travelling days are done.”
     __________________________________________________________________

OUR BRILLIANT MOMENTS

   “While ye have light believe in the light, that ye may be the children
   of light.”—John xii. 36.

   “WHILE ye have light.” Take advantage of the sun while it shines. The
   vivid illumination is not constant. Life’s visions do not shine and
   glow like brilliant and continuous noons. The lucid seasons are rare
   and infrequent. They come and they go, bright intervals in the wastes
   of grey twilight and darker night. There is an illumination for a
   moment; in that moment we have a glimpse of reality, and the colours
   and outlines of things are clearly revealed. “While ye have light
   believe in the light.”

   A little while ago, on a dark and stormy night, I wandered along a
   winding road on a bleak hillside. Things in the distance were hidden
   from my view, and the things which were near were revealed in weird and
   portentous guise. Then the clouds divided, and the full moon swept into
   the rift, and in the blaze of light the road stood out like a white
   ribbon across the hill, and the whole countryside emerged into view,
   river and hedgerow and tree. And the rift closed again, the door was
   shut and again the darkness reigned. But I had taken my bearings, and I
   could proceed with assured tread. If the enveloping clouds or the mists
   of the night roll themselves back for a moment, and disclose the stars,
   by that twinkle of a moment man can adjust and correct his course.
   Sometimes the illuminant in nature is not the soft light of moon or
   star. Sometimes the ministry of vision is severe and terrific
   lightning, bringing hidden things to view with fearful and startling
   intensity. The flash of a moment can unveil a secret and buried world.
   “While ye have light believe in the light.”

   As it is in the realm of nature so it is in the finer region of the
   soul. We have our brilliant moments. In those moments the near view
   opens out into the distant prospect and we see things clearly. We are
   privileged to have “heavenly visions.” We have the light! In these
   bright, lucid seasons we gain some clearer apprehension of God, we look
   more deeply into the mystery of life, we can behold our ideal
   possibilities and gaze upon our purified and exalted selves. We see in
   the winsomeness of duty the repulsiveness of sin, and the charm and
   fascination of unselfish service. These are the brilliant moments in
   life, when the clear light is shining upon our changing way. We can
   never be sure when the revelation may come. We never know when the
   concealing cloud will divide, and the radiant light will throw her
   kindly ministry upon our dusky way. We never know just when the veil of
   the temple will be rent in twain, and our wondering eyes will gaze into
   the secrets of the holy place.

   Sometimes the brilliant moment comes to us when we are contemplating a
   scene of superlative beauty. Who has not read that wonderful passage in
   one of Kingsley’s letters wherein he describes how the trout stream on
   Dartmoor, and all its immediate surroundings, opened out into an
   apocalypse of the unseen? The temporal divided, and he saw God! I heard
   a man a little while ago describing his experiences amid the
   unspeakable wonders of the Alps, and his story culminated in a
   never-to-be-forgotten morning when, away up on the solitary heights, he
   declared there was “only a film between him and the Lord.” I heard
   another man tell a little company that there had been five or six
   distinct moments in his life, and perhaps the most commanding of them
   was a season of sunset in the Austrian Tyrol, when his soul literally
   trembled in the unfolding glory. Yes, these are brilliant moments, when
   the heavenly light breaks upon our wondering eyes.

   Sometimes the brilliant moment comes in a season of calm and lonely
   meditation. Everybody else is at rest. The house is quiet. The last
   book has been put away. And suddenly our surroundings fade away, or are
   eclipsed, and life’s possibilities shine before us in dazzling summits
   of ambition, pure as Alpine heights. Range upon range of surpassing
   loveliness breaks upon our spiritual vision, and we behold what we
   might be in the Lord. It is one of the moments of the Son of Man, a
   brilliant moment, and we have the light.

   Or perhaps the brilliant moment comes to us in the rending ministry of
   sorrow. It is amazing how far we can see through the tiniest niche and
   crevice. And when our imprisoning and commonplace environment has been
   shaken and convulsed in some season of upheaval and trouble, through
   the very rifts of the disaster we often obtain a clear glimpse of a
   forgotten or neglected world. “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw
   the Lord.” The vision came in a bewildering season of night. Our tears
   frequently give lucidity and range to our views. “Before I was
   afflicted I went astray, but now . . . !” The light had come in the
   midnight. The brilliant moment had come in the time of the shadow.

