DEFILING THE HOLY PLACE
Mark xi. 11-19.
T was a teaching of the old Rabbis that no one should make a thoroughfare of the Temple, or enter it with the dust upon his feet. The teaching was full of sacred significance, however far their practice may have departed from its truth.
Let me not use the Temple as a mere passage to something else. Let me not use my religion as an expedient for more easily reaching “the chief seats” among men. Let me not put on the garments of worship in order that I may readily and quickly fill my purse. Let me not make the sanctuary “a short cut” to the bank!
And let me not carry the dust of the world on to the sacred floor. Let me “wipe my feet.” Let me sternly shake off some things—all frivolity, easeful indifference, the spirit of haste and self-seeking. Let me not defile the courts of the Lord.
And let me remember that “the whole earth is full of His glory.” Everywhere, therefore, I am treading the sacred floor! Lord, teach me this high secret! Then shall I not demean the Temple into a market, but I shall transform the market into a temple. “Lo, God is in this place, and I knew it not!”
JULY The Twenty-first
PURIFYING THE SANCTUARY
2 Chronicles xxix. 1-11, 15-19.
ORSHIP has vital connections with work. There are nerve-relationships between the heart and the hand. The condition of the sanctuary is reflected in the state of the empire. If there is uncleanness in “the holy place,” there will be blight and degeneracy among the people. The fatal seeds of national instability and decay are not found in economics; they are found in the sanctuary. “Until I went into the sanctuary ... then understood I!”
Hezekiah cleansed “the house of the Lord.” He cast forth the filthiness out of the holy place. He ushered in his golden age with the reformation of worship. He recalled exiled and white-robed Piety to her appointed throne. He began the re-establishment of right by recognizing the rights of God. He gave the Lord His due! All our rights are born out of our “being right” with God! We begin to be rich when we cease to rob God!
“And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also.” That is ever so. Our real songs begin with our sacrifices. We enter the realm of music when we enter the realm of self-surrender. A willing offering, on a clean altar, introduces the soul into “the joy of the Lord.”
JULY The Twenty-second
VISIONS AND TASKS
2 Chronicles xxxiv. 1-11.
OSIAH “began to seek after God.” The other day I saw a young art student copying one of Turner’s pictures in the National Gallery. His eyes were being continually lifted from his canvas to his “master.” He put nothing down which he had not first seen. He was “seeking after” Turner!
And thus it was with Josiah. His eyes were “ever toward the Lord!” He studied the “ways” of the Lord, in order that he might incarnate them in national life and practice. Wise doings always begin in clear seeing. We should be far more efficient in practice if we were more diligently assiduous in vision. It is never a waste of time to “look unto Him.” Looking is a most needful part of our daily discipline. “What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!”
And because Josiah saw the holiness of the Lord he saw the uncleanness of the people. He had a vision of God’s holy place, and he therefore saw the defilement of the material worship.
“In the twelfth year he began to purge Judah.” Yes, that is the sequence. The reformer follows the seer. We shall begin to sweep the streets of our own city when we have gazed upon the glories of the holy city, the New Jerusalem.
JULY The Twenty-third
A GREAT SOUL AT PRAYER
2 Chronicles vi. 12-21.
ET me reverently study this great prayer in order that, when I go to the house of God, I may be able to enrich its ministry by the wealth of my own supplications.
Solomon prayed that the eyes of the Lord might be open toward the house “day and night.” Like the eyes of a mother upon her child! Like the eyes of a lover upon his beloved! And therefore it is more than protective vision; shall we reverently say that it is inventive vision, devising gracious surprises, anticipating needs, preparing love-gifts; it is sight which is both insight and foresight, ever inspecting and prospecting for the loved one’s good.
And Solomon prayed that God’s ear might be open to the cry of His people’s need. “Hear Thou from Thy dwelling-place.” He prayed that the house of God might be the place of open communion. That is ever the secret of peace, and therefore of power. If I know that I have correspondence with the Holy One, I shall walk and work as a child of light. If God hear me, then I can sing!
And Solomon prays for the grace of forgiveness. He prays for the sense of sweet emancipation which is the gift of grace. It is the miracle of renewal, and it ought to happen every time we open the doors of the sanctuary.
JULY The Twenty-fourth
LOVE OF THE SANCTUARY
Psalm lxxxiv.
