August 17

Behold my desire is that the Almighty would answer me.

I LEARNT to attach a broad and literal meaning to the words, "My thoughts are not as your thoughts," and to believe that human ingenuity is possibly never so little acceptable to the Almighty as when it sets itself to "plead lies for God and to argue deceitfully for Him." I could not, too, but recall one ever-memorable instance in which the human heart, over-weighted with accumulated anguish, had dared to lift itself to Him who made it. I had heard Job plead with God as a man might plead with his neighbour, I had listened to the terrific challenges in which the creature seemed as it were to arraign its Creator at the bar of eternal justice, truth, and love, and there to demand a hearing. And I had found it was Job of whom God said, "He hath spoken concerning Me the thing that is right." I had seen Job blessed, justified, accepted by his Maker, while his friends, the special pleaders for Omnipotence, were forgiven for his sake, and indebted to his priestly intercession for their pardon.

DORA GREEN- WELL

HIS THOUGHTS AND OURS

Ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right.