September 27

"The Lord shall count, when He writeth up the people, that this man was born there."—Psalms 87:6.

IT is a great census, this of God's. My sympathies are comparatively narrow in their range. They scarcely extend beyond my family, my friends, my country. But His compassions take in lost men the world over. His wisdom knows what key will fit the door of every human soul. His power is not dismayed by the problems that fill me with fear. His chariot rides conquering through Egypt, and Babylon, and Philistia, and Tyre, and Ethiopia.

But it is a spiritual birthright which alone will satisfy Him. I must be born there, not enrolled merely in His world-wide family, but begotten into its ranks. So then I am undone and dead until He interposes; and He must re-mould, re-fashion, re-make me. It humbles my pride, for I congratulate myself on the dignity of my nature. But let me take God's estimate. And let me receive God's regeneration.

And it is an individual experience which He demands. This man, He says, using the singular number. One by one, the vast muster-roll is written and completed. One by one, men are forgiven, enlightened, purified, made perfect. Ah, those separate entries in God's long list of His sons and citizens—is mine among them? Have I crossed His threshold? I cannot enter with the crowd. I must go in alone.

"There are two good men," the uncompromising Chinese proverb says, "and one of them is dead, and the other is not yet born." Nay, there is a third. It is he who is born again. And God grant this third may be I.