   Or perhaps, again, the brilliant moment is experienced in the sanctuary
   and the ministries of public worship. In some part of the service we
   gain a wonderful detachment; the ordinary interests that imprison us
   lose their tyranny; we acquire a spiritual freedom; we soar and see! We
   gaze upon the Father, we behold our relationship to Him, we feel the
   greatness of our possible inheritance, and we thrill to the high
   calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It may be that the detachment
   and the exaltation spring from a hymn, or from some word from Holy
   Scripture, or from the leadings of another man’s petitions, or from a
   strain of music. Perhaps it is some face in the congregation that
   reminds us of another face, and the reminiscence opens the heavens to
   us. But whatever may be the agent of the illumination, in that
   momentary vision, however created, we have a lucid revelation of the
   reality of things. We see! We have the light!


   “Sometimes a light surprises

   The Christian while he sings.

   It is the Lord, who rises

   With healing in His wings.”

   “While ye have light believe in the light.” The brilliant moment
   passes. The ecstatic revelation comes to an end. The clouds close
   again. The grey and commonplace twilight returns. How, then, shall we
   regard and interpret ourselves? Which shall we trust—the revelation of
   the brilliant moment or the revelation of the familiar twilight? Shall
   we direct our way according to what we saw at our best, or what we saw
   in the mediocre season of our life? Here is the answer of our Lord:
   “Believe in the light” Believe what thou didst behold in thy brilliant
   moment. Just then, when thy highest powers were at their best, and the
   season was gracious and genial, take thy bearings. Do not mistrust thy
   highest, and give thine homage to thy lowest. What didst thou see of
   thy Lord in thy brilliant moment? What vision didst thou have of His
   power and His grace and His love? Take that for thy guide: “Believe in
   the light.” What didst thou see of thyself in thy brilliant moment?
   What of thy present sin, thy possible holiness, thy capabilities of
   fellowship as a friend and companion of the Lord? “Believe in the
   light.” What didst thou see of duty in thy brilliant moment? Which way
   did the road take? Over the steep hill or down the seductive vale? Did
   it reverse thy present purpose and reveal to thee another way? “Believe
   in the light.” What didst thou see of brotherhood in thy brilliant
   moment? What of pale, beseeching need? What of the helpless and the
   careworn and the dying? Didst thou see thyself taking a towel and
   girding thyself? Such, then, is thy possibility, and such is the vision
   of thy best. “Believe in the light.” Do not doubt thy brilliant moments
   doubt thy glooms, doubt the revelations of depression, the perverse and
   crooked creations of despair. The best is always the true. Nothing is
   too good to be true. It is rather true because it is the good, true
   because it is the best. “Believe in the light.” Let the brilliant
   vision determine our goings when the ecstatic season is over. Let us
   act upon what we see at our best. Why? Because the only way to remember
   a vision is to act it. “Walk in the light lest darkness come upon
   thee.” Aye, that is a terrible truth, and we all know it. How many of
   our brilliant moments are now things of the night! If we want to keep a
   brilliant vision we must enact it. Walk in the light of the lucid
   vision and the vision will endure. “I was not disobedient unto the
   heavenly vision.” Let us believe in our best moments, and life as a
   whole will rise to the plane of best.

