nstance! Can you deliberately hold in it books
of a kind which you know perfectly well, by sadly repeated experience,
lead you farther from instead of nearer to Him? books which must and do
fill your mind with those 'other things' which, entering in, choke the
word? books which you would not care to read at all, if your heart were
burning within you at the coming of His feet to bless you? Next time any
temptation of this sort approaches, just _look at your hand!_

It was of a literal hand that our Lord Jesus spoke when He said, 'Behold,
the hand of him that betrayeth Me is with Me on the table;' and, 'He that
dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me.' A hand
so near to Jesus, with Him on the table, touching His own hand in the
dish at that hour of sweetest, and closest, and most solemn intercourse,
and yet betraying Him! That same hand taking the thirty pieces of silver!
What a tremendous lesson of the need of keeping for our hands! Oh that
every hand that is with Him at His sacramental table, and that takes the
memorial bread, may be kept from any faithless and loveless motion! And
again, it was by literal 'wicked hands' that our Lord Jesus was crucified
and slain. Does not the thought that human hands have been so treacherous
and cruel to our beloved Lord make us wish the more fervently that our
hands may be totally faithful and devoted to Him?

Danger and temptation to let the hands move at other impulses is every
bit as great to those who have nothing else to do but to render direct
service, and who think they are doing nothing else. Take one practical
instance--our letter-writing. Have we not been tempted (and fallen before
the temptation), according to our various dispositions, to let the hand
that holds the pen move at the impulse to write an unkind thought of
another; or to say a clever and sarcastic thing, or a slightly coloured
and exaggerated thing, which will make our point more telling; or to let
out a grumble or a suspicion; or to let the pen run away with us into
flippant and trifling words, unworthy of our high and holy calling? Have
we not drifted away from the golden reminder, 'Should he reason with
unprofitable talk, and with speeches wherewith he can do no good?' Why
has this been, perhaps again and again? Is it not for want of putting our
hands into our dear Master's hand, and asking and trusting Him to keep
them? He _could_ have kept; He _would_ have kept!

Whatever our wor