He

of human life going on past his windows, and it causes him no self-reproach that he is not in it, that he has no part or share in all this work. does not expect it of himself. He recognises still the positive sins. He knows that he has no right to commit murder, or to forge, or to lie as he sits there. His helplessness has not released him from any of those obligations. But he does feel released from enterprise and activity. He is not called upon to do a well man's work. His task is only to keep himself alive. Now the spiritual and moral vitality of many men is low. What can revive it? What can put strength and vigour into it ? There is a verse of St. John which, among many other things which it tells, tells this, "He that hath the Son hath life," and "he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." That is a great declaration. It says that if a man takes Christ, that if a man loves and serves Christ because Christ has redeemed him into the family of God, he really lives, vigour comes into him, responsibility lays hold upon him. The work of the world becomes his work. God's tasks become his tasks. The enemies of God become his enemies.

The curse of Meroz is the curse of uselessness; and these are the sources out of which it comescowardice, false humility, and indolence. These are the stones piled upon the sepulchres of vigour and energy and work for God, whose crushing weight cannot be computed. Who shall roll away

those stones? Nothing can do it but the power of Christ. The manhood that is touched by Him rises into life. It means that when a man has understood the life and cross of Jesus, and really knows that he is redeemed and saved, his soul leaps up in love and wants to serve its Saviour. And then he is afraid of nobody; and however little his own strength is, he wants to give it all. The cords of his self-indulgence snap like cobwebs. Then he enters the new life of usefulness. And what a change it is! What a change it is when a poor, selfish, cowardly, fastidious idle human creature comes to this! "Blessed is he that cometh to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty." There is no curse for him. wounds that he can receive while he is fighting on that side can harm him. To fight there is itself to conquer, even though the victory comes through pain and death, as it came to Him under whom we fight, the Captain of our Salvation, Jesus Christ.

My Master and Lord!

I long to do some work, some work for Thee;
I long to bring some lowly gift of love

For all Thy love to me!

The harvest fields are white

Send me to gather there some scattered ears;
I have no sickle bright; but I can glean,
And bind them in with tears.

I would not choose my work;

The field is Thine, my Father and my Guide;
Send Thou me forth; oh, send me where Thou wilt,

So Thou be glorified!

No

I need Thy strength, O Lord!
I need the quiet heart, the subject will;

I need the patient faith that makes no haste,
The love that follows still.

And if Thou wilt not send,

Then take my will, and bend it to Thine own,
Till, in the peace no restless thought can break,
I wait with Thee alone.

It is not hard to wait

To lean my weariness on Thee for rest:
To feel, in suffering or in service, still
My Father's choice is best.

I said, "It is not hard;"

And yet and yet-Father, forgive Thy child,
And through my soul's deep tumult let me hear
Thy whisper low and mild.

The darkness is not light,

The "chastening is not joy;" this is Thy word,
O Saviour! one with us in tears and pain,
Our Brother and our Lord.

Yet choose Thou still for me
The harvest toil, amid the noonday heat,
Where I may gather fruit that shall not die,
And lay it at Thy feet;

Or the slow, silent hours,

When I must wait, and suffer, and be still,
And in the patience which I learn from Thee
Accept Thy perfect will.

ANONYMOUS.

CHRISTIAN INSENSIBILITY AND

INDIFFERENCE.

JUDGES V. 16, 17.

THIS is the great complaint of the servant of the Lord throughout this chapter. In the midst of the energy and faithfulness manifested in Deborah, there were those of the Lord's people who were willing to let everything go on as it had done, who were unstirred by the cry of the faithful ones, and the utter collapse of everything divine in Israel. Hear her moans over them "Gilead abode beyond Jordan; Dan remained in his ships; Asher continued on the seashore, and abode in his breaches; Reuben abode among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleating of the flocks; Meroz came not to the Lord to the help of the mighty." These are terrible charges to bring against God's people. These were the drag on the wheels of the Lord's chariot in Deborah's day.

And what was the state of Israel at this moment? "There was not a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel: they chose new gods; war was at the very gates."

How terrible in the midst of

such a collapse of everything divine in Israel, to find so many of the Lord's people indifferent to it all, willing to have it so rather than be disturbed.

Yet is not this the picture on every side? How the Deborahs of our own day are left to do their work alone! How the selfish ones or faint-hearted drag them down in every earnest work! What excuses and pleas are put forward for letting things be as they are, and, at the same time, what energy and interest these very people throw into every pleasure and scheme of their own! What excuses for not "coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty" on the ground of delicate health; and yet, when some scheme or pleasure of their own comes before them what sacrifices and risks are made to carry it out! In perplexities or difficulties, or in things that concern us, what efforts are made -what thoughts occupy us by night and day to devise means and plans to accomplish our ends, and what indifference about means and opportunities to do the Lord's work! Where is the heart that is constantly looking round in every hour and in every change to see if anything can be done to win souls to Christ, or do some other work for God? Opportunities sought, did I say? Nay, opportunities are passed by or excuses by the thousand made for not using them! There are thousands on every side who would rather stay at home and "hear the bleatings of the flocks," than put forth one earnest effort to win a soul to Christ! No, indeed! the