A Lent in earnest

SECOND TUESDAY IN LENT.

MEDITATION.

THE best remedies for evil thoughts are good thoughts.

It is, I fear, a sorrowful truth that in these days of activity and bustle, in the Church and out of it, the duty and privilege of Christian meditation is in danger of being pushed into the background, or forgotten altogether. We read a few verses in the Bible, morning and evening. Perhaps we keep some religious book on our table, and read a little every day. All this is very well as far as it goes. But how many Christians ever sit down to think out anything for themselves? We may "hear and read" the Bible, but unless we "mark, learn, and inwardly digest" as well, our souls may be half-starved in presence of a royal banquet.

Meditation, that is to say, serious and connected thought on a given subject, is not an easy task. But, as an excellent writer aptly asks, "Who ever said any Christian duty was easy?" Meditation is always hard at first. It is often difficult to those who have practiced it for years: there is so much to be done, and so little time; there are so many trials of temper and feeling in our daily life, whether that life be passed out of doors or in the confinement of a sick-room.

This is all true. And every one of these statements is a plea for the practice I am advocating. There are so many distractions, that we all need the quiet of that "little sanctuary" which God has promised to be to His people in all lands. (Ezek. xi. 16.) There are so many trials of temper and feeling, that we all need to claim the promise, "Thou shalt hide them privily by Thy presence from the provoking of all men." (Ps. xxxi. 20.) There is so much to be done, and so little time to do it in, that we cannot afford to miss any help which our Master has put in our way. As well might the tree planted by the river (Jer. xvii. 8) spend all its strength in putting forth branches and leaves, and forget to stretch out its roots to the pure cold waters which run at its foot. Unless it does so stretch out its roots, it might as well grow like the heath in the desert.

"But I do not know where to begin," says someone; "I do not know what to think about." This is surely a needless difficulty. Is not the deep, unfailing well at hand, yea, under your hand? Have you no Bible? Let us look for a moment at that priceless model of meditation, the cxix. Psalm. What is the key-note of that psalm but the consideration of God's Word? "I will meditate in Thy statutes." "Open mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." "Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes." And so on from beginning to end. It is the Word of God which must be the text of our meditations.

"But how shall I set about it?"

You are perhaps a Sunday-school teacher or pupil. (You should, if possible, be one or the other.) If so, you have the subject of your meditation cut out for you in your next Sunday's lesson. I advise you to begin by memorizing it. In that way you can carry it about with you wherever you go. Then turn it over in your mind, verse by verse, yea, word by word. Sift it as if you were hunting for diamonds.

Say to yourself, "Do I understand the exact meaning of this word, or that allusion? How shall I explain that point? How shall I frame a question which shall make the pupil bring out the meaning for himself?" And finally, "What does the lesson teach me?" For, be assured, unless it does say something to you, you will never make it speak to any one else. If there were more of this kind of preparation, the superintendent would not so often be grieved by the sorrowful spectacle of a teacher sitting idly before an idle class, because he or she "has finished the lesson, and does not know what to say."

Permit me to give a short example to illustrate my meaning. Take the first verse of the second chapter of St. Matthew—a simple passage, and very familiar. "Jesus was born in Bethlehem." Where is Bethlehem? What do I know about its situation, its distance from Jerusalem, its history and present condition? Was it the home of Jesus' parents? How did He happen to be born there? Then come the momentous questions: Who was this babe of Bethlehem? Why was He born? What is He to me? And so you see, this simple historical verse lifts for you the veil of the Holy of Holies, where you can but wonder and adore.

The prayer-book, also, will furnish abundant subjects for thought. Take the collect for the day; say, for example, the ninth Sunday after Trinity, which has a direct bearing on this subject. Why is it so important to have right thoughts? What is the relation between thinking and doing? What passages of Scripture bearing on this point can I remember? And so on through the whole collect. There is, perhaps, not a prayer in the Church service which will not afford matter for a week's meditation; and no one knows the wealth concealed in the prayer-book who has not treated it in this way. Try it, and see if at the end of the Lenten season the Church service does not say more to you than ever it did before.

      Ps. cxix. 1-24.                        2 Peter 1.

NOTE.—The substance of this and the next chapter was printed in "Church Work," some time ago.

THIRD WEDNESDAY IN LENT.

MEDITATION—Continued.

"MEDITATION is all very well for people of leisure," says some one, "but I am busy from morning till night. I have no time."

To this I answer: "Are you quite sure you have no time? Let me ask you to look back upon your day, and tell yourself honestly how much time has been spent in melancholy musing, in useless regret, or worse than useless foreboding; perhaps, in brooding over some real or fancied injury or affront. Surely these hours would have been more pleasantly and profitably spent in the way I have suggested. Just because you have so much to do, you need the refreshment of the hidden spring—of the pure water which flows from the Fountain of Life."

"I am engaged in a great deal of Church and charitable work," says another; "has it not been said that labor is prayer? And may it not take the place of meditation as well?"

Just as well, and no better. You might as well say that labor is eating. It is a pretty and plausible saying, but it is not true. Labor is not prayer, any more than it is food or sleep. No one needs more the refreshment of the hidden spring than the person who is engaged in mission or charitable work. There is so much to discourage and dishearten, there are so many failures and disappointments and mistakes, that the worker needs all the aid and comfort procurable not to grow morbid and discouraged.

"Yes, it is all very well for healthy people," says another, "but I am an invalid."

Just because you are an invalid do you need to learn the art of governing your thoughts. No one is tempted more than an invalid to the indulgence of those useless and harmful musings of which I have spoken. Sharp and severe illness is an occupation in itself. But to the chronic patient; able to be about a little, perhaps to do a little light work, how long are the hours of the day! How much longer those of the night! How fancy pictures to us the pleasures of the world which we cannot enjoy! How often do Satan and our own corrupt hearts conspire to suggest hard and unkind thoughts of friends and attendants, yea, even of God Himself. How are our uneasy pillows haunted with the ghosts of dead joys and hopes and plans, and still more dread phantoms of sins and failures and fears for the future! I have been a bad sleeper all my life, and in many an hour of wakefulness have I blessed the old-fashioned Sunday-school method of "seven verses and a hymn," which stored my mind with whole chapters of the Bible, and with the best devotional poetry. I wish this old fashion could become a new fashion again. I have never seen a better.

"But there is such an abundance of good books!"

True, but all the books in the world are worth very little to the person who is content with merely reading them. We can think, moreover, when we cannot read, and half an hour's earnest and prayerful consideration of a chapter or verse of God's word will be of more value than a dozen commentaries without such consideration.

It is good always to begin and end our meditations with prayer. It is good, too, at times, to turn our meditation into contemplation; in simply making real to ourselves His presence who has said, "Lo, I am with you alway." (St. Matt. xxviii. 20.) "If any man ... open the door, I will come in ... and ... sup with him, and he with Me." (Rev. iii. 20.)

