October 5.

IT NEEDS BOTH CARE AND PRAYER TO KEEP HOPE

WH

BRIGHT.

HEN seeking to make their election sure to a seat in Parliament, what amazing energy men display; yet what is any seat there, which may be gained one year and lost the next, compared with a place for ever among the redeemed in the City of the Great King? To obtain an assured hope of this, and preserve it in its brightness, is worthy of any effort.

As little foxes can spoil the vines, so even little sins of heart or life deliberately cherished can grieve away the Spirit and cloud our hopes; nor will light and comfort be again restored till the idols that offended have been utterly cast out.

Colour of skin, we are told, corresponds very closely in intensity to latitude, elevation, and the nature of the soil. Accordingly it is mentioned as a striking fact that among the tribes inhabiting the southern slopes of the Himalaya there is little colour on the hill-tops, more on the hill-sides, but most of all in the swampy bottoms and low jungles. Now, so is it with doubtings and fears: they are rare high up on the hills of holiness, but greatly abound in the low swamps of worldliness and unbelief. The more watchful and spiritual we are, therefore, the brighter does our hope become.

This is often made sweetly manifest in the closing hours of believers. The veil is lifted then, the glory is revealed, and they are heard to say, as did that martyr of blessed memory, Hugh M Kail, when on the scaffold in Edinburgh:

"Farewell the world and all its delights! Welcome God and Father; welcome sweet Lord Jesus; welcome Spirit of all grace; welcome glory; welcome eternal life!"

Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire.-2 SAM. xxiii. 5.

Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.—2 PETER iii. 14.

October 6.

A HOPEFUL BEGINNING MAY HAVE A SORROWFUL ENDING.

YONSIDERING the wealth and social position of the

CONSI

young man so specially referred to in the Gospel, it is an agreeable surprise to find him in contact with Christ at all. We become the more hopeful of him when we find that he knelt before him; that his very first utterance was, "Good Master;" and his first inquiry, "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" The very putting of such a question showed that in some faint measure, at least, he did feel the power of the world to come. There was in him, besides, an amiability of disposition and outward purity of character peculiarly attractive.

With all this, however, he was but a beautiful specimen of the natural and unrenewed man,-"one of the rare wild-flowers," as one expresses it, "that occasionally adorn this desolate wilderness." The law of God deals with the heart as well as with the life, with thoughts as well as words, with hidden motives as well as outward actions. But of all this seemingly he was entirely

ignorant, else he never would have said, "All these things have I kept from my youth up." Evidently he knew nothing aright of divine requirement or human weakness, of his own sin or of God's grace. Moreover, he knew nothing of the Saviour's true character; and therefore, though he gave him all outward homage, he would commit neither himself nor his interests to his eternal keeping, but, loving mammon more than Christ, he went away sorrowful.

How many like him still cleave to the world as a portion, and when they cannot purchase salvation, refuse to accept it as a gift of grace. Dining one day with Bishop Porteus, one of his clergy noticed with contempt. the line of a hymn-" A sinner saved by grace alone”expecting that the bishop would join in condemning it; but instead of this, he looked very solemnly at the clergyman, and said, "Pray, sir, can you tell me of any other way by which a sinner can be saved?"

Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!-MARK X. 24.

If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.-JOHN xii. 26.

T

October 7.

TO BE STRONG WE MUST BE TRUE.

HERE is no sin more expressly forbidden in the Word of God than untruthfulness. Every reader of it is familiar with utterances like these: "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour"

"The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a

lying tongue is but for a moment." A sin so condemned cannot be too sternly resisted; all the more, as sincerity, or a perfect conformity between word and intention, is the primary character of the new creature in Christ Jesus.

The Bible rule is to put away all lying without exception; but it is one often sadly overlooked. Some, while condemning falsehood in general, would fain palliate certain falsehoods in particular, and call them by gentle names. No change of name, however, can change its nature; for even the whitest lie that is in man's eyes is so black in the Lord's that it needs the blood of Jesus Christ to wash it away, and what have been sometimes called pious frauds are the most offensive frauds of all. We must adopt no crooked methods in serving the Lord. Jacob would have got the blessing without cheating his father; and but for his sin in doing so, he might never himself have been so grievously cheated in turn by his father-in-law.

One reputed to be among the wisest of ancient teachers, while enjoining all others to abstain from falsehood, yet allowed princes to lie. This is nowhere the teaching of the Sacred Volume; on the contrary, to prince and peasant alike it says emphatically, " Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight."

"Trust," said William Arnot, "is a lovely thing; but it cannot stand unless it get truth to lean upon. When its tender hand has been often pierced by a broken reed of falsehood, it pines away and dies of grief. A man would find it easier to be trustful if his neighbours were trustworthy." How sweet to know that the Lord we trust in keepeth truth for ever!

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts.-Ps. li. 6.

Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, wo have had our conversation in the world.-2 COR. i. 12.

October 8.

THERE MAY BE GREAT LOVE IN GRANTING RECOVERY, BUT SOMETIMES LOVE GREATER STILL IN WITHHOLDING IT.

THERE

HERE were times, apparently, when Paul, though an apostle of the Lord, could neither relieve himself nor others. Painful as was the thorn in his own flesh, he was powerless to pluck it out; and equally so to deliver his son Timothy from special bodily ailment and often infirmity.

It was the same in the case of Epaphroditus. Much as Paul loved him and needed his help, he could not raise him up from his bed of sickness. What he could not himself do, however, the Lord graciously did for him, and raised up his afflicted friend. "The Lord," as an old writer says, "commonly reserves his hand for a dead lift;" thereby the faith of his people is not only better exercised, but their gratitude is deepened.

Here, perhaps, the thought may arise in some, How would matters have stood had there been no recovery? Would this necessarily have been an unkindness on the Lord's part to Epaphroditus? Far from it, for often to his saints death is a most welcome messenger. It ends their sorrows, it terminates the weary pilgrimage, it sets the captive spirit free, and they depart to be with Christ, which is far better.

Nor is the Lord's kindness less to those who are left