ative power of sins. One
sin widens the road for a bigger one to follow. The second denial will be
more vehement than the first. The third will add the element of blasphemy.
Yes, every sin is a miner and sapper for a larger army in the rear. It not
only does its own work, it prepares the way for its successor.

But I will connect this "dark betrayal night" with that sweet
after-morning when the Lord and His denier met face to face by the lake.
And that sweet morning of reconciliation is a possible experience for all
the deniers of the Lord, and it is therefore possible for thee and me.

NOVEMBER The Thirteenth

_A TRANSFORMED FISHERMAN_

"_Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing._"
--JOHN xxi. 1-14.

Simon Peter had often gone a fishing, but never had he gone as he went in
the twilight of that most wonderful evening. He handled the ropes in a new
style, with a new dignity born of the bigger capacity of his own soul. He
turned to the familiar task, but with a quite unfamiliar spirit. He went a
fishing, but the power of the resurrection went with him.

This action of Simon Peter's is the only true test of the reality of any
spiritual experience. How does it fit me for ordinary affairs? A spiritual
festival should do for the soul what a day on the hills does for the
body--equip it for the better doing of the duties in the vale.

This action is also a preparative to a renewal of the gracious experience.
The road of common duty was just the way appointed for another meeting
with his Lord, for in the morning-light there came a voice across the
waters: "Children, have ye any meat?" "And that disciple whom Jesus loved
saith unto Peter: 'It is the Lord.'"

NOVEMBER The Fourteenth

_THE PURIFICATION OF LOVE_

JOHN xxi. 15-25.

"Lovest thou Me?" There was a day, only a little while back, when Simon
Peter's love was not yet purified, and it indulged itself in loud and
empty boasts. True love never blusters and brawls. It is like a stream of
water flowing silently underground, and secretly bathing the roots of
things, and keeping their heads fresh, and cool, and sweet. The boast has
now dropped out of the love! It is now ashamed of words! "Lord, Thou
knowest that I love Thee!"

Yes, true love expresses itself, not in clamorous boastfulness, but in
quiet services. It ministers to the Lord's sheep and the Lord's lambs. It
spends its strength on the mountains, "seeking that which is lost," and it
does