he is, a broken man, the victim of
his own broken vows, lame and halt in the pilgrim-way! And some surgeon is
needed to re-set the dislocation, and to make him whole again.

And who is to be the surgeon? "_Ye which are spiritual restore such a
one._" The men who live under the control of God's Spirit are to be the
surgeons for broken hearts and souls. When a man has fallen by reason of
sin, the Christian is to be a Good Samaritan, seeking to restore the
cripple to health and strength again. We are to kneel and minister to him,
binding up his wounds, giving him the balm and cordial of oil and wine.

And what is to be the spirit of the surgeon? "The spirit of meekness." We
are not to be supercilious, for the "touch" of pride is never the minister
of healing. We are to heal as though some day we may need to be healed.

JUNE The Eighth

_THE NEW BIRTH_

JOHN iii. 1-21.

Here is the Life in contact with the icy legalism of the day. Nicodemus
was a Pharisee, and his piety was cold and mechanical. Religion had become
a bloodless obedience to lifeless rules. Men cared more about being proper
than about being holy. Modes were emphasized more than moods. An external
pose was esteemed more highly than an internal disposition. The popular
Saint lived on "the outsides of things."

Then came the Life. And what will He say to the externalist? "Ye must be
born again." Nothing else could He have said. If the mechanical is to
become the vital there is nothing for it but a new birth. To get from the
outside into the inside of things, from the letter into the spirit, we
need the miracle of renewal, the recreating ministry of grace.

And so it is to-day. The ritualistic is vitalized by the evangelistic. If
the mechanical is to become the spontaneous, there is need of the "well of
living water, springing up unto eternal life." When we are born again,
ritual becomes helpful trellis for the spiritual flowers; the outward form
becomes the helpmeet of redeeming grace.

JUNE The Ninth

_THE STORY OF A SORROWFUL SOUL_

PSALM iii.

This tearful little psalm tells me where a sorrowful soul found a place of
help and consolation. He resorted to God.

"_Thou art a shield about me._" He got the Lord between him and his
circumstances. There is nothing else subtle enough to interpose. Our
hurtful circumstances are so invasive and so immediate that only God can
come between us and them. But when God gets in between we are imm