weeping and comfortless, "I feel confident, if our missionaries live you will be taken care of; and should they all perish, yet Christ lives for ever." This was a noble utterance, and, coming as it did from such a quarter, it has the cheering quality of good news from a far country.

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.-Isa. vi. 5.

He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.-Ps. lxviii. 20.

The Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee.GEN. xxvi. 24.

IN

December 27.

THE FAME THAT WILL BE EVER EXTENDING.

N the early days of David how little was there to betoken the great future that awaited him. He was in humble life, a mere shepherd, the youngest of seven sons, and utterly unknown beyond the circle of his own family and friends; and yet, almost before manhood had been fully reached, there was not a greater name in Israel.

It was even so with him who was at once David's Son and David's Lord. For full thirty years his home was in the little town of Nazareth, and he dwelt there in such lowliness and obscurity that he was never regarded as more than a poor carpenter's son; yet all of a sudden thereafter there was such a lifting of the veil, such a revealing of the glory, that he became every one's wonder, and "his fame went throughout all Syria." He had fame as a teacher, for never man spake like him; he had fame as a physician, for "he healed all manner of sickness and

all manner of disease among the people ;" and he had fame as the great Prophet of promise, for the people said of him, "This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world."

Nor was his fame like that of so many-a mere evanescent thing. It was once said: "A great deed, a striking book, a noble speech, sets a man up high before the eyes of all the land, and he deems his fame made. It is made; but that very hour it begins to be unmade: in a month, in a year, it is gone." Such precisely, in the end, was the expectation of the Jews regarding Christ. When they condemned him, and scourged him, and crucified him, and buried him, they never for a moment doubted that his name and fame were for ever extinguished; but instead of this, after Gethsemane and Calvary, he became more than ever known and magnified, not in Syria alone, but throughout the wide world.

In our own time, as among the unbelieving Jews of that era, there exists in many not a little of the same spirit of hostility to the Son of God; and the hope is not merely cherished by them, but openly expressed, that his religion and his following have had their day, and will soon be for ever among the forgotten things of the past. Many of God's children are not simply saddened by such things, but almost staggered. But they need not; for let such opposers combine as they may, and do their utmost, yet in the end "every knee shall bow to him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." It is expressly written, "The Lord shall be king over all the earth." "He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. All kings shall fall down before him; all nations

shall serve him." This may be but prophecy meanwhile, but the day is fast hastening on when it shall become veritable history visible to every eye. "Hath the Lord said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall be not make it good?"

Sometimes subjects say to their monarchs, "O king, live for ever!" But in spite of this they flit away like shadows, and their empires with them. But in response to such an utterance from his subjects, our King replies: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore ;" and, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."

His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed... And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.-Ps. lxxii. 17, 19.

In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.-GEN. xii. 3. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.-HAB. ii. 14.

W

December 28.

WEARY NOT.

HEN writing to the Galatians, the apostle said: “Let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." These words were not unneeded then, neither are they unneeded now; for even with the best it needs constant watchfulness to resist and overcome the weariness here forbidden. There is a weariness which invites no censure, such as that felt even by our blessed Lord himself, of whom it is written: "Now

Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well; and it was about the sixth hour." So, too, has it often been with his faithful servants. "In journeyings often," says Paul, “in weariness and painfulness." In later times it has been just the same. Accordingly, Whitefield was repeatedly heard to say, "I am often weary in my Master's work, but I am never weary of it." The weariness, therefore, against which we are solemnly cautioned in the Word, is never the weariness that springs from mere feebleness of frame, or advancing years, or fulness of loving work.

Censurable weariness is something wholly different from this. It springs from sloth, and love of ease, and chilled affection, and over-engrossment with the world. Even in ordinary life, nothing is grudged when affection is ardent. So is it with believers when their love to Christ is warm. It not only keeps weariness away, but it so sweetens all labour and service, and even sorest sacrifice, for his sake, that, like the apostle, they can say, " None of these things move me; neither count I my life dear unto myself, that I may finish my course with joy." The Christian who, though neither enfeebled by work nor by years, yields to weariness, and ceases to labour, is sure, sooner or later, to find thorns in his pillow. Will no voice ever say to him, What doest thou here, Elijah? "Looking at his means, powers, and opportunities," as one says, "will he not be ashamed to have them, and will they not reproach him with the use he might make of them, especially when workers are few and the activity of evil is great. If he have conscience and generous feeling left, his must be a restless state."

In doing work for Christ, we have always much to

encourage us. It is never lost labour, for we are expressly assured that " in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." But though true sowing will always be followed by sure reaping, yet we must not limit the Lord as to the time of it. There is "a due season," and of this it is he only, and not we, that can rightly judge. Till this due season come, therefore, we must unweariedly wait and work, knowing assuredly that the longer and heartier the toil, the richer will be the harvest. A true and hearty labourer for Christ said not long ago to his flock, in his own way, "I do not want to go just yet. But I believe," he added, "that if we could but realize what God has in reserve for us, we would every one be eager to go to-night, stepping right out from the sanctuary into the glories of the skies.”

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.-1 COR. xv. 58.

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.-HEB. x. 36.

He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.-Ps. cxxvi. 6.

December 29.

THE LORD'S PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT.

LIKE in the Old Testament and in the New, there

ALIKE

are many references to the Holy Spirit; and we clearly learn from some of them that this most needed of blessings is in the end to come, not merely in scattered drops, but in plenteous showers, and not on one land only, but to be far-reaching as the wide earth itself. It is thus written: "It shall come to pass afterward, that I will