eatly rejoice, though now for a
season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." 1
Pet. 1:6. Christian, do you not value your spiritual prosperity above all
else? Then never complain nor become discouraged because of the heavy and
manifold temptations. God knows how to deal with you. You may sometimes
think you know best, but in this you are mistaken. Father knoweth best. He
loves you and will not suffer you to be tempted beyond what your needs
are, and what he will enable you to bear, if you will but trust in him.

When your way grows very dark and temptation's billows roll high, when the
flames of fiery trials seem to almost consume your soul, will you not
remember that just as you are being tempted, Jesus was also tempted, yet
he was not overcome? Also remember that he knows how to deliver you, and
is able to do it. God sees that you need this and he is permitting it to
mold you and fashion you into his own holy image. These are the refining
flames that serve to consume the dross and make you perfectly pure. Our
heavenly Father chasteneth us for our profit, that we might be partakers
of his holiness. Heb. 12:10. God has given us a promise, which, if you
will remember in faith, will enable you to endure. "Blessed is the man
that endureth temptation: for when he is tried he shall receive a crown of
life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him." Jas. 1:12.

When in trial's heated furnace,
In temptation's deep, wide sea,
Like with sainted Hebrew children,
Jesus walketh there with me.

Meditation.

That meditation does affect one's spirituality is an unquestionable fact.
Vagrant thought is well calculated to dull the finer sensibilities of the
soul, thereby rendering it less capable of impression by the Spirit of
God. "Keeping in touch with God," is a very familiar expression among
holiness people at this present time, but what does it imply? We are all
at sea when not in touch with him. To be so kept is to have everything in
us fully alive to God. Every Christian grace must be in a state of perfect
health and vigorous growth. If there be any dwarfed condition of the
spiritual being in any part it will be less sensible to God's touch.

The blind have been known to cultivate the sense of touch in the physical
being to the amazing acuteness of being able to distinguish color. The
sense of touch in the soul by careful, earnest husbandry can be refined to
such