   And the principle is as applicable to people as to individuals. Let us
   believe in the revelation of our brilliant moments, in our national
   possibilities as seen by our nation at its best. Sometimes a man
   appears upon the grey and commonplace road of low policy and mean
   expedient and cowardly compromise, and he unfolds a vision of national
   ideals, and the common life is exalted and glorified. He calls to us,
   “My fellow men, look upon this,” and we turn a reluctant eye, half in
   derision and half in unbelief. We answer him that his dreamy vision is
   impracticable. And so we leave the prophet, and we swear by the
   politician! Oh, the pity of it! “O Jerusalem, thou that stonest the
   prophets,” the men with the seeing eyes, the men who bring the
   brilliant moments into the commonplace history of the people! We turn
   from the prophet because his vision is brilliant. Let us rather
   “believe in the light.” If we will not believe, the prophet passes, the
   vision fades, and we wander in the confusion of bewildering guesswork
   instead of looking to the decisive leadership of the light Divine. How
   often would those leadings have been revealed unto us, “but now they
   are hidden from our eyes.” For individuals and for peoples the
   brilliant moments are provided in order that we may take our bearings,
   and by their interpretation adjust the affairs of our ever-changing
   days.
     __________________________________________________________________

THE LORD’S GUESTS

   “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine
   enemies.”—Psalm xxiii. 5.

   THIS is a desert scene. A hot, panting fugitive is fleeing for his
   life, pursued and hunted by the forces of a fierce revenge. His crime
   is placarded on his garments. The marks of blood are upon him. In a
   moment of passion, or in cool deliberateness, he has maimed and
   outraged his brother. And now fear has spurred him to flight. Nemesis
   is upon his track. He takes to the desert! The wild, inhospitable waste
   stretches before him in shadowless immensity. No bush offers him a
   secret shelter. No rock offers him a safe defence. He can almost feel
   the hot breath of his pursuers in the rear. Whither shall he turn? His
   terrified eyes search the horizon, and in the cloudy distance he
   discerns the dim outlines of a desert-tent. His excited nerves play
   like whips about his muscles, and with terrific strain he makes for the
   promised rest. The way is long! The enemy is near! The air is feverish!
   The night is falling! The runner is faint! Spurring himself anew, and
   flinging all his wasting resources into the flight, with the pursuers
   even at his heels, he stretches out toward the mark, and with one last
   tremendous exertion he touches the tent-rope and is safe! He is now a
   guest of the desert-man, and the guest is inviolable. All the hallowed
   sanctions of hospitality gather about him for his defence. He is taken
   into the tent, food is placed before him, while his evaded pursuers
   stand frowningly at the door. The fugitive is at rest. If he can speak
   at all I think his words will be these, “Thou preparest a table before
   me in the presence of mine enemies.” Such is the undimmed glory of Arab
   hospitality. To injure a guest is the mark of the deepest depravity.
   Many of the Bedouins light fires in their encampments to guide the
   travellers or fugitives to their tents. Many of them keep dogs, not
   only for the purpose of watching against perils, but in order that, by
   their bark, they may guide the tired and benighted wayfarer to their
   place of rest. And so the fugitive finds food and shelter. To touch the
   tent-rope is to enter the circle of inviolable hospitality. The host is
   the slave of the guest as long as the guest remains. All the resources
   of the tent are placed as his disposal. He can lie down in peace, and
   take his rest in safety. The pursuer is stayed beyond the tent. He can
   only “look” the revenge he dare not inflict. “Thou preparest a table
   before me in the presence of mine enemies.”

   Such is the desert symbol. What is its spiritual significance? The soul
   is a fugitive, in flight across the plains of time. The soul is pursued
   by enemies, which disturb its peace, and threaten its destruction. The
   soul is often terror-stricken. The soul is often a “haunt of fears.”
   There are things it cannot escape, presences it cannot avoid, enemies
   that dog its track through the long, long day, from morning until
   night. What are these enemies that chase the soul across the ways of
   time? Can we name them?

   Here is an enemy, the sin of yesterday. I cannot get away from it. When
   I have half-forgotten it, and leave it slumbering in the rear, it is
   suddenly awake again, and, like a hound, it is baying at my heels. Some
   days are days of peculiar intensity, and the far-off experience draws
   near and assumes the vividness of an immediate act. Yesterday pursues
   to-day, and threatens it!


   “O! I have passed a miserable night,

   So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,

   That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

   I would not spend another such a night,

   Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,

   So full of dismal terror was the time.”

