come that they might have life"

Oh, friends,

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do not stop there, finish the sentence, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." We ask life of Him, and He gives us life, and offers length of days forever and forever. We pray that we may live ; and we set up a goal at seventy or ninety years, when He draws no line across our path. I give eternal life," He says. We pray for help that we may live; He offers more than that in the unrivaled sentence, "Because I live, ye shall live also." We think of life as being, and are content. We use existence as a synonym of living, but He said, "This is eternal life, to know God, and me."

So for ourselves; we are to live as his disciples. We wish to be true, useful, and generous. We wish to do in small measure such things as He did, in his name to give the cup of water, and the healing of the sick. He grants all that we desire, then speaks out of his own heart, and his desire, "The works that I do shall ye do, and greater works than these;" for the miracles which attract us or baffle us, which draw us to his love, or possibly turn us from his word, which are only miracles because they are strange to us, are to be exceeded in the things which we do, when by our teaching we open the eyes of men that they

may see God, and lift them up to the ways of holy living, and raise them from being into life. Our visions of heaven in our reverent imagination, even in the exultant words of the Revelation, are not equal to the simple truths which He taught, and men learned to repeat after Him. For what are golden streets and jeweled walls beside that which he meant, "In my Father's house are many mansions." "I go to prepare a place for you." "Ye shall behold my glory." "Ye shall be loved as I am loved." The thought of Christ far outruns the aspiration of the world, as it comes to us from the lips of that disciple whom Jesus loved, "We shall be like him, for we shall see him even as He is."

To

What do we need, then? To enlarge our desires! Yes, but to consent to God's desires. wish for more, but to consent to be blessed as Christ longs to bless us. We must know the methods of God, whose will to give is greater and more constant than our will to receive. We must adjust our life to God's desire. Faith is the compact of the soul with God, rather than with itself. Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it," is a promise ever old and ever new. We must be firm enough and aspiring enough to hold the cup after it has begun to overflow, and to let God's hand pour the water of life as long as He will, for this

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world and all the worlds that are to be. If we could desire more, if we could ascend to God's desire for us, life would be transfigured.

"The balsam, the wine, of predestinate wills

Is a jubilant longing and pining for God."

"God loves to be longed for, He loves to be sought,

For He sought us himself, with such longing and love." We wish now to take this method for our own in all our dealing with God. Our sense of what is right, the voice of conscience, the commands of Scripture, call us to our duty. Let us do what they require till conscience is satisfied; but let us add to this more than a rigid obedience asks for, all that a loving heart, grateful and generous, wishes to bestow. The little questions of life, small matters of casuistry, minute affairs of conduct, would be quite readily determined if we would live by this rule, wherewith God blesses us. That question which with unusual urgency now presses upon us, how we shall regard the Sabbath day, would not be difficult if it were our delight to remember it, and to keep it holy because it is our delight to please Him who has given to us its sacredness and blessedness. It is pitiful when we find ourselves questioning how much of the day should be holy; how much of it should be given to the thought of God and the divine life; how much of it we should yield to the holy spirit

of truth; how many of the hours we should keep in the remembrance of Him whose Resurrection gives to the Sabbath its greater meaning. We should keep the Sabbath holy as if we desired to keep it holy. All its hours should be sacred. They need not be less joyous, less friendly, for being holy; and we cannot be gratified with the spirit in which we find ourselves trying to divide the time. Keep twenty-four hours for God, and if by any means you can make the time overflow add a twenty-fifth hour.

What pro

We question again about money. portion of our property should we devote to God? The Jews said one tenth. Can we do no better, after so long a time? Let us give the whole, and if by any means we can compass it, let us add another tenth, simply to show what a delight it is to give all things to Him, and to let Him make the allotment in his care for us, and for our household, and for the church, and for the wide world that we are living in. There are many who do this, and they learn how true is that word of Christ that is called to mind among the Acts of the Apostles, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Thus, in all things let us make the way of God our own, become his children entirely, receive the love of Christ in its fullness, make up our own life in his name, according to the largeness of his

thought. If we will consent to it, we can be great and rich and strong. It seems strange to say that we are not ready to be blessed, but of many it is true. They are not willing to be greatly blessed, to have the cup run over. They are willing to be useful, but not very useful. They ask to be set in his service, but when He takes their word and breathes his own desire into it, they shrink back. It is a very serious thing, if we are able to perceive it, to consent that God should bless us as He pleases, should have his own estimate of our character, his own measure of our powers, his own vision of our accomplishment, and should call us to greater service, to diviner employment, than we have ever dreamed of. It was a wise woman who said, "I have had to face my own prayers." We face our prayers when God gives his own wish to our words, and makes them large enough to hold his thoughts. It is one of the hardest things to believe, but one to which, in humbleness of mind and in a faith which will not falter, we should consent, that high word of calling and consecration which Christ gave more than once, "As the Father hath sent me into the world, even so send I you." Not our thought but his thought makes our calling, and the thought of God is the summons and the guidance of our life. Even so, even according to thy greatness, and thy