in the rough blast. The light of
art and of literature fails me when I need them most. When I sit in the
darkness, with death in the house, these kindly ministers have no
effective beams. I turn to the Master, and He shines upon me, and it is
daybreak in the soul!

DECEMBER The Twenty-seventh

_THE SUNNY SIDE OF THINGS_

1 JOHN i. 1-7.

I have just come out of a gloomy room into a sunny room to write these
words. I had my choice. I could have stayed in the sombre room, but I
choose to come into the sun-lit room and the warm, cheering beams are even
now falling upon my page. "Walk in the light!" And I make my choice, and
how often I choose to walk without Christ in the unfertilizing and
unfruitful gloom of self-will! In the light of the Lord I could have a
garden of Eden; how often I choose the dingy wilderness where I can grow
neither flowers nor fruits.

"Walk in the light." The Lord's companionship always makes the sunny side
of the street. It may be that the way is rough and stony and difficult,
but in His company there is light that never fails, compared with which
the world's noontide is only as the gloomiest night. And the souls that
"walk in the light" gather "sacred sweets" all along the way. Heavenly
fruits grow for the children of light, fruits of love and joy and peace,
and the favoured pilgrim plucks them as he goes along. "All I find in
Jesus." The way of light is the way of delight, and "the joy of the Lord
is our strength."

DECEMBER The Twenty-eighth

_IN HIM WAS LIFE_

JOHN i. 1-18.

I have heard men speak of "wanting to see a bit of life," and I found that
what they meant was to see a bit of death. It is as if a man should go to
the hospital to see a bit of health, or as if he should go to a gory
battlefield to see the human frame. It is like going to a refuse-heap to
see a bit of garden. Life is not found in fields of license; it is not
found among the wild oats of a dissipated youth. Life is found only in
Christ, and if we want to see a bit of life we must go to Him.

"In Him was life"; and that not merely to be looked at but to be shared.
He is the well to which everybody can bring his pitcher, and take it away
filled. And my pitcher is just my need. "All the fitness He requires is to
feel our need of Him." The Life is all-sufficient for the needs of the
race. This Life can vitalize all that is withered and dead; it can make
decrepit wills muscular and mighty, and it ca