and its desires found
the coveted feast in the holy Child of God.

And thus the Lord Jesus was not only to dignify the body but to gratify
the soul. He was to be most efficient where He was most needed. And this
has been the unfailing experience of the years. There is a hunger in my
soul for which I can find no satisfying bread. I have tried many breads; I
have tried nature, and art, and music, and literature, and I have tried
human fellowship and social service. But my soul is hungry still! And the
Lord Jesus comes to me, as I reverently grope in the vast temple, and He
"satisfies the hungry soul" with good things. His "bread of life" is very
wonderful; it lifts the soul into the restfulness of strength, and gives
me a strange buoyancy, and "the glorious liberty of the children of God."

"My soul, wait thou only on Him!" He is thy hope, thy strength, and thy
salvation! He is "the desire of all the nations."

DECEMBER The Twenty-third

_THE LORD OF THE STUDENTS_

MATTHEW ii. 1-12.

And so the good news came to "wise men," shall we say to students, busying
themselves with the vast and intricate problems of the mind. And the
evangel offered the students mental satisfaction, bringing the
interpreting clue, beaming upon them with the guiding ray which would lead
them into perfect noon.

Yes, our wise men must find the key of wisdom in the Lord. In a wider
sense than the meaning of the original word it is true that "the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." To seek mental satisfactions and
leave out Jesus is like trying to make a garden and leave out the sun.
"Without Me ye can do nothing," not even in the unravelling of the
problems which beset and besiege the mind.

If my mental pilgrimage is to be as "a shining light shining more and more
even unto perfect day," I must begin with Jesus, and pay homage to His
Kingly and incomparable glory. I must lay my treasures at His feet, "gold,
and frankincense, and myrrh." Then will He lead me "into all truth," and
"the truth shall make me free."

DECEMBER The Twenty-fourth

_ENTERING IN AT LOWLY DOORS_

"_Unto us a Child is born._"
--ISAIAH ix. 1-7.

How gentle the coming! Who would have had sufficient daring of imagination
to conceive that God Almighty would have appeared among men as a little
child? We should have conceived something sensational, phenomenal,
catastrophic, appalling! The most awful of the natural elements would have
formed H