RACIOUS is the strength of this man’s desire for the holy place. He covets the privilege of the very sparrow which builds its nest beneath the sacred eaves! When he is away from the Temple its worship and music haunt his mind and soul. It wooes him in the market-place. Its insistent call is with him by the fireside. Yes, “in his heart are the highways to Zion!”
And the permanency of this devotional mood transfigures every place. It turns “the valley of weeping” into “a place of springs.” The colour of any place is largely determined by our moods. It is surprising what treasures we find when our soul is full of light. What discoveries old Scrooge made when the Christmas mood possessed his own heart! When we carry about the spirit of the sanctuary, we convert every spot into rich and hallowed ground.
“I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Better to have the temple-spirit, even as a menial, than the unhallowed heart in the glittering high places of sin. “God’s worst is better than the devil’s best.”
JULY The Twenty-fifth
NO TEMPLE THEREIN
“And I saw no temple therein!”
—Revelation xxi. 22-27.
ND that because it was all temple! “Every place was hallowed ground.” There was no merely localized Presence, because the Presence was universal. God was realized everywhere, and therefore the little meeting-tent had vanished, and in place of the measurable tabernacle there were the immeasurable and God-filled heavens.
Even here on earth I can measure my spiritual growth by the corresponding enlargement of my temple. What is the size of my sanctuary? Am I moving toward the time when nothing shall be particularly hallowed because all will be sanctified? Are the six days of the week becoming increasingly like the seventh, until people can see no difference between my Monday manners and my Sunday mood? And how about places? Do I still speak of “religion being religion,” and “business being business,” or is something of the sanctuary getting into my shop, and is the exchange becoming a side-chapel of the Temple?
“And the Lamb is the light thereof.” When we have done with the local temple we can dispose of its candles. When we pass out of the twilight into the morning “the stars retire.” The fore-gleams will change into the wondrous glory of the ineffable day.
JULY The Twenty-sixth
THE WELLS OF SALVATION
John iii. 1-21.
HE springs of our redemption are found in infinite love. “God is love!” Redemption was not inspired by anger, but by grace. We do not contemplate an angry God, demanding a victim, but a compassionate Father making a sacrifice. At one extreme of our golden text is eternal “love,” and at the other extreme is “eternal life.” What if the two are one? Etymologically, “love” and “life” are akin. What if they are only two names for the same thing?
To “believe” in the love is to receive the life. For when I believe in a person’s love I open my doors to the lover. And to believe in the love of God is to let the heavenly Lover in. And with love comes a wonderful tropical air—light, and warmth, and air; and “all things become new!” It is the letting in of the spring, and things which have been in wintry bondage awake, and arise from their graves.
And so I “enter into the kingdom of God.” I become a native of a new and marvellous country. I begin to be acclimatized in the realm of the blest. And I “see the kingdom of God.” Spiritual perceptions become mine, and I gaze upon the mystic glories of the home of God.
JULY The Twenty-seventh
THE WORK OF FAITH
1 John v. 1-13.
ND so by belief I find life. I do not obtain the vitalizing air through controversy, or clamour, or idle lamentation, but by opening the window! Faith opens the door and window of the soul to the Son of God. It can be done without tears, it can be done without sensationalism. “If any man will open the door, I will come in.” “And he that hath the Son hath the life.”
And by belief I gain my victories. “Who is he that overcometh ... but he that believeth?” It is not by flashing armour that we beat the devil, but by an invincible life. On these battlefields a mystic breath does more destruction than all our fine and costly expedients. To believe is to obtain the winning spirit, and every battle brings its trophies to our feet.
And by belief I gain assurance. “He that believeth ... hath the witness in him.” So many Christians fight in doubt and indecision, and their uncertainty impairs their strength and skill. It is the man who can quietly say “I know” who is terrible in battle and who drives his foes in confusion from the field.
JULY The Twenty-eighth
ALL THINGS NEW!
2 Corinthians v. 14-21.
ERE is a new constraint! “The love of Christ constraineth me.” The love of Christ carries me along like a crowd. I am taken up in its mighty movement and swept along the appointed road! Or it arrests me, and makes me its willing prisoner. It lays a strong hand upon me, and I have no option but to go. A gracious “necessity is laid upon me.” I must!
