ord God. We
can forget all His benefits. We can easily put Him out of mind. We can
live as though He were dead. "My children have forgotten Me."

What shall we do to escape this great disaster? "_Take heed to thyself!_"
To take heed is to be at the helm and not asleep in the cabin. It is to
steer and not to drift. It is to keep our eyes on the compass and our
hands on the wheel. It is to know where we are going. We never
deliberately forget our Lord; we carelessly drift into it. "Take heed."

"_And keep thy soul diligently._" Gardens run to seed, and ill weeds grow
apace. The fair things are crowded out, and the weed reigns everywhere. It
is ever so with my soul. If I neglect it, the flowers of holy desire and
devotion will be choked by weeds of worldliness. God will be crowded out,
and the garden of the soul will become a wilderness of neglect and sin.

FEBRUARY The Seventeenth

_BLESSINGS AND CURSINGS_

"_He read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings._"
--JOSHUA viii. 30-35.

We are inclined to read only what pleases us, to hug the blessings and to
ignore the warnings. We bask in the light, we close our eyes to the
lightning. We recount the promises, we shut our ears to the rebukes. We
love the passages which speak of our Master's gentleness, we turn away
from those which reveal His severity. And all this is unwise, and
therefore unhealthy. We become spiritually soft and anaemic. We lack moral
stamina. We are incapable of noble hatred and of holy scorn. We are
invertebrate, and on the evil day we are not able to stand.

We must read "all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings."
We must let the Lord brace us with His severities. We must gaze steadily
upon the appalling fearfulness of sin, and upon its terrific issues. At
all costs we must get rid of the spurious gentleness that holds compromise
with uncleanness, that effeminate affection which is destitute of holy
fire. We must seek the love which burns everlastingly against all sin; we
must seek the gentleness which can fiercely grip a poisonous growth and
tear it out to its last hidden root. We must seek that holy love which is
as a "consuming fire."

FEBRUARY The Eighteenth

_THE SUBTLETY OF TEMPTATION_

JAMES i. 12-20.

Evil enticements always come to us in borrowed attire. In the Boer War
ammunition was carried out in piano cases, and military advices were
transmitted in the skins of melons. And that is