ore
handy for His service, more skilful in what is indicated as the 'next
thynge' they are to do? The 'kept' hands need not be clumsy hands. If the
Lord taught David's hands to war and his fingers to fight, will He not
teach our hands, and fingers too, to do what He would have them do?

The Spirit of God must have taught Bezaleel's hands as well as his head,
for he was filled with it not only that he might devise cunning works,
but also in cutting of stones and carving of timber. And when all the
women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, the hands must
have been made skilful as well as the hearts made wise to prepare the
beautiful garments and curtains.

There is a very remarkable instance of the hand of the Lord, which I
suppose signifies in that case the power of His Spirit, being upon the
hand of a man. In 1 Chron. xxviii. 19, we read: 'All this, said David,
the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the
works of this pattern.' This cannot well mean that the Lord gave David a
miraculously written scroll, because, a few verses before, it says that
he had it all by the Spirit. So what else can it mean but that as David
wrote, the hand of the Lord was upon his hand, impelling him to trace,
letter by letter, the right words of description for all the details of
the temple that Solomon should build, with its courts and chambers, its
treasuries and vessels? Have we not sometimes sat down to write, feeling
perplexed and ignorant, and wishing some one were there to tell us what
to say? At such a moment, whether it were a mere note for post, or a
sheet for press, it is a great comfort to recollect this mighty laying of
a Divine hand upon a human one, and ask for the same help from the same
Lord. It is sure to be given!

And now, dear friend, what about your own hands? Are they consecrated to
the Lord who loves you? And if they are, are you trusting Him to keep
them, and enjoying all that is involved in that keeping? Do let this be
settled with your Master before you go on to the next chapter.

After all, this question will hinge on another, Do you love Him? If you
really do, there can surely be neither hesitation about yielding them to
Him, nor about entrusting them to Him to be kept. _Does He love you?_
That is the truer way of putting it; for it is not our love to Christ,
but the love of Christ to us which constraineth us. And this is the
impulse of the motion and the mode of the