from vibration. So God has His
spiritual splints that He wants to put upon His children and keep them
quiet and unmoved until they pass the first stage of faith.

It is not always easy work for us, "but the God of all grace who hath
called you unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus after you have suffered
awhile, stablish, strengthen, settle you."

FEBRUARY 28.

"Count it all joy" (James i. 2).

We do not always feel joyful, but we are to count it all joy. The word
"reckon" is one of the key-words of Scripture. It is the same word used
about our being dead. We do not feel dead. We are painfully conscious of
something that would gladly return to life. But we are to treat ourselves
as dead, and neither fear nor obey the old nature.

So we are to reckon the thing that comes as a blessing. We are determined
to rejoice, to say, "My heart is fixed, O God, I will sing and give
praise." This rejoicing, by faith, will soon become a habit, and will ever
bring speedily the spirit of gladness and the spontaneous overflow of
praise.

Then, "although the fig-tree may wither and no fruit appear in the vines,
the labor of the olive fail and the fields yield no increase, the herd be
cut off from the stall, and the cattle from the field, yet we will rejoice
in the Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation."

"Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round,
On Jesus' bosom naught but calm is found;
Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown,
Jesus we know, and He is on the throne."

MARCH 1.

"Wait on the Lord" (Ps. xxvii. 14).

How often this is said in the Bible, how little understood! It is what the
old monk calls the "practice of the presence of God." It is the habit of
prayer. It is the continued communion that not only asks, but receives.
People often ask us to pray for them and we have to say, "Why, God has
answered our prayer for you, and you must now take the answer. It is
awaiting you, and you must take it by waiting on the Lord."

This it is that renews the strength, until we mount up with wings as
eagles, run and are not weary, walk and are not faint. Our hearts are too
vast to take in His fulness at a single breath. We must live in the
atmosphere of His presence till we absorb His very life. This is the
secret of spiritual depth and rest, of power and fulness, of love and
prayer, of hope and holy usefulness. "Wait, I say, on the Lord."

I am waiting in communion at the blessed mercy sea