September 27

Tenth Friday after Trinity

Gird up the loins of your mind. I S. PETER i. 13.

LET us strive aright. We must overcome the earthly heart if we would pray, and it is by prayer that it must be overcome. Communion with God must raise our affections heavenwards; but we must watch as well as pray, if we would commune with our Lord. No man can rise from a slothful, or self-indulgent, or worldly life into the heights of heavenly contemplation. As well might the snared bird with the clinging lime upon his wing expect to soar upward to the skies, as the soul which is heavy with earthly cares and pleasures and indulgences mount up to the pure atmosphere of God's revealed presence. He who would, in his hour of prayer, find the presence of God, and hold communion with his Lord, must live in habitual watchfulness; must taste lightly and with self-recollectedness even of lawful pleasures. The same rule, too, must govern his business as his pleasures. He may fearlessly discharge whatever duty God puts upon him, and he may do it with all his might, but he must be careful not to lade himself with the thick clay of unnecessary occupations. And in the busiest life there must be pauses of retirement; times for thought and self-examination; times when the overheated wheels of continual motion may rest and cool; times when in the stillness of the spirit the dews of God's grace may fall with refreshing power upon its drooping verdure, and when

The sun is gone, Thou art alone, Rest in the shadow of the Rock.