ce! See how springs of refreshment broke out in the
troubled way! God "called him and blessed him." Rekindle your hope at his
radiant triumph. Strengthen your will in his glorious persistence.

Here do I see God's mercy in the gift of memory and in the witness of
history. I can turn to the yesterdays for light and quickening. "Do ye not
remember the miracle of the loaves?" Yes, I can recall the grace that met
me in my need, the power that made the crooked straight and the rough
places plain. And I am privileged to turn the pages of other men's
testimonies and read the record of the Lord's dealings with them. And so
do memory and history come as helpful angel-presences to my soul.

"His love in time past
Forbids me to think
He'll leave me at last
In trouble to sink."

OCTOBER The Seventeenth

_NO QUEST OF GOD_

"_He inquired not of the Lord._"
--1 CHRONICLES x. 6-14.

That was where Saul began to go wrong. When quest ceases, conquests cease.
"He inquired not"; and this meant loss of light. God will be inquired
after. He insists that we draw up the blinds if we would receive the
light. If we board up our windows He will not drive the gentle rays
through our hindrance. We must ask if we would have. The discipline of
inquiry fits us for the counsel of the Lord.

"He inquired not"; and this meant loss of sight. When light fails, sight
fails. The ponies in our pits become blind. When a spiritual power is not
exercised in the heavenly, it is deprived of its appointed functions. And
the tragedy is this, that the blind are deceived into thinking that they
still retain their sight. "Ye say, we see!"

"He inquired not"; and this meant loss of might. For "the light of life"
is not only illumination; it is inspiration too. It is both light and
heat; it confers guidance and dynamic. When a man, therefore, refuses the
light he becomes a weakling, and he will meet with disaster in the first
tempestuous day.

OCTOBER The Eighteenth

_UNANIMITY IN THE SOUL_

"_A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways._"
--JAMES i. 1-8.

If two men are at the wheel with opposing notions of direction and
destiny, how will it fare with the boat? If an orchestra have two
conductors both wielding their batons at the same time and with
conflicting conceptions of the score, what will become of the band? And a
man whose mind is like that of two men flirting with contrary ideals at
the same time will