Let me beg of all who read this chapter and who have never done so, to make trial of its recommendations through the Lenten season. Do not be discouraged, though you fail many times, though again and again you find your thoughts wandering to the ends of the earth. Drive them back to their appointed work every time. By and by you will find them less inclined to stray. The hard task will become a pleasure, and you will be amply rewarded for your pains when you find Divine truth growing more and more clear and precious, when you find yourself better and better able to turn away from painful and unprofitable thoughts, to take refuge in the Lord's presence from the provoking of all men, and to rest under the shadow of the Great Rock in the weary land. Then your heart shall not be "like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh," but rather "as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river; and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." (Jer. xvii. 6, 8.)

      Jer. xvii.                        Rev. iii.

THIRD THURSDAY IN LENT.

PRAYER.

THE Christian is to pray without ceasing; that is, he is always to be in the spirit of prayer. He is, by God's help, to strive to keep himself in such a state that he can at any moment lift up his heart and mind to his Heavenly Father, and that as much in the round of his daily business as in his closet. He is to strive to carry about with him an habitual sense of the presence of God, and of dependence upon Him for all things.

"Use lessens marvel," says the old proverb, and the saying is true. The most surprising discoveries in science, the most wonderful applications of these discoveries to the arts, cease to astonish us in a very short time. There is nothing in the Arabian Nights which sounds more incredible than that the movement of a wheel turned by a waterfall should light up a great city. Yet every child has become used to the electric light, and thinks no more marvel of it than his grandfather did of a candle.

So it is with prayer. Every child of a Christian mother is taught to pray as soon as it can speak, and accepts without question the instruction that prayer is talking to his Father in Heaven. He prays God to bless his father, who is sailing on the sea, and his brother in a distant city, and it seems no more wonderful to him than that the street light should make a pretty picture on the wall of his nursery. And yet what a wonder is prayer, when we come to consider it! All the marvels of man's discovery and invention shrink into nothing before it. I was once telling some little girls about the telephone and saying how strange it seemed to talk with a friend twenty miles away. "Yes," said one, "but we can talk to God without a wire."

The great God who upholds the Universe in His hand, and orders all things by His omnipotent power and wisdom, has his ear always open to the appeal of his feeblest child. Not a sigh from a sick-bed, not a prayer lisped at the mother's knee, not a cry from the deepest dungeon, but is heard and marked by Him. From every place on earth, the way is open to His throne. The mother who has a son in China can send him help by this road. The poor widow in the almshouse can lighten the trials of her lot; yea, though she have not a penny to give to the cause, she can help the missionary in the farthest distant field by her prayers. When we can do no more for our friends, we can commend them to the prayers of the Church. Alas! We too often wait till we can do no more.

I close this chapter with an extract from Professor Phelps's admirable book, "The Still Hour."

"In the vestibule of St. Peter's at Rome is a doorway which is walled up, and marked with a cross. It is opened but four times in a century. On Christmas eve, once in twenty-five years, the Pope approaches it in princely state, with a retinue of cardinals in attendance, and begins the demolition of the door by striking it three times with a silver hammer. When the passage is opened, the multitude pass into the nave of the cathedral and up to the altar by an avenue which the majority of them never entered before, and never will enter thus again.

"Imagine that the way to the Throne of Grace were like the Porta Santa, inaccessible save once in a quarter of a century, on the twenty-fifth of December, and then only with august solemnities, conducted by great dignitaries in a distant city. Conceive that it were now ten years since you or I, or any other sinner, had been 'permitted' to pray; and that fifteen long years must drag themselves away before we could venture to approach God; and that, at the most, we could not hope to pray more than two or three times in a lifetime—with what solicitude should we wait for the coming of that holy day!

"We should lay our plans of life, select our homes, build our houses, choose our professions, with reference to a pilgrimage in that twenty-fifth year. We should reckon time by the opening of that sacred door as by epochs. No other one thought would engross so much of our lives, or kindle our sensibilities so exquisitely, as the thought of prayer. It would be of more significance to us than the thought of death is now. Fear would grow to horror at the thought of dying before that Jubilee.

"Yet on that great day, amidst an innumerable throng, within sight and hearing of stately rites, what would prayer be to us? Who would value it in the comparison of those still moments, that—

   "'Sacred silence of the mind,'

"in which we can now find God every day and everywhere? That day would be more like the day of Judgment to us than like the sweet minutes of converse with our Father, which we may now have every hour. We should appreciate this privilege of hourly prayer if it were once taken from us."

      Ps. lxxvii.                        St. Luke xi. 1-14.

THIRD FRIDAY IN LENT.

PRAYER.

WHAT is prayer?

Prayer, in its primary sense, means simply asking. We find the word constantly used in this sense in Scripture and elsewhere; as when Elijah says to the widow woman of Zarephath, "Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water." But prayer, as the word has come to be used in the whole Church, has a much higher signification. It means speaking to God. It means pouring out our hearts to Him—telling Him all our wants, our wishes, our hindrances and temptations, our trials from without and from within. It means asking not only for ourselves, but for others; our families, our fellow church-members, our pupils, our country and its rulers, yea, even our enemies. (S. Matt. v. 44.)

There is no matter too great for it, and none too small. There is no man so holy as not to need it to keep him good, and none so wicked that he may not use it to make him better. The way of prayer is open to every one. It is the open door set before every child of God, which no man can shut. The Christian may be a slave, or a prisoner watched by soldiers, beset by spies, loaded with fetters in the deepest dungeon on earth. In the prisons of the Inquisition, the captive was condemned to a perpetual silence. Not a word, not a groan, must escape his lips, on pain of the gag. But his cruel and relentless jailers could not prevent him from speaking to his God, nor could they prevent the unspoken words from entering the ear for which they were intended. That was beyond their power.

The courts of earthly kings are places of resort for great people, for the noble, the rich and beautiful of their subjects. The poor and lowly have no room there. But the courts of the King of kings are as free to the poorest laboring man and woman as to those to whose luxury they minister; nay, it may well be that the slave will find entrance and kind entertainment when his master is shut out. Nor is ignorance or weakness of intellect a bar to acceptance. The broken language of the poor negro, the lisping accents of the little child, are as musical to the great Father of all as the hymns of the poet, or the highest flights of the philosopher. He sees the heart, and it is the heart which prays.

What is requisite to acceptable prayer?

First of all, faith. "He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." (Heb. xi. 6.) A moment's consideration makes this perfectly plain. We shall not ask of any person a boon, unless we believe that the person exists, and that we shall gain something by the application. We must ask in faith; that is, in the belief that we are speaking to a kind Father, whose heart is warm toward us, and who loves to do us good.

