! How patient His
forbearance! How tender His discipline, with His own erring children! How
He led Jacob, Joseph, Israel, David, Elijah, and all His ancient servants,
until they could truly say, "Thy gentleness hath made me great."

The heart in which the Holy Spirit dwells will always be characterized by
gentleness, lowliness, quietness, meekness, and forbearance. The rude,
sarcastic spirit, the brusque manner, the sharp retort, the unkind cut--all
these belong to the flesh, but they have nothing in common with the gentle
teaching of the Comforter.

The Holy Dove shrinks from the noisy, tumultuous, excited, and vindictive
spirit, and finds His home in the lowly breast of the peaceful soul. "The
fruit of the Spirit is gentleness, meekness."

Lord, make me gentle. Hush my spirit. Refine my manner. Let me have Christ
in my bearing and my very tones as well as in my heart.

AUGUST 3.

"Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God" (I. Peter v.
6).

The pressure of hard places makes us value life. Every time our life is
given back to us from such a trial, it is like a new beginning, and we
learn better how much it is worth, and make more of it for God and man.

The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and fits us to
help and sympathize with them.

There is a shallow, superficial nature, that gets hold of a theory or a
promise lightly, and talks very glibly about the distrust of those who
shrink from every trial; but the man or woman who has suffered much never
does this, but is very tender and gentle, and knows what suffering really
means.

This is what Paul meant when he said, "Death worketh in us, but life in
you." Trials and hard places are needed to press us forward; even as the
furnace fires in the hold of that mighty ship give the force that moves
the piston, drives the engine, and propels that great vessel across the
sea, in the face of the winds and waves.

AUGUST 4.

"Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of
His" (Rom. viii. 9).

A spiritual man is not so much a man possessing a strong spiritual
character as a man filled with the Holy Spirit. So the apostle said: "Ye
are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwelleth in you."

The glory of the new creation, then, is not only that it recreates the
human spirit, but t