And here is a new world. “Old things are passed away.” The man who is the prisoner of the Lord’s love will find himself in new and wonderful scenery. Everything will wear a new face—God, man, self, the garden, the sky, the sea! We shall look at all things through love-eyes, and it is amazing in what new light a great love will set familiar things! Commonplaces become beautiful when looked at through the lens of Christian love. When we “walk in love” our eyes are anointed with “the eye-salve” of grace.
And here is a new service. “We are ambassadors ... for Christ.” When we see our Lord through love-eyes, and then our brother, we shall yearn to serve our brother in Christ. We shall intensely long to tell the love-story of the Lord our Saviour. What we have seen, with confidence we tell.
JULY The Twenty-ninth
NAMES AND NATURES
Romans viii. 1-10.
EN will recognize my Christianity by the sign of the Spirit of Christ. And they will accept no other witness. I saw a plant-pot the other day, full of soil, bearing no flower, but flaunting a stick on which was printed the word “Mignonette.” “Thou hast a name to live and art dead.” The world will take no notice of our labels and our badges: it is only arrested by the flower and the perfume. “If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.”
And in the Spirit of Christ I shall best deal with “the things of the flesh.” There are some things which are best overcome by neglecting them. To give them attention is to give them nourishment. Withdraw the attention, and they sicken and die. And so I must seek the fellowship of the Spirit. That friendship will destroy the other. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.” If I am in communion with the Holy One the other will pine away, and cease to trouble me.
Lord, make my spirit a kinsman of Thine! Let the intimacy be ever deeper and dearer. “Draw me nearer, blessed Lord,” until in nearness to Thee I find my peace, my joy, and my crown.
JULY The Thirtieth
SIN AS POISON
Numbers xxi. 4-9.
ND this is the familiar teaching, that sin is a serpent. It possesses a deadly poison. We may give it pleasant names, but we are only ornamenting death. A chemist might put a poison into a chaste and elegant flask, but he has in no wise changed its nature. And when we name sin by philosophic euphemisms, and by less exacting terminologies—such as “cleverness,” “smartness,” or “fault,” or “misfortune,” we are only changing the flask, and the diabolical essence remains the same.
And, then, sin is a serpent because it is so subtle. It creeps into my presence almost before I know it. Its approaches are so insidious, its expedients so full of guile. “Therefore, I say unto all, Watch!”
But in Christ the old serpent is dead! Christ “became sin,” and in Him sin was crucified. The thing that bit is bitten, and its nefarious power destroyed. But out of Christ the serpent is still busy and malicious, claiming what he presumes to call his own.
Let me, then, dwell in Christ, where sin “has no more dominion.” “Whosoever believeth shall not perish but have life.”
JULY The Thirty-first
THE CLEAN FLAME OF LOVE
1 John iv. 4-14.
HIS aged apostle cannot get away from the counsels of love. All his mental movements circle about this “greatest thing in the world.” Once he would “call down fire upon men”; now the only fire he knows is the pure and genial flame of love. Beautiful is it when our fires become cleaner as we get older, when temper changes to compassion, when malice becomes goodwill, when an ill-controlled conflagration becomes a homely fireside.
And all the love we acquire we must get from the altars of God. “We love because He first loved us.” We can find it nowhere else. “Love is of God.” Why, then, not seek it in the right place? Why seek for palms in arctic regions, or for icebergs in the tropics? God is the country of love, and in His deep mines there are riches “unsearchable.”
And the gracious law of life is this, that every acquisition of love increases our powers of discernment. “He that loveth knoweth...!” It is as though every jewel we find gives us an extra lens for the discovery of finer jewels still. And thus the love-life is a continual surprise, and the surprise will be eternal, for the object of the wonder is the infinite love of God.
AUGUST The First
GOD AS OUR ALLY!
Romans viii. 31-39.
F God is for us!” But we must make sure of that. Is God on the field, taking sides with us? Have we been so busy with our preparations, so concerned with many things, and everybody, that we have forgotten our greatest possible Ally? Is He on the field, and on which side! My soul, go on thy knees, and settle this in secret. That purpose of thine! That choice of thine! That work of thine! Is it hallowed with thy Lord’s approval and seal?
