comforts will die, and your sorrows will
live, unless you have Christ for your own. The former will be like some
application that is put on a poisoned bite, which will soothe it for a
moment, but as soon as the anodyne dries off the skin, the poison will
tingle and burn again, and will be working in the blood, whilst the
remedy only touched the surface of the flesh. All your hopes will be
like a child's castles on the sand, which the next tide will smooth out
and obliterate, unless your hope is fixed on Him. You may have
everlasting consolation, you may have a hope which will enable you to
look serenely on the ills of life, and on the darkness of death, and on
what darkly looms beyond death. You may have a calmed and steadied
heart; you may have an all-round, stable, comprehensive goodness. But
there is only one way to get these blessings, and that is to grasp and
make our own, by simple faith and constant clinging, that great gift,
given once for all in Jesus Christ, the gift of comfort that never dies,
and of hope that never deceives, and then to apply that gift day by day,
through God's good Spirit, to sorrows and trials and duties as they
emerge.

THE HEART'S HOME AND GUIDE

'The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God,
and into the patient waiting for Christ.'--2
THESS. iii. 5.

A word or two of explanation of terms may preface our remarks on this,
the third of the Apostle's prayers for the Thessalonians in this letter.
The first point to be noticed is that by 'the Lord' here is meant, as
usually in the New Testament, Jesus Christ. So that here again we have
the distinct recognition of His divinity, and the direct address of
prayer to Him.

The next thing to notice is that by 'the love of God' is here meant, not
God's to us, but ours to Him; and that the petition, therefore, respects
the emotions and sentiments of the Thessalonians towards the Father in
heaven.

And the last point is that the rendering of the Authorised Version,
'patient waiting for Christ,' is better exchanged for that of the
Revised Version, 'the patience of Christ,' meaning thereby the same
patience as He exhibited in His earthly life, and which He is ready to
bestow upon us.

It is not usual in the New Testament to find Jesus Christ set forth as
the great Example of patient endurance; but still there are one or two
instances in which the same expression is applied to Him. For example,
in two