November 7

"For we are labourers together with God."—1 Corinthians 3:9.

HOW hallowing and fructifying is the marvellous truth!

Here is the secret of humility. Alike in the development of my own inner life and in my ministry for others, I must be destitute of prosperity and progress, if it were not that God is working in me to will and to do of His good pleasure. So let me bid farewell to every shred and vestige of pride. If it were not for my divine Ally, I should be shamed and driven in dishonour from the field.

And here is the secret of success. When He puts His fire—fire of the Holy Ghost, fire that consumes my evil, fire of His love shed abroad in me—into the secret places of my nature, there spring up the palm and the myrtle and the rare growths of the King's garden. When I wait on Him in prayer and expectation, when I say Nisi Dominus frustra, I prevail with men. They always win who side with God—rather let me reverse it, and say, with whom God sides.

And here is the secret of peace. I harass myself about my growth in grace. I am sorely cast down because my efforts in the Church and the world seem purposeless. My soul, thou shouldst not be so careful and troubled. There is One who has joined Himself with thee, and He will make thee perfect, and He will gather fruitage from all thou doest for Him. Let a great calm and a confident hope inhabit thee henceforward.

The Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace—He is with me, in my frailty, my poverty, my emptiness. And why should I despair?