ious work. There is a final touch, a consummate
bloom, to which duty can never attain, and which is only attainable by
love. All love's ministries are creative of loveliness. Wherever her
finger rests, something exquisite is born. Love is a great magician: she
transforms the desert into a garden, and she makes the wilderness blossom
like the rose.

But where shall we get the love wherewith to make our enemy lovely? From
the great Lover Himself. "We love, because He first loved us." The great
Lover will love love into us! And we, too, shall become fountains of love,
for our Lord will open "rivers in the high places, and fountains in the
midst of the valleys."

NOVEMBER The Thirtieth

_THE SPRING AND THE RIVER_

"_With the Lord there is mercy._"
--PSALM cxxx.

That is the ultimate spring. All the pilgrims of the night may meet at
that fountain. We have no other common meeting-place. If we make any other
appointment we shall lose one another on the way. But we can meet one
another at the fountain, men of all colours, and of all denominations, and
of all creeds. "By Thy mercy, O deliver us, good Lord!"

"_There is forgiveness with Thee._" That is the quickening river. Sin and
guilt scorch the fair garden of the soul as the lightning withers and
destroys the strong and beautiful things in woodland and field. The graces
are stricken, holy qualities are smitten, and the soul languishes like a
blasted heath. But from the fountain of God's mercy there flows the
vitalizing stream of His forgiveness. "There is a river the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of God." It is the mystic "river of life,
clear as crystal." "Everything shall live whither the river cometh."

"_With Him is plenteous redemption._" Salvation is not merely a recovered
flower, it is a recovered garden. It is not the restoring merely of a
withered hand; "He restoreth my soul." God does not make an oasis in a
surrounding desert; He makes the entire wilderness to "rejoice and blossom
as the rose."

DECEMBER The First

_A FAITHFUL FRIEND_

PROVERBS xxvii. 1-10.

"_A faithful friend is a strong defence._"

He is a gift of God, and therefore a "means of grace." The Lord's seal is
upon his ministry. How we impoverish ourselves by separating these
precious gifts from their Giver? We desecrate many a fair shrine by
emptying it of God. We turn many a temple into just a common house. When
we think of our friend let us link him to our