JUNE The Eleventh

_THE PATH ACROSS THE SEA_

"_Thy way is in the sea._"

--PSALM lxxvii. 11-20.

And the sea appears to be the most trackless of worlds! The sea is the very symbol of mystery, the grim dwelling-house of innumerable things that have been lost. But G.o.d's way moves here and there across this trackless wild. G.o.d is never lost among our mysteries. He knows his way about. When we are bewildered He sees the road, and He sees the end even from the beginning. Even the sea, in every part of it, is the Lord's highway. When His way is in the sea we cannot trace it. Mystery is part of our appointed discipline. Uncertainty is to prepare us for a deeper a.s.surance. The spirit of questioning is one of the ordained means of growth. And so the bewildering sea is our friend, as some day we shall understand. We love to "lie down in green pastures," and to be led "beside the still waters," and G.o.d gives us our share of this nourishing rest. But we need the mysterious sea, the overwhelming experience, the floods of sorrows which we cannot explain. If we had no sea we should never become robust. We should remain weaklings to the end of our days.

G.o.d takes us out into the deeps. But His way is in the sea. He knows the haven, He knows the track, and we shall arrive!

JUNE The Twelfth

_WAITING FOR THE SPECTACULAR_

"_The waves covered their enemies....

Then believed they His words._"

--PSALM cvi. 1-12.

Their faith was born in a great emergency. A spectacular deliverance was needed to implant their trust in the Lord. They found no witness in the quiet daily providence; the un.o.btrusive miracle of daily mercy did not awake their song. They dwelt upon the "special" blessing, when all the time the really special blessing was to be found in the sleepless care which watched over them in their ordinary and commonplace ways.

It is the old story. We are wanting G.o.d to appear in imperial glory; and He comes among us as a humble carpenter. We want great miracles, and we have the daily Providence. We see His dread goings in the earthquake; we do not feel His presence in the lilies of the field. We watch Him in the smoke and flames of Vesuvius; we do not recognize His footprints in the little turf-clad hill that is only a few yards from our own door.

It is a great day when we discover our G.o.d in the common bush. That day is marked with glory when our daily bread becomes a sacrament. When we enjoy a closer walk with G.o.d, common things will wear the hues of heaven.

JUNE the Thirteenth

_CLOUDED BUT NOT LOST!_

"_Clouds and darkness are round about Him._"

--PSALM xcvii.

When Lincoln had been a.s.sa.s.sinated, and word of the tragedy came to New York, "the people were in a state of mind which urges to violence." A man appeared on the balcony of one of the newspaper offices, waving a small flag, and a clear voice rang through the air: "Fellow-citizens! Clouds and darkness are round about Him! His pavilion is dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne! Fellow-citizens, G.o.d reigns!" It was the voice of General Garfield.

That voice proclaimed the divine sovereignty, even when the heavens were black with the menace of destruction. Lincoln had been a.s.sa.s.sinated, but G.o.d lived! Human confusion does not annihilate His throne. G.o.d liveth!

"The firm foundation standeth sure." This is the only rock to stand upon when the clouds have gathered, and the waters are out, and the great deeps are broken up. G.o.d's sceptre does not fall from His grasp, nor is s.n.a.t.c.hed by alien hands. The throne abideth. Joy will rise from the apparent chaos as springs are unsealed by the earthquake. He will bring fortune out of misfortune; the darkness shall be the hiding-place of His grace.

JUNE The Fourteenth

_THE LAW IN THE HEART_

"_I will put My laws into their hearts._"

--HEBREWS x. 16-22.

Everything depends on where we carry the law of the Lord. If it only rests in the memory, any vagrant care may s.n.a.t.c.h it away. The business of the day may wipe it out as a sponge erases a record from a slate. A thought is never secure until it has pa.s.sed from the mind into the heart, and has become a desire, an aspiration, a pa.s.sion. When the law of G.o.d is taken into the heart, it is no longer something merely remembered: it is something loved. Now things that are loved have a strong defence. They are in the "keep" of the castle, in the innermost custody of the stronghold.

The strength of the heart is wrapped about them, and no pa.s.sing vagrant can carry them away.

And this is where the good Lord is willing to put His laws. He is wishful to put them among our loves. And the wonderful thing is this: when laws are put among loves they change their form, and His statutes become our songs. Laws that are loved are no longer dreadful policemen, but compa.s.sionate friends. "O! how I love Thy law!" That man did not live in a prison, he lived in a garden, and G.o.d's will was unto him as gracious flowers and fruits. And so shall it be unto all of us when we love the law of the Lord.

JUNE The Fifteenth

_THE KING'S GUESTS_

"_Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?_"

--PSALM xxiv.

Who shall be permitted to pa.s.s into the sanctuary of the cloud, and have communion with the Lord in the holy place? "He that hath clean hands."

These hands of mine, the symbols of conduct, the expression of the outer life, what are they like? "Your hands are full of blood." Those hands had been busy murdering others, pillaging others, brutally ill-using their fellow-men. We may do it in business. We may do it in conversation. We may do it in a criminal silence. Our hands may be foul with a brother's blood.

And men and women with hands like these cannot "ascend into the hill of the Lord." There must be no stain of an unfair and scandalous life.

"And a pure heart." We need not trouble about the hands if the heart be clean. If all the presences that move in the heart--desires, and motives, and sentiments, and ideals--are like white-robed angels "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," everything that emerges into outer life will share the same radiant purity. The heart expresses itself in the hands.

Character blossoms in conduct. The quality of our current coin is determined by the quality of the metal in the mint. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

JUNE The Sixteenth

_SINAI AND CALVARY_

HEBREWS xii. 18-28.

We need not live at the foot of Mount Sinai. It is like living at the foot of Mount Pelee, the home of awful eruption, and therefore the realm of gloom and uncertainty and fear. We are not saved by law, neither indeed can we be. Neither can law heal us after our transgressions and defeats.

The law has nothing for prodigal men but "blackness, and darkness, and tempest." It has no sound but dreaded decree, no message but menace, no look but a frown. Who will build his house at the foot of Mount Sinai?

"But ye are come unto Mount Zion." Our true home is not at Sinai, but at Calvary. There is no place for the sinner at the first mount; at the second mount there is a place for no one else. At Calvary we may find our way back to the holiness we lost at Sinai. Through grace we may drop the burden of our sin and begin to wear the garments of salvation. The way back to heaven is by "the green hill, without a city wall." It is a mount that can be reached by the most exhausted pilgrim; and the one who has "spent all" will a.s.suredly find a full restoration of life at the gate of his Saviour's death. "Ye are come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant."

JUNE The Seventeenth