And “if God is for us, who can be against us?” Nothing else counts. It is ever a foolish and futile thing to count the heads in the opposing ranks. “God is always on the side of the big battalions!” It is a black lie of the devil! We need not fear the big battalions if only we are securely in the right. We are not to count heads, but to weigh and estimate causes. Which of the causes provides a tent for the Lord of Hosts? Where has the truth its waving flag? Stand near that flag, my soul, and thou wilt be near thy Lord! And nothing shall separate thee from His love, and leave thee weak and isolated on the field. Thou shalt be “more than conqueror” in Him who loves thee, and will love thee for evermore.
AUGUST The Second
BY JACOB’S WELL
John iv. 1-15.
WEARY woman and a weary Lord! But the Lord was only weary in body; the woman was dry and exhausted in soul. Her heart was like some charred chamber after a destructive fire. All its furniture was injured, and some of it was almost burnt away. For sin had been blazing in the secret place, and had scorched the delicacies of the spirit, and the inward satisfaction was gone. And now she was very weary, and her daily walk had become a most tiresome march.
And the Lord, with sympathetic insight, discerned the inward dryness. There was no sound of holy contentment, no melody of joyful, spiritual desire. There was only the cold, clammy silence of death. “He knew what was in man.” And there was no “river of water of life” making glad the streets of this woman’s soul.
And so He would bring to her the waters of spiritual satisfaction, the holy well of eternal life. “In the wilderness shall waters break out, and springs in the desert.” The Lord is about to work a miracle of grace, changing dull pang into healing peace, and suffocated desire into soaring fellowship with God. He is about to transform an outlawed woman into one of the “elect saints.” How will He do it? Let us watch Him.
AUGUST The Third
CHANGING ASKING INTO THIRSTING
“Go, call thy husband!”
—John iv. 16-30.
NEVER supposed that the transformation would begin here. I thought that there were some words which would remain unspoken. But here our Master speaks a word which only deepens the weariness of the woman, and irritates the sore of her galling yoke. What is He doing?
He is seeking to change the sense of wretchedness into the sense of sin! He is seeking to change weariness into desire! He wants to make the woman thirst! And so He puts His finger upon her sin. He cannot give the heavenly water to lips that merely ask for it. “Sir, give me this water!” No, it cannot be had for the asking, only for the thirsting! And so the gracious Lord turns the woman’s eyes upon her own sinful life, in order that in the heat of a fierce shame she might cry out, “I thirst for God, for the living God!” And sure I am that, before the Lord had done with her, this quiet, lone cry leapt from her lips, and in immediate response to the cry she was given a deep draught from the eternal well.
And, good Lord, arouse my sense of my sin that I, too, may thirst for Thy water! Now, make me thirst for it, and in the thirst receive it!
AUGUST The Fourth
HIDDEN MANNA
“I have meat to eat that ye know not of.”
—John iv. 31-42.
ND what sort of meat is this? The Lord found secret refreshment in feeding other people. In vitalizing the woman of Samaria He restored His own soul. The disciples were amazed when they returned to find that the weariness had gone out of His face, and that He looked like one who had been at a feast!
And that is the law of life. “My meat is to do the will.” There is a secret nutriment in the bread we give away. The Lord gives us to eat of the “hidden manna” whenever we are seeking the refreshment of our fellows. Distributed bread has a sacramental efficacy for our own souls. The man who feeds the hungry shall himself be “satisfied as with marrow.”
And these ways of service are open on every side. There are millions of weary people waiting, like the woman at the well. “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields: for they are white already to harvest!” Be it mine to be a minister in the mighty service, and in the ways of obedience let me find delights and delicacies for my own soul.
Feed me till I want no more!”
AUGUST The Fifth
BROOKS BY THE WAY
Isaiah xii.
HE wells of the Lord are to be found where most I need them. The Lord of the way knows the pilgrim life, and the wells have been unsealed just where the soul is prone to become dry and faint. At the foot of the hill Difficulty was found a spring! Yes, these health-springs are lifting their crystal flood in the cheerless wastes of evil antagonisms and exhausting grief.
Sometimes I am foolish, and in my need I assume that the well is far away. I knew a farmer who for a generation had carried every pail of water from a distant well to meet the needs of his homestead. And one day he sunk a shaft by his own house door, and to his great joy he found that the water was waiting at his own gate! My soul, thy well is near, even here! Go not in search of Him! Thy pilgrimage is ended, the waters are at thy feet!