   And what were the “ugly sights” which filled the time with “dismal
   terror”? They were the threatening presences of old sins, pursuing in
   full cry across the years! The affrighted experience is all
   foreshadowed by the Word of God. Whether I turn to the Old Testament or
   to the New Testament the awful succession is proclaimed as a primary
   law of the spiritual life. “Evil pursueth sinners.” That sounds
   significant of desert-flight and hot pursuit! “Be sure your sin will
   find you out!” as though our sin were an objective reality. The hounds
   of Nemesis have found the scent, and they are following on in fierce
   pursuit! “Be sure your sin will find you out.” If I turn to the New
   Testament the dark succession is made equally sure. “Their works do
   follow them.” I know these words are spoken of the good, the
   spiritually-minded, the men and the women who have spent themselves in
   beneficent sacrifice. “Their works do follow them!” They are attended
   by the radiant procession of their services, a shining, singing throng,
   conducting them in jubilation along the ways of time into the temple of
   the blest! But the converse is equally true. The spiritually-rebellious
   and unclean are followed by the dark and ugly procession of their own
   deeds, every deed a menacing foe, reaching out a condemnatory finger,
   and pursuing them through the portals of death into the very precincts
   of the judgment-throne. “Their works do follow them.” The sin of
   yesterday is chasing the soul across the plains of to-day! “Since thou
   hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.”

   Here is another enemy, the temptation of today. Yesterday is not the
   only menacing presence; there is the insidious seducer who stands by
   the wayside to-day. Sometimes he approaches me in deceptive
   deliberateness; sometimes his advance is so stealthy that in a moment I
   am caught in his snare! At one time he comes near me like a fox; at
   other times he leaps upon me like a lion out of the thicket. At one
   time the menace is in my passions, and again it crouches very near my
   prayers! Now the enemy draws near in the heavy guise of carnality, “the
   lust of the flesh”; and now in the lighter robe of covetousness, “the
   lust of the eyes”; and now in the delicate garb of vanity, “the pride
   of life”! But in all the many guises it is the one foe. In the manifold
   suggestions there is one threat “The enemy that sowed them is the
   devil.” If I am awake I fear! If I move he follows! “When I would do
   good evil is present with me.” “O wretched man that I am, who shall
   deliver me from the body of this death?” The soul is in the desert,
   chased by the enemy of ever-present temptation.

   Here is a third enemy, the death that awaits me to-morrow. “And I
   looked and beheld a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death,
   and Hell followed with him!” Man seeks to banish that presence from his
   conscience, but he pathetically fails. The pale horse with his rider
   walks into our feasts! He forces himself into the wedding-day! “To love
   and to cherish until death us do part!” We have almost agreed to exile
   his name from our vocabulary. If we are obliged to refer to him we hide
   the slaughterhouse under rose-trees, we conceal the reality under more
   pleasing euphemisms. I have become insured. What for? Because to-morrow
   I may—— No, I do not speak in that wise. I banish the word at the
   threshold. I do not mention death or dying. How then? I have become
   insured, because “if anything should happen to me——?” In such
   circumlocution do I seek to evade the rider upon the pale horse. Yet
   the rider is getting nearer! To-morrow he will dismount at the door,
   and his hand will be upon the latch! Shall we fear his pursuit? “The
   terrors of death compassed me,” cries the Psalmist. “Through fear of
   death they were all their lifetime subject to bondage,” cries the
   Apostle of the New Covenant. It is an enemy we have got to meet. “The
   last enemy . . . is death.” Here, then, we are, lone fugitives crossing
   the desert of time, chased by the sin of yesterday, menaced by the
   temptation of to-day, threatened by death to-morrow! The enemies are
   about us on every side. “My heart is sore pained within me, and the
   terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come
   upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.” “Oh that I had wings like a
   dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest.” Whither can we turn?
   On the whole vast plain, is there one tabernacle whose tent-ropes we
   may touch, and in whose circle of hospitality we may find food and
   refuge and rest?

