at you are following the pillar of cloud, and walking in
the presence of God. They had to enter the cloud before they could behold
the glory of the transfiguration, and a little later that same cloud
became the chariot to receive the ascending Lord, and it is still waiting
as the chariot that will bring His glorious appearing.

Still it is true that white "clouds and darkness are round about His
throne, mercy and truth" are ever in their midst, and "shall go before His
face."

Perhaps the most beautiful and gracious use of the cloud was to shelter
them from the fiery sun. Like a great umbrella, that majestic pillar
spread its canopy above the camp, and became a shielding shadow from the
burning heat in the treeless desert. No one who has never felt an Oriental
sun can fully appreciate how much this means--a shadow from the heat.

So the Holy Spirit comes between us and the fiery, scorching rays of
sorrow and temptation.

AUGUST 14.

"Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm" (Ps. cv. 15).

I would rather play with the forked lightning, or take in my hands living
wires, with their fiery current, than speak a reckless word against any
servant of Christ, or idly repeat the slanderous darts which thousands of
Christians are hurling on others, to the hurt of their own souls and
bodies.

You may often wonder, perhaps, why your sickness is not healed, your
spirit filled with the joy of the Holy Ghost, or your life blessed and
prosperous. It may be that some dart which you have flung with angry
voice, or in an idle hour of thoughtless gossip, is pursuing you on its
way, as it describes the circle which always bring back to the source from
which it came every shaft of bitterness, and every idle and evil word.

Let us remember that when we persecute or hurt the children of God, we are
but persecuting Him, and hurting ourselves far more.

Lord, make me as sensitive to the feelings and rights of others as I have
often been to my own, and let me live and love like Thee.

AUGUST 15.

"He will guide you into all truth" (John xvi. 13).

The Holy Ghost does not come to give us extraordinary manifestations, but
to give its life and light, and the nearer we come to Him, the more simple
will His illumination and leading be. He comes to "guide us into all
truth." He comes to shed light upon our own hearts, and to show us
ourselves. He comes to reveal Christ, to give, and then to illumine, the
Hol