September 12

We have purified your souls in obeying the truth.

1 PETER i. 22.

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. — JOHN xvii. 17.

AS our blessed Lord was himself “set apart and sent into the world” on a special divine mission, it is not strange that he should pray for his apostles that they might be sanctified, — set apart by God the Father to their divine work. They were to possess and proclaim the gospel in its fulness. Neither doctrinal nor preceptive truths must be overlooked; they must be impressed with the authority of their calling and the sublimity of their work.

All sincere believers are called to a divine service. Our Lord’s prayer includes them. Every Christian should be a living gospel and the propagator of spiritual truth. The growth of spiritual life and the steady increase of spiritual power depend upon our belief in and appropriation of the Word of God. We are sanctified by the Holy Spirit through belief of and obedience to the truth. Our sanctification must mean both purity of character and enlightened devotion to Christ’s work. Our blessed Lord must be our ideal as to the one and our example as to the other. Rightly apprehending the “truth as it is in Jesus,” we must cheerfully make it known to others. Let the warm, vital life of godliness be manifest in our conduct. While in thought we mount heavenward, in deed we should go about in angelic labors.

Jas. S. Chadwick.

I need a cleansing change within, My life must once again begin. New hope I need, and youth renewed, And more than human fortitude: New faith, new love, and strength to cast Away the fetters of the the past.

HARTLY COLBRIDGE.