ny. It is not
how we feel, but how we purpose. Have we chosen the good part? Have we
said, "Whatever else I am or have, let me be God's child, let me have His
favor and blessing, let me please Him?" Or have we said, "I must have this
thing, and then I will see about religion." Alas, God has seen what was in
thine heart, and perhaps He has already said, "They have their reward."

JULY 1.

"After that ye have suffered awhile" (I. Peter v. 10).

Beloved, are we learning love in the school of suffering? Are our hearts
being mellowed and deepened by the summer heat of trial until the fruit of
the Spirit, "which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
meekness, temperance, faith, is ripening for the harvest of His coming,
and our sufferings are easily borne for His sake"? Oh, this is the school
of love, and makes Him unutterably more dear to our hearts and us to His.
And thus only can we ever learn with Him the heavenly charity which
"suffers long, and is kind."

We see the very first and the very last feature of the face of love, as
delineated in St. Paul's portrait (I. Cor. xiii.), are marks of pain and
patient suffering, "suffers long," "endureth all things." So let us learn
thus in the school of love to suffer and be kind, to endure all things.

Surely it will not be hard to love through all when it is the heart of
Jesus within us which will love and continue to love to the very end.

I want the love that suffers and is kind,
That envies not nor vaunts its pride or fame,
Is not puffed up, does no discourteous act,
Is not provoked, nor seeks its own to claim.

JULY 2.

"And hath raised us up together" (Eph. ii. 6).

Ascension is more than resurrection. Much is said of it in the New
Testament. Christ riseth above all things. We see Him in the very act of
ascending as we do not in the actual resurrection, as, with hands and lips
engaged in blessing, He gently parts from their side, so simply, so
unostentatiously, with so little imposing ceremony as to make heaven so
near to our common life that we can just whisper through. And we, too,
must ascend, even here. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things that are above." We must learn to live on the heaven side and look
at things from above. How it overcomes sin, defies Satan, dissolves
perplexities, lifts us above trials, separates us from the world and
conquers the fear of death to contemplate all things as God sees them, as