y waste its own life but
destroy the life of its partner.

Its sole business is to supply power to the phonograph, while the latter
is to do the talking. So some of us are called to be voices to speak for
God to our fellow-men, others are forces to sustain them, by our holy
sympathy and silent prayer. (Some of us are little dynamos under the
table, while others are phonographs that speak aloud the messages of
heaven.)

Let each of us be true to our God-given ministry, and when the day comes
our work will be weighed and the rewards distributed.

JANUARY 7.

"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling" (Jude 24).

This is a most precious promise. The revised translation is both accurate
and suggestive. It is not merely from falling that He wants to keep us,
but from even the slightest stumbling.

We are told of Abraham that he staggered not at the promise. God wants us
to walk so steadily that there will not even be a quiver in the line of
His regiments as they face the foe. It is the little stumblings of life
that most discourage and hinder us, and most of these stumblings are over
trifles. Satan would much rather knock us down with a feather than with an
Armstrong gun. It is much more to his honor and keen delight to defeat a
child of God by some flimsy trifle than by some great temptation.

Beloved, let us watch, in these days, against the orange peels that trip
us on our pathway, the little foxes that destroy the vines, and the dead
flies that mar, sometimes, a whole vessel of precious ointment. "Trifles
make perfection," and as we get farther on, in our Christian life, God
will hold us much more closely to obedience in things that seem
insignificant.

JANUARY 8.

"It is I, be not afraid" (Mark vi. 50).

Someone tells of a little child with some big story of sorrow upon its
little heart, flying to its mother's arms for comfort, and intending to
tell her the story of its trouble; but as that mother presses it to her
bosom and pours out her love, it soon becomes so occupied with her and the
sweetness of her affection that it forgets to tell its story, and in a
little while even the memory of the trouble is forgotten. It has just been
loved away, and she has taken its place in the heart of the little one.

This is the way God comforts us Himself. "It is I, be not afraid," is His
reassuring word. The circumstances are not altered, but He Himself comes
in their place, and satisfie