June 1

We also should walk in newness of life. — ROMANS vi. 4.

*Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.* — MATT. viii. 22.

HE who spoke these words “bare our sicknesses,” and wept at a grave side. There was, then, in this startling injunction no lack of sympathy with human sorrow, but rather a holy impatience of conventional customs which engross his servants at the expense of their work. The Lord here speaks not only to a man likely to be detained during long-protracted funeral ceremonies, but through him to all in all ages who might be liable to yield unduly to this world’s fashion and custom. “The king’s business requireth haste!” “Seek ye *first* the kingdom of God.” How it would simplify all our life if we who claim to be Christians would obey the Lord in this, and would trust that “all these things shall be added,” whether it be the burial of a dead father, or the supply of daily needs! Surely the few who live unto God in this world may more and more leave the conventionalisms of the world to those who, living in worldly pleasure, “are dead while they live,” and be single-eyed in the service of the Master! And surely he who says, “I come quickly,” if he felt a sharp word was needed to be given to this candidate for discipleship, would speak a far more solemn word to many called by his name to-day, whose Christianity is little more than an inheritance, not a personal conviction, and whose lagging footsteps are so easily clogged by their very culture and the resources of civilization, whose “loins” are *not* “girded,” whose “lights” are *not* “burning,” and who, calling themselves servants, do not “wait for their Lord.”

Ernst Graham Ingham

Jesus calls us o’er the tumult

Of our life’s wild, restless sea;

Day by day his sweet voice soundeth.

Saying, Christian, follow me!

MRS. C. F. ALEXANDER.