January 14

Second Week in Advent.—Saturday

My hands also will I lift up unto Thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in Thy statutes. Psalms 119:48.

If we should ever become more able to meditate, and learn at last to delight in it and frequently to enjoy it, we must then be on our guard not to suffer thinking to interfere with acting. Some who are not careful, whilst they think about duty, forget that they have it to do as well as to meditate upon; they neglect to do that which comes to their hand, are vexed when their thoughts are broken up, and speak coldly and unkindly to those who interrupt them. This is a great mistake, to think of Jesus, but not to obey Him; to meditate upon His commandments, yet not to keep them. "It is sweet," said a holy man, "to leave Jesus for Jesus." He meant that it was sweet to leave prayer and holy thought when the Saviour calls away from them to holy action, to discharge some duty to His glory, to be a comfort to His members, and to show that our faith and love are true and we not deceiving ourselves. See S. John, who lay on Jesus' Breast, the Apostle of holy thought and contemplation. But he followed his Master to the judgment hall and to the Cross, and was at hand ready in that awful hour to receive the Virgin Mary from her dying Son. Holy thoughts and holy deeds are not separate. If religious acts do not follow religious meditation, then those meditations are false and deceiving.

All must be earnest in a world like ours.

Not many lives, but only one have we,

One, only one;

How sacred should that one life ever be!

That narrow span,

Day after day filled up with blessed toil,

Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil.