March 15

"They saw that the Lord his God was with him."—2 Chronicles 15:9.

HOW good is the time of refreshing and revival! It is like the morning after the dark night. It is like the return of summer after an Arctic winter. I would know such happy seasons in my life. I am conscious that I need them only too often and too urgently.

From heaven and God the blessing must come. All true invigoration of soul, all true comfort in sorrow, all true strength for toilsome duty, all true patience under sore toil: I do not evolve them from myself, nor draw them chiefly from human and earthly fountains. I look up to God, I cry to Him, and He sends them to me.

Softly and silently the blessing will probably descend on me. The greatest powers, of nature and of grace, are calm and noiseless. Even when the fruits of the quickening are very marked, it meets me first in the secrecy of the soul, in the privacy of the closet, in the inner world I neglect overmuch, in the solitude of the heart.

Free and full the blessing will be. The Spirit of God is a liberal Spirit. He waits to give me an assurance of pardon in which there will be no doubts at all, a sanctification that will shine more and more unto the perfect day, a communion with Christ across which never a chilling shadow will fall. I do not expect enough from my King of Love. I do not rejoice enough in His wealth.

To glorious results the blessing will tend. I shall put away the abominable idols out of the land of my heart. I shall win and gather round me many to whom I will be a wellspring of benediction and a lamp of life. O my Lord, revive me again, and I and others will be glad in Thee.