AUGUST The Second

_BY JACOB'S WELL_

JOHN iv. 1-15.

A 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 G.o.d. 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.

I 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 G.o.d, for the living G.o.d!" 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.

And 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.

"Bread of Heaven, Feed me till I want no more!"

AUGUST The Fifth

_BROOKS BY THE WAY_

ISAIAH xii.

The 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 p.r.o.ne 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 a.s.sume 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.

The 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.

The 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.