Some good people believe that God will give us just what we ask for. They will even tell us that, if we do not so receive, it is because we do not ask in faith. I believe this to be a mischievous mistake. God knows our necessities before we ask, and He also knows our ignorance in asking. We do not always know whether the thing we ask is the best thing. Our Father sees our lives "in the whole of our duration, whether now or ever so many ages hence," as a distinguished author has it, and—

"The All-wise is the All-loving too!"

All things are in his power, and it costs Him no more to give one than another. Every prayer reaches His ear and heart, and every one is answered, but not always in the way we expect. Sometimes He gives us something else than the thing we desire, as a tender mother gives her child wholesome food at the same time that she withholds the coveted but unwholesome dainty. Sometimes, too, like the same wise mother, He answers, gently but firmly, "No!" But even when He says No, He does not leave His child uncomforted.

"I have learned by experience," says an aged saint of God, "that when He refuses me anything, by and by He comforts me in Himself without it."

We must pray with faith, and with resignation to God's will, but we must also ask with perseverance. Our Lord gives us the warrant for this in the parables of the importunate friend (St. Luke xi), and of the unjust judge (St. Luke xviii). We are to "pray always, and not to faint." (St. Luke xviii. 1.) We are to: "praying always with all prayer and supplication." (Eph. vi. 18.) We are to "pray without ceasing." (1 Thess. v. 17.) We must not be content with asking once or twice, but we must keep asking again and again. Some blessing will come in answer to persevering prayer, though it may not always be the one we seek.

There is one blessing, and that the greatest, which we may always ask in full confidence of receiving, and that is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord tells us that earthly parents are not so ready to give good gifts to their children, as His father and ours is to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. (St. Luke xi. 13.) And this very gift helps us to pray acceptably, for "the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities," interceding for us with "groanings which cannot be uttered." "And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God." (Rom. viii. 26, 27.)

      Ps. xxv.                        St. Luke xi. 1-14.

THIRD SATURDAY IN LENT.

INTERCESSION.

WE are not to be selfish in our prayers. Our Lord teaches us this lesson in the very first words of the form of prayer which He Himself has given us: "When ye pray, say, Our Father."

Of course, if God is "our" Father, He is "your" Father and "mine" as well. Nay, we must lay hold of this truth of God's individual care and love for His children, before we can pray as we ought. But our Lord would bring home to our minds that, as we are members of Christ, so we are members one of another. We are sons and daughters of the great King, and so brothers and sisters; and thence it follows that, as members of one family, we have duties to perform toward each other. It is the very definition of a member that it is part of an organism fitted to perform certain offices for the good of the whole. We see, in the human body, that the hand has one office, the eye another, and so on. So it is in the body of Christ, which is His Church—each member has his place and his duties. One of these duties is intercessory prayer.

We have the commands of God in Holy Scripture for this matter, which should of itself be enough for us: "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;... for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour." (1 Tim. ii. 1, 3.) St. Paul again and again asks the prayers of those to whom his letters are addressed. "Brethren, pray for us." (1 Thess. v. 25.) "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us" (Col. iv. 2, 3); and so in other places. Our Lord Himself, our perfect pattern, sets us the highest example of this kind of prayer, concluding His last discourse to the twelve with that most wonderful intercession contained in the seventeenth chapter of St. John.

Following the example of her Head, the Church teaches us the same lesson. We are taught to pray for our rulers, for the clergy, for all sorts and conditions of men. The Litany is in a great measure made up of intercessions. Also in the most solemn service of all—that of the Holy Communion—we are taught to pray for the whole estate of Christ's church militant.

These reasons ought to be enough, if there were no others, to move us to the duty of intercession. It hardly seems, indeed, as if we ought to need a "command," however glad we may be of the encouragement. Is it not a privilege as well as a duty to carry our friends' dangers and needs and trials to the Mercy Seat? Is it not much to commend to our Father's care our nearest and dearest, and to join our prayers to theirs, thus obtaining the benefit of the promise that when two are agreed on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them? (St. Matt. xviii. 19.)

We may help those by our prayers whom we can help in no other way. The most obstinate sinner, the most rampant infidel, the most careless and indifferent person in the world, cannot keep his friends from praying for him. The son may disregard his mother's tears and counsels, but her prayers will follow him in spite of himself. Nay, more, the very consciousness that such prayers were following him has kept more than one such wanderer from an irretrievable fall, and brought him back to his mother's arms. Prayer girdles the earth more quickly than the electric spark, and no one upon that earth is out of its reach.

Those who can help the good works of the Church in no other way can do so by prayer. The invalid in her room or on her bed, who is too weak perhaps to hold a pen or a needle, can help the toiler in China or the far West; can call down blessing from the Divine Treasury, and strength and grace from the Fountain of all good, for the man or woman she has never seen. The poor old black woman in the gallery of the church, without a penny to call her own, can strengthen the hands and cheer the heart of the eloquent missionary bishop who enters the pulpit to make known to the people what God has wrought in a distant land. Surely such a privilege is worth a great deal to the true child of God, who desires with the whole heart the coming of her Lord and His kingdom, but yet can do nothing, humanly speaking, to hasten it on.

It is certain that we cannot honestly pray for people without wishing to help them in other ways. The man whose prayers are a mere decent form, or a sheer pretence and hypocrisy, may pray in general for the cause of Christ in the world without raising his hand or denying himself one indulgence for it, but not the man who prays in earnest, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." To him, "Thy kingdom come" means also, "Let me help to bring it," and "Thy will be done" means also, "Let me do it." It is said of St. Chrysostom, that he kept a box on the stool where he was wont to kneel in prayer, and with every petition for the poor he deposited a coin in the treasury.

Finally, praying for others helps us to pray for ourselves. When our hearts seem dull and cold, and so heavy that we cannot raise them up to heaven, an intercession will often lend them wings. We shall go back to our own needs with renewed faith and hope, and find the burden removed that held us down.

Let us, then, be instant in prayer and supplication, not only for ourselves, but for our friends and relatives, our pupils or teachers, for our own parish and all its interests, for the Church at large, for our country, and for all sorts and conditions of men. And let us not be weary in so doing, till "they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Him, from the least of them even unto the greatest of them." (Jer. xxxi. 34.) Yea, "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." (Hab. ii. 14.)

      Is. lxii.                        1 Tim. ii.

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT.

OUR ENEMIES.

IN the collect for the day we ask for defense against our enemies. "Stretch out Thy right hand to be our defense against our enemies." The right hand is the symbol both of power and skill. It is especially so among Orientals, with whom it is reserved for all the nobler offices, the left hand performing those which are more humble or unclean. We find in the Psalms and the prophets, that the right hand of God is usually spoken of as the especial seat of His power, as in Ps. cxviii. 16. "The right hand of the Lord hath the pre-eminence; the right hand of the Lord bringeth mighty things to pass."

To the Christian the right hand of the Lord means even more than it did to the Jew, for it is there that his Saviour is enthroned, and ever remains, to make intercession for him. Saint Stephen was vouchsafed the vision of his risen Lord, thus placed, no doubt, to strengthen him for his coming trial, and there shall we all see him who are counted worthy to attain to the first resurrection.