But I must “draw the water out of the wells of salvation.” The hand of faith must lift the gracious gift to the parched lips, and so refresh the panting soul. “I will take the cup of salvation.” Stretch out thy “lame hand of faith,” and take the holy, hallowing energy offered by the Lord.
AUGUST The Sixth
WATERS OF CONTENTMENT
Isaiah lv. 1-7.
HE refreshing waters are offered to “everyone” that is thirsty. The evangel is like some clear bugle peal, sounded on some commanding upland, and which is heard alike in palace and cottage, in school and at the mill, by the child of plenty and by the child of want. “Ho, everyone!” The appeal is to the common heart, whether the setting be squalor or splendour, whether the soul faints in the glare of the prosperous noon, or under the chill of the burdensome night. “Ho, everyone that thirsteth!”
And the waters may be ours “without money and without price.” We have not to earn them by the sweat of body, mind, or soul. We have not to make a toilsome pilgrimage, on bleeding feet, to some distant Lourdes, where the sacred healer abides. No, we are asked to pay nothing, and for the simple reason that we “have nothing wherewith to pay.” The reviving grace is given to us “freely,” and all that we have to present is our thirst.
And yet we spend and spend, we labour and labour, but we buy no bread of contentment, and the waters of satisfaction are far away. The satisfying bread cannot be bought; it can only be begged. The water of life cannot be taken from a cistern; it must be drunk at the spring.
AUGUST The Seventh
RIVERS FROM THE SNOW
Revelation xxii. 1-7, 17-21.
HE water of life flows out of the throne. Grace has its rise in sovereign holiness. This river is born amid the virgin snow. All true love springs out of spotless purity. “Love” from any other source is illegitimately wearing a stolen name. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord!” That is the first note in the song of redemption. In that burning whiteness I discern the possibility of my own sanctification.
For the grace which flows out of sovereign holiness is a minister of the holy Lord to make me holy. If it were not perfectly pure it would itself be an agent of defilement. But it is “clear as crystal,” and therefore it purifies and fertilizes wherever it flows. Rare trees grow upon its banks, and grace-fruits make every season beautiful. “Everything shall live whither the river cometh.”
But without the river my soul shall be “as an unwatered garden.” My life shall be a realm of perpetual drought. Things may begin to grow, but they shall speedily droop and die. The heavenly Husbandman shall find no fruit when He walks amid the garden in the cool of the day. And therefore, my soul, look to the river which flows from the throne! “There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God,” and that river is for thee!
AUGUST The Eighth
THE SCARLET SIN
Isaiah i. 10-20.
OW can we deal with glaring sin, with sin that is “scarlet,” that is “red like crimson”? And when the red stain has soaked into the very texture of the character, and every fibre is stupefied, what can we do then? Let me listen.
“Wash you.” But ordinary washings will not suffice. The ministry of education will fail. Art, and literature, and music will leave the internal stain undisturbed. They may impart a polish, but the polish shall be like the gloss on badly-washed linen. And the ministry of work will fail. Work never yet made a foul soul clean. There is “a fountain opened for all uncleanness.” I must wash “in the blood of the Lamb.” That red sacrifice can wash out the deep red stain.
“Cease to do evil.” Yes, I must turn my back on the roads of defilement. There must be a sharp decision, and an immediate reversal of my ways. “Halt!” “Right about turn!” “Quick march!”
“Learn to do well!” Yes, let me diligently learn, like a child at school, until the deliberative becomes the instructive, and “practice makes perfect.”
AUGUST The Ninth
GOD’S REQUIREMENTS
“What doth the Lord require of thee?”
—Micah vi. 1-8.
O do justly.” Then I must not be so eager about my rights as to forget my duties. For my duties are just the observance of my neighbour’s rights. And to see my neighbour’s rights I must cultivate his “point of view.” I must look out of his windows! “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”
“And to love mercy.” And mercy is justice plus! And it is the “plus” which makes the Christian. His cup “runneth over.” He gives, like his Lord, “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.” There is always “a little extra” for Christ’s sake! And “blessed are the merciful.”
