rd.

It can be so with prayer. I may use prayer as a magic minister to protect
me from invasive ills. I do not pray because I desire fellowship with the
Father, but because I should not feel safe without it. The ark is more
than the Lord.

It can be so with a crucifix. A crucifix may become a mere talisman, and
so supplant the Lord. I may wear the thing and have no fellowship with the
Person. And so may it be with the Lord's Supper. I may come to regard it
as a magic feast, which makes me immune from punishment, but not immune
from sin. It may be a minister of safety, but not of holiness.

So let mine eyes be ever unto the Lord! Let me not be satisfied with the
ark, but let me seek Him whose name is holy and whose nature is love.

APRIL The Fifteenth

_DEGRADING HOLY THINGS_

1 SAMUEL vi. 1-15.

I must remember that a holy thing can be the minister of a plague. Things
that were purposed to be benedictions can be changed into blights. The
very ark of God must be in its appointed place or it becomes the means of
sickness and destruction. So it is with all the holy things of God: if I
dethrone them they will uncrown me.

It is even so with music. Unless I give it its holy sovereignty it will
become a minister of the passions, and the angel within me is mastered by
a beast. Let me read again Tennyson's "Palace of Sin," and let me
heedfully note how music becomes the instrument of ignoble sensationalism,
and aids in man's degradation. "But exalt her, and she shall exalt thee."

It is even so with art. It is purposed to be the holy dwelling-place of
God, but I can so abuse it as to make it the agent of degradation. Instead
of hallowing the life it will debase and impoverish it.

I will therefore remember that, if I infringe the Divine order, I can turn
the sacramental cup into a vehicle of moral poison and spiritual blight.
"They must be holy who bear the vessels of the Lord."

APRIL The Sixteenth

_PRIESTS OF THE LORD_

"_None ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites._"
--1 CHRONICLES xv. 1-3, 11-15.

There are prepared people for prepared offices. The Lord will fit the man
to the function, the anointed and consecrated priest for the consecrated
and consecrating ministry.

But now, in the larger purpose of the Lord, and in "the exceeding riches
of His grace," everybody may be a priest of the Lord. "He hath made us to
be priests and kings unto God." And He will prepare us to carry our ar