cost, and the mighty Spirit has
come upon him like wind and flame, endowing him with forceful and
enthusiastic character. Now he can dare for God, now he can work for God,
now he can burn for God! And this is how he has been transformed.

NOVEMBER The Seventeenth

_IF GOD BE FOR US----!_

ROMANS viii. 31-39.

Who else is worth naming? How much does anybody count? If the sun be on my
side, why should I be dismayed at any icy obstacle that may rear itself in
my way? Sun _versus_ ice! God _versus_ my impediments! Why should I fear?
If the atmosphere is on my side, then even the opposing strength of iron
will rust away into powder. "The breath of the Lord bloweth upon it," and
if the holy breath, God's Holy Spirit, is for us, then the apparently
invincible obstacle will crumble away into dust.

But we are deceived by mass, and we are forgetful of spirit. Mere size
affrights us. We are dismayed by numbers. We forget the quiet, pervasive,
all-powerful ministry of the Spirit of God. We are overwhelmed by the
phenomena of tempest and earthquake and fire, and we forget that
almightiness hides in the "still, small voice," in "the sound of a gentle
stillness." God's breath is more than the fierce threatenings of embattled
hosts. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" I will hide myself in
His holy fellowship, and "none shall make me afraid."

NOVEMBER The Eighteenth

_EXHILARANT SPIRITS_

"_He maketh my feet like hinds' feet._"
--PSALM xviii. 31-39.

I think of Wordsworth's lines, in which he describes a natural lady, made
by Nature herself:

"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs."

And it is this buoyancy, this elasticity, this springiness that the Lord
is waiting to impart to the souls of His children, so that they may move
along the ways of life with the light steps of the fawn.

Some of us move with very heavy feet. There is little of the fawn about us
as we go along the road. There is reluctance in our obedience. There is a
frown in our homage. Our benevolence is graceless, and there is no charm
in our piety, and no rapture in our praise. We are the victims of "the
spirit of heaviness." And yet here is the word which tells us that God
will make our feet "like hinds' feet." He will give us exhilaration and
spring, enabling us to leap over difficulties, and to have strength and
buoyancy for the steepest hills. Let us