   “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of
   trouble.” In the Lord our God is the fugitive’s refuge. “In the secret
   of His tabernacle shall He hide me.” In the Lord our God we are secured
   against the destructiveness of our yesterdays, the menaces of to-day,
   and the darkening fears of the morrow. Our enemies are stayed at the
   door! We are the Lord’s guests, and our sanctuary is inviolable! But
   what assurance have we that the Lord will take us in? I will give you
   the assurance. “Hath He not said, and shall He not do it?” I will give
   you the assurance. The most inspiring way to read the commandments of
   God is to interpret them also as evangels. Commandments are not only
   expressive of duties, they are revelations of God. Look into a
   commandment and you can see what you might be; look into a commandment
   and you will see what God is. Therefore commandments are not only human
   ideals, they are expressive of Divine glory. I would know, therefore,
   what the Lord has commanded, in order that I may look into it for a
   vision of His face. He has commanded us to be “given to hospitality,”
   to have the camp-fires lit that lost and fear-stricken pilgrims may be
   guided to shelter and rest! Then, are His camp-fires burning, and is He
   standing at the tent-door to give the fugitives welcome? I have heard
   Him apportion the rewards of His kingdom, and these were the terms of
   the benediction, “I was a stranger, and ye took Me in.” Then will the
   Lord Himself throw back the tent-curtain, and take me out of the fright
   and darkness into the light and warmth and rest of His own abode!


   “If I ask Him to receive me,

   Will He say me nay?

   Not till earth, and not tin heaven

   Pass away!”

   This, then, is my assurance. What He wants me to do, He does. What He
   empowers me to be, He is!

   “Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift, That I doubt
   His own love can compete with it? . . . Would I fain in my impotent
   yearning do all for this man,

   And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?

   . . . . .

   Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,

   To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would . . .

   Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst Thou—so wilt Thou!”

   “I will flee unto Him to hide me.”

   And what shall I find in the tent? “Thou preparest a table before me in
   the presence of mine enemies.” There is something so exuberantly
   triumphant in the Psalmist’s boast! It is laughingly defiant in its
   security. The enemies frown at the open door, while he calmly sits down
   to a feast with his Lord. “Yesterday” glowers, but cannot hurt.
   “To-day” tempts, but cannot entice. “To-morrow” threatens, but can. not
   destroy. “O death! where is thy sting?” They are like the enemies which
   John Bunyan saw just outside the Valley of the Shadow, two giants by
   whose power and tyranny many had been cruelly put to death, but who can
   now “do little more than sit in the cave’s mouth, grinning at pilgrims
   as they go by, and biting their nails because they cannot come at
   them.” We taste our joys in the presence of our discomfited foe.

   In “the secret of His tabernacle” we shall find a sure defence. “Who
   can separate us from the love of Christ?” We shall find a refreshing
   repose. The shock of panic will be over. The waste of fear will be
   stayed. We shall “rest in the Lord,” and “hide under the shadow of His
   wing.” We shall find an abundant provision. Our Host is grandly “given
   to hospitality.” As quaint John Trapp says, “There is not only
   fullness, but redundance.” He giveth “good measure, pressed down,
   shaken together, running over!” On the Lord’s table there is provision
   for everybody, and the nutriment is suited to each one’s peculiar need.

   The only time I have ever heard a sermon on this text was twenty years
   ago, when I heard Horatius Bonar proclaim its good news to a great
   company of blind people gathered from the many institutions and homes
   of the city of Edinburgh. “Thou preparest a table before me,” a poor,
   burdened pilgrim, groping sightless through the ways of time! Aye,
   there was provision on the table for the blind! And for all of us there
   is a table prepared and arranged for our need. “In my Father’s house
   there is bread enough and to spare.” The desert is cold and weird; in
   the tent there is warmth and cheer The desert is the lurking-place of
   the enemy; in the tent is the glorious fellowship of God! “In the time
   of trouble He shall hide thee in His pavilion.” “Knock, and it shall be
   opened unto you.”


   “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

   Let me hide myself in Thee.”
     __________________________________________________________________

HIDDEN MANNA

   “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and
   will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which
   no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.”—Revelation ii. 17.

