f heavenly favour and can be received
and used as our due. "Gethsemane can I forget?" Yes, I can; and in the
forgetfulness I lose the sacred awe of my redemption, and I miss the real
glory of "Paradise regained." "Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a
price." That is the remembrance that keeps the spirit lowly, and that
fills the heart with love for Him "whose I am," and whom I ought to
serve.

FEBRUARY The Twenty-third

_THE PROCESS AND THE END_

"_Ye have seen the end of the Lord: that the Lord
is very pitiful, and of tender mercy._"
--JAMES v. 7-11.

And so we are bidden to be patient. "We must wait to the end of the Lord."
The Lord's ends are attained through very mysterious means. Sometimes the
means are in contrast to the ends. He works toward the harvest through
winter's frost and snow. The maker of chaste and delicate porcelain
reaches his lovely ends through an awful mortar, where the raw material of
bone and clay is pounded into a cream. In that mortar-chamber we have no
hint of the finished ware. But be patient, even in this chamber of
affliction the ware is on the way to glory!

And so it is with the ministries of our Lord. He leads us through discords
into harmonies, through opposition into union, through adversities into
peace. His means of grace are processes, sometimes gentle, sometimes
severe; and our folly is to assume that we have reached His ends when we
are only on the way to them. "The end of the Lord is very pitiful, and of
tender mercy." "Be patient, therefore," until it shall be spoken of thee
and me, "And God saw that it was good."

FEBRUARY The Twenty-fourth

_MOVING TOWARDS DAYBREAK_

"_He hath brought me into darkness, but not into light._"
--LAMENTATIONS iii. 1-9.

But a man may be in darkness, and yet in motion toward the light. I was in
the darkness of the subway, and it was close and oppressive, but I was
moving toward the light and fragrance of the open country. I entered into
a tunnel in the Black Country in England, but the motion was continued,
and we emerged amid fields of loveliness. And therefore the great thing to
remember is that God's darknesses are not His goals; His tunnels are means
to get somewhere else. Yes, His darknesses are appointed ways to His
light. In God's keeping we are always moving, and we are moving towards
Emmanuel's land, where the sun shines, and the birds sing night and day.

There is no stagnancy for the God-directed soul.