has been speaking; and because we can recognise sincerity, elevation, and stedfastness, while He speaks we believe. It is a very simple thing this-trust in Christ because of the words which He has spoken; but it is the source of an unchanging tranquillity. Out of pain and weariness the song of faith in Christ rises, piercing and victorious, like that of Paul and Silas in the dungeon; in anxiety prayer ascends to Him, like that offered for imprisoned Peter; from rage and tumult the eye of faith looks to Him, and catches a vision like that vouchsafed to Stephen while the stones were falling around him. In this world we may have tribulation, but in Him we have peace.

This, then, is the gift of Christ—a refuge from anxiety and distress, the ability to exercise our souls in peace. Why are we ever disquieted? why vexed and anxious? why soon provoked and soon discouraged and often in dismay? All this is not the Christian life, it is utterly opposed to our Lord's desire and purpose; He has left us peace.

The spirit of Christ and the reward of Christ are

the same. When He says, "Come unto me, all ye

that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; He tells us how this rest is to be attained. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am

meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto "Learn of me. your souls." I am not fretted and troubled, I am not easily provoked, not easily cast down." How did Christ overcome the world? Not by its own weapons, meeting pride with pride and scorn with scorn. Of Him the words were spoken,

He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench." He was meek and lowly in heart, and so He dwelt in perfect peace. Vain will be all our efforts to overcome the world-either the world without us, or the world within-in the world's own way. So shall we have only the world's distraction and disappointment, the world's vanity and vacillation. The victories of the peaceful are enduring; the power of the trusting spirit is as remarkable as its gentleness. This is because the very life of God may be imparted to the soul that ceases from self; the peace of Christ which passeth all understanding is no mere void within the heart, it is the witness that the Holy One is Himself within us, it is the harmony and fellowship of man with God.

Two things often seem very hard-how to preserve a hopeful spirit in the midst of adversity; how to be meek in the struggle which conscience and the gospel

Even these pro

urge us to wage against all wrong. blems are solved in the experience of those who have the peace of Christ. There is no blessing in the world like peace; and I know not where to look for it save as the gift of Him who bids us find it in Himself.

"I am made to possess months of vanity."-JOB vii. 3.

HE meaning of the words "months of vanity" is

THE

to be understood rather by observation and experience than by any process of criticism. They indicate a time of protracted uselessness, when no good cause is furthered by us and we ourselves seem rather to be failing in piety than growing in grace; a time of suffering without divine consolations; months which look not even like months of discipline, because no good end appears to be served by the affliction. There is the completest contrast between the experience these words describe and the language in which the Apostle Paul sets out his triumph over adversity, language which is the more exultant because it is Christ who is triumphing in him. (Read II. Cor. vi. 4-10; iv. 15-18.)

We almost always use the language of Christian

I