   I THINK we ought not to refer the fulfilment of this great prophecy to
   some remote futurity when we have passed through the veil and are in
   the kingdom of eternal day. If this promise is to be of much worth to
   me, it must be worth something now. I don’t suppose there will ever be
   a time when I shall need the hidden manna more than I need it now.
   Certainly there will never come a day when I shall be in greater need
   of the white stone than I am to-day. Therefore I want at once to draw
   this word quite back from that remote day, and regard it as a promise
   for current need, as a blessing offered to men and women to-day.

   Hidden manna! What is it? Hidden resources; strengthening and
   sustaining food given to the man who is in the fighting line—a feast
   upon the battlefield. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence
   of mine enemies.”

   There is nothing that distinguishes one man from another more than
   staying power. What resources has a man upon which he can draw? What
   hidden bread can he call out in the dark and impoverished day? You know
   how that contrast prevails even in the realm of the body; how we
   contrast and distinguish one from another by the amount he can visibly
   endure. Why, even of the men who try to achieve the feat of swimming
   across the Channel the great outstanding contrast is the amount of
   hidden manna they possess, the amount of secret resources, their
   capacity to hold out.

   Then the contrast prevails in the realm of dispositions. Take the first
   half-dozen of your friends, and try to measure the length of their
   tempers; try to put your finger just at the point where irritability
   begins. You will be amazed how different are the lengths you will have
   to measure out. One man swiftly exhausts his little store, and has no
   hidden manna upon which to draw. We say, “his patience was soon spent.”
   Others have hidden manna, and are marvellous in their powers of
   toleration. How long can you go on, how far can you go in an atmosphere
   of discouragement, ingratitude, apparent ineffectiveness, and open
   contempt? How long can you go on teaching a Sunday-school class, and
   never making a convert? How much hidden manna have you?

   The contrast prevails in wider fields still. We hear people saying of a
   man, “How does he do it?” He is not over strong, sickness is never out
   of his house, the funeral hearse has often stopped at his door, money
   does not appear to be plentiful, business is not brisk; his sky is
   continually overcast. How does he do it? His disposition remains
   cheery, his hope remains bright, his endeavour abides persistent! What
   is his staying power? “Hidden manna.”

   Now, observe, there are two primary emphases of the Christian evangel.
   The first primary note is that our Lord is acquainted with the secret
   need of the individual life. “I know My sheep.” “Thy Father”—is not
   this beautiful?—who seeth beneath the skin, who seeth in secret where
   the kindliest eye of thy dearest friend cannot pierce—“thy Father seeth
   thy secret need.”

   The second primary note is this: our God will bring the secret bread to
   the secret need. Our secret life shall be preserved from starvation,
   or, to use the words of Paul, our inner life is renewed—fed up,
   sustained, nourished. That is what constitutes the outstanding contrast
   between men. Some men are in covenant with the One who has the secret
   knowledge, and He brings down the hidden manna by which they gain their
   sustenance and give you and me such keen and frequent surprises.
   General Booth has not always been the idol of the country. He has
   rather been the victim of insult, brutality, and open contempt. Where
   now throughout the length and breadth of the land civic dignitaries
   hasten to pay him honour, in those very towns and cities in past days
   he was pelted with the mire of the streets and treated as the very scum
   of the earth. For thirty or forty years he endured, and no civic or
   national dignity was conferred upon him, no patronage of the great! Yet
   he endured—on, on, on! right on to white hairs! What was the secret?
   “Hidden manna.” “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.”

   What is the second promise of the evangel? “I will give him a white
   stone.” This phrase was running through my brain when I was away for my
   holiday recently, and in passing along a pebble-strewn beach I picked
   up a white pebble. I looked at it very intently and inquisitively—and
   spiritually, in the hope that it would communicate something to me of
   the significance of the Apostle’s figure. It was wonderfully pure; it
   was intensely hard; it was exceedingly smooth. My Lord will give to me
   a “white stone.” What is the significance of it? My interpretation was
   this: “I will endow thee with a character pure as a white stone that
   lies upon the beach, hard and tenacious as that stone, beautifully
   refined, with all obstrusive and painful angularities smoothed away.”
   Is there anything more exquisitely clean than a white pebble? I don’t
   know how many times the wavelets have washed over the stone until it is
   cleansed from all defilement. “I will give to thee a life so washed
   every day by the waters of grace that every part of thy being shall be
   as clean as a white stone.” Perfectly clean is what God purposes us to
   be. Moral dirt is unnatural. When we are perfectly clean all our powers
   will work with simplicity and naturalness, as in the very sight of God.

