st to the Lord, are the most simple. Whenever we grow
stilted we are only fit for a picture gallery, and we are only good on a
pedestal; but, if we are going to live among men and love and save them,
we must be approachable and human. All stiffness is but another form of
self-consciousness. Ask Christ for a human heart, for a smile that will be
as natural as your little child's in your presence. Oh, how much Christ
did by little touches! He never would have got at the woman of Samaria if
He had come to her as the prophet. He sat down, a tired man, and said:
"Give me a drink of water." And so, all through His life, it was His
simple humanness and love that led Him to others, and led them to Him and
to His great salvation.

JUNE 1.

"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us" (Rom. viii.
4).

Beloved friends, do you know the mistake some of you are making? Some of
you say: "It is not possible for me to be good; no man ever was perfect,
and it is no use for me to try." That is the mistake many of you are
making. I agree with the first sentence, "No man ever was perfect"; but I
don't agree with the second, "There is no use trying." There is a divine
righteousness that we may have. I don't mean merely that which pardons
your sins--I believe that, too--but I mean far more; I mean that which comes
into your soul and unites itself with the fibers of your being; I mean
Christ; your life, your purity, making you feel as Christ feels; think as
Christ thinks, love as Christ loves, hate as Christ hates, and be
"partakers of the divine nature." That is God's righteousness; "that the
righteousness of the law might be fulfiled in us," not by us, but in us;
not our hands and feet merely, but our very instincts, our very desires,
our very nature springing up in harmony with His own. Have you got Him,
dear friends? He will come and fulfil all right things in you if to-day
you will open your heart.

JUNE 2.

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in Him"
(Col. ii. 6).

Here is the very core of spiritual life. It is not a subjective state so
much as a life in the heart. Christ for us is the ground of our salvation
and the source of our justification; Christ in us of our sanctification.
When this becomes real, "Ye are dead"; your own condition, states and
resources are no longer counted upon any more than a dead man's, but "your
life is hid with Christ in God." It is not ev