September 2

"Cornelius the centurion . . . was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee."—Acts 10:22.

PLEASANT it is to think of God's preparation of human hearts for Christ and His salvation and His love. He made the soul of Cornelius ready beforehand for the divine blessing He was providing for it.

I see it to-day in the enterprise of Foreign Missions. Wherever the envoys of the Cross and the Crucified may go, they meet those who are yearning for the good news and who welcome its message with avidity. For the heavenly Husbandman has been at work, cultivating the sterile soil, that in due season it may receive the incorruptible seed of the Word.

I see it to-day in the spiritual history of souls round about me. Many of them are just waiting the decisive moment, the favouring breeze, the touch of the renewing Spirit. Whenever it comes, they enter at once into life. It is because God has been busy with them underneath the surface, and they only respond to Him.

And I see it to-day, I trust, in my own innermost experience. Do I not know how He loved me and set His heart upon me, long before I cared for Him? I sought Him; yes, but He—my Saviour, my Good Shepherd—sought me first. And my seeking was but the issue of His prompting and His call.

There is life in the dry branches and the frozen ground, before there are daisies in the field and pink and white blossoms of the hawthorn lighting up the hedgerows. Thus it is with my God. I do not know when His love began. I do not know by what divers portions and in what divers manners He has kept calling, calling to me.