ings of life without becoming centered in them
or allowing them to separate us from Him.

SEPTEMBER 2.

"Who hath despised the day of small things" (Zech. iv. 10).

The oak comes out of the acorn, the eagle out of that little egg in the
nest, the harvest comes out of the seed; and so the glory of the coming
age is all coming out of the Christ life now, even as the majesty of His
kingdom was all wrapped up that night in the babe of Bethlehem.

Oh, let us take Him for all our life. Let us be united to His person and
His risen body. Let us know what it is to say, "The Lord is for the body
and the body is for the Lord"! We are members of His body and His flesh
and His bones.

He that gave that little infant, His own blessed babe and His only
begotten Son, on that dark winter night to the arms of a cruel and
ungrateful world, will not refuse to give Him in all His fulness to your
heart if you will but open your heart and give Him right of way and full
ownership and possession. Then shall you know in your measure His
quickening life, even in this earthly life, and by-and-by your hope shall
reach its full fruition when you shall sit with Him on His throne with
every fiber of your immortal being even as He.

SEPTEMBER 3.

"The God of Israel hath separated you" (Num. xvi. 9).

The little plant may grow out of a manure heap, and be surrounded by
filth, and covered very often with the floating dust that is borne upon
the breeze, but its white roots are separated from the unclean soil, and
its leaves and flowers have no affinity with the dust that settles upon
them; and after a shower of summer rain they throw off every particle of
defilement, and look up, as fresh and spotless as before, for their
intrinsic nature cannot have any part with these defiling things.

This is the separation which Christ requires and which He gives. There is
no merit in my staying from the theater if I want to go. There is no value
in my abstaining from the foolish novel or the intoxicating cup, if I am
all the time wishing I could have them. My heart is there, and my soul is
defiled by the desire for evil things. It is not the world that stains us,
but the love of the world. The true Levite is separated from the desire
for earthly things, and even if he could, he would not have the forbidden
pleasures which others prize.

SEPTEMBER 4.

"Come ye yourselves apart" (Mark vi. 31).

One of the greatest hindrances