and was very poor. He spent some of the best years of his life on this work, and after many disappointments and failures it was finished to his satisfaction. He cemented the parts together, and lay down to rest. But in the middle of the night he awoke with a start. A terrible frost had come over the city, and he was afraid lest his life's work should be marred, so he got up and wrapped what scanty bedclothing he had around his work to preserve it. He then lay down again and slept, but he never awoke. The next day he was not moving about as usual, so the neighbours burst open the door, and they wept when they saw how he had sacrificed himself for his work. They buried him, but his work still lives and will live, the wonder and admiration of all who behold it. Much like this will it be with those who have renounced themselves in order to glorify God and do good to men. When they are dead and gone their work will live, and some day rich and glorious reward will be given. Their work at present may be unrecognised and unnoticed. It may be like the dew which falls at night unobserved. Who takes any notice of it? But in the morning the beautiful result is seen on every blade of grass and the spray of every tree, and by-and-by the morning will dawn, the shadows will flee away, and one of the sweet surprises of heaven to those who have sacrificed themselves for their work will be how much has come out of their poor efforts.

It is mercy that calls for duty and melts us into compliance. After setting forth Divine mercy as never in the world before-in its sovereign freeness,

unfathomable depths, and glorious issues, the apostle says:" By all that through the inspiring Spirit I have shewed you, I beseech you 'Present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God.'" Such an appeal should be irresistible. It is as though Christ Himself said, "By the blood I have shed, by the pangs I have suffered, by the life that I have lived, and by the death that I have died, I beseech you present yourselves to Me." How sweetly cogent: who can refuse? "Love so amazing, so Divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all."

H

CHAPTER XIII.

Walking with God

OLINESS is not only a state but a way, and not only a way, but a highway, wherein the redeemed are to walk; and walking along that highway we shall always have Christ

at our side.

We get into the highway of holiness by a definite act of consecration and faith, and walk upon that highway by continuous surrender and trust. Christ is the door, and He is the way. Walking with Him, we shall grow more and more unworldly and heavenlyminded, more transformed, more like Christ, until our very faces shall be radiant with Divine glory. As with Moses, who "wist not that the skin of his face shone" with the reflected radiance which it had received when he was in the presence of Jehovah, so from those who walk with God there emanates an unconscious influence which makes the ungodly tremble before them as Satan in "Paradise Lost," when he saw the sinless pair in Eden, "trembled to behold how awful goodness is."

When the old Hebrews wanted to describe a man who reached their ideal in religious life, they used the simple but comprehensive phrase "he walked with God." To them there was nothing higher than unbroken and unclouded communion with their Maker. That was, in their view, the secret of all holiness, and the New Testament has nothing higher than that to reveal. "We all with unveiled face beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image." When we sit before the camera, and have our portraits taken, our picture is printed on the prepared glass; but when we behold and continue to behold the image of Christ we become the camera, and His image is printed on our souls. The teaching is, that we become like those with whom we keep company.

"We say we exchange words when we meet," says Professor Drummond; "what we exchange is souls. And when our intercourse is close, and very frequent, so complete is this exchange that recognisable bits of the one soul begin to show in the other's nature, and the second is conscious of a similar and growing debt to the first. This mysterious approximating of two souls, who has not witnessed? Who has not watched some old couple, come down life's pilgrimage hand in hand with such gentle trust and joy in one another that their very faces wore the self-same look? These were not two souls, it was a composite soul. Half a century's companionship had told upon them, they were changed into the same image." What glorious possibilities are here suggested to those whom God hides in the secret of His presence? Who can think

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mean thoughts, or speak ungenerous words, in the presence of Christ? His mere presence must suggest immediately the right thing in the controlling of passion, the subduing of pride, and the overcoming of selfishness. In His company, who could help but always be at his best, and if this influence is perpetuated, what could not life become? Walking with God implies at least three things:

I. COMPANIONSHIP.

We could hardly be said to walk with a person without a distinct sense of that person's presence. Was not this our Lord's promise to His disciples (John xiv. 21-24), and which Jude did not understand when he said, "Lord, how is it Thou wilt manifest Thyself to us and not unto the world?" It was altogether incomprehensible to them at the time, but afterwards they knew by blessed experience that He meant a real personal revelation of Himself, such as fills up the measure of the soul's need-a manifestation such as only the divinely illuminated soul can understand. Not a manifestation to our bodily senses; that would be impossible. God is a Spirit. Nor is it an intellectual revelation to perceptive reason. It is a manifestation to the inner consciousness of the believing heart, so that the Divine presence is as real as the sense of the presence of any human being. Christ becomes more really present than if we could touch Him, or hear His loving human voice; forming a companionship more intimate, sweet, and enduring, than that of any earthly relationship,