embrance keeps my soul in the realm of grace. I am so inclined
to proclaim my personal rights rather than glorify the favour of God, so
inclined to exhibit my own prowess rather than God's most gracious bounty.
And whenever I lose the sense of grace I become a usurper and take the
throne. Our salvation is "not of works, lest any man should boast."

And such a remembrance would keep my soul in the mood of humility.
"Nothing in my hands I bring." I can no more claim the glory of salvation
than a child, who has cut a shallow trench on the sands, can claim the
glory of initiating the roll of the ocean-tide. I owe all my desires and
all my hopes and all my present attainments to the boundless goodness of
God.

And such a remembrance would keep my soul in the dispensation of love. I
cannot quietly and steadily contemplate the goodness of the Lord without
my soul being kindled into loving response. Without high contemplations
love smoulders, and will eventually die out. But God's goodness inflames
the soul, and communicates its own most gracious heat. "We love because He
first loved us!"

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-sixth

_MY LORD AS MY BREAD_

JOHN vi. 26-35.

Our life's bread is a Person. We may have much to do with Christianity and
nothing to do with Christ. The other day I was in a great and wonderful
bakery, but I never ate nor touched a morsel of bread. I touched the
machinery. I was absorbingly interested in the processes, but I ate no
bread! And I may be deeply interested in the means of grace, I may be
familiar with all "the ins and outs" of ecclesiastical machinery, and I
may never handle nor taste "the bread of God." Our religion is dead and
burdensome until it becomes a personal relation, and we have vital
communion with Christ.

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want." We find everything in Him. Everything
else is preliminary, preparatory, subordinate, and to be in the long run
dropped and forgotten. A ritual is only a way to "the bread," and by no
means essential, and very often undesirable. The heart can find the Lord
with a look, with a cry, and needs no obtrusion of ritual or priest. But
how pathetic! To be contented to potter about among the ritual and never
to find the Bread! To be in the house and never to see the Host! "Ye
search the Scriptures ... and ye will not come to Me."

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-seventh

_TAKE AND EAT_

JOHN vi. 52-63.

There is, first of all, _appropriation_. I must "s