And that is how the children of men were feeling before the Saviour came.

They "_sat in darkness_" and in "_the shadow of death_." The world was cold, and sin and death were in it, and they longed for light and cheer.

And "the great Light came," and His wonderful Presence not only illumines the house but banishes the fear of sin and death. "_They that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined._"

Where can we get this living light except in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Everything else is candle-light! It fails us in the midnight. It flickers amid conflicting currents. It goes out in the rough blast. The light of art and of literature fails me when I need them most. When I sit in the darkness, with death in the house, these kindly ministers have no effective beams. I turn to the Master, and He shines upon me, and it is daybreak in the soul!

DECEMBER The Twenty-seventh

_THE SUNNY SIDE OF THINGS_

1 JOHN i. 1-7.

I have just come out of a gloomy room into a sunny room to write these words. I had my choice. I could have stayed in the sombre room, but I choose to come into the sun-lit room and the warm, cheering beams are even now falling upon my page. "Walk in the light!" And I make my choice, and how often I choose to walk without Christ in the unfertilizing and unfruitful gloom of self-will! In the light of the Lord I could have a garden of Eden; how often I choose the dingy wilderness where I can grow neither flowers nor fruits.

"Walk in the light." The Lord's companionship always makes the sunny side of the street. It may be that the way is rough and stony and difficult, but in His company there is light that never fails, compared with which the world's noontide is only as the gloomiest night. And the souls that "walk in the light" gather "sacred sweets" all along the way. Heavenly fruits grow for the children of light, fruits of love and joy and peace, and the favoured pilgrim plucks them as he goes along. "All I find in Jesus." The way of light is the way of delight, and "the joy of the Lord is our strength."

DECEMBER The Twenty-eighth

_IN HIM WAS LIFE_

JOHN i. 1-18.

I have heard men speak of "wanting to see a bit of life," and I found that what they meant was to see a bit of death. It is as if a man should go to the hospital to see a bit of health, or as if he should go to a gory battlefield to see the human frame. It is like going to a refuse-heap to see a bit of garden. Life is not found in fields of license; it is not found among the wild oats of a dissipated youth. Life is found only in Christ, and if we want to see a bit of life we must go to Him.

"In Him was life"; and that not merely to be looked at but to be shared.

He is the well to which everybody can bring his pitcher, and take it away filled. And my pitcher is just my need. "All the fitness He requires is to feel our need of Him." The Life is all-sufficient for the needs of the race. This Life can vitalize all that is withered and dead; it can make decrepit wills muscular and mighty, and it can transfigure the leper with the glow and purity of perfect health.

"Thou of life the Fountain art, Freely let me take of Thee."

DECEMBER The Twenty-ninth

_THE LOVE OF G.o.d_

1 JOHN iv. 7-14.

Let me more a.s.siduously think of G.o.d's love. Let me sit down to it. In the National Gallery can be seen two sorts of people. There are the mere vagrants, who are always "on the move," pa.s.sing from picture to picture, without seeing any. And there are the students, who sit down, and contemplate, and meditate, and appropriate, and saturate. And there are vagrants in respect to the love of the Lord. They have a pa.s.sing glimpse, but the impression is not vital and vitalizing, and there are the students, who are always gazing, and who are continually crying, "O the depth of the riches of the love of G.o.d in Christ!" "His riches are unsearchable!"

And G.o.d's love is the creator of my love. "While I muse the fire burns." I am kindled into the same holy pa.s.sion. That is to say, contemplation determines character. We acquire the hues of the things to which we cling.

To hold fellowship with love is to become loveful and lovely. "We love because He first loved us."

And then, in the third place, it is through my love that I know my Lord.

"_Everyone that loveth knoweth G.o.d._" Love is the lens through which I discern the secret things of G.o.d.

DECEMBER The Thirtieth

_THE BLESSEDNESS OF FORGIVENESS_

"_Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven._"

--PSALM x.x.xii.

It is the blessedness of emanc.i.p.ation. The boat which has been tethered to the weird, baleful sh.o.r.e is set free, and sails toward the glories of the morning. The man, long cramped in the dark, imprisoning pit, is brought out, and stretches his limbs in the sweet light and air of G.o.d's free world. Black servitude is ended; glorious liberty begins.

It is the blessedness of education. For when we are freed we are by no means perfected. We are liberated babes; and our Emanc.i.p.ator does not desert us in our spiritual infancy. The foundling is not abandoned.

"Having loved His own He loved them unto the end." He begins with us in the spiritual nursery, and He will train and lead and feed us until we are "perfect in Christ Jesus."

Therefore is it the blessedness of exultation. The babe is resting on the bosom of the Lord, and "the joy of the Lord is his strength." It is not my emanc.i.p.ation that ensures my joy; it is the abiding Presence of the Emanc.i.p.ator.

DECEMBER The Thirty-first

_THE REAR-GUARD_

"_Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life._"

--PSALM xxiii.

But why "_follow_" me? Why not "go before"? Because some of my enemies are in the rear; they attack me from behind. There are foes in my yesterdays which can give me fatal wounds. They can stab me in the back! If I could only get away from the past! Its guilt dogs my steps. Its sins are ever at my heels. I have turned my face toward the Lord, but my yesterdays pursue me like a relentless hound! So I have an enemy in the rear.

But, blessed be His name, my mighty G.o.d is in the rear as well as my foe.

"Goodness and mercy shall follow me!" No hound can break through that defence. Between me and my guilt there is the infinite love of the Lord.

The loving Lord will not permit my past to destroy my soul. I may sorrow for my past, but my very sorrow shall be a minister of moral and spiritual health. My Lord is Lord of the past as well as of the morrow, and so to-day "I will trust and not be afraid."