"To think," said an aged saint to whom I had just been reading the Bible, "to think that I shall see Jesus at the right hand of God! Oh, if I might but once touch His hand!"

The very thought lighted up her plain face with a smile which made it beautiful.

God is our defense. All the Scriptures are full of the thought, but especially the Psalms. God will help the poor and needy, and will set him at rest. (Ps. lxii. 6.) "The Lord is my stony rock, and my defense, my Saviour, my God and my might, in whom I will trust; my buckler, the horn also of my salvation, and my refuge." (Ps. xviii. 2.) "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me." (Ps. xxiii. 4.)

And so again and again we have our Heavenly Father's promise to defend His children against all their enemies, both spiritual and temporal. True, we must walk through the wilderness of this world, but we need not walk alone. True, we walk in the midst of enemies, yet "they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (2 Kings vi. 16), and if our eyes were opened, like those of the prophet's servant, we should, like him, see the angel hosts sent for defense. We may, nay we must, hunger and thirst, but the Lord will cause waters to break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. (Isa. xxxv. 6.) We need be afraid of none of its terrors. The light will break forth and the sun will rise, and show the ground covered with manna for our refreshment.

The thought of our God as a defense and shield should be a help and comfort to those Christians who are troubled with fears. There are those, especially among invalids, whose lives are made a burden to themselves and others by needless fears. They are afraid of lightning, of fire, of robbers, of they know not what. They feel as if every thunderbolt had a special commission for them; as if every blast of wind were a destroying angel. These fears are often merely nervous symptoms, but even then they are very much under the control of the patient. Let me say to such an one, Do but think, do but try to realize to yourself the fact that the Lord's right hand is stretched out to be your defense in all dangers—that He will defend thee under His wings, and thou shalt be safe under His feathers. Consider that the darkness is no darkness to Him, but the night is as clear as the day. (Ps. cxxxix. 11.)

"When first before the mercy-seat
 Thou didst thine all to Him commit,
 He gave thee warrant from that hour
 To trust His mercy, love, and power."

Are not these terrors, then, an affront to Him, as implying a distrust in His plighted word? Dismiss them, then! Send them back to the darkness where they belong, and let your motto be, "I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest: for it is Thou, Lord, that makest me dwell in safety." (Ps. iv. 8.)

      Ps. xci.                        St. John xiv.

THIRD MONDAY IN LENT.

OUR ENEMIES.

WE have seen that the collect we are considering has its foundation, like all the prayers that we learn at the knee of our mother, the Church, in the promises of God's word, and are therefore sure to be answered in some way. Observe, however, that it is nowhere said in the Bible that we are not to meet with adversities. Nay, we are told the express contrary. All His life long our Master endured hardship and trouble; and the servant is not above his Master. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," says our Lord to His apostles, but He graciously adds: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (St. John xvi. 33.)

What are those enemies which the Christian has to dread, and against which he has special need to pray for deliverance?

Here, again, our Lord leaves us in no doubt. "Fear not them which kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul" (St. Matt. x. 28); and again, "Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no more that they can do." (St. Luke xii. 4.) This shuts out all that class of terrors of which I spoke in the last chapter. The cruelest murderer, the most destructive storm or earthquake, the most noisome pestilence, can only kill that which must die at any rate—which brought its death-warrant with it when it came into the world. They cannot destroy the real man or woman; nay, all their forces combined cannot deprive him of the very least of those things which God hath prepared for them that love Him (1 Cor. ii. 9); nor of one moment of that eternal life which God hath given us in His Son. (1 John v. 11.)

Clearly, then, the enemies we have to fear are those which assault and hurt the soul, and which, unless steadfastly resisted, are able to make our way dark and perilous, if not to deprive us of that inheritance which has been prepared for us. It is they whom we are to combat with all our force, and against whom we must specially ask our great Defender to stretch out His right hand. Yet even here we must not show ourselves coward and craven. We are soldiers of Christ. Let us never forget that. Every battle is fought for Him, every victory is a victory over His enemies as well as our own. He will never leave us to struggle alone, but is always with us, though we cannot always perceive Him. Let us, then, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, knowing that His Father, who gave us to Him, is greater than all, and none is able to pluck us out of His hand. (St. John x. 29.)

Our spiritual enemies may all be classed under three heads—the world, the flesh, and the devil. Against these we are to fight manfully and to the death, never laying down our arms, never relaxing our vigilance, and, even though apparently beaten for the time, never giving up, till our Great Commander shall see our warfare accomplished, and call us home. It is the Christian's paradox that there is no peace except in war. If we give up the contest, we become slaves; and though our conquerors give us all the goods they have to bestow in this life, they do but treat us as cannibals treat their prisoners—fattening them, that they may devour them at last.

      Hab. ii.                        St. Luke xii.

THIRD TUESDAY IN LENT.

THE WORLD.

EVERY general strives to know all that he can about his enemy, his nature and position, his powers and resources, and tries to foresee the plans of that enemy's attack, that he may be able to meet and frustrate them. Let us, then, inquire a little into the nature of those foes which beset our homeward path, and which would, if they could, hinder us from reaching the rest prepared for us in our Father's house. First of all, what is meant by the world?

The world means all that outside of ourselves which is alienated from and opposed to God, which is governed by and devoted to the things which are temporal, and ignores, if it does not hate, the things which are eternal. It is very wise in its own eyes; yea, according to its own canons, and from its own standpoint, wiser than the children of light. It is dreadfully in earnest in the things which it pursues, though those things may be of the most frivolous description. It gets into all sorts of places, alas even into the Church itself, running here and there for meat, and grudging if it be not satisfied, which, indeed, it never is. It is a severe master to its votaries, exacting the hardest and the most exclusive services and the most cruel sacrifices, and rewarding them at last with husks and rags.

The world puts on many disguises. To one it comes under the name of business, demanding of its slave that he shall give up everything else for the pursuit of money. It does not make this demand of every man at the beginning, and in so many words. No, it is more cunning than that. It tells him that it is his duty to provide for his family, not only needful food and clothes and the means of education, but a fine house in a fashionable quarter, and as many luxuries as his neighbor possesses. It makes him press hard on those who labor for him, and exact much work for little pay. It makes him rent tenements to men and women which are not fit for pigs to live in, and grudge the smallest outlay for the health and comfort of his tenants. It makes him plan and scheme to add a few thousands more to his useless millions, by raising the price of fuel and food to the poor man. By and by, the world has done with him. He speculates a little too rashly, and his wealth goes as it came. Or God says to him, "Thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee!" and he goes forth from the visible and unreal to the invisible and real, a shivering, hungry, naked soul, homeless to all eternity. And that world for which he has toiled and sacrificed misses him as much as he missed the consumptive girl who breathed the foul air of his factory till her young life was poisoned, and she dropped at her machine, and went home to die.

