March 9

This commandments are not grievous. — 1 JOHN v. 3.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. — MATT. xi. 29, 30.

IT is the within that makes the without. If the soul be jarring, no circumstances can be chiming. If the inner life be smitten with winds and tossed, the brightest and stillest outward prospect will look stormy. If the soul but know how to sing inwardly, there shall be birds enough outside to sing, even amid the most wintry weather. The great trouble is heart trouble.

It is the philosophy of Christianity that it searches for the soul: if that be made right, prisons will become palaces. Rest for souls is the supreme gift.

The great Teacher tells us that the way of the reception of this supreme gift is the way of the yoke. This is the inexorable way. The lawless soul must be the clashing soul. I was riding smoothly and easily sixty miles an hour: the reason was, the train submitted to the yoke of the rails. What crash and destruction had the train determined on a way of its own! If I would have rest I must come under the yoke of the divine will. There can be no other path. Sings the Psalmist, "I will walk at liberty because I keep thy commandments."

And if we need teaching and direction along this road of the yoke, we are to look to Christ: we are to emulate his lowliness and meekness. Instant submission to the Father's will was the meaning of his life. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." He was under the yoke and so at rest. What was for the elder Brother is also for the brethren.

Wayland Hoyle

Rest is not quitting the busy career:

Rest is the fitting the soul to its sphere.

GOETH.