housand morbid, self-condemning reflections. The
longer you look at evil the more it mesmerizes and defiles you into its
own likeness. Lay it down at the cross, accept the cleansing blood, reckon
yourself dead to the thing that was wrong, and then rise up and count
yourself as if you were another man and no longer the same person; and
then, identifying yourself with the Lord Jesus, accept your standing in
Him and look in your Father's face as blameless as Jesus. Then out of your
every fault will come some lesson of watchfulness or some secret of
victory which will enable you some day to thank Him, even for your painful
experience.

But praise is a sacrifice, for "it is acceptable to God." It goes up to
heaven sweeter than the songs of angels, "a sweet smelling savor to your
Lord and King." It should be unintermittent--"the sacrifice of praise
continually." One drop of poison will neutralize a whole cup of wine, and
make it a cup of death, and one moment of gloom will defile a whole day of
sunshine and gladness. Let us "rejoice evermore."

SEPTEMBER 7.

"I will joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. iii. 18).

The secret of joy is not to wait until you feel happy, but to rise, by an
act of faith, out of the depression which is dragging you down, and begin
to praise God as an act of choice. This is the meaning of such passages as
these: "Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice"; "I do
rejoice; yes, and I will rejoice." "Count it all joy when ye fall into
divers temptations." In all these cases there is an evident struggle with
sadness and then the triumphs of faith and praise.

Now, this is what is meant--in part, at least--by the sacrifice of praise. A
sacrifice is that which costs us something. And when a man or woman has
some cherished grudge or wrong and is harboring it, nursing it, dwelling
on it, rolling it as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and quite determined
to enjoy a miserable time in selfish morbidness and grumbling, it costs us
no little sacrifice to throw off the morbid spell, to refuse the
suggestions of injury, neglect and the remembrance of unkindness, to rise
out of the mood of self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination,
and say, "I will rejoice in the Lord"; I will "count it all joy."

SEPTEMBER 8.

"He that eateth Me, even He shall live by Me" (John vi. 57).

What the children of God need is not merely a lot of teaching, but the
Living Bread. The bes