The world comes to a woman with a family of little ones, and bids her leave these immortal pledges of God's love to servants, to learn their very prayers from alien lips, and spend her nights in amusements, and her days in planning for the nights. It exacts of her that she shall risk her health and blunt her sense of delicacy by immodest and insufficient clothing. It tell her that these things are necessary, a debt that she owes to society, and whispers that she can make up for all that needs an atonement, by putting on a sober dress and going to church regularly in Lent, or by giving about the fiftieth part of what her dress costs in charity.

To another woman, the world comes in sober attire, with a housewifely apron and a bunch of keys. It has another bait for this one, who would not attend a ballet for the world, and looks with horror on a game of cards. This woman's world is her house-keeping, and she can see nothing else. She would feel herself disgraced forever, if her neighbor put up more cans of fruit or gave more kinds of cake to her company than herself. Talk to her of the sewing-school or the district visiting society, and she will tell you of her anxieties about the doing up of her lace curtains. Tell her of the needs of the heathen, at home or abroad, she may listen politely, but her duty, she says, is to her own family, and she cannot do anything to help you because her dining-room chairs are quite out of fashion, and she must have new ones. Ask her to see that her little daughter has her catechism learned for Sunday-school, and she will tell you, as she sews the elaborate and costly trimming on the child's dress, that she has no time.

We are in bondage to the world so soon as we let the seen and temporal, no matter in what shape it comes, blind us to the unseen and eternal. We are in cruel bondage when we let the fear of what the world may say about us lead us to do what we know to be inconsistent with our baptismal vows and our loyalty to our Lord. We are slaves to the world when we allow any of the things which live in time and perish with time to possess our hearts to the exclusion of those things which belong to eternity. It is true, that as long as we are on the earth, the things of earth must claim much of our attention. Thank God! all these things may be made holy by an honest intention. But we cannot serve God and mammon, and he who tries to do so will in the end find himself deserted of both, and left to himself, that worst of all fates, from which may God in His mercy keep us all!

      Psalm lxxiii.                        St. Luke xvi.

FOURTH WEDNESDAY IN LENT.

THE FLESH.

WHO and what are the enemies that come to us under this name?

All those pleasures and pursuits which appeal only or chiefly to our senses; to our earthly and mortal natures; to that carnal mind which St. Paul tells us is not, and by its very nature cannot be, subject to the law of God. The enemies of the flesh are all the more dangerous because they appear under the disguise of friends—of things harmless, and even necessary, in themselves. They are like slaves, serving their masters in deed, but with secret enmity, always watching their chance to rebel, and the cruelest of tyrants when they gain the mastery. Just because we cannot do without them, we need to guard against their abuse.

How much money is wasted every year upon table luxuries, which the consumers would be as well or better without! How many become such slaves to certain articles of food and drink that they find it almost impossible to do without these things, though they know, on the best authority, that health is being injured by their use! How many are vexed and put out of temper if their bodily comfort is invaded in the smallest degree! More than once have I seen the comfort of a whole table-full destroyed, and the meal rendered distasteful, by some one person, who persisted in finding fault with everything set upon the board.

It may seem at first sight a singular statement, that invalids need especially to maintain a strict watch over themselves in the matter of indulgence in eating and drinking, but I believe it is true. There is perhaps more excuse to be made for them than for most others, because they are, perforce, obliged to think a good deal of the matter; but for this very reason they need to guard themselves against dwelling too much on it, and against harmful self-indulgence. I have seen invalids keep themselves in a chronic state of discomfort, and consequent fretfulness, by eating too much. And it is an odd circumstance, though one well-known to doctors and nurses, that these very people are often fully convinced that they eat little or nothing.

Invalids are often led to injure themselves by an inordinate use of the drugs and stimulants prescribed by physicians. They find the use of such remedies followed by pleasant sensations, and take them many times when they are not really needful; and are so made the opium drunkard, the chloral drunkard, and not infrequently the whisky drunkard as well. I use the word advisedly. The man who lives upon laudanum, the woman who indulges in morphine or chloral, is just as much a drunkard as the man or woman who gets tipsy in the corner saloon, and usually an even more hopeless case. The whisky drunkard will often admit that he is such; the opium drunkard never.

The remedy for all these evils is to be found in one word—temperance. "Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things." (1 Cor. ix. 25.) The word "temperance" has come to be used in such a confined sense, that we are in danger of forgetting its larger application. We are to be temperate in all things; that is, we are to use them in such moderation as that they shall do us good instead of harm, and to have the mastery over our appetites, so we shall command them, and not they us.

I have been speaking of such things as are in themselves harmless, and even useful, but there are other temptations which come under the head of "the flesh," and to which the word "temperate" does not apply, because the soldier of Christ has no right to touch them at all. Such are all those indulgences which tend to blunt the moral sense, and to arouse bad thoughts and passions. These things often come to us under very pretty disguises of art, literature, and the like.

I have known a Christian read a vile book, hardly fit for a decent kitchen fire, excusing himself on the ground of the beautiful style—as if one should take poison because it was presented in a finely carved bowl. Christian women go to see other women—young girls, as precious in God's sight as their own daughters—exhibit themselves on the stage in shamelessly indecent dresses and dances. Yes, and they come away and express a virtuous horror of the poor creatures, who are not half as bad as themselves, inasmuch as they are working hard for a living, and not for idle amusement. A shamelessly wicked woman comes among us, and people who profess and call themselves Christians go to see and applaud her on the stage, because, forsooth, it is "an education in art."

In all such matters there is but one rule for the Christian—"touch not, taste not, handle not." Give the enemy no admission under any pretense, however specious. Nobody was ever hurt by letting a doubtful pleasure alone. Our carnal nature will in itself make us trouble enough without any help. By God's grace we can keep it in subjection, but how can we expect that grace, how dare we ask for it, if we run willfully into temptation?

      Ps. xvii.                        1 Cor. x.

FOURTH THURSDAY IN LENT.

OUR GHOSTLY ENEMY.

IT seems rather the fashion, just now, to deny the existence of Satan as a person at all. I suppose nothing could please him more than to be so denied. "I don't believe in a personal devil," said a lady in a Bible class; "I believe in a principle of evil." When asked to define what she meant by a principle of evil, it appeared that she had no very clear idea of the matter herself. The simple truth is that there is as much proof of the personality of Satan as of the Holy Spirit, and a believer in the Bible may as reasonably deny one as the other. Our Lord always speaks of him as a living, thinking, active being, as in St. John viii. 44, St. Matt. xiii. 19 and 39, and many other places. Try substituting the words "principle of evil" in these passages, and see what sense it will make. Satan is perhaps the most active member of that famous old firm "the world, the flesh, and the devil," in which indeed there are no silent partners. He is always ready to back the others, and, what is still worse, he has a secret ally in every heart, who, though crushed and kept under, is always trying to open correspondence with its old friend. He does not come to us in hideous disguise of hoof and horn, as the old painters have depicted him. None but a fool would do that; and he is no fool as concerns the ends he would compass. "The devil knows many things," says the Arab proverb, "because he is very old." He knows how to put on many disguises, and can on occasions transform himself into an angel of light.

