to be
always singing hymns, and using the expressions of other people's praise,
any more than the saints in glory are always literally singing a new
song. But praise will be the tone, the colour, the atmosphere in which
they flow; none of them away from it or out of it.

Is it a little too much for them all to 'flow in ceaseless praise'? Well,
where will you stop? What proportion of your moments do you think enough
for Jesus? How many for the spirit of praise, and how many for the spirit
of heaviness? Be explicit about it, and come to an understanding. If He
is not to have all, then _how much?_ Calculate, balance, and apportion.
You will not be able to do this in heaven--you know it will be all praise
there; but you are free to halve your service of praise here, or to make
the proportion what you will.

Yet,--He made you for His glory.

Yet,--He chose you that you should be to the praise of His glory.

Yet,--He loves you every moment, waters you every moment, watches you
unslumberingly, cares for you unceasingly.

Yet,--He died for you!

Dear friends, one can hardly write it without tears. Shall you or I
remember all this love, and hesitate to give all our moments up to Him?
Let us entrust Him with them, and ask Him to keep them all, every single
one, for His own beloved self, and fill them _all_ with His praise, and
let them _all_ be to His praise!

Chapter III.
Our Hands Kept for Jesus.

_'Keep my hands, that they may move_
_At the impulse of Thy love.'_

When the Lord has said to us, 'Is thine heart right, as My heart is with
thy heart?' the next word seems to be, 'If it be, give Me thine hand.'

What a call to confidence, and love, and free, loyal, happy service is
this! and how different will the result of its acceptance be from the old
lamentation: 'We labour and have no rest; we have given the hand to the
Egyptians and to the Assyrians.' In the service of these 'other lords,'
under whatever shape they have presented themselves, we shall have known
something of the meaning of having 'both the hands full with travail and
vexation of spirit.' How many a thing have we 'taken in hand,' as we say,
which we expected to find an agreeable task, an interest in life, a
something towards filling up that unconfessed 'aching void' which is
often most real when least acknowledged; and after a while we have found
it change under our hands into irks