simple question which will settle every
difficulty, and always settle it on the side of love.

But we cannot answer this question rightly without having Jesus Himself in
our hearts. We cannot _act_ Christ. This is too grave a matter for acting.
We must _have_ Christ, and simply be natural and true to the life within
us, and that life will act itself out.

Oh, how easy it is to love every one, and see nothing but loveliness when
our heart is filled with Christ, and how every difficulty melts away and
every one we meet seems clothed with the Spirit within us when we are
filled with the Holy Ghost!

SEPTEMBER 11.

"Lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the age" (Matt.
xxviii. 20).

It is "all the days," not "always." He comes to you each day with a new
blessing. Every morning, day by day, He walks with us, with a love that
never tires and a blessing that never grows old. And He is with us "all
the days"; it is a ceaseless abiding. There is no day so dark, so
commonplace, so uninteresting, but you find Him there. Often, no doubt, He
is unrecognized, as He was on the way to Emmaus, until you realize how
your heart has been warmed, your love stirred, your Bible so strangely
vivified, and every promise seems to speak to you with heavenly reality
and power. It is the Lord! God grant that His living presence may be made
more real to us all henceforth, and whether we have the consciousness and
evidence, as they had a few glorious times in those forty days, or whether
we go forth into the coming days, as they did most of their days, to walk
by simple faith and in simple duty, let us know at least that the fact is
true forevermore, THAT HE IS WITH US, a Presence all unseen, but real, and
ready if we needed Him any moment to manifest Himself for our relief.

SEPTEMBER 12.

"The furnace for gold; but the Lord trieth the hearts" (Prov. xvii. 3.)

Remember that temptation is not sin unless it be accompanied with the
consent of your will. There may seem to be even the inclination, and yet
the real choice of your spirit is fixed immovably against it, and God
regards it simply as a solicitation and credits you with an obedience all
the more pleasing to Him, because the temptation was so strong.

We little know how evil can find access to a pure nature and seem to
incorporate itself with our thoughts and feelings, while at the same time
we resist and overcome it, and remain as pure as the sea-fow