be "_a voice_." He has no ambition to receive
popular homage. He does not covet the power of the lordly purple. He does
not crave to be a great person; he only wants to be a great voice! He
wants to articulate the thought and purpose of God. He is quite content to
be hidden, like a bird in a thick bush, if only his song may be heard.

And in order that he may be a voice he retires into the silent solitudes
of the desert. He will listen before he speaks. Come thou, my soul, into
his secret! The air is clamorous with speech behind which there has been
no hearing. Men speak, and in their words there is no pulse of the
Infinite. In their consolations there is no balm. In their reproaches
there is no sword. Their words are empty vessels, full of sound! Let my
voice be hushed until I have heard the voice of the Highest. "He that hath
ears to hear, let him hear."

And when he spake, it was in clear and definite testimony, "Behold the
Lamb of God!" The "voice" succeeded, for men began to look away from the
herald to the herald's Lord. In forgetting John they found the King. They
passed the _signpost_, and arrived at _home_!

JULY The Seventh

_IN THE GOLDEN AGE_

ISAIAH xl. 1-10.

And so these things are to happen when the Lord has come to His own, and
His decrees are honoured in our midst.

Certain _inequalities_ are to be ended. Valleys are to be exalted, and
mountains are to be made low. There is to be a levelling! Men are to be
equal in freedom and opportunity.

Certain _crookednesses_ are to be ended. They are to be "made straight."
Society has become warped with the heat of lust, and the fierce fever of
competition, and the hot, devouring fires of greed. When the Lord is
enthroned the fires will be put out, the heat will pass, and the twisted
fellowships will be rectified.

Certain _roughnesses_ are to be ended. Class works against class with
jagged edge, like the teeth of a saw. They tear and rend one another, and
the family of God is always bleeding. These "rough places" are to be "made
plain." We are to "work in to one another," smoothly, congenially, in a
frictionless peace.

And this Lord is coming, coming every day, and "His arm shall rule for
Him." "Say unto the cities of Judah--Behold your God!"

JULY The Eighth

_WHAT MANNER OF MAN?_

MATTHEW xi. 7-15.

There are some men who are only as _desert reeds_! They move to the breath
of the desert wind. They bend before it, no matter in