   “Perfectly pure I will make thee—and hard!” Oh, not the hardness of
   insensitiveness, but the hardness of strength. Said one of my young
   fellows, speaking of another man, “His muscles are as hard as nails.”
   That is the hardness we want in the spirit. Muscular hardness that will
   not yield to an easy threat or even to a formidable threat, the
   hardness which is the opposite to flabbiness, softness of limb. The man
   whose moral muscles are as hard as pebbles, as hard as nails, cannot be
   broken by any temptations which assail him. That is the character we
   want--rock-character!

   Then there is this beautiful addition: “In the stone a new name
   written.” The name I bore in the old life before I turned to the Lord
   is to be forgotten. A man came to me in my vestry and said, “Do you
   think God ever forgets and forgives a man’s past?” I replied, “God so
   forgets a man’s past that He forgets the man’s name! He blots it out,
   and gives him a new one.” We have not to wait for the white stone, but
   I think we shall have to wait for the unveiling of the new name. No one
   will enter into the meaning of it except the one to whom it is given.
   How can any man know my triumphs who has not known my shame? I don’t
   think that Lydia, who lived in Philippi, will ever be able to
   comprehend the new name of the jailer who lived in the same town. If
   there had been a kind of Wesleyan fellowship meeting in Philippi, I
   think their experiences would have been a perfect enigma to each other.
   I wonder if Billy Bray can ever appreciate the new name given to Henry
   Drummond, or if Henry Drummond will quite appreciate that of Billy
   Bray. I wonder if Catherine Booth will understand the new name of Mary
   Magdalene. I wonder if Mary Magdalene will ever be able to get beneath
   the surface of the new name of Catherine Booth. We all have our little
   secrets with our Lord. When He calls you by your name, no one else will
   respond to it but you.

   God will feed us with strength, and endow us with a character like a
   white stone, and will give to us a unique and individual name. Will you
   have it? I remember hearing Henry Drummond, addressing a great meeting
   of graduates and undergraduates, say (and it was about the most
   sensational thing he ever did say): “Gentlemen, do you mean business?
   Here is my Lord. If you mean business, give Him your hand—and stick!”
     __________________________________________________________________

THE REJOICING DESERT

   “The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.”—Isaiah xxxv. 1.

   THERE is nothing more interesting and fascinating than to watch the
   transformation of the barren into the beautiful. Conversion is often
   more wonderful than creation. We gaze with extraordinary attention as
   some half-repellent thing passes through some mysterious process, and
   in the process becomes lovely. There is always something alluring about
   the transformation of the desert. In my schooldays I had a
   drawing-master who was a very pronounced expert in his profession, and
   he adorned the walls of the schoolroom with many of his own creations.
   I have almost completely forgotten those masterpieces, but I perfectly
   well remember the transformation of one of my own drawings into a thing
   of comparative beauty. The drawing itself, as I had left it, was
   fearfully imperfect, and I looked upon it almost with feelings of
   loathing; but the master touched it and retouched it, and the half-ugly
   thing became a passable representation of an ancient arch. “The desert
   was made to rejoice and blossom as the rose.” I know two places in
   Newcastle-on-Tyne, Jesmond Dene and Brandling Park. Jesmond Dene was
   always beautiful, even before it became a public resort. A few pathways
   were cut through it, and it was made a little more hospitable to the
   crowd. But Brandling Park was once an eyesore to the city. It was the
   place of a common tip, where loads of rubbish were heaped together. And
   then the municipality determined to change this eyesore into a winsome
   thing, and they converted it into a beautiful park. Often, on my way to
   my church, have I rested amid its beautiful green and flowers, and I
   have rejoiced in the transformation of the repellent into the lovely.
   “The desert rejoiced and blossomed like the rose.” The conversion of
   Brandling Park was even more wonderful than the original creation of
   Jesmond Dene.

