September 21

"Jesus saith to him, He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet."—John 13:10 (R.V.).

THE disciples of Christ walk through the hot and dusty ways of this world. I spend my Christian life in uncongenial surroundings. I do not go at once to be with my Lord in the heavenly places. He leaves me here for my own discipline, and for the benefit of men and women around me. So I wrestle on "'gainst storm and wind and tide."

And disciples contract defilement in this walk of theirs through the world. I am readily beguiled. My firmest purposes are shaken. Along the road there are innumerable obstacles and relentless enemies. Night after night my feet are begrimed and soiled. Am I to despair then? Am I to cry, like Sir Percivale in the poem, "This quest is not for me"?

No, for Christ is willing to cleanse His disciples. I have been bathed in the morning of my new life. I have passed through the great spiritual change. I have been forgiven. But I need still to have my feet washed. And when I come in at night from the fierce sun and the dusty highway and the jostling crowd, with spirit chafed and disturbed, He waits to lead me into His secret place and to refresh and heal me.

One evening, before Thomas De Quincey died, he said to his daughter, "I cannot bear the weight of clothes on my feet." She pulled off the heavy blankets. "Yes, my love," he said, "that is much better; I am better in every way. You know these are the feet that Jesus washed." Ah, I scarcely can tell which I should admire most: His passion for me or His patience with me; His suffering or His longsuffering.

T