this present world!"

While zeal is commendable, remember the Apostle's qualification, "It is
good to be zealously affected always in a _good_ thing." There is in
these days much base coin current, _called_ "zeal," which bears not the
image and superscription of Jesus. There is zeal for church-membership
and party; zeal for creeds and dogmas; zeal for figments and
non-essentials. "From such turn aside." Your Lord stamped with His
example and approval no such counterfeits. _His_ zeal was ever brought
to bear on two objects, and two objects alone--_the glory of God_ and
_the good of man_. Be it so with _you_. Enter, first of all (as He did
the earthly temple), the sanctuary of _your own heart_, with "the
scourge of small cords." Drive out every unhallowed intruder there. Do
not suffer yourself to be deceived. Others may call such jealous
searchings of spirit "sanctimoniousness" and "enthusiasm." But remember,
to be _almost saved_, is to be _altogether lost_!--to be zealous about
every thing but "the one thing needful," is an insult to God and your
everlasting interests!

Have a zeal for _others_. Dying myriads are around you. As a member of
the Christian priesthood, it becomes you to rush in with your censer and
incense between the living and the dead, "that the plague may be
stayed!"

Be it yours to say, "Blessed Jesus! I am _Thine_!--Thine only!--Thine
wholly!--Thine for ever! I am willing to follow Thee, and (if need be)
to _suffer_ for Thee. I am ready at Thy bidding to leave the homestead
in the valley, and to face the cutting blasts of the mountain. Take
me--use me for Thy glory. 'Lord! what wilt Thou have me to do?'"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twenty-third Day.

BENEVOLENCE.

"Who went about doing good."--Acts, x. 38.

"Christ's great end," says Richard Baxter, "was to save men from their
_sins_; but He delighted to save them from their _sorrows_." His heart
bled for human misery. Benevolence brought Him from heaven; benevolence
followed His steps wherever He went on earth. The journeys of the Divine
Philanthropist were marked by tears of thankfulness, and breathings of
grateful love. The helpless, the blind, the lame, the desolate, rejoiced
at the sound of His footfall. Truly might it be said of Him, "When the
ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave
witness to me." (Job, xxix. 11.) All suffering hearts were a magnet to
Jesus. It was not more