name we please. "Sin is the transgression of the law."

Let us be on our guard against the men whose pockets are filled with
deceptive labels. Let us vigilantly resist all teachings which would
chloroform the conscience. Let us prefer true terms to merely nice ones.
Let us call sin by its right name, and let us tolerate no moral conjuring
either with ourselves or with others. The first essential in all moral
reformation is to call sin "sin." "If we confess our sin He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sin."

FEBRUARY The Twenty-first

_GRACE REIGNS!_

ROMANS v. 12-21.

When old Mr. Honest came to the river, and he entered the cold waters of
death, the last words he was heard to utter by those who stood on the
shore were these:--"Grace reigns!" All through his pilgrimage old Mr.
Honest had been in Emmanuel's land where grace reigned night and day. It
was through grace that he had found the way of life. It was through grace
that he had been delivered from the beasts and pitfalls of the road. It
was grace that had given him lilies of peace, and springs of refreshment,
and the fine air that inspired him in difficult tasks. And in death he
still found "grace abounding," and the Lord of the changing road was also
Lord of the dark waters through which he passed into the radiant glories
of the cloudless day.

In every yard of a faithful pilgrimage we shall find the decrees of
sovereign love. We are never in alien country. "Grace reigns" in every
hill and valley, through every green pasture and over every rugged road,
in every moment of "the day of life," and in the last sharp passage
through the transient night of death.

FEBRUARY The Twenty-second

_THE THREE GARDENS_

REVELATION xxii. 1-14.

The Bible opens with a garden. It closes with a garden. The first is the
Paradise that was lost. The last is Paradise regained. And between the two
there is a third garden, the garden of Gethsemane. And it is through the
unspeakable bitterness and desolation of Gethsemane that we find again the
glorious garden through which flows "the river of water of life." Without
Gethsemane no New Jerusalem! Without its mysterious and unfathomable night
no blessed sunrise of eternal hope! "We were reconciled to God by the
death of His Son."

We are always in dire peril of regarding our redemption lightly. We hold
it cheaply. Privileges easily come to be esteemed as rights. And even
grace itself can lose the strength o