ing, a new life of the Spirit coming, that will
naturally include the body, too.

Intelligent Watching.

Such are the events, near and far, which some day will come up over the
horizon of our common life, ushering in a new day. And we are bidden by
our Lord Jesus to _watch_. We watch for Him, and for anything that tells
us His coming is nearing.

Watching means wakefulness, an ideal, a purpose, an expectancy, and a
daily life under the control of wakefulness, ideal, purpose, and
expectancy. That our Lord Jesus will actually come to this old earth and
reign, this is the ideal. That we shall, by grace, be true to Him in
everything, day by day, during this waiting-time, this is the purpose.
That _we_ shall indeed see Him come, and be caught up into His presence
without death, this is the expectancy.

That this shall all be a real thing to us, _controlling_ all our
relationships, our gold, and our life, and that we shall reverently,
thoughtfully seek to understand what He has told us about it, this is
the wakefulness. This is what watching means. Our bodies may be asleep,
our brains and hands absorbed in the day's task, but our hearts can be
awake for the sound ahead of the coming of His feet.

"But how can you watch for Him if there are intervening events?" So the
question came to me this summer by a thoughtful, godly minister who
looks for His coming. And I said: "Because His coming is one of a little
group of events which cluster about His coming."

The crowd stands watching at the railway station in England to see the
king's train come in. Yet they know that before it comes the
pilot-engine will come, running ahead about so many minutes to insure
the safety of the way. The coming of the pilot-engine heightens the
intensity of watching, for now soon the king will come.

The watcher in the sick-chamber, weary with the long night's anxious
vigil, goes to the east window to see if day is coming. There comes a
bare lighting-up in the east, just a slight lessening of the darkness
that is everywhere. But even this much brings a sigh of relief. The sun
itself may not be seen for two hours or more. But you know without
looking at the clock that the sun is coming and is near. Its presence
near sends the light far ahead.

When the trees begin to send out swelling bud and tender green leaf and
catkin, we know summer is coming, even though the chill is in the air,
and the night may even now bring a touch of the white of f