pears above the water
with its beautiful pale green shoots. The seed has been sown very thickly
and the plants are clustered together in great numbers, so that you can
pull up a score at a single handful. But now comes the process of
transplanting. He first plants us and lets us grow very close to some of
His children, and in great clusters in the nursery or the hothouse, but
when we reach a certain stage we must be transplanted, or come to nothing.
He calls us out by His Spirit and Providence into situations where we have
to lean directly on Him, where He puts upon us a weight of responsibility
and service so great that we have an opportunity of developing and are
thrown upon the great resources of His grace.

"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is;
for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out
her roots by the rivers."

JANUARY 27.

"This one thing I do" (Phil. iii. 13).

One of Satan's favorite employees is the switchman. He likes nothing
better than to side-track one of God's express trains, sent on some
blessed mission and filled with the fire of a holy purpose.

Something will come up in the pathway of the earnest soul, to attract its
attention and occupy its strength and thought. Sometimes it is a little
irritation and provocation. Sometimes it is some petty grievance we stop
to pursue or adjust. Sometimes it is somebody else's business in which we
become interested, and which we feel bound to rectify, and before we know,
we are absorbed in a lot of distracting cares and interests that quite
turn us aside from the great purpose of our life.

Perhaps we do not do much harm, but we have missed our connection. We have
got off the main line.

Let all these things alone. Let grievances come and go, but press forward
steadily and irresistibly, crying, as you haste to the goal, "This one
thing I do."

JANUARY 28.

"That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John
xv. 11).

There is a joy that springs spontaneously in the heart without external or
even rational cause. It is an artesian fountain. It rejoices because it
cannot help it. It is the glory of God; it is the heart of Christ, it is
the joy divine of which He says, "These things have I spoken unto you that
My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." And your joy
no man taketh from you. He who possesses this fountain is not discoura