flame the symbol of the Holy; it also typifies the
power which can make me holy. We have no cleansing minister to compare
with fire. Where water fails fire succeeds. After an epidemic water is
comparatively impotent. We commit the infested garments to the flames. It
was the great fire of London which delivered London from the tyranny of
the plague. And so it is with my soul. God, who is holy flame, will burn
out the germs of my sin. He will "purify Jerusalem with the spirit of
burning." "Our God is a consuming fire."

Come to my soul, O holy Flame! Place Thy "burning bliss" against my
wickedness, and consume it utterly away!

NOVEMBER The Twenty-sixth

_UNCONSECRATED SOULS_

"_This house which I have sanctified will I cast out of my sight,
and will make it a proverb and a by-word among all nations._"
--2 CHRONICLES vii. 12-22.

And thus am I taught that consecrated houses are nothing without
consecrated souls. It is not the mode of worship, but the spirit of the
worshipper which forms the test of a consecrated people. If the worshipper
is defiled his temple becomes an offence. When the kernel is rotten, and I
offer the husk to God, the offering is a double insult to His most holy
name.

And yet, how tempted I am to assume that God will be pleased with the mere
outsides of things, with words instead of aspiration, with postures
instead of dispositions, with the letter instead of the spirit, with an
ornate and costly temple instead of a sweet and lowly life! Day by day I
am tempted to treat the Almighty as though He were a child! Nay, the Bible
uses a more awful word; it says men treat the Lord as though He were a
fool!

From all such irreverence and frivolity, good Lord, deliver me! Let me
ever remember that Thou "desirest truth in the _inward_ man." "In the
hidden parts" help me "to know wisdom."

NOVEMBER The Twenty-seventh

_THE VALUE OF REVERENCE_

ROMANS xiii. 1-7.

When I pay honour to honourable ministers I not only honour my God, but I
enrich and refine my own soul. One of the great secrets of spiritual
culture is to know how to revere. There is an uncouth spirit of
self-aggression which, while it wounds and impoverishes others, destroys
its finest spiritual furniture in its own ungodly heat. The man who never
bows will never soar. To pay homage where homage is due is one of the
exercises which will help to keep us near "the great white throne."

I know my peril, for I recognize o