t will breathe out celestial music. Are you lifted above
people, so that you are not bound by or to any one except in the dear
Lord, and are you standing free in His glorious life?

"I am risen with Christ, I am dwelling above;
I am walking with Jesus below,
I am shedding the light of His glory and love
Around me wherever I go."

SEPTEMBER 28.

"The trial of your faith being much more precious than gold" (I. Peter i.
7).

Our trials are great opportunities. Too often we look on them as great
obstacles. It would be a heaven of rest and an inspiration of unspeakable
power if each of us would henceforth recognize every difficult situation
as one of God's chosen ways of proving to us His love and power, and if
instead of calculating upon defeat we should begin to look around for the
messages of His glorious manifestations. Then indeed would every cloud
become a rainbow, and every mountain a path of ascension and a scene of
transfiguration. If we will look upon the past, many of us will find that
the very time our heavenly Father has chosen to do the kindest things for
us and give us the richest blessings has been the time when we were
strained and shut in on every side. God's jewels are often sent us in
rough packages and by dark liveried servants, but within we find the very
treasures of the King's palace and the Bridegroom's Love.

Fire of God, thy work begin,
Burn up the dross of self and sin;
Burn off my fetters, set me free,
And through the furnace walk with me.

SEPTEMBER 29.

"Call not thou common" (Acts x. 15).

"There is nothing common of itself" (Rom. xiv. 14).

We can bring Christ into common things as fully as into what we call
religious services. Indeed, it is the highest and hardest application of
Divine grace, to bring it down to the ordinary matters of life, and
therefore God is far more honored in this than even in things that are
more specially sacred.

Therefore, in the twelfth chapter of Romans, which is the manual of
practical consecration, just after the passage that speaks of ministering
in sacred things, the apostle comes at once to the common, social and
secular affairs into which we are to bring our consecration principles. We
read: "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor
preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in spirit;
serving the Lord."

God wants the Levites scattered all over the cities of Israel. He wants