ss state, with purified and renewed
affections, to see the King in His beauty! The letter of an absent
brother, cheering and consolatory as it is, is a poor compensation for
the joys of personal and visible communion. The absent Elder Brother on
the Throne speaks to you _now_ only by His Word and Spirit,--soon you
shall be admitted to His immediate fellowship, seeing him "as He is"--He
Himself unfolding the wondrous chart of His providence and
grace--leading you about from fountain to fountain among the living
waters, and with his own gentle hand wiping the last lingering tear-drop
from your eye. _Heaven an everlasting home with Jesus!_ "Where I am,
there ye may be also."--He has appended a cheering postscript to this
word, on which He has "caused us to hope:"--

"HE WHICH TESTIFIETH THESE THINGS SAITH, SURELY I COME QUICKLY."

31ST DAY.

"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"--

"Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find
watching."--Luke xii. 37.

The Closing Benediction.

Child of God! is this thine attitude, as the expectant of thy Lord's
appearing? Are thy loins girded, and thy lights burning? If the cry were
to break upon thine ears this day, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh,"
couldst thou joyfully respond--"Lo, this is my God, I have waited for
him?" WHEN He may come, we cannot tell;--ages may elapse before _then_.
It may be centuries before our graves are gilded with the beams of a
Millennial sun; but while He _may_ or may _not_ come _soon_, He _must_
come at some time--ay, and the day of our death is virtually to all of
us the day of His coming.

Reader! put not off the solemn preparation. Be not deceived or deluded
with the mocker's presumptuous challenge, "Where is the promise of His
coming?" See to it that the calls of an engrossing world without, do not
foster this procrastinating spirit within. It may be now or never with
thee. Put not off thy sowing time till harvest time. Leave nothing for a
dying hour, _but to die_, and calmly to resign thy spirit into the hands
of Jesus. Of all times, _that_ is the least suitable to have the vessel
plenished--to attend to the great business of life when life is
ebbing--to trim the lamp when the oil is done and it is flickering in
its socket--to begin to watch, when the summons is heard to leave the
watch-tower to meet our God!

Were you never struck how often, amid the many _gentle_ words of Jesus,
the sum