Pride and anger, envy, hatred, and malice, are usually the sins specially attributed to Satan; but there is one class of sins which are particularly his own. I refer to lying in all its branches, to evil-speaking, slander, detraction, and the like. "When he speaketh of a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it," says our Lord. (St. John viii. 44.) Slander is his business and delight. He is "the accuser of our brethren" (Rev. xii. 10), and the patron of them that do the like.

This matter of evil-speaking is one that deserves grave consideration. It is a common and crying evil. There are probably few—I wish I dared say no—professing Christians who will deliberately invent a slander, but how many are there who will repeat one without a thought, and that of a fellow church-member, with whom they have perhaps knelt at the Lord's table only the day before. Mrs. A. hears a tale of shame concerning a young girl, which, if true, would be enough to blight the young thing's character forever. She does not know if it be true or false; perhaps she does not know the person by sight; but it is a piece of news, and for the dear delight of telling a story she repeats it—never, be it observed, without some slight addition, for few people can repeat a thing exactly as they hear it. Mrs. A. does not think that in so repeating a slander she is making herself responsible for it, but such is the case, and God will hold her so if man does not. She may think herself a very good woman at the very time that she is doing Satan's dirtiest work for him. It is not necessary that slander should always be put into direct words. An insinuation, a lifting of the hands and eyes, nay, silence itself, may and often does say more than words.

"A lie has a thousand legs, while the truth has but two," says the Eastern proverb. No matter how often a false statement is repeated, there is always some one to believe it and repeat it. Here is a notable instance. Some one once said that "every sixpence given to the heathen cost a dollar to send it." It is an utterly false statement, and has been proved so a dozen times; yet it is constantly repeated, and meets the missionary worker at every turn. "I have never cared to have anything to do with Mrs. N., since she was found out taking goods from G.'s store," said a person of one who was a fellow church-member. "But that was entirely disproved," said I, indignantly; "it was shown plainly that Mrs. N. simply took another parcel for her own—a mistake anyone might make." "Oh well, I never heard that!" was the reply. "It was an odd mistake, anyhow!" I suppose this story will be repeated to Mrs. N.'s discredit for years to come, and not one in twenty who hears it will hear the refutation.

It is a safe rule never to repeat anything to the disadvantage of another, unless absolutely necessary. The golden rule applies here as everywhere, "Think, if you are tempted to retail a bit of personal slander, how you would like it if the case were your own—if it were yourself or your wife or daughter that was attacked." Think that every fellow-Christian is a member of the Lord's body, and that in wounding the members you wound also the Head. Another good rule is never to repeat conversation. We all need the prayer, "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips." (Ps. cxli. 3.) Finally, since it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh, let us strive to keep our hearts and minds as become the temples of the Holy Ghost, pure and clean, and admit no visitors therein but such as are worthy of that greatest and most honored of all guests.

      Ps. cxli.                        St. James iii.

FOURTH FRIDAY IN LENT.

THE GREAT TEMPTER.

"ONE thing I would not let slip: I took notice that poor Christian was so confounded that he did not know his own voice; and thus I perceived it. Just when he was come over against the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him, and stepped up softly to him, and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him, which he verily thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put Christian more to it than anything that he met with before, even to think that he now blasphemed Him that he loved before. Yet if he could have helped it, he would not have done it; but he had not the discretion either to stop his ears, or to know whence these blasphemies came."

Does not this passage of Bunyan's describe the occasional experience of many a Christian? We find ourselves assailed by doubts and fears, by hard thoughts of our Father in Heaven, by wicked suggestions of all sorts, till we are ready to despair of ourselves, and to think ourselves hypocrites or castaways.

How it is that Satan contrives to inject these evil suggestions, or why he should be permitted to do so, I cannot tell, any more than I can tell why evil should exist at all. It is a part of that great mystery which may perhaps be explained in a future life, but certainly not here. The practical question is, How are we to meet these assaults, and what is the best way to repel them?

An old writer has said that the best way to meet temptations is to deal with them as one does with dogs which run out to bark at passengers—walk straight on, and take no notice of them. This is, in many cases, a good rule. Ignore the tempter altogether. Hold no parley with him, but go straight on with whatever you are doing. He will grow tired after a while, and let you alone. But if you must needs fight him—and one cannot always escape the contest—be sure to use the weapons your great Captain has put into your hands, and no other. Take the shield of faith. Repel every doubt with an "I believe" and an "I know." Be sure you are familiar with your sword, which is the Word of God. Above all, never for one moment give up the contest. The Seneca Indians have the correct theory on this subject. They hold that no evil spirit or demon can hurt a man while he fights it, and does not give way to fear; but that if he does so give way, it is all over with him. All the powers of darkness combined cannot drag the weakest disciple from his Saviour's arms so long as the will holds fast to its Lord. Remember this, and show yourselves men.

Remember, too, that there is a sure refuge always at hand, always open, always strong to save. In old times, he who fled for refuge to the altar of the church or temple was safe from his foe. So now, that persecuted saint who takes refuge in the presence of God is in "a little sanctuary." "In the time of trouble He shall hide me in His tabernacle; yea, in the secret place of His dwelling shall He hide me." (Ps. xxvii. 5.) "He shall defend thee under His wings, and thou shalt be safe under His feathers." (Ps. xci. 4.) Safe in that sanctuary, and hidden under those wings, we may bid defiance to Satan and all his crew. The Lord shall fight for us, and we shall hold our peace. (Ex. xiv. 14.)

Let us, then, go boldly forward in the race set before us; watchful indeed and wary, but trusting in the power and love of our Captain, who knows our temptations and trials far better than we ourselves. "In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." (Heb. ii. 18.) Let us cultivate sense of God's Presence. Believe me, it is a thing to be cultivated. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" His power is on our side so soon as our will is united to His will by faith and an honest intention.

Let us always remember, for our comfort, that temptations are not sins, else would our Lord not have been without sin. It is only when our wills consent to them that they become so. "You cannot keep those birds from flying over your head," said John Wesley to a young disciple who asked for counsel on this subject, "but you can keep them from making nests in your hair.", But never, "never" play or trifle with temptation. Never willfully put yourself in its way. When you do, you give Satan an advantage of which he is not slow to avail himself. It is a story told by some author of antiquity that the devil once entered into a young Christian woman who was present at a show of gladiators. Being summoned to leave her, he refused, declaring that he had found her on his ground, and she was therefore his lawful prey. We may face all the hosts of hell when our Lord's business makes it needful, and we may be sure that in doing so we have the Lord on our side; but if we cross willfully the line between right and wrong in the pursuit of pleasure or business, we have no right to think that God's presence will go with us there. Nay, we should be careful not to approach that line too closely. In time of war, the safe place is not near the front, and above all not on the neutral ground between the armies. There we shall probably be treated as the enemy of both sides. Let our abiding be on the everlasting hills of God's truth and law, where His sun always shines, and where no foe can ever come.

