hout the fear of its hurting us.

As long as you want anything very much, especially more than you want God,
it is an idol. But when you become satisfied with God, everything else so
loses its charm that He can give it to you without harm, and then you can
take just as much as you choose, and use it for His glory.

There is no harm whatever in having money, houses, lands, friends and
dearest children, if you do not value these things for themselves.

If you have been separated from them in spirit, and become satisfied with
God Himself, then they will become to you channels to be filled with God
to bring Him nearer to you. Then every little lamb around your household
will be a tender cord to bind you to the Shepherd's heart. Then every
affection will be a little golden cup filled with the wine of His love.
Then every bank, stock and investment will be but a channel through which
you can pour out His benevolence and extend His gifts.

OCTOBER 7.

"He opened not His mouth" (Isa. liii. 7).

How much grace it requires to bear a misunderstanding rightly, and to
receive an unkind judgment in holy sweetness! Nothing tests a Christian
character more than to have some evil thing said about him. This is the
file that soon proves whether we are electro-plate or solid gold. If we
could only know the blessings that lie hidden in our lives, we would say,
like David, when Shimei cursed him, "Let him curse; it may be the Lord
will requite me good for his cursing this day."

Some people get easily turned aside from the grandeur of their life-work
by pursuing their own grievances and enemies, until their life gets turned
into one little petty whirl of warfare. It is like a nest of hornets. You
may disperse the hornets, but you will probably get terribly stung, and
get nothing for your pains, for even their honey is not worth a search.

God give us more of His Spirit, who, when reviled, reviled not again; but
committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.

Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself.

OCTOBER 8.

"There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken"
(Josh. xxi. 45).

Some day, even you, trembling, faltering one, shall stand upon those
heights and look back upon all you have passed through, all you have
narrowly escaped, all the perils through which He guided you, the
stumblings through which He guarded you, and the sins from which He saved
you;