wer of consideration and understanding to control
and guide our energies. By means of these faculties we get the highest and
best use of our powers. To act without consideration is very often to act
wrongly. God's acts are always wise, and to be godlike means for us to use
what wisdom he gives to us.

Let us be sure that we have these three needful "rations" and that we make
the use of them that God has designed. We shall then be successful
Christians and accomplish the work that it pleases God for us to do.
Aspire to be and do your best. Throw your soul into whatever you
undertake. Be careful and considerate in all your ways, so that you "shall
neither be barren nor unfruitful," but that you "shall be like a tree
planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season."

TALK TWENTY-FOUR. A RETREAT, OR A ROUT?

Armies often suffer defeat, but there is a great difference in the way
they take defeat. Sometimes an army is overcome and driven out of its
position, but retreats only as far as it must, then turns again upon the
foe to courageously renew the conflict. Other armies have been defeated,
and in a panic have thrown away their weapons and fled in disorder. The
first, though defeated, retains its honor, while the others have nothing
but shame.

Similar things are seen in individual lives. There are those who suffer
temporary defeat, but who count it only temporary and set themselves
immediately to the task of gathering together their forces and retrieving
what they have lost. Others, when they realize a defeat, give up all as
lost, throw down their weapons, and cease to fight. They forsake the ranks
of God's people, sometimes for a very trifling reason, and go back into
the world and suffer the shame that attaches to a backslider. The serious
part of this is that many can do such a thing and consider it a rather
light matter. Instead of being a light matter, turning away from God is
one of the most terrible things that a soul can do and one which is often
fraught with the direst results and would be every time were it not for
the exceeding mercy of God. How it is that one who has ever truly loved
God can turn away from him and plunge again into the follies of the world,
doing those things which he knows God abhors, is more than I can
understand. Sometimes those who once seemed to be quite spiritual are now
among the most wicked, even worse than before they ever made a profession.

I