April 22

Monday after Third Sunday in Lent

Walk as children of light. Ephesians 5:8.

As children we learn of a wider universal call which all of us alike should have. We learn that all of us, of whichever sex, whatever our talents, natural dispositions, condition, education—all of us, we learn, every baptized Christian, will, in the way of God's providence, have a call which will cement our first call into a state of salvation in our baptism with that last call, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," and that this intermediate call is a real call of God. "Walk as children of light." Over and above all the specific duties commanded in the second table, we were taught to profess our belief that there was one comprehensive class of duties enjoined upon each of us: "My duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me." Common, everyday duties, you may think. Yes, and because they are common, everyday, and all-the-day duties, they are just the duties on which our salvation most turns, in which we have most frequent choices of pleasing or displeasing God, and in which men most prepare themselves for that throne in heaven which God in His everlasting mercy destined for them.

Do what thou dost, as if the earth were heaven, And that thy last day were the Judgment Day.

H