      Ps. xci.                        1 Peter v.

FOURTH SATURDAY IN LENT.

HEARTINESS.

IN the collect which we have been considering, we find an old-fashioned word which means a great deal. We ask God to look upon our "hearty" desires. A hearty desire is one into which we put our whole heart. There may be many things which we would like well enough to have for our own. There are many wishes which we should be pleased to have gratified. But, after all, we do not care enough about them to make any special effort in the matter. But when we heartily desire a thing, we work for it. We take every means to bring about the gratification of our wish, and we do not easily give up and sit down contented without it.

It is so in religious matters. A careless or worldly man may have at times an uneasy feeling that all is not right with him. He hears a rousing sermon perhaps. Some friend or acquaintance dies suddenly, and he wonders how he would fare if the same fate should overtake himself. He thinks he really will take time to consider the matter at some future day when he shall not be so busy. He even tries to pray a little, though he does not know well how to set about it. But his heart is not in the matter, and the impression soon passes away, leaving the man in a worse case than before; for, be it observed, nothing hardens the heart like a stifled conviction.

It is to be feared that this half-heartedness is the true reason why so many prayers are unanswered, and why so many professed disciples of our Lord have so little comfort in their religion, and do so little credit to their profession. They are half-hearted. They have no earnestness in the matter, and would even think such earnestness out of place, and fanatical. They can show and feel enough of enthusiasm on the subject of a business enterprise, a game of baseball, a new fashion, a new opera-singer; but speak to such an one of enthusiasm in religious matters, and he will look at you in amazement, and think you a little cracked. He professes to believe all the articles of the Christian faith, and bows his head in the creed with all propriety—in church; but talk to him of Heaven and Hell, of the love of God, and the judgments of God as present realities, and you make him uncomfortable. He becomes conscious of his own deficiencies, and the feeling is not agreeable. He will get away as soon he can, and probably call you a Methodist behind your back, if he does not do so to your face.

This half-heartedness is a fatal hindrance to growth in grace. I fear many pray for holy hearts, who would, after all, be sorry to have them. A man prays for grace to cast away the works of darkness, but there are, perhaps, certain works of darkness which are profitable in a business point of view, and he has no desire to cast them away. A woman asks that she may perceive and know what things she ought to do, but she is conscious of certain duties half hidden in the background of her mind and conscience, on which she does not care to be enlightened, because the fulfilling of them would be inconvenient. She prays for grace to withstand the world, but she does not really wish to withstand it, because she loves some of its gifts, and does not mean to throw them away. So people go on, trying to serve two masters, to please God and themselves, and getting no real satisfaction from either. They wonder what those mean who talk of the blessedness of service, of communion with God, of comfort in affliction, and the like, and are tempted to regard all such utterances either as fanaticism or pretence, because there is nothing in their own experience to correspond with them.

Is it any wonder that such prayers are not answered, and that such service is not blessed? Would you like it yourself in a child or servant? Surely not.

Let me beg of you, dear fellow-servant of our blessed Master, to examine yourself in this matter, and see if you do not find therein the reason why you have no more comfort in your religion; no more peace and joy and readiness to work for Him who has wrought such great things for us. Is the sign of the cross still on your forehead, or have the kisses of the world worn it away? Do you really and truly "love" God as you love your husband or children, if you have them? Are you ready to sacrifice anything for Him? Suppose that He should offer to release you at this moment from every sin, would you be willing to have Him do it?

This whole-hearted service no doubt has its trials. Our Lord Himself has told us that. "All that would live godly in Jesus Christ shall suffer persecution." (2 Tim. iii. 12.) "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household?" (St. Matt. x. 25.) You cannot be faithful to the great King without offending His enemies. You cannot really renounce the world without angering the world. You may not have to meet with such persecutions as the early disciples did, but you will probably be called peculiar, affected, Methodistical. But fear nothing. You may, and probably will, meet with even more serious assaults. Satan will rage when he sees you in earnest, and try his best to bar your path, or win you away from it. But again I say, never fear. The Lord is on your side, and will stretch out His right hand to be your defense. He will feed you with the hidden manna, and give you to drink of the water of Life freely. You shall receive the mystical gift; the white stone wherein is a name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. (Rev. ii. 17.) Passing through the valley of misery, you shall use it for a well. The wilderness of this world shall blossom as the rose, and the thorny road lead you surely to the city of the great King.

      Isa. xii.                        Rev. ii.

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT.

REFRESHMENT.

MID-LENT Sunday is also called Refreshment Sunday—a very old name, probably given with reference to the subject of the Gospel for the day, which is the feeding of the five thousand on the lake of Galilee. Dr. Gouldburn, in his invaluable book on the collects, has shown the connection between the collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the day, all of which are full of matter for reflection. Let us for the present confine our attention to the Gospel, and try, by reverent consideration, to make real to ourselves this wonderful miracle of our Lord's, and see what lesson it has for us.

It had been a time of special activity for our Lord and His more immediate followers. The apostles had just returned from their first preaching mission. Two by two, they had passed through the lands of Judah and Galilee, preaching the glad tidings of the Kingdom of Heaven, healing the sick, restoring the deaf and blind, and casting out evil spirits in the name of Jesus. I think of two homely, travel-stained men arriving at nightfall, perhaps, in some lonely little village, and asking the hospitality which was not at such a time likely to be denied them. There is nothing about them to distinguish them from any common wayfarers, as they partake of the plain fare set before them. But there is a cloud over the faces of the hosts. The elder son, the prop of their age, lies on a bed of sickness, and the physician has said that there is no release for him save by death. The guests rise and go to the bedside of the sufferer, who is perhaps hardly conscious of their presence, and one of them takes him by the hand.

"In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, I bid thee arise and walk."

In a moment the dull eyes brighten, the pale cheek flushes, the helpless limbs feel new life, and the young man rises, and throws aside the useless covering, a well man. The amazing news spreads from house to house, and soon the whole village is gathered to hear and see these wonderful strangers. A woman, weeping over her dead babe, hears the news, and thinks—

"Oh, had they but come before my child died!"

Then a strange ray of hope darts into her mind. The strangers have cured one as good as dead. May they perhaps waken the dead also? At all events, it will do no harm to ask them. She wraps herself in her veil, and goes forth bearing the little waxen corpse, and returns with her child safe and smiling in her arms.

Many such stories must the apostles have had to relate to their Master on their return; some tales, possibly, of rejection and scorn from those they would have blest.

