tretch out" "lame hands
of faith"; and "take" before I "eat." In the lives of many Christians
there is too much asking and too little taking. If it were only rightly
regarded, prayer is companionship as well as petition, and companionship
is literally significant of the sharing of bread. In every season of
communion a part must be assigned to the taking of the things for which we
have prayed. "_Receive ye_ the Holy Ghost."

And there is _assimilation_. We must "eat" as well as "take." It is in the
exercises of obedience that we digest and incorporate the bread of life.
Without our obedience the living Lord never becomes "part of ourselves."
We never "become one in the bundle of life" with the Lord our God. And
truth which is not assimilated becomes a drug. Instead of being a "savour
of life unto life," it becomes a "savour of death unto death."

And there is _vitalization_. The assimilated bread of life makes
everything alive. Every faculty in my being feels the touch of divine
inspiration. It is native bread for native power, and everything is
renewed.

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-eighth

_THE DAILY MANNA_

"_I will rain bread from heaven for you._"
--EXODUS xvi. 11-18.

And this gracious provision is made for people who are complaining, and
who are sighing for the flesh-pots of Egypt! Our Lord can be patient with
the impatient: He can be "kind to the unthankful." If it were easy to
drive the Lord away I should have succeeded long ago. I have murmured, I
have sulked, I have turned Him out of my thoughts, and "He stands at the
door and knocks!" I yearn for "the flesh-pots," "He sends me manna," "Was
there ever kindest shepherd half so gentle, half so sweet?"

"_And they gathered it every morning._" And that I think is the best time
to gather the heavenly food. At night I am weary, my body is craving
sleep, and I am not vitalized in the fields of grace. But in the morning I
am refreshed, and I can go to the heavenly fields and gather "the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him." I can be fed as the day
begins, and I can set out to my daily work with the taste of God in my
mouth, and His mighty grace in my heart, and I shall delight to "walk in
the paths of His commandments."

SEPTEMBER The Twenty-ninth

_THE FOUNTAIN_

1 JOHN v. 9-21.

My Lord is "the fountain of life." "This life is in His Son." The springs
are nowhere else--not in elaborate theologies, or in ethical ideals, or in