_Your_ intensest grief must
begin with _yourself_. Like the watchful Levite of old, be a guardian at
the temple-gates of your own soul. Whatever be your besetting iniquity,
your constitutional bias to sin, seek to guard it with wakeful
vigilance. Grieve at the thought of incurring one passing shadow of
displeasure from so kind and compassionate a Saviour. Let this be a holy
preservative in your every hour of temptation, "How can I do this great
wickedness, and sin against God?"

Grieve for a perishing world--a groaning creation fettered and chained
in unwilling "subjection to vanity." Do what you can, by effort, by
prayer, to hasten on the hour of jubilee, when its ashy robes of sin and
sorrow shall be laid aside, and, attired in the "beauties of holiness,"
it shall exult in "the glorious liberty of the sons of God!"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Seventeenth Day.

HUMILITY.

"He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a
towel and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin,
and began to wash the disciples' feet."--John, xiii. 4, 5.

What a matchless picture of humility! At the very moment when His throne
was in view; angel-anthems floating in His ear; the hour come "when He
was to depart out of this world;" possessing a lofty consciousness of
His peerless dignity, that "He came _from_ God and went _to_ God;" THEN
"Jesus took a towel, and girded Himself, and began to wash the
disciples' feet!" All heaven was ready at that moment to cast their
combined crowns at His feet. But the High and the Lofty One, inhabiting
eternity, is on earth "as one that serveth!" "That _infinite stoop_! it
sinks all creature humiliation to nothing, and renders it impossible for
a creature to _humble_ himself."--(_Evans_).

Humility follows Him, from His unhonored birthplace to His borrowed
grave. It throws a subdued splendor over all He did. "The poor in
spirit,"--the "mourner,"--the "meek,"--claim His first beatitudes. He
was severe only to one class--those who looked down upon others. However
He is employed; whether performing His works of miraculous power, or
receiving angel-visitants, or taking little children in His arms, He
stands forth "clothed with humility." Nay, this humility becomes more
conspicuous as He draws nearer glory. Before His death, He calls His
disciples "_Friends_;" subsequently, it is "_Brethren_," "_Children_."
How sad the contrast betwe