   It is not long since the first trees were planted in the great work of
   re-afforesting the Black Country. In all broad England there is no
   stretch of country more depressing than that which lies in dismal waste
   between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. And now the attempt is being made
   to transform it, and to redeem the Black Country from its well-deserved
   notoriety. Yes, it is transformation that arrests our attention. And
   here is a gracious promise from our God, offering a very miracle of
   transformation in human life. Just as the eyesore was turned into a
   park, just as the Black Country is being re-beautified, so the Lord
   will lay hold of the Black Country of the soul and convert it into His
   own garden. Let us take the great, mighty promise round about the
   circuit of our life, let us plant it like an inspiring banner over our
   deserts, that waving there it may proclaim our wonderful possibilities
   in the redeeming grace of Christ.

   Our Lord will transform the desert of the soul and make it blossom as
   the rose. Who has not known the desert-soul? There is nothing gracious
   about it, nothing winsome and welcome. When people draw near they can
   find nothing satisfying in its presence. There is no fruit they can
   pluck, no water of inspiration they can drink, no grateful shade in
   which they may find refreshing rest. The whole being is hot and dry and
   feverish and fruitless. Men speak to one another of such a life and
   say, “You will get nothing out of him,” which means they will not only
   be denied money, but denied things even more valuable than money they
   will be denied time and strength and service. Was not Scrooge in
   Dickens’s “Christmas Carol” a desert-soul? No one drew near to him to
   pluck a flower or to taste a delicacy or to gather a single green
   blade. What can be done with a soul like this? Here comes in the
   uniqueness of the evangel of grace. “The desert shall rejoice and
   blossom as the rose.” Now let us see what can be done.

   “I will make the dry land springs of water.” First of all, wells shall
   break out in the desert-soul. Kindly impulses shall be born. Generous
   emotions shall flow in plenteous abundance. Gracious feelings shall
   pervade the once dry and feverish soil. I do not quite know how the
   Lord will start these springs. He has many ministries, and they are all
   of them ministers of re-creation. I heard a farmer say a little while
   ago, “There is nothing like snow for feeding the springs!” And I have
   known men whose souls have been desert-like, who have been graciously
   blessed by the Lord under the snows of some chilling sorrow or
   disappointment. And most assuredly the genial springs have been born
   again. It is very frequently a seasonable moment, when you want help
   from anybody, to go after they have passed through some grave and
   serious affliction. The wells of sympathy are flowing, the first step
   has been taken in the transformation of the desert.

   “In the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.”
   The kindly impulse shall become a steady inclination. A spring shall
   become a river. The emotion shall become a disposition. The soul shall
   be possessed by genial currents. It may be that the first sign of the
   gracious conversion will be the flow of tears. Who is there who has not
   been grateful when some heart, that has been dry and harsh as desert
   sand, has one day begun to weep? The penitence is the evidence of the
   wonder-working ministry of the great Restorer, and the life is becoming
   soft and gracious again.

   “I will plant in the desert the cedar.” He will not only make the
   springs to leap and the rivers to flow, He will continue the
   transformation by the culture of spiritual vegetation. He will plant
   the cedar, the symbol of strength. The effeminate shall become the
   masculine, and the soft and yielding shall become the durable and the
   persistent. There shall be nothing capricious about the life, nothing
   weak and rootless, but in the transformed desert there shall be
   virtuous habits with the strength of cedars. “I will set in the desert
   the fir-tree,” the symbol to the Oriental of things sweet and musical.
   It provided the material out of which they made their harps, and it
   would suggest to them the end of the desert silence, and the outbreak
   of praise and song. Well, is not all this a wonderful transformation of
   the soul? In the desert of the life there are to come springs and
   rivers and strong and beautiful trees. And the promise is made to
   everybody, however dark and terrible may be their need, and however
   harsh and repellent may be their life. “The desert shall rejoice and
   blossom as the rose.”

   Sometimes our work appears to us like a desert. One of the great
   characteristics of the desert is its monotony, and we frequently go to
   its unchanging wastes for a fig