y tell us life is extinguished
almost without a quiver of pain. But, however this may be in natural
things, we know the Holy Spirit can touch with celestial fire the
surrendered thing, and slay it in a moment, after it is really yielded up
to the sentence of death. That is our business, and it is God's business
to execute that sentence, and to keep it constantly operative.

Don't let us live in the pain of perpetual and ineffectual suicide, but
reckoning ourselves dead indeed, let us leave ourselves in the hands of
the blessed Holy Spirit, and He will slay whatever rises in opposition to
His will, and keep us true to our heavenly reckoning, and filled with His
resurrection life.

OCTOBER 11.

"And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of
God" (Rom. viii. 27).

The Holy Spirit becomes to the consecrated heart the Spirit of
intercession. We have two Advocates. We have an Advocate with the Father,
who prays for us at God's right hand; but the Holy Spirit is the Advocate
within, who prays in us, inspiring our petitions and presenting them,
through Christ, to God.

We need this Advocate. We know not what to pray for, and we know not how
to pray as we ought, but He breathes in the holy heart the desires that we
may not always understand, the groanings which we could not utter.

But God understands, and He, with a loving Father's heart, is always
searching our hearts to find the Spirit's prayer, and to answer it. He
finds many a prayer there that we have not discovered, and answers many a
cry that we never understood. And when we reach our home and read the
records of life, we shall better know and appreciate the infinite love of
that Divine Friend, who has watched within as the Spirit of prayer, and
breathed out our every need to the heart of God.

OCTOBER 12.

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free" (Rom.
viii. 2).

The life of Jesus Christ brought into our heart by the Holy Spirit,
operates there as a new law of divine strength and vitality, and
counteracts, overcomes and lifts us above the old law of sin and death.

Let us illustrate these two laws by a simple comparison. Look at my hand.
By the law of gravitation it naturally falls upon the desk and lies there,
attracted downward by that natural law which makes heavy bodies fall to
the earth.

But there is a stronge