still waters; I think it is a greater
thing to have a "table prepared before me _in the presence of mine
enemies_." It is good to be able to sing in the sunny noon; it is better
still to be able to sing "songs in the night."

And this deliverance may always be ours in Christ Jesus. The Lord may not
smooth out our circumstances, but we may have the regal right of peace. He
may not save us from the sorrows of a newly-cut grave, but we may have the
glorious strength of the immortal hope. God will enable us to be masters
of all our circumstances, and none shall have a deadly hold upon us.

FEBRUARY The Twenty-seventh

_THE MIGHT OF FRAILTY_

PSALM cv. 23-36.

That is the wonder of wonders, that the Almighty God will use frail
humanity as the vehicles of His power, and will make Moses and Aaron shine
with reflected glory. Man can send an electric current into a fragile
carbon film and make it incandescent. He can send his voice across a
continent, and make it speak on a distant shore. And the Lord God can do
wonders compared with which these are only as the dimmest dreams. He can
send His holy power into human speech, and the words can wake the dead. He
can send His virtue into the human will, and its strength can shake the
thrones of iniquity. He can send His love into the human heart, and the
power of its affection can capture the bitterest foe.

And so the word "impossible" becomes itself impossible when the soul of
man is in fellowship with the Lord of Hosts. The pliant will becomes an
iron pillar. The weak heart becomes "as a defended city" when it is the
home of God. Dumb lips become the thrones of mysterious eloquence when
touched with divine inspiration.

FEBRUARY The Twenty-eighth

_THE TEST OF FULNESS_

DEUTERONOMY viii. 1-10.

"And thou shalt eat and be full, and thou shalt bless the Lord thy God."
Fulness is surely a more searching test than want. Fulness induces sleep
and forgetfulness. Many a man fights a good fight with Apollyon in the
narrow way, who lapses into sleepy indifference on the Enchanted Ground.
Men often sit down to a full table without "grace." Pain cries out to God,
while boisterous health strides along in heedlessness. Yes, it is our
fulness that constitutes our direst peril. "This was the iniquity of
Sodom, _fulness_ of bread and abundance of idleness."

And so our tests may come on the sunny day. A nation's supreme tests may
come in its prosperity. The sunshine ma