the world on to the sacred floor. Let me
"wipe my feet." Let me sternly shake off some things--all frivolity,
easeful indifference, the spirit of haste and self-seeking. Let me not
defile the courts of the Lord.

And let me remember that "the whole earth is full of His glory."
Everywhere, therefore, I am treading the sacred floor! Lord, teach me this
high secret! Then shall I not demean the Temple into a market, but I shall
transform the market into a temple. "Lo, God is in this place, and I knew
it not!"

JULY The Twenty-first

_PURIFYING THE SANCTUARY_

2 CHRONICLES xxix. 1-11, 15-19.

Worship has vital connections with work. There are nerve-relationships
between the heart and the hand. The condition of the sanctuary is
reflected in the state of the empire. If there is uncleanness in "the holy
place," there will be blight and degeneracy among the people. The fatal
seeds of national instability and decay are not found in economics; they
are found in the sanctuary. "Until I went into the sanctuary ... then
understood I!"

Hezekiah cleansed "the house of the Lord." He cast forth the filthiness
out of the holy place. He ushered in his golden age with the reformation
of worship. He recalled exiled and white-robed Piety to her appointed
throne. He began the re-establishment of right by recognizing the rights
of God. He gave the Lord His due! All our rights are born out of our
"being right" with God! We begin to be rich when we cease to rob God!

"_And when the burnt offering began, the song of the Lord began also._"
That is ever so. Our real songs begin with our sacrifices. We enter the
realm of music when we enter the realm of self-surrender. A willing
offering, on a clean altar, introduces the soul into "the joy of the
Lord."

JULY The Twenty-second

_VISIONS AND TASKS_

2 CHRONICLES xxxiv. 1-11.

Josiah "_began to seek after God_." The other day I saw a young art
student copying one of Turner's pictures in the National Gallery. His eyes
were being continually lifted from his canvas to his "master." He put
nothing down which he had not first seen. He was "seeking after" Turner!

And thus it was with Josiah. His eyes were "ever toward the Lord!" He
studied the "ways" of the Lord, in order that he might incarnate them in
national life and practice. Wise doings always begin in clear seeing. We
should be far more efficient in practice if we were more diligently
assiduous in vision. It is never