e-eyes, and it is
amazing in what new light a great love will set familiar things!
Commonplaces become beautiful when looked at through the lens of Christian
love. When we "walk in love" our eyes are anointed with "the eye-salve" of
grace.

And here is a new service. "We are ambassadors ... for Christ." When we
see our Lord through love-eyes, and then our brother, we shall yearn to
serve our brother in Christ. We shall intensely long to tell the
love-story of the Lord our Saviour. What we have seen, with confidence we
tell.

JULY The Twenty-ninth

_NAMES AND NATURES_

ROMANS viii. 1-10.

Men will recognize my Christianity by the sign of the Spirit of Christ.
And they will accept no other witness. I saw a plant-pot the other day,
full of soil, bearing no flower, but flaunting a stick on which was
printed the word "Mignonette." "Thou hast a name to live and art dead."
The world will take no notice of our labels and our badges: it is only
arrested by the flower and the perfume. "If any man hath not the Spirit of
Christ he is none of His."

And in the Spirit of Christ I shall best deal with "_the things of the
flesh_." There are some things which are best overcome by neglecting them.
To give them attention is to give them nourishment. Withdraw the
attention, and they sicken and die. And so I must seek the fellowship of
the Spirit. That friendship will destroy the other. "Ye cannot serve God
and Mammon." If I am in communion with the Holy One the other will pine
away, and cease to trouble me.

Lord, make my spirit a kinsman of Thine! Let the intimacy be ever deeper
and dearer. "Draw me nearer, blessed Lord," until in nearness to Thee I
find my peace, my joy, and my crown.

JULY The Thirtieth

_SIN AS POISON_

NUMBERS xxi. 4-9.

And this is the familiar teaching, that sin is a serpent. It possesses a
deadly poison. We may give it pleasant names, but we are only ornamenting
death. A chemist might put a poison into a chaste and elegant flask, but
he has in no wise changed its nature. And when we name sin by philosophic
euphemisms, and by less exacting terminologies--such as "cleverness,"
"smartness," or "fault," or "misfortune," we are only changing the flask,
and the diabolical essence remains the same.

And, then, sin is a serpent because it is so subtle. It creeps into my
presence almost before I know it. Its approaches are so insidious, its
expedients so full of guile. "Therefore, I say unto