can resist, which can persist, which
can overcome; power drawn from communion with God. "Strength and beauty"
should blend in the worshippers, as they do in the "sanctuary" in God
Himself. There is nothing admirable in mere force; there is often
something sickly and feeble, and therefore contemptible in mere beauty.
Many of us will cultivate the complacent and the amiable sides of the
Christian life, and be wanting in the manly "thews that throw the
world," and can fight to the death. But we have to try and bring these
two excellences of character together, and it needs an immense deal of
grace and wisdom and imitation of Jesus Christ, and a close clasp of His
hand, to enable us to do that. Speak we of strength? He is the type of
strength. Of beauty? He is the perfection of beauty. And it is only as
we keep close to Him that our lives will be all fair with the reflected
loveliness of His, and strong with the communicated power of His
grace--"strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might."

Brethren, if we are to set forth anything, in our daily lives, of this
strength, remember that our lives must be rooted in, as well as bedewed
by, God. Hosea's emblems, beautiful and instructive as they are, do not
reach to the deep truth set forth in still holier and sweeter words; "I
am the Vine, ye are the branches." The union of Christ and His people
is closer than that between dew and plant. Our growth results from the
communication of His own life to us. Therefore is the command stringent
and obedience to it blessed, "Abide in Me, for apart from Me ye can
do"--and are--"nothing."

Let us remember that the loftier the top of the tree and the wider the
spread of its shelves of dark foliage, if it is steadfastly to stand,
unmoved by the loud winds when they call, the deeper must its roots
strike into the firm earth. If your life is to be a fair temple-palace
worthy of God's dwelling in, if it is to be impregnable to assault,
there must be quite as much masonry underground as above, as is the case
in great old buildings and palaces. And such a life must be a life "hid
with Christ in God," then it will be strong. When we strike our roots
deep into Him, our branch also shall not wither, and our leaf shall be
green, and all that we do shall prosper. The wicked are not so. They are
like chaff--rootless, fruitless, lifeless, which the wind driveth away.

IV. Lastly, the God-bedewed soul, beautiful, pure, strong, will bear
fruit.