r. The sun has tinted it into rich colors, and at last it is ready
and ripe to fall into the hand. So Christian life ought to be. There are
many things in life that need to be mellowed and ripened. Many Christians
have orchards full of fruit, but they are all green and sharp to the
taste. There is a great deal in them that is good, but it is incomplete,
and very sharp and sour. Perhaps something goes wrong in your domestic
life, and you get flurried and cross and lose your confidence in God, and
then, of course, your Christian joy. These things produce regret and all
kinds of misery. There are many things day after day you are sorry for.
You know you are not ripe and mellow and you cannot become so by trying.
You cannot bring the sweetness in. It must be wrought out from within.

JUNE 16.

"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon" (Matt. vi. 24).

He does not say ye cannot very well serve God and mammon, but ye cannot
serve two masters at all. Ye shall be sure to end by serving one. The man
who thinks he is serving God a little is deceived; he is not serving God.
God will not have his service. The devil will monopolize him before he
gets through. A divided heart loses both worlds. Saul tried it. Balaam
tried it. Judas tried it, and they all made a desperate failure. Mary had
but one choice. Paul said: "This one thing I do." "For me to live is
Christ." Of such a life God says: "Because he hath set his love upon Me
therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high because he hath known
My name." God takes a peculiar pride in showing His love to the heart that
wholly chooses Him. Heaven and earth will fade away before its trust can
be disappointed. Have we chosen Him only and given Him all our heart?

Say is it all for Jesus,
As you so often sing?
Is He your Royal Master?
Is He your heart's dear King?

JUNE 17.

"The glory of the Lord shall be thy reward" (Isa. lviii. 8).

He comes by our side as our helper; nay, more. He comes to dwell within
us; to be the life in our blood, the fire in our thought, the faith within
us, both in inception and consummation. Thus He becomes not only the
recompense of the victor, but the resources of the victory. He is the
Captain and the Overcomer in our lives. If we have caught any help that
has relieved us of a troubled morning, it has been of Him. He lifts our
eyes up unto Himself and delivers us from apathy, from discontent and from
fears. He is always the helpe