But their meeting was destined to be interrupted by sad tidings. The disciples of John the Baptist had heard of the death of their leader, slain by the wiles of a vile woman. They had been permitted by Herod to pay the last sad duties to his body, and that done there was one thing more remaining to them. They "went and told Jesus." Where could they go, save to that wonderful Being to whom their own revered leader had borne witness, and whose forerunner he had always called himself? We are not told in what words He comforted them. But we know how He showed His consideration for their weariness. "Come ye apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." (S. Mark vi. 31.)

I have often thought, if I were to preach an Ash Wednesday sermon, I would choose these words for my text. It is the call which the Church addresses to her children on that day: "Come!" she says. "Come from the hurry of business, and the worse and more distracting hurry of pleasure. Leave your cares behind you for a time. Let the world take care of itself. It will do well enough without you, as it did before you were born, and will do after you are dead. Come into a desert place as yet unspoiled by man, and rest awhile."

We are apt to think of a desert as a barren and sandy waste, destitute of verdure or beauty; but this is not its usual meaning in the Bible. It simply denotes an uncultivated tract, often used as pasture, and covered with grass and flowers in the season. It was to such a place as this that Jesus now retired with the disciples; to the narrow green plain of El Batihah, as it is now called. It was a spot about six miles from Capernaum by sea, surrounded by high hills, and quite uninhabited. Here the weary band might hope for a season of quiet and refreshment.

But they were destined to be disappointed. The boat, retarded probably by contrary winds, seems to have made but slow progress, and when they did at last arrive, they found the ground occupied by an eager crowd, waiting for the healer, of whose powers they had already made proof.

Here was a disappointment indeed! But our Lord shewed no irritation at the failure of His plan. He "was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things" (St. John vi. 34), and He also healed their sick.

Here is at once a practical lesson to be learned from our Lord's conduct—I mean that of patience under interruption and disappointment. We make a plan, for some good enterprise probably, and straightway that plan becomes, as it were, something sacred in our eyes, and we are not only grieved, but vexed, if anything happens to hinder us. We feel in our secret souls, if we do not venture to say so, that we are hardly treated, and we are ready to say, nay, perhaps we do say, that we will never undertake any such thing again.

In truth, there are interruptions which it is hard to bear with patience; for instance, the way in which idle people take up the time of busy people with the veriest trifles.

Yet all these things are part of our life's trials, and must be met in the right spirit, and turned to some account. In respect to our plans, the right way, it seems to me, is to sit loosely to them, with a reference in all things to a Will higher than ours. "If the Lord will, we shall do this or that." (St. James iv. 15.) If He takes us away from one piece of work, it may be because He has something better or more important for us to do; or that His wisdom sees that this particular work is better left undone. If your plan has been made with due regard to His glory, depend upon it He will not suffer it to fail utterly.

With regard to those interruptions from idle people of which I have spoken, we may be able to turn even them to account. We may try to give the conversation a serious and profitable turn. We may have a chance of defending the absent or the calumniated, or of recommending some good work. At worst we can let patience have her perfect work, and thus grow more like that Master whom it is at once our most important work and our dearest wish to imitate.

      Ex. xvii.                        St. John vi. 1-21.

FOURTH MONDAY IN LENT.

REFRESHMENT SUNDAY—Continued.

ALL day long our Lord was engaged in teaching the people, and in healing their sick. The fact that he did so teach this great multitude of common people, and that they heard Him gladly, as we know they did (St. Mark xii. 37), is surely a sufficient answer to those who talk about the danger of giving the Scriptures to the unlearned. Meantime the disciples no doubt were reposing as they shared in their Lord's instructions, and witnessed His miracles. But as the afternoon of that long spring day drew on to its close they began to be uneasy. They looked abroad over the vast multitude thronging the plain, and wondered how they were to be fed and lodged, "for divers of them came from afar," and there were women and children among them, some of whom, no doubt, had just been cured of severe illness. We can see them consulting together with anxious faces, and many a troubled glance at the Master, and at last they venture to remind Him of the lateness of the hour, and the loneliness of the place where they were. "This is a desert place and the time is far spent; send them away, that they may buy food." (St. Mark vi. 36.) But the Lord had his own purposes to fulfill, and he answered them tranquilly, "They need not depart; give ye them to eat;" and then, as if their astonishment were not enough at such a proposition under such circumstances, He turns to Philip with the question, "Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?"

Philip must have been indeed amazed at the question. Buy bread for that great crowd of people! True, there was a market not so very far away, in the little city of Bethsaida Julius, but it might be doubtful whether so small a place could furnish the requisite quantity of bread, even if they had the means to pay for it. "Two hundred pennyworth is not sufficient for them, that every one of them might take a little;" and one of the number asks, "Shall we go and buy bread?"

Andrew, whose natural disposition seems to have been of that helpful sort which always moves the owner thereof to do something practical, here makes a suggestion. While others had been talking he had been investigating the resources at hand, and he now comes forward leading a little boy, and announces the result of his inquiries. "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fishes." (St. John vi. 9.) With what amazed looks his fellow-disciples must have regarded him! Only five loaves and two fishes! He himself was conscious of the seeming absurdity, for he added immediately, "What are they among so many?" What, indeed! Hardly enough for two, and here were thousands.

But as the disciples regarded our Lord's face they must have been in some measure reassured. There was no embarrassment or uncertainty to be read there. He Himself knew what He would do, as His next words showed them: "Make the men sit down." Here, at least, was a plain, practical command, and cheerfully they hastened to obey.

In all our perplexities and puzzles we can usually find something to do at once, and that something leads to something else, till by degrees the way is made plain before us. The old Saxon motto, "Do the next thing," is the guide out of many a difficulty. "How are we ever to fill this box?" said one of the officers of a certain missionary auxiliary; "we have only money enough to buy half a dozen towels." "Very well, let us buy the towels," was the answer; "by the time they are hemmed we shall have more." And so it proved; and a better box never gladdened a hard-working woman than was sent to that faithful teacher.

A poor woman in England once gave a few shillings, the result of long saving, to purchase some Bibles for the poor; and out of that gift grew one of the great Bible societies which supply the Scriptures to hundreds of thousands. A few serious words, kindly spoken to a wild young man in a diligence, gave to the Moravian Church one of the most successful missionaries that ever lived. Let us use what we have. It may be not so much as the little lad brought in his basket, but the Master will accept it and use it; whether it be to the feeding of one or ten thousand does not signify, so it is to His service. Let us take the first step in obedience to His command, and the next step will be made plain. It may be but a short one, but it will be so much in advance. Like the pilgrim in the valley of the shadow of death, when we lift up our foot to go forward, we may not know where, or upon what we may set it next; but be sure the solid ground will be there to meet it, so long as we are in the way of the Celestial City.

      1 Kings xvii.                        Acts xvii. 16.