“And to walk humbly with thy God.” And there I am at the root of the two graces which have been enjoined upon me. The lowly friend of the Lord will most surely be both just and merciful. He cannot help it. The fragrance will cling to him as the fragrance of the orange clings to him who labours in the fruitful groves of Spain.
AUGUST The Tenth
GOOD FRUIT
Luke vi. 43-49.
Y Lord seeks “good fruit.” It must be sound. No disease must lurk within it. My virtues are so often touched with defilement. There is a little untruth even in my truth. There is a little jealousy even in my praise. There is a little superciliousness even in my forbearance. There is a little pride even in my piety. It is not “whole,” not holy. God demands sound fruit.
And “good fruit” demands “a good tree.” We must not look for truth from an untrue soul. If the bullet-mould is deformed, all the bullets will share its deformity. First get the mould right, and every bullet will share its rectitude. When the soul is “true,” all our words, and deeds, and gestures will be “of the truth,” and will be true indeed. “Make the tree good.”
And that is just what our Lord proclaims His willingness to do. He does not begin with effects, but with causes; not with fruit, but with trees. He does not begin with our speech, but with the speaker; not with conduct, but with character. And, blessed be His name, He can transform “corrupt trees” into “good trees,” until it shall be said: “He that hath turned the world upside down has come hither also.”
AUGUST The Eleventh
THE CONSECRATION OF THE WILL
John v. 1-18.
Y Lord demands my will in the ministry of healing. “Art thou willing to be made whole?” He will not carry me as a log. When my schoolmaster put a belt around me, and held me over the water with a rope, and taught me to swim, I had to use my arms. The condition of help was endeavour. And so in my salvation. I have always will-power sufficient to pray and to try. In the effort of faith I open the door to the energies of God. Grace flows in the channels of the determined will. “O, God, my heart is set!”
And my Lord demands my will in the living of the consecrated life. “Sin no more!” I must “will” to be whole, and I must will to remain holy. And here is the gracious law of the kingdom, that every time I exercise my will I add to its power. Every difficulty overcome adds its strength to my resources. Every enemy conquered marches henceforth in my own ranks. I go “from strength to strength.”
“God worketh in me to will!” The gracious Lord ever strengthens the will that is willing. He transforms the frail reed into an iron pillar, and makes trembling timidity bold as a lion.
I myself would mighty be.”
AUGUST The Twelfth
MY LIFE AND HOPE
John v. 19-30.
ERE is my reservoir. “The Son hath life in Himself.” All vitality has its source in Him. He is the enemy of death and the deadly. I can paint the dead to look like life; I can use rouge for blood, and make the white lips red, but it all remains clammy and cold. I can galvanize, but I cannot vitalize. I can “break the ball of nard,” and make perfume, “but still the sleeper sleeps.” “In Him is life.” “In Christ shall all be made alive!”
And here is my hope. “The Son also quickeneth.” He is not only a reservoir, He is a river. He is “the river of water of life.” And His blessed purpose is to flow into desolate places, converting deserts into gardens, and making wildernesses to blossom as the rose.
And He will come my way if only I will “hear” and “believe.” There is a flippant hearing which, while it listens, laughs Him to scorn. There is a cheap hearing which will venture nothing on His counsel. And there is the hearing of faith, which simply “takes Him at His word,” and in the glorious venture experiences the unsealing of the fountain of eternal life. “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.”
AUGUST The Thirteenth
THE INNER ROOMS
John v. 31-47.
HAT should I think of a man who was contented to remain in the outer halls and passages of Windsor Castle, when he was invited into the royal precincts to have gracious communion with the King? And what shall I think of men who are contented to “search the Scriptures” and “will not come” to the Lord? They spend their life exploring the lobbies, when the Host and the feast are waiting in the upper room!
And some men spend their days in criticism and they never advance to worship. They are like unto one who should give his strength to the deciphering of some time-worn inscription on the outer wall of some grand cathedral, and who never treads the sacred floor in fruitful and enriching awe.
And some men live in the senses, and not in the conscience, in the awful presence of the great white throne. They are for ever seeking sensations, and avoid the fellowship of duty. They ride about in the channel, and they never come to the harbour. They have no settled moral home.
My Lord, help me to regard all good things as merely passages leading to Thee! Let all good things bring me into intimate fellowship with Thee.