e, and so you dawdle, and
do things in an idle way, especially what you do not much like doing. Is
this right? Is it a little sin, when God's word says, "Whatsoever ye do,
do it heartily!" Is it not just as much disobeying God as breaking any
other command? Are you not _guilty_ before Him? Very likely you never
thought of it in this way, but there the words stand, and neither you nor
I can alter them. First ask Him to forgive you all the past idleness and
idle ways, for Christ's sake, and then ask Him to give you strength
henceforth to obey this word of His. And then listen to the little chime,
"Do it heartily! do it heartily!" And _then_ the last word of the verse
about Hezekiah will be true of you too--"Prospered!"

'Up and doing, little Christian!
Up and doing, while 'tis day!
Do the work the Master gives you.
Do not loiter by the way.
For we all have work before us,
You, dear child, as well as I;
Let us learn to seek our duty,
And to 'do it heartily.'

28. Twenty-eighth Day.

The Sight of Faith.

"As seeing Him who is invisible."--Heb. xi. 27.

If we were always doing everything just as if we saw Him, whom having not
seen we love, how different our lives would be! How much happier too! How
brave, and bright, and patient we should be, if all the time we could
really see Jesus as Stephen saw Him! And by faith, the precious faith
which God is ready to give to all who ask, we may go on our way with this
light upon it, "as seeing Him who is invisible."

These words were said of Moses; and this seeing Him by faith had three
effects. First, "he forsook Egypt;" it made him ready to give up anything
for his God, and God's people. It made him true and loyal to God's cause.
What did He care for anything else, so long as he saw "Him who is
invisible?" Secondly, it took away all his fear. What was "the wrath of
the king" to him, when Jehovah was by his side? Of what should he be
afraid? Thirdly, it enabled him to "endure," to wait patiently for forty
years in the desert, and then to work patiently for forty years in the
wilderness; and only think how strength-giving that sight of faith must be
which enabled him to endure everything for eighty years!

Try for yourself to-day what was such great and long help to Moses. Ask
God, before you go down-stairs, for faith, "the eye of the soul," so that
you may walk all day long "as seeing Him who is invisible." When you are