October 1

E delight to do thy will, O my God. — PSALM xi. 8.

Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. — JOHN xii. 27, 28.

THE shadow of the agony in the garden is already falling on the spirit of the Son of man. "Son of man" we must know him to be, no less than Son of God, or there would be no mediation, no at-one-ment, and we should have but half a gospel. "This hour" signifies the consummation of the infinite sacrifice, both at Gethsemane and Calvary. Nowhere is the interior struggle of the cross laid so plainly open. The great Sufferer marks and reveals the successive steps in the secret working of his sacrificial submission. There are two possible prayers. The terrible alternative is distinctly before him; he can ask for rescue, exemption, comfort, an easy lot. How many of us, in a weaker faith, with a feebler vision, do ask these for ourselves, for those we love! That would be the surrender of the Saviour's mission for mankind to self; that is in its degree our constant temptation. No. "For this cause came I unto this hour." Self must be surrendered to God for redemption's sake, for man's sake. Two precious lights, then, shine out of the text, — the glory of self-sacrifice and the intense humanity of our Lord.

A. D. Attenborough

"I know," is all the Sufferer saith, —

"Knowledge by suffering entereth,

And life